Jölnir (yul-near) rode his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir (shlep-near), through the starry night. It was the eve of Yule, the night of the winter solstice, and Jölnir had an important job to do. Two of them, in fact.
You see, Jölnir was actually Odin, the king of the Norse gods. From Samhain until Beltaine, Odin would lead a group of hounds and warriors called the Wild Hunt. This is because Odin has the ability to send away ghosts and spirits that travel the world during the dark months and might try to harm us.
In old Norse times, there wasn’t electricity and heaters in people’s homes. They didn’t have the medicines that we have today. So winter was very hard and, sometimes, people got very sick. They believed that sickness was caused by ghosts who were angry that they had died but didn’t go to Valhalla and were bitter that the people were still alive.
Jölnir would race across the land, hunting the ghosts and spirits, and sending them to the afterlife where they belonged. His hounds and his warriors helped him.
The other job Jölnir had to do was to give rewards to children who had been kind. Because the winters were so hard, it was very important to the Norse people to help each other whenever possible. Giving someone a coat or a piece of bread could keep them from starving or freezing to death, which would turn the person into an angry ghost.
Children who were kind and helped people made Jölnir’s job much easier. The children would leave their boots by the chimney or the door with a blöt, an offering to the gods, which was usually yummy food like cookies!
Jölnir would visit children who had been very nice and he would accept their blöt by eating the cookies. Then, he would leave little wooden toys or candies inside their boots as a reward.
Today, we leave stockings out, instead of boots, and we put milk with the cookies. Jölnir goes by the name Santa Claus, and he has eight reindeer instead of a horse with eight legs. But he still has a great white beard and fur on his coat, and he loves to give presents to children who have been kind.
