I’ve been following the Gävle Goat’s Twitter feed, half dreading, half hoping for disaster, since Thanksgiving. I kid you not.
One of Northern Europe’s wackier Christmas traditions – no doubt with pagan roots – the Yule Goat may have derived from the worship of Thor. After all, the God of Thunder’s chariot was drawn by two goats. The Christmas version of the goat is led about by Saint Nicholas, possibly as a symbol of the subjugation of evil.
Whatever the goat’s function, it goes way back. For hundreds of years, rowdy young men in costumes would go door to door to enact plays and demand gifts. One of these, naturally, was the ornery Yule Goat. Scandinavians sometimes refer to the practice of wassailing as “going Yule Goat.”
In the 19th century, the Goat’s role was transformed into a giver of gifts. Though the Goat has since been replaced by a humanoid Father Christmas, in Finland he is still referred to by the name Joulupukki (need I say, Yule Goat?).
Nowadays, the Goat is mostly seen in its incarnation as a miniature tree ornament, made of straw and bound by red ribbon. A notable exception is the Gävle Goat – erected annually in Castle Square, Gävle, Sweden – which is basically that ornament, only on the grandest of scales (i.e. 40-feet tall). The Gävle Goat is constructed over a period of two days, just in time for Advent.
Then begins an unsanctioned game of cat-and-mouse, with the authorities attempting to guard the Goat, while everyone else attempts to light it off. Yes, you read that correctly. If the Goat is burned to the ground before December 13 (St. Lucia’s Day), it is rebuilt.
Over the years, the Goat has been rammed by a Volvo, damaged by fireworks, stomped to pieces, fired upon with flaming arrows (launched by vandals dressed as Santa and gingerbread men), and torched by a hapless American who was talked into using his lighter by Swedes who convinced him it was a perfectly legal holiday tradition. (It’s not.) In 2010, there was even a failed plot to abduct the goat by helicopter.
2016 was the last year the goat went up in flames, set ablaze within hours of construction. The catastrophe was timed to coincide with a security guard’s bathroom break. The most recent attempt was in 2018, but the Goat sustained only minor damage to its front left leg.
But there is also a smaller, companion goat, in the same park, which stands only about 7-feet tall. In 2019, just after I stopped checking, apparently the “kid” got singed. Nevertheless, this is the first time the larger Goat survived for more than two years in a row.
You’ll find more information and a complete history of the Gävle Goat’s destruction here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A4vle_goat
Excellent time-lapse burning of the Goat:
Follow the Goat’s twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/Gavlebocken…
View the live webcam:
https://www.visitgavle.se/en/gavlebocken
And to keep it musical, here’s a Christmas song by Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén:
Anyone care to start a pool?
