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SMNTY Classics: Grýla, Iceland's Christmas Witch · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I welcome to stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: I never told you production if I heard you, And
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: today we are bringing back a classic holiday appropriate that
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: was I think it was your idea, Samantha, but I
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: loved it. And it was on Greela the Iceland's Christmas Witch. Yeah,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: it was a fun one. It was a fun one,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: and it's been on my mind because over on the
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: other show I Do Saver, we're doing an episode on Skier.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: The depending on who you ask, yogurt or thick Cheese.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: But one of the goblins we talked about in this
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: story steals Skier. So it just made me think of it,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: and I thought it would be a fun one to
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: bring back as we enter the end of the year
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: getting dark ely. Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness in Iceland.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: It was really fun to research this one, so please
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Danny and Samantha
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: and welcome to Steffan never told you a protection of iHeartRadio.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: So I am so excited about this one.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I am so so excited because.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Probably a lot of you experienced the same thing. We've
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: talked about it every year we talk about it, but
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: for us like when the holidays come, it doesn't it
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: means like a sprint to the end with getting ahead
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: with work, so you can quote take time off and
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: you really.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Want to anticipate it.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: So I think it was like October we were talking
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: about this.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Well, we were talking about the fact that we've been
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: talking about witches yes much, and we were like, oh,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: it's gonna be said, We're not gonna talk about witches anymore.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: But then but.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Then you had the idea like, I wonder if there's
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: a Christmas witch, how there had to be yes, and
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: you were correct, You correct. There are multiple Christmas witches,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: some of which are kind of like nice and.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Curb commercial.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Because we found a book as well called The Christmas Switch,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: which is not what we were looking at looking for,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: but maybe we'll look into one day. No, we were
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: talking about like a Christmas witch.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: Like we're talking Grim's fairy tale level.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: And so we've had this outline since then four months
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: and yeah, today we are talking about Griela the Christmas Witch.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I will say I.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Looked up the pronunciation, but it was from a UK
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: video and this is an Icelandic which so hopefully Griela
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: is correct, but if not, please let us know.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: And yeah, this was gonna be a bit shorter.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Because again, holidays have got a lot going on, not
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: too much as written about Greela sadly enough, although I
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: did get a personal anecdote last night.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to share it. Yes, oh it's so cool.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, if you have any details we missed
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: any Christmas witches we should shot out, please let us know.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: And yeah, if you if you listen to this and
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: you're like, you know what, this is my thing?
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I want more.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: We have done so many episodes on witches, as you said,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: we have done so many episodes on witches. We've done
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: episodes on monsters. We've done episodes on why women love monsters.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I would say our discussion of Bobby Yaga is particularly
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: relevant to this conversation. Bobby Yaga came up in a
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: lot of articles about Reela, So.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Go check that one out if you'd like. That was
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: a good one. That was a fun one too.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, and this is definitely much more our lane when
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: it comes to the holidays.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Of like, like I got twist, let's take it twist.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Everyone else is doing this. Let's go for the halloweenish
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: version of what we.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Can do, yes, yes, and it is super fun. So yeah,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: if you're looking at the darker side of Christmas stories
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: and legends, which there are quite a few. One that
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: has gained a lot of cultural traction here in the US,
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: including parades and a whole movie I've seen, I've seen
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: a play about him is Crampis, the hoofed, horned German figure.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: But you really don't hear so.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Much about Greela, the Christmas ogris and witch from Icelandic legend,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: although she did recently pop up in something which we
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: will talk about. Yeah says yes and kind of a
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: shortened thing because we have talked about which is a lot.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: But Christmas whiches have roots in pagan history, to deities
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: and spirits that were thought to be women from those
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: festivals around this time, especially like Harvest Hesshols are like cool,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: the you know, Winter's coming, that kind of thing. I
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: actually did find a Game of Thrones and Greila connection.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: It was a whole article. I didn't make it, but anyway,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: and many of these Christmas witches do have connections to
