Nisse (Part #2) - Nordic Folklore

Make yourself a sheep and you will be eaten by the wolf

As promised, here is my story, Jul Blót, about my favorite nisse and dear friend, Gustav Haugen. This short story connects to my entry about nisser and Jul.

Artwork by Johan Egerkrans, from Nordiska Väsen (book)

The Jul Blót

The Haugen family’s traditional Norwegian-styled red timber home sat atop a grassy hill overlooking their vast farmlands and the North Sea. The slightly larger, matching barn set atop the same hill to the south of the house. The Haugens had run the most productive and profitable farm on Karm Island for centuries. Anders Haugen was a proud and practical man, who ran the farm with an iron fist and a non-generous spirit. He never gave credit for the farm’s success to anyone but himself, least of all his ancestors. Most of the islanders believed that Anders was a hardworking man based on his farm’s success, but he was in fact the opposite. He made it his life’s mission to do as little as possible while his wife, Hedda, toiled, keeping the house and raising the children; his teen son, Birger, labored in the fields with the farm hands; and Nora, his still very young daughter, cared for the chickens and milked the cows. Anders spent his days, drinking, eating, and giving other farmers advice, holding court as the local celebrity. Despite his poor work ethic and boastful nature, he was blessed as his harvest was always bountiful, the soil fertile, and the livestock healthy. A few whispered that he had made a deal with the devil, given his soul in exchange for the best harvest and stock, year after year. In a way, he had. Anders had a covenant with an ancestral entity much older and more useful than the devil. If the farm’s success was solely dependent on Anders, the family would starve, the sheep would fall ill, and the horses would go lame. No, the farm did well because it was cared for by a formidable nisse. In his mortal life, Gustav Haugens, an ancestor of Anders, had been a hardworking farmer who had grown the massive farm from one tiny plot of fertile soil and a few seeds. In his immortal life, he was a magical nisse who continued to oversee all the tasks of the farm from making sure the crops were free of blight to maintaining dry firewood.  

Gustav had long given up any hope that Anders would ever be anything more than a lazy and greedy good-for-nothing. The only reason Gustav hadn’t taught Anders several lessons is that Hedda and the children were always careful to make blóts to Gustav on the important holidays. Most importantly, they never had once forgotten to leave out his favorite porridge with a pat of butter on Juelaften. That all changed on one particularly frigid and stormy Juleaften...