The Nisse and the Christmas Porridge

About the legend

Being

Nisse (farm spirit)

Cultural meaning

In Danish folk belief, the nisse is the farm's own little helper: no bigger than a child, dressed in grey with a red cap, and much stronger than he looks. He lives in the barn or the hayloft and looks after the animals at night, and in many stories he belongs to the place more than to the people. A farm with a nisse was said to have the finest cattle. He is proud and easily offended, and if he feels slighted he is quick to take revenge, often on the animals. One old legend says his great strength leaves him when the rooster crows.

Fun fact

In the old Danish stories, the nisse's only pay for looking after the cows was porridge with a lump of butter in it. On some farms he got it every evening, on others only on Christmas Eve. No butter, and the nisse got very cross!

Cultural notes

This story follows a Danish legend written down by the folklore collector Evald Tang Kristensen. In Danske Sagn II (1893) he printed thirty-three legends about the nisse and the killed cow, numbers 180 to 212, under the heading «Den dræbte ko» ('The killed cow'), most of them versions of this one, mostly from Jutland. This retelling follows number 186, from the farm Hjortnæs, which ends with the saying «Skrolhede er lang, og den røde ko var tung»: 'Skrolhede is long, and the red cow was heavy'. Hjortnæs, the heath Skrolhede (Skrolles hede) and the farm Stenbjerggård are real places in Børglum parish in Vendsyssel, North Jutland. The versions differ in how far the nisse has to go to put things right and in what he says when he groans. In some, he tells the girl the whole story himself. In Vendsyssel the nisse was also called gårdbo or gårdbuk. Norwegian legends about the nisse and his Christmas porridge were collected by Andreas Faye in Norske Folke-Sagn (1833). A story like this, tied to real farms and a real heath and told as something that happened, is called a sagn, a local legend.

About this retelling

Traditional retelling of a Danish legend A retelling of a Danish nisse legend from the farm Hjortnæs, written down in 1893, made gentle for children.

From the old legend: the nisse and his Christmas porridge, the butter at the bottom of the bowl, his anger, the best cow on the farm, a red cow, his regret when he finds the butter, the heavy carry across the heath Skrolhede before daylight, and the saying about it. In the legend, the nisse kills the red cow in his anger and then swaps her for a cow just like her from a farm on the other side of the heath. For children, no cow is harmed or taken: in his temper the nisse lets her out into the snow, and then he searches all night and carries her home on his back. The carry is old too: in two other versions he carries a living cow back across the heath or the ice on his back. In many old versions the girls on the farm hide the butter to tease him; here, as in one version, it is hidden to keep it soft in the frost. Maren, the night search, the nisse's apology and their two promises were created for Nordic Tales.

Sources

• Danske Sagn, som de har lydt i Folkemunde II (1893), nr. 180–212: «Den dræbte ko» — Evald Tang Kristensen
• Norske Folke-Sagn (1833): «Nissen» — Andreas Faye

Themes

• patience
• responsibility
• honesty
• forgiveness
• nisse
• gårdbo
• Christmas
• Christmas Eve
• Christmas porridge
• julegrød
• Hjortnæs
• Skrolhede
• Vendsyssel
• Jutland
• Danish folklore
• farm
• cow
• winter
• Evald Tang Kristensen

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