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: the cold and deadly dark weather of winter, and Greela
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: is definitely in that realm and she evolved from these beliefs.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: Huh, I wonder if it's related to the line in
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: The Witch of the Wardrobe with the White Witch.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, I bet it absolutely is.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: She's one that keeps winter there exactly, thoughts. So let's
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: break down Grela's history. The legend of Grela dates back
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: to the thirteenth century Iceland, and she is not one
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: to be trifled with. She lives in a cold, dark
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: cave in the hinterlands and is the mother of monsters
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: and the eater of naughty children. Yes, she snatches them
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: up and cooks them into a delicious stew. Of course,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: her name loosely translates to growler.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: That makes sense, Yeah, Like you'd hear this like growling
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: sound as she goes oo.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Stories of Greela started as mostly oral and the first
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: written accounts started showing up in the thirteenth century, so
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: that's kind of why this is when we know the
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: story for sure, but it was probably around long before that.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Take this poem from the time, Here comes Grila down
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: in the field with fifteen tails on her. Another poem reads,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: down comes Greela from the outer fields with forty tails,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: a bag in her back, a sword knife in her hand.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Coming to carve out the stomachs of children who cry
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: for meat during lint.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Big no No.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Other poems mentioned her and her husband, who she later
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: ate because she was bored.
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: You know, you gotta do what you gotta do.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she had multiple husbands. One historian described her as
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: the first feminist.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: In Iceland, which really cracks me up.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: I don't think it was related to the eating of
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: the husband or multiple Is this.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Like the conservative definition of they're gonna eat the men?
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, be bored.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: But yeah, so never fear, because Greila did get a
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: second husband, who was this troll like figure who has
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: a name, but I did not put it in here
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: because I knew I butchered the pronunciation. Oh yes, he's
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: also kind of a figure in this because the story
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: of Grila is also the story of her whole interesting family. Okay, yes,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: including a huge man eating yule cat.
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: Who's cat.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: It's like a well, it's a just a cat that
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: comes out around this time, Okay, so okay, yeah, it's
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: like it's I've seen illustrations of it, and it's like
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: a big black cat. I've seen some of the descriptions
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: make it sound much more kind of like cerberus, like
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: glowing red eyes kind of thing.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Others are kind of like, it's just a big butt cat.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: So I don't know, but this can't purposely targeted those,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: especially kids. But anybody really who wasn't wearing any new clothes.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: It could be like a sock, it could be underwear.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: But if you weren't wearing any new clothes during this time,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: you were in trouble. Because so all of this they
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: come out. It's supposed to be as winters coming, it's
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: getting darker and colder. This is when they start, you know,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: checking in on what you're doing.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: You need new clothes. It's getting cold.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: I think that your cat as classes, but I don't.
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: I don't like it. How dare you if we can't
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: afford those.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: New To round out the family, she had thirteen adult
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: sons called the thirteen Mule Lads. Each of these huge
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: dudes has their own reputation of mayhem during December, including
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: sausage wiping, door slamming, and left over eating. We're gonna
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: go into them more a bit later, but just okay,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: this is her family, this is what she's got going on.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: They weren't related at first. They kind of got you know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: pushed together over time. But at first they kind of separate,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: separate legends, and then they all got mashed up together, mush.
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: Together, one horrible family.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: So this gets a bit complicated in terms of how
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: modern day Christmas.
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: Has transformed over time.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: But in Iceland at the time, there was a midwinter
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: holiday related to English and Germanic Yule that involved a
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: lot of gathering, feasting, celebrating all the things that many
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: of us associate with holidays. Ohever, because of Iceland's geographic
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: location during this time of year, it's generally darker for longer.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: And yes, I have a TikTok account that lives in Iceland,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: I watch compared to somewhere like the US, for instance.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: And these early celebrations were not only an opportunity to
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: connect with a living and the.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: Dead, but also with creatures like trolls.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: Elves, and other things in that realm that were believed
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: to inhabit the area. It was believed that sometimes these
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: creatures wore flesh faces to visit houses and farms.
