50 Fun Facts About Yule

The giant Yule goat that arsonists have burned most years in Gävle, Sweden, is built from which material?

Straw makes the goat easy prey: it has been burned to the ground most years since 1966, despite guards and a fire station close by.

In Iceland, the thirteen Yule Lads leave what in the shoes of children who have misbehaved?

A rotten potato waits for disobedient children, while good ones find a small gift in the shoe they leave on the windowsill each night.

In Norse myth, the god Baldr is killed by a weapon made from which evergreen plant, now a Yuletide decoration?

Mistletoe was the one thing Frigg never asked to spare her son, so Loki guided the blind god Höðr into firing the fatal shot.

In which Harry Potter novel does Hogwarts hold the Yule Ball as part of the Triwizard Tournament?

Goblet of Fire, the fourth in the series, sends Harry to the dance with Parvati Patil after Cho Chang turns him down for Cedric Diggory.

In Icelandic folklore, the giant Yule Cat eats people who fail to receive what before Christmas Eve?

New clothes were the reward for farm workers who finished processing the autumn wool in time, so the monster served as a threat to slackers.

The Yule log cake, a sponge roulade iced to look like bark, probably originated in which country?

France gave the cake its name, bûche de Noël, in the 19th century, and bakers still drag a fork through the icing to copy a real log's surface.

Which Norse god, who traded an eye for wisdom, was also known as Jólnir, a name meaning 'Yule man'?

Odin took the name from jól, the Old Norse word for the midwinter feast, although one medieval chronicle claimed the feast was named after him.

Which US city's station WPIX created The Yule Log, a looped film of a fireplace shown each Christmas?

New York got the film as a present for apartment dwellers with no hearth of their own, and the original was shot at Gracie Mansion, the mayor's residence.

Which gift do Icelanders exchange so widely on Christmas Eve that the season is nicknamed a Yule flood?

Books became the default present in the 1940s, when wartime import limits were looser on paper than on other gift goods, and new titles are still released in a rush before Christmas.

The Yuletide toast 'wassail' comes from an old greeting that wished the listener what?

Good health was the wish, from Old Norse ves heill, and by about 1300 the word also meant the spiced drink passed round in a shared bowl.

Which Arthurian knight accepts a beheading challenge from a green stranger who rides into Camelot at midwinter?

Gawain strikes off the Green Knight's head, only to watch him pick it up, remind Gawain to take the return blow in a year and a day, and ride away.

Which Roman midwinter festival, like the Germanic Yule, was marked by feasting, gifts and masters serving their slaves?

Saturnalia opened on 17 December with a sacrifice and a public banquet, and for a few days gambling was allowed and social rank was turned upside down.

Which saint's feast, twelve days before Christmas, sees Scandinavian girls in white gowns wear crowns of lights?

Saint Lucy has a name meaning light, and under the old Julian calendar her feast fell on the longest night of the year.

In Scandinavia, a prize goes to whoever finds what hidden in the rice pudding served at Yule?

An almond is stirred in whole, and in Denmark the lucky finder wins the mandelgave, usually a pink marzipan pig.

What is glögg, the drink served hot at Christmas markets and Yule parties across the Nordic countries?

Mulled wine goes by glögg in Swedish and gløgg in Norwegian and Danish, and alcohol-free versions made with fruit juice are sold ready-made.

Which Disney character is named in the Swedish title of a cartoon special shown there every Christmas Eve since 1960?

Donald Duck is so much more popular than Mickey in Sweden that the show was retitled after him, and Swedes simply call it Kalle Anka.

Which Nordic Yule dish is made by soaking dried whitefish in lye until it turns gelatinous?

Lutefisk is usually made from cod, has to be rehydrated for days before eating, and is a fixture of the Norwegian julebord Christmas table.

In which country is Santa Claus called Joulupukki, a name that literally means 'Yule goat'?

Finland kept the old name after a red-suited gift-bringer replaced the rowdy goat figure, and radio shows from 1927 on helped fix his home on Korvatunturi fell.

Scandinavia's Yule goat is popularly linked to which Norse god, whose sky chariot was pulled by two goats?

Thor drove a pair named Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, though the Yule goat's true origins are unclear and the link is only a popular theory.

In England's West Country, Twelfth Night wassailers sing to which trees to wake them and scare off evil spirits?

Apple trees in cider orchards get the song in the hope of a heavy crop the next autumn, and a Somerset folktale gives the oldest tree its own guardian spirit.

Which ogress of Icelandic folklore, whose sons are the thirteen Yule Lads, cooks naughty children in a large pot?

Grýla shares her mountain cave with a lazy husband, Leppalúði, and appeared in tales as a troll long before she was tied to Christmas.

Up Helly Aa, a fire festival that ends the Yule season by burning a replica Viking galley, is held in which islands?

Shetland stages its biggest procession in Lerwick on the last Tuesday of January, when up to a thousand costumed guizers march with torches.

Which country's parliament abolished the 'Yule vacation' in 1640, and made Christmas Day a public holiday only in 1958?

Scotland's ministers were reported to make their households spin and plough in plain sight on Yule day, to show contempt for the feast.

In which Spanish region do children beat the Tió de Nadal, a smiling Yule-style log, until it 'drops' presents?

Catalonia's children feed the log and tuck it under a blanket from 8 December, so that it has plenty to give when the sticks and songs come out.

In modern pagan lore, the Holly King is defeated each Yule by a rival king named after which tree?

