A certain ogress named Grýla lived in the mountains of Iceland with her third husband, a lazy troll going by the name of Leppalúði, her fiendish cat and a gang of thirteen mischievous sons, known as the Yule Lads. Quite a family, isn’t it? And kind of dysfunctional too!
Grýla the ogress for instance had some very serious issues. She was so abominable both in her appearance and in her manners that she could have contended in wickedness with the most wicked villains from Brother Grimm’s fairy tales and win: not only Grýla had hooves and horns and tail and she was overall very ugly, but she was also fastidiously addicted to boiling and eating children she had kidnapped. Bad children, that is. Using her excellent sense of hearing, Grýla could detect children who were misbehaving from all over the island and thus she could leave her cave and collect her favorite snack when Christmas time approached. This business of devouring bad children was very convenient both for Grýla, as there was never shortage of food, and for the parents, as they could use the ogress as a threat to make their offspring behave.
This convenient state of things went on for a long time: adults had successfully adopted the Grýla scare technique for centuries, until a public decree prohibited to traumatize children further with it in 1746. From that point on, to make kids behave, Icelandic parents had to invent more subtle and modern strategies.
What happened to poor Grýla after that? Probably she kept on collecting succulent children to snack on, but without much publicity in order to not go out of business. Or maybe she became an up-to-date entrepreneuse, selling figurines with her features to tourists in Reykjavík gift shops.
I recently saw a documentary of the story of Gryla and her sons on TV. It was read from a beautiful picture book. I cannot find it on the internet, unfortunately. Would you by any chance know where I could get it or whom to contact? I live in the US. Thanks for any feedback. With kind regards Rosi Biber
Hi Rosi,
I’m not sure, but you may be referring to one of Brian Pilkington‘s children books based on stories from Icelandic folklore that are very popular. I don’t know which book was shown in the documentary. Some of these books can be found on online stores like Amazon, which I am sure is the most convenient way to buy them if you reside in the US.
Hope it helped!
Nordicstore.net, has also a few of them and they ship to the US, but it’s definitely more expesive than Amazon.
Thanks, Pu, I tried Amazon earlier but got no hit. I will however try a search under Brian Pilkington who was the illustrator shown in the documentary. As a last option I will contact Nordicstore. I think the stories are beautiful and relative unknown in the rest of the world.
Thank you very much for your help and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Rosi
Hi PU, I think I found it under Brian Pilkington and have already put the order in to Amazon. Hope it is the right one. The internet is great, even for a grandmother like me. Brgds Rosi
Glad to know you found the books and were able to order them!
Best wishes to you and your loved ones, Rosi!
Gryla appears in the opening song of the soundtrack of “Dreamland” by Valgeir Sigurdsson for the film of Andri Snaer Magnason and ,in this context ,she is really scary.