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah you'll never notice, you'll never reck it.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: So freaky, like, hello, yes, I am normal.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: So one of these creatures in this realm was Greela,
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: who Yeah, we're going to get into this more in
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: a second, but a lot of different descriptions of Kreela
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: generally has a horntail, at least one horned tail, and
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: a bag I that she would throw at children, specifically
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: ones that she deemed to be naughty. She wasn't necessarily
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: associated with Christmas, as I said, but more the place,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: the cold mountains, the danger that the season came with
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: in terms of weather, the darkness and snow engulfing the land.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: She was the one who had the power over this
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: land and those living there, especially during winter.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: People were at her whim and mercy, or the lack thereof.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: Her physical descriptions have varied over the years, from more
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: ogre like to more old witch like. Here's a quote
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: from mental Floss Grella might look like though like all
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Icelandic trolls, she's a growth, massive giant. One rhyme says
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: she has fifteen tails, each of which holds one hundred bags,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: with twenty children in each bag, doomed to be a
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: feast for the troll's family. Another says she has forty tails,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: and still another says she carries a bag of children
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: on her thighs all right. Some poems say she has
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: three hundred heads, each of which has three eyes. Other
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: describes eyes in the back of her head, ears that
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: hang so long that they hit her in the nose
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: of matted beard, black and teeth and who's all these
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: stories agree on one point.
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: She is very very ugly. You ugly?
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Oh oh okay.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And there has been surprise not to me,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: but to many probably some scholarly debate about why most
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: of these witches are ugly. Some we've discussed before, like
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: links to perceived wildness of pagan as them or just
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: you know, Spinster's old woman, Spinster must be ugly. Others
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: speculate it's almost an end of the year thing, more symbolic,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: so like because she's a winter which the end of
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: the year's coming. Like maybe at the beginning of the
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: year it's like she's a baby. By the end she's
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: like this.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: And others say that instead of summoning our causing bad weather,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: the witch is scared away, like maybe so this isn't
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: commassing more than just grela, but like their ugliness, I feel.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Terrible saying that. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Agrela.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: But their appearance is part of scaring the weatherway that
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: they're actually not bringing it.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's the greater good.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: That's some interpretations of it.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Others are just like they're just kind of like a
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: part of the land and you have to respect the
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: land and the danger of the winter.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Like there's a lot, there's a lot going on. There's
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: a going on here.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: It wasn't until the nineteenth century that people started to
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: associate Greela with Christmas specifically. It was also at the
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: same time that the menacing Yule Cat and thirteen Yule
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Lads were more clearly linked to her, becoming like this big,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: dark family. And by the way, the stories of the
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Mule Lads got so bad parents were banned from telling
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: them to their kids in Iceland in seventeen forty six.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: The stories, well, you know, we've talked about this before,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: because the function of a lot of these is to
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: get your children to behave right. But it sounds like
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: it got kind of out of hand with the staring
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: of the children part.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, it kind of makes sense again, like they
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: went from Crampus and Grila to Santa Claus.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: But I wanted to reinforce instead of de ter.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yiss, and I would love for listeners
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: to write in. But I did find a couple of
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: fascinating essays about how legends like this or stories like this,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: especially in in Iceland are more generally Europe, perhaps specifically Iceland,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: like are just so important too, How like they're more
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: they're taken more seriously than they are here I guess right,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Like they are kind of respected and people hear them
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: and still hear them, and like it's almost a matter
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: of respecting this darkness in this winter and this environment
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: of Iceland.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: It was interesting, very very interesting.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: And as you're saying, Samantha, the twentieth century saw American
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: depictions of Santa Claus spreading throughout Europe, and that did
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: impact how the Yule lads were drawn much more Santa
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: e bigger bellies, red whiskers. Instead of taking stuff and
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: causing mayhem, they started leaving gifts. And Griela was threatened
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: with eternal extinction by those who wanted the winter holidays
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: to be more family friendly, with one song going into
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: detail about their death, like they actually try to kill
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: her off.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: We want this to be a time of rabbites.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, and This trend didn't really reverse until recently. In Iceland,
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: an effort by the National Museum of Iceland has been
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: pushing to restore the yule ads to their pre Santus cells.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: And I want to go over their names now and
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: what they do. I love it. And this is from
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: the museum.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: So there's sheep coat clod he tries to suckle use
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: in farmer sheep sheds. Gulligalk. He steals foams from buckets
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: of cow milk. Stubby, he short and steals food from
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: frying pans. Spoon liquor. He licks spoons.
