Following on from yesterday’s post, counting down the days until Christmas with the monstrous alternatives to Ol’ Saint Nick.
So what’s worse than having a crying cat scratching at your window on Christmas Eve night?
Well…probably a giant cat that eats your children if you don’t buy them new clothes.
Meet Jólakötturinn (try getting your drunk uncle to say that 3 times fast at the dinner table on Christmas day), or otherwise known as the Yule Cat – from Iceland.The Yule cat is described as giant, hunchbacked and vicious, with whiskers like razorblades, blazing eyes and terrible claws. She prowls through the town looking through children’s windows to see if they have received new clothes on Christmas Eve.
If a child had received new clothes for Christmas, Jólakötturinn would move on to the next house and leave them alone. If they were seen without, she would first steal their Christmas dinner and then eat them.
The legend of Jólakötturinn dates back to the 19th century, when many families relied heavily on wool production for their livelihoods. Because of this, receiving clothes as a present would imply all the chores had been completed. Lazy children who did not help would get nothing and face the Yule cat’s wrath.
Thankfully, feline traditions have since evolved to leaving a festive sparrow or a nice steamy Yule log on Christmas morning (at least in my experience anyway)
Jólakötturinn is also associated with Grýla, a child-eating ogress from Icelandic folklore, whom I may cover in a later post.
-Sam 
