December 22nd

Gáttaþefur – Doorway Sniffer

Door Sniffer comes to town on December 22nd. You can discriminate him from his brothers by his huge nose. The smell of Christmas cookies and traditional Icelandic ‘leaf bread’ is what attracts him to your doorway and while you’re not looking, he’ll attempt to steal some. I suspect his original intent was to sniff out miscreant children in order to grab them and bring them into the mountains for stewing.

 

 

I had to look up ‘leaf bread’. It is a simple ‘naan’ like substance made about this time of year with what flour was available.  I sense it was one of those ‘what can we do with what’s at hand’ recipes. I hope thems in Iceland nowadays have more lucrative eats, like super-nachos. 

I regularly watch a YouTube series by Ivan Gunnarson. He is introducing me to all things Icelandic so some day I can see this dreamy and enchanted place. Preferably during warmer times when the likes of The Yule Lads are away in the mountains and the only trolls to watch out for are the ones fleecing the tourists. 

 

 

 

Rant time: this is the third time I have tried to write an essay to tack onto the Yule Lad Daily Report.  Every time I go to save it something goes awry and all is lost. I blame WordPress and its verdammte new format.  It is a good example of verschlimmbesserung since I am ranting auf Deutsch at the moment. Oh the pain.  By now I am quite cross, so I will leave this alone and promise to write something more substantial tomorrow.