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: Would you call me.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Pot scraper aka pot liquor? He steals unwashed pots and
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: licks them clean. Bowl liquor. He steals bowls of food
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: from under the bed. Back in the old days, Icelanders
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: used to sometimes store bowls of food. They're convenient for
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: midnight snacking. Perhaps door slammer. He stops around in slam's doors,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: keeping everyone awake. Skier gobbler, he eats up all the
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Icelandic yogurt.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Skier.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: I think that's how you pronounce it. Sausage swiper he
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: loves stolen sausages. A window paper he likes to creep
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: outside windows and sometimes steal the stuff he sees inside
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: door sniffer.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: He has a.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Huge nose and an insatiable appetite for stolen baked okay
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: meat hook He snatches up any meat left out, especially
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: smoked lamb Candle beggar. He steals candles, which used to
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: be sought after items in Iceland.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: I like these very specific, right somewhat. Yeah, they are
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: all really gross, sparely.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: Why do they have to lick so many things necessary?
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: I know, Well, it's funny too to me again, going
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: back to that point of it, sounds like it's just
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: trying to get you to like clean up after yourself, right,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: like ball, Yes.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: And apparently you know closed the door.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well that one's kind of that. That's like
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: plug in your keyhole. I guess.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I got a very big kick out
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: of this.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: I've never heard of it, but as I mentioned at
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: the top, I was telling people that I was doing
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: this research a couple of days ago, and somebody was like.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, no, I know Grela.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: I've heard of Krila because I went to Iceland to
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: visit a friend, and.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: This is his story.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: He says when he got there, he saw a statue
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: of her in the airport and was like, whoa, if
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: you haven't seen a statue of her, whoa. She's intense
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: and was kind of taken aback that he saw the
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: statue in the airport. But then one of these yul ads,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: somebody dresses, one of these juwel ads, kept opening and
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: closing the door to his taxi and he didn't know
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: what was going on because he's an American heard of this.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: So wait, was it a real person doing this thing?
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: Okay, okay, yeah, yeah what okay?
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: But he knew he knew all about it because he
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: said he had to ask his friend, like, what was that?
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: And his friend told him about Yeah.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: That was alarming because you're like, are you trying to
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: kidnap me? I've scene taken?
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: No, sir, no, sir, I say, and this I've I
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: This is where I want you listeners to write in.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Apparently kids are still terrified of her. They're still are
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: freaked out by Grila. There are depictions of her across
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Iceland to remind folks about Greela, and she and her
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: sons were recently featured in the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: on Netflix where she was a witch that protected mistreated
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: children instead of turning them into stew Yeah. Yeah, so
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: there's definitely been kind of an embracing of of this creepier,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: more historical version of and her whole.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Family and her whole family. Yes, yeah, looking at the pictures,
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: she's gruesome. But apparently there's really fun ornaments. I want one,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: I know, Agreedla ornament would be amazing.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Oh my.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Gosh, I do.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: I want one too, And I think if we hear
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: from listeners, I think we do a follow up on
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Greta because I feel like there's got to be more
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: about her.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: But that's about what we could find.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Is most of this came from one really helpful article
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: deep Dive from the Smithsonian if you want to read more.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: It's amazing, and there's there was a lot more academic
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: stuff about like witches and winter, which is in general
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: that was not.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Exactly what we were looking for for our.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Easy kind of winter episode, but fascinating and we could
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: return to at a later date. We did want to
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: go through a couple more examples quickly, because Greela is
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: not the only Christmas witch in town, as we said,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: and we've got a few honorable mentions that when I
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: read about, I was like, oh.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: No, we have to I have to at least mention this.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: So there's an Austrian and Bavarian one, fral Pershta, who
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: around Christmas time checks into sea which kids have been
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: naughty or nice. The naughty ones get their torsos split
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: open and stuffed with straw.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Obviously, obviously there's a lot of interesting ones about Frau
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: perche I.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Nobody is safe from her.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: But that was the one where I was like, whoa
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: we really like from zero two hundred quickly ready and
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: the parents are supposed to find the body the next
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: say that's so gruesome.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: That's horrible. It is open, stuffed with straw. Yep, what
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: happens to the good kids?
