#tomten
Hope everyone have and has a good Christmas!!
Here is a good Christmas/Yule folktale from Østfold, Norway about the nisse:
One Christmas Eve many years ago, a servant girl wanted to tease the nisse by playing a trick on him. She hid the butter at the bottom of the bowl of porridge to be set out in the barn, knowing very well the nisse was greedy for the butter and would make a long face if he could not find it.
But when the nisse saw that there was no butter on the Christmas porridge, he became madder than the girl had imagined - he went straight to the cow shed and killed the best cow. That would show them how much he appreciated their begrudging him of even a little bit of butter!
Then he went into the barn and ate the porridge anyway. And when the bowl was empty, he found the butter lying on the bottom. Now the nisse felt so bad about having killed the cow, he cried and carried on.
That same Christmas night, the nisse walked over to the neighboring farm, took the best cow he could find, led her back to Rød, and put her in the stall - the same stall where the other how had been.
From Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend, edited by Reimund Kvideland and Henning K. Sehmsdorf.
Reblogging myself because I always like this story. Also I found a perfect picture to go with it.
