A Profound Thought™ struck me when I recently re-read Thrond Sjursen Haukenæs’ Old Christmas Customs, and I have been reading myself into a rabbit hole ever since. I haven’t yet read enough to be able to unravel the question at the end of this post. I’m working on it, though I doubt the answer is out there.

We begin with Christmas in rural Norway, which by the beginning of the 20^th century, was typically celebrated the same way throughout the country. The baking was completed in the first half of December, the beer had been brewed after the barley harvest, and a goat, a lamb, or a pig was slaughtered close to Christmas Eve, so that the Christmas meal should consist of fresh meat.

Now, when we compare these customs with the way in which The Saga of Haakon the Good says the Norse folk marked their sacrifices, the similarities are quite interesting.

It was an old custom, that when there was to be sacrifice all the bondes should come to the spot where the temple stood and bring with them all that they required while the festival of the sacrifice lasted. To this festival all the men brought ale with them; and all kinds of cattle, as well as horses, were slaughtered, and all the blood that came from them was called “hlaut”, and the vessels in which it was collected were called hlaut-vessels. Hlaut-staves were made, like sprinkling brushes, with which the whole of the altars and the temple walls, both outside and inside, were sprinkled over, and also the people were sprinkled with the blood; but the flesh was boiled into savoury meat for those present.

Quite similar in a number of points.

Of course, the different ways in which a community can celebrate a holiday are limited, and feasting seems to be widespread, but here’s the interesting bit: the yearly slaughter on Norwegian farms took place in the autumn – after the now fat billy-goats came down again from the saeter. The meat from the autumn slaughter was preserved (salted, cured, dried, pickled) for the coming year; why should meat eaten at Christmas be fresh?

So is this custom of slaughtering and eating fresh meat at Christmas a bloody remnant of old Norse religions, which may have survived through to the beginning of the industrial period?

There was once upon a time a small boy who was on his way to church. As he passed through a clearing in the woods, he saw a fox lying asleep on a slab of glimmerite. The fox didn’t notice that the boy saw him.

“When I now take the life of this fox and sell its pelt,” said the boy, picking up a big stone, “then I’ll have some money. With that money I’ll buy some rye, and I’ll sow the rye on father’s strip of field back home. When then the church folk come, they’ll say: ‘Oh what fine rye that boy has!’ And I’ll say to them: ‘Don’t tramp on the rye!’ But they shan’t listen, so I’ll shout at them: ‘Say, don’t tramp on the rye!’ But still they shan’t listen, so I’ll scream at them as loudly as I can: ‘Don’t tramp on the rye, I said!’ And then they’ll listen.”

Now, at the boy’s screaming, the fox awoke and ran off into the forest, and so the boy didn’t get so much as a tuft of its hair.

No, it is better to take the opportunity that presents itself; one ought never to boast of what has not been accomplished, as they say.

– Gabriel Djurklou (1829–1904). Sagor och äfventyr (1885).

A girl served on a farm where there was a nisse. This nisse was a good-natured kind of creature and would gladly do everyone all possible manner of favours. Thus, for a long time he had given the girl a hand with little tasks about the kitchen so that she never had to wash pots or plates, but simply put them on the chimney breast in the evening and found them again clean in the morning. In gratitude to her little helper, she decided to honour him. One Christmas Eve, she put in the kitchen, next to the usual Christmas porridge, a small garment that would just about suit her favourite, as well as a mirror in which he could gaze upon his new finery. She hid herself, to see how he would behave when he – whose dress was otherwise very ragged – beheld the glory of his appearance. The evening came, and after completing his meal the nisse made his toilet. With the help of the mirror he regarded his figure with pleasure. Then, ignoring his usual work, he exclaimed at last: “No, now you are far too handsome to wash pots.” The girl never saw him again!

— Morgenbladet. Kristiania, 1823-04-01.
This is a very early written account of the nisse.

Up in Gol in Hallingdal, shortly before the main road divides to Ål and Hemsedal, there is a great high mound that has a distinctive shape; it is called Hahaugen. Mound folk have always dwelt therein, and to this day people in the village hear music and songs from the mound.

But one Christmas Eve in the olden days, a peasant boy, Gudbrand Golberg, skied away to the mound, for he wanted to see how the mound folk observed Christmas. The mound opened up before him, and out came a girl with blonde hair; she wore a blue skirt, and was so beautiful that he had never seen her match. She offered him a large horn of a Christmas drink; but when he took the horn and glanced down into it, Gudbrand was afraid to drink, for the drink was like fire and flame. He poured it behind him, over his shoulder; it fizzed in the snow and hissed on his skis, for a drop that splashed burned a hole right through. With that he let himself go down the steep slopes with the horn, and the old troll screamed: “Well, just you wait until I put on my trotting trousers!”

Even though Gudbrand gave it everything, it wasn’t long before he heard the troll trotting – trotting so that he thought it must be just behind his skis, ready to grab him by his neck. But by then he wasn’t far from home, either.

Then the Golberg troll called out of the Golberg boulder: “Run on the tilled, and not on the trodden, Gudbrand!” He understood that to mean that he had to stick to the parts of the field that were furrowed, and where the soil had been blessed when the crop was planted; the troll would have no power there. Gudbrand obeyed, for here he knew every stone. The troll followed him along the edges of the fields and threatened and swore that if it did not recover the horn, it would trouble the folk of Golberg to the ninth generation. But then the sun rose, and the troll stood there as log and stone.

In my latest post, on the forthcoming volume of legends of the undead draug, I write: "I am still meditating on how to include in a paperback the information behind the links." These links give useful background information on the geography of this part of the world, folkloric figures generally unfamiliar to readers of English, and more or less obscure heroes of Norse literature. Additionally, some links point directly at the source literature in Old Norse or Danish translation. To include all this kind of material on paper would require an annotation apparatus that risks overshadowing the texts themselves, which would be quite unfortunate.

So how do I deal with this matter? Do I publish in ebook format only? Or do I cut down the amount of information included in the printed book? Or do I move the notes to a place in the book where they may be overlooked while the texts are being read? I am leaning towards the latter solution – writing brief introductions to each text or group of texts, in which I can address potential difficulties a reader of English might face. Of course, a bibliography will have to serve in lieu of links to the original literature.

One of the consequences of this solution is that the contents of the ebook and physical edition will diverge to a degree, with the ebook having direct links to independent information and the paper version containing my own ruminations. But still, isn't it about time we employed the many possibilities that hypertext affords us in serious non-fiction?