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Nothing?
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, if you don't get open stuff, yes. But at
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: the same time, then there's Italy's La Bifana. La Bifana
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: is descended from pagan witches and based on the story,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: can write a go to our broom or both maybe,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: and it's typically very crone like in appearance. Generally, good
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: kids are safe from La Bifana and may even get
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: some candy from her. Bad kids however, might get coal.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Some versions have candy shaped like coal, which I guess
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: is fine, but they could also get scooped up and
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: taken to her home to be fed to her cannibalistic husband,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: which seems to be a theme just like Grila. There
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: have been some attempts to sanitize and Christianize her story,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: with one going so far as to claim that the
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: three Wise Men stayed with her on their way to
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: see Baby Jesus, and when the men invite her to
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: join them, she declines. She says she's busy and in
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: some versions grieving the loss of her own child and
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: doesn't want to go, and then in some versions thinks
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: that Jesus is her own child.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: What huh? That went very far?
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, I know, yes, I know.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: She changes her mind and goes and brings Jesus a gift,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: and he loves it so much he makes her the
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: protector of Italian children, and some depictions of her she
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: even sweeps the floor of all the home she visits,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: which is very nice. She's so beloved in Italy. There
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: are multiple festivals and markets held in her name, and
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: apparently one in Italy involves a boat race with people
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: dressed up as witches.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: So yeah, the guests, the celebrations now are of her
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: being a witch, not so much as the saint or
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: is it the saint version.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I think I think there's both, but I think I
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: think she she's she started out as a much less
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: nice witch and evolved into a nicer witch, but I
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: think she's still like witch.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: Okay, okay, she can still hold on too that claim.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, that my understanding.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: But again, listeners writing because it seems she's still quite popular.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she's relevant.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like festivals, fastivals, way to go, I know, yes,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: that's let's take a trip this time. And then there
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: were a couple more I did want to mention this.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: There wasn't like enough to do a whole mention of
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: them without going into I think this would be a
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: separate episode, But I did want to say there were
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: a couple of other Christmas, which is that actually were
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: more about harassing women than children, like a housewife is
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: not doing her job as well as she should be.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Some of it involved like leaving smudges of feces on
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: like laundry, like messing up housework, and sometimes splitting them
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: open and stuffing them with straw which I just found
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: fascinating because, as we said, these are so they're so
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: like moralistic, naughty or nice, do your chores or else
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: that I find it interesting that there are some versions
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: of them that are specifically towards women and housewives from
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: this time. So just a note that I had when
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: I was doing this research, like huh okay, interesting, yep,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: very interesting. I mean honestly, the research was very fun.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: This was a fun one to research. So if you
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: listeners again you have any follow ups, any more details,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: any suggestions, any legends which ye other, which is there
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: are also some.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Really cool like women in food and.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Which is traditions that I found, So if you know
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: about those, please let us know, yes.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: And you can contact us in many ways.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: You can email us at Stephanie Mom's Stuff at iHeartMedia
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Stuff podcast or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Thanks It's always to our super producer Christina.
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: And thanks to you you for listening. Steph Never Told You.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Dispection about iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
• 26:03
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• 26:05
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