Icelandic kids brace for the Sausage Swiper

MYVATN, Iceland — The people of northern Iceland have had their travel plans disrupted with a record high snowfall this December. Roads have been shut, flights cancelled and school suspended.

But for the children of this isolated North Atlantic island nation, the main worry is how the waist-high snow might affect the Icelandic Santa, Stekkjastaur, who comes to town Wednesday.

Stekkjastaur, after all, has a stiff peg-leg.

He is one of 13 mischievous troll brothers, called the Yule Lads, who have entertained and also frightened Icelandic children for hundreds of years.

Instead of a friendly Santa Claus, children in Iceland enjoy favours from the brothers, who come down from their mountain cave 13 days before Christmas, according to folklore.

The brothers are loud and reckless and have names such as Door-Slammer, Window-Peeper, Meat-Hook, Candle-Stealer — reflecting their preferred method of pranks or criminal behaviour. But they claim to be mostly rehabilitated, and Sausage-Swiper is now keen to host barbecues.

Traditionally, they bathe once a year ahead of Christmas. Every year local actors in Myvatn, an inland community bordering Iceland’s uninhabited interior, dress up in 19th-century costume and arrive as the Yule Lads to a natural lagoon heated with water from hot springs.

To children in the region, their arrival marks the countdown to Dec. 24, when Icelanders celebrate Christmas.

“But, but, but — I was told we were going fishing,” mumbled actor Hulda Sigmundsdottir, who plays Pot-Licker, as she dipped her woolen sock reluctantly into the bath.

This dysfunctional family even has an innocently named “Christmas Cat,” a giant feline with the habit of eating children — particularly those not wearing new clothes over the Christian holiday.

“You find a number of parents saying that we have to tone Gryla and her family down a bit,” said Terry Gunnell, a professor in folklore at the University of Iceland. “But that would take away some the genuine Icelandic Christmas, which is a dark time when days pass with only few hours of sunlight.”

Gunnell said the Yule Lads had traditionally been used to discipline children when adults were busy preparing for the holiday.

Parents used to torment children with such disturbing stories that in the 18th century, Danish King Christian VI tried to ban such un-holy tales.

For the next 13 days leading to Christmas, Icelandic children will enjoy favours from the Icelandic Santas as they come down from the mountains one by one, with presents — or a rotten potato in the case of bad behaviour.