The Oak King rules the waxing half of the year, a scheme built from older legends of paired heroes in the 1948 study The White Goddess.

On the modern pagan Wheel of the Year, Yule sits directly opposite which sabbat, held at the summer solstice?

Litha got its name only in 1974, when the Wiccan writer Aidan Kelly borrowed an Anglo-Saxon month name preserved in an eighth-century calendar treatise.

On the pagan Wheel of the Year, which early February festival of the first stirrings of spring follows Yule?

Imbolc is the Gaelic name for 1 February, one of four old Celtic festivals that modern pagans combined with the solstices and equinoxes.

Which cheerful English adjective has been suggested, though the OED doubts it, to descend from the Norse word for Yule?

Jolly reached English in the 14th century from Old French jolif, a word some linguists have traced back to Old Norse jól.

Which fantasy author gave his invented calendar two Yule days, one ending the old year and one starting the new?

J. R. R. Tolkien has his hobbits count each new year from the second Yuleday, and their month of Afteryule stands in for January.

On Yule Eve, Norse feasters laid hands on the bristles of which sacrificial animal while swearing solemn oaths?

A boar was chosen for its link to the god Freyr, and Sweden's pig-shaped Christmas cakes are thought to recall the custom.

Which English monk recorded that the pagan Anglo-Saxons named two months after Yule?

Bede wrote in The Reckoning of Time that both December and January had once been called Giuli.

The earliest written record of Yule, a fragment of a church calendar, is in the language of which Germanic people?

The Goths wrote fruma jiuleis, a month name built on their word for Yule, in a calendar preserved in the Codex Ambrosianus.

Which fairy-tale collector proposed that 'Yule' is related to 'wheel', a now widely rejected link to the solar year?

Jacob Grimm's idea spread widely, helped by runic calendars that mark Christmas with a wheel, but the Old English words hweol and geol have no clear connection.

What name is given to the ghostly riders said to cross northern skies at Yule, raiding farms and carrying people off?

The Wild Hunt was called Oskoreia in Norway, where farmers still painted tar crosses on their doors for protection in the 20th century.

In Nordic folklore, which small house spirit in a red cap expects a bowl of porridge on Christmas Eve?

The nisse, known as the tomte in Sweden, does the house and stable chores and expects his reward once a year, around Yuletide.

Sweden ends the Yule season on 13 January by 'plundering' the Christmas tree, on a day named after which saint?

Saint Knut's Day honours a Danish duke murdered by his cousin in 1131, yet Denmark itself does not celebrate it on that date.

What Old Norse word names the Yule rite in which animals were sacrificed to the gods and their meat shared?

Blót came with ceremonial toasts, and once Scandinavia converted, early law codes made holding one a punishable offence.

An early Norwegian law code punished households that failed to prepare which drink properly for Yule?

Ale had to be brewed in groups and hallowed with a wish for prosperity and peace, a formula thought to be older than Christianity in Norway.

Which modern pagan movement calls the winter solstice festival Alban Arthan instead of Yule?

Druidry gives the other solar festivals matching names too, such as Alban Eilir for the spring equinox.

In the Mari Lwyd, a midwinter wassailing custom of South Wales, which animal's skull is carried door to door on a pole?

A horse skull is mounted on the pole, and its carrier hides under a sheet while the party tours the neighbourhood at Christmas time.

Which student is Hermione Granger's partner at the Hogwarts Yule Ball?

Viktor Krum's attention to Hermione leaves Ron Weasley sulking through the evening, having gone to the dance himself with one of the Patil twins.

In the Northern Hemisphere, modern pagans celebrate Yule at the winter solstice, which falls on or about which date?

21 December brings the longest night, and most Wiccans mark it as the rebirth of a horned god they see as the newborn sun.

Which spice flavours the lussekatt buns that Swedes bake each winter for the Yule season?

Saffron buns are brought in on a breakfast tray with coffee in Sweden, and a close cousin of the recipe is baked for feast days in Cornwall.

In Norwegian julebukking, costumed visitors go door to door at Yule while their hosts try to do what?

The hosts must guess who they are, so julebukkers disguise their voices and body language as well as their faces.

Kertasníkir, the last of Iceland's Yule Lads to arrive, steals which items, once made of edible tallow?

Candles were precious to children as well as edible, and the name Kertasníkir is usually put into English as Candle Beggar.

The badnjak, a young tree felled at dawn and burned on Christmas Eve like a Yule log, belongs to which country?

Serbia's badnjak is also called veseljak, 'the one who brings joy', and worshippers carry its branches home after the fire.

Pagan Anglo-Saxons began their year with a midwinter night named after which figures, thought to be goddesses?

Mothers' Night, or Modranecht, fell on 25 December, and everything known about it comes from a single passage by an eighth-century monk.

In parts of Germany, a half-burned Yule log was pulled out and later thrown back on the fire as protection against what?

Lightning was the fear in Hesse and Westphalia, where the log went by names such as Christklotz, and elsewhere its remains were kept to ward off storm damage.

Which English poet's 1648 collection has the first English mention of a Christmas log, hauled in by cheering lads?

Robert Herrick called it a Christmas log, and the name Yule log is first tied to the custom later in the 17th century by the antiquary John Aubrey.

Which meat, coated with egg, breadcrumbs and mustard, is the centrepiece of the Swedish julbord, or Yule buffet?

Ham for the julbord is cured, then boiled or baked before it is browned in the oven, and it sits among the cold cuts.