Back To School With Knights & Trolls

“Lena och riddaren dansa” / “ Lena dances with the knight ” Signed John Bauer and dated 1915.
Watercolour, heightening white, indian ink and pencil on paper.

It's been a little busy in our barracks! Back to school (first day yesterday) has turned out to be a busy, busy time here (!) so I apologize for missing a couple of days of news but we're working on rescheduling things so I can have dedicated fairy tale news time every day again. For the moment, enjoy some lovely artwork by one of my favorite artists: John Bauer. (Click to view at the wonderfully large size!)

The above illustration was created for W.E. Björk’s fairy tale 'Guldnycklama' In "Blan tomtar och troll" ("Among gnomes and trolls"), in 1915.

Oh yes - and it turns out my little guy does go to school with some interesting creatures!

Happy Winter Solstice!

1912 John Bauer (Swedish 1882-1918) ~ Julbocken (Yule Goat) from “A Polar Bear’s Tale”

Today is December 22nd - the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the official beginning of Winter or Winter Solstice. Bring on the Winter tales and folklore up here! I'll start with "A Polar Bear's Tale", except I can't find any online text for this tale; just a few wonderful illustrations and ink studies by John Bauer. Obviously I need far more research time... (hint, hint to my fellow-researchers out there ;). I think it's in Swedish Folk Tales, which I have but can't reach to confirm as it's in storage.

Frost fairies, Jack Frost tales, snow-maidens, Father Winter, Snow Queens and ice palaces... enchanted bears visiting your doorstep (either in need of a good brush or to help scare off pesky trolls), frozen hearts and magic footprints in the snow and Yule goats... I love it all. :)  

Bonus: For a little "Google Magic" this season, if you use Firefox or Chrome, type "Let it snow" into the Google search box (https://www.google.com/) and hit return. It should start snowing (and fogging up!) on your screen. You can even make smiley faces with your mouse and when your Google goggles have had enough there's even a "defrost" button to help bring you back to cyber-reality. ;) If only I could just make it work while having a fairy tale page open - then it really would be magical! (Still very cool though. Heh.)

Do you have favorite Winter or snow-based/years-end tales? (Or any info on the tale the Bauer illustration was done for?)

Happy Wintertime Northern Hemisphere Folks!
(All those south of the equator: prep the barbie- it's Summertime and the rellies are due over any minute..! ;)
Yuletide blessings to you and yours this season, wherever you are.
 

The Christmas Goat - Santa's Predecessor?

Christmas Goat
by John Bauer

I discovered an interesting piece of Christmas folktale history while researching why it was the well known illustrator of fairy tales from the 1800s, John Bauer, would paint such a thing as a Christmas Goat. Here's some of what I found:

The Yule Goat is one of the oldest Scandinavian and Northern European Yule and Christmas symbols and traditions. Yule Goat originally denoted the goat that was slaughtered around Yule, but it may also indicate a goat figure made out of straw. It is also used about the custom of going door-to-door singing carols and getting food and drinks in return, often fruit, cakes and sweets. "Going Yule Goat" is similar to the British custom wassailing, both with heathen roots.

The function of the Yule Goat has differed throughout the ages. In Finland, the Yule Goat was originally said to be an ugly creature that frightened children, and demanded gifts at Christmas. In Scandinavia, people thought of the Yule Goat as an invisible creature that would appear some time before Christmas to make sure that the Yule preparations were done right. During the 19th century its role shifted towards becoming the giver of Christmas gifts, in Finland as well as the rest of Scandinavia, with one of the men in the family dressing up as the Yule Goat. The goat was replaced by jultomte or julenisse (Father Christmas/Santa Claus) at the end of the century, and the tradition of the man-sized goat disappeared.

(fromVisWiki- click HERE for more information on the history, tales and the Yule & Christmas traditions involving a Yule Goat.)

Folk depiction of Father Christmas riding on a goat. (Found at Wikimedia)

So there you go.

You may also be interested to know the tradition* of having a 'Christmas Ham' as part of a Christmas dinner is thought to be related.

Happy feasting!

*You can find a lot of well summarized information and stories about the origins of Christmas traditions (including the Christmas Tree - you'll need to scroll down a bit for that one) HERE.