Little Vigg's Christmas Eve Adventure

The snow’s icy crust shone as it lay upon the heath where a person, no matter how tall, could see just one single home, and that was a little stuga, old and gray.

Many travelers passing by must have thought “whoever lives there must lead a dreary life indeed, the poor souls.” And it can’t be denied that the heath did look desolate, even in the summer. Heather and cobblestone, brush and gnarled pines were all it had to offer the eye. But the stuga itself was nice enough in its own way. Though mossy the logs had sound heartwood and they held together well against the cold and wind. The chimney, sturdy and broad, rose above a sod roof which in the summer looked like green velvet and was adorned with orange flowers. In that mild season, by the gable side, there grew a garden with potatoes, carrots, and cabbage, and by the fence were poppies, calendula, and roses. There was an apple tree too, and under it a little bench. The stugan’s only window had a curtain, and it was always white. The stugan and garden belonged to Mother Gertrud, and she lived there with a little boy whose name was Vigg.

But now snow lay over the roof, over the garden, and over the heath as far as the eye could see. Mother Gertrud had gone out early in the morning to shop at the country store in the distant village. Soon the sun would set and Mother Gertrud still hadn’t come home. Vigg was all alone in the stugan. All around it was quiet, quiet as far as the heath reached. The whole day long there had been no bell to be heard and not a single traveler to be seen.

Vigg knelt on a chair with his elbows resting on the table. He was looking out a window with four panes: three were thick with frost, but Vigg had breathed on the fourth and had melted the ice. He was waiting for Mother Gertrud, who should be home with white wheat bread, a pepparkaka, and a candle that was really three candles at once: a middle candle with two more candles that branched out from the sides. These because it was Christmas Eve, but Mother Gertrud was still nowhere to be seen. The sun went down and over the horizon the sky shone like a ribbon of roses. A pale red glow poured out over the snowy heath. Soon all the colors melted together into a pale and frozen purple, and the sky got dark.

Inside the stugan it was darker yet. Vigg walked to the fireplace where a few fading embers were glowing in the ashes. It was so quiet that when his wooden shoes clattered against the floor he thought it could be heard over the whole heath. He sat himself down on the edge of the hearth and wondered if the pepperkakan he waited for had a head with golden horns and four legs. He also wondered what kind of Christmas Eve the bullfinches and the other birds were having that night.

*

It is hard to say how long Vigg had been sitting there by the fireplace when he heard the sound of jingle bells. He ran to the window and pushed his nose against the glass to see who it could be, because Mother Gertrud didn’t have any jingle bells.

All the stars of heaven were kindled. They twinkled and shone. Far away there was something moving, dark against the snow. It came nearer and nearer, and the cheerful ringing of the bells get louder and louder.

“Who’s traveling out there? He isn’t staying on the road, he’s coming straight across the heath!” Vigg knew very well where the road went, Vigg who in the summer had picked bilberries and lingonberries and wandered far from home – several hundred feet in every direction around the stugan. Vigg had hardly time to think “imagine getting to ride behind those bells, and driving myself!” before the sled arrived, and stopped right outside the window.

It was a sleigh harnessed to four little horses, smaller than the smallest foals. They had stopped because the driver held the reins hard, but they weren’t ready to rest and they snorted and whinnied, shaking their manes and kicking up snow.

The figure sitting in the sleigh cried “Rapp! Stop being naughty! Snapp, be still! Control yourself Sprite! Calm yourself, Bright!” Then he hopped out and walked right up to the window.

Vigg had never seen a man like this before. But then again, he hadn’t seen so very many other people either. It was an old man, and little, just the right size for such horses. His face was full of wrinkles, and his long beard looked like the moss up on the stugan’s roof. He wore fuzzy clothes from head to toe. One corner of his mouth held a pipe; out of the other curled smoke.

“Good evening, pignose!”

Vigg pulled his nose off the glass and answered “Good evening.”

“Is there anyone home?” asked the old fellow.

“Well, you can see that I am home.”

“Yah…you’re right about that. It was a silly way to put the question. But you have got it so dark in there, even though it’s Christmas Eve.”

“I’m going to get both a Christmas fire and a Christmas candle when Mother comes home. And I mean a proper Christmas candle, one with three flames.”

“Oh, so Mother Gertrude isn’t home yet! And you are all alone, and will be alone for a good hour yet. Aren’t you afraid?”

“I’m a Swedish boy,” answered Vigg. He had learned to say that from mother Gertrude.

“...Swedish boy,” repeated the old man as he rubbed his mittens together and took the pipe from his mouth. “Tell me, young man, do you know who I am?”

“No…” said Vigg, “but do you know who I am?”

The old man swept the fur cap off his head, bowed, and said “I have the honor to be speaking with Vigg, the noble champion of the heath, who has newly received his very first pair of pants, the hero undaunted by even the longest beard. You are Vigg and I am the Julvätten. Do I have the honor of being known?”

“Oh, you are the Julvätten? Then you are a nice man. Mother has often talked about you.”

“Thank you for the kind words! Though I’m not so sure they’re well deserved. But Vigg, do you want to go on a sleigh ride with me?”

“I sure do! But I’m sure I can’t, because if Mother comes home and I am gone…what will happen?”

“I promise that you will be home before Mother Gertrude. A man stands by his word, and a lady by her purse. Come!”

Vigg ran out. But my, it was cold, and Vigg’s clothes were so thin! His wool shirt was too tight, and his clogs had again worn holes in his socks, in the heel where Mother Gertrude had patched them so often before. But the Julvätten shut the door, lifted Vigg into the sleigh, wrapped him in a fur, blew a puff of smoke into his face so that he sneezed, cracked the whip in the air and off they went.

*

Rapp and Snapp, Bright and Sprite sped over the snow like lightning, and the jingle of the silver bells resounded over the heath as if all the bells of heaven had been rung.

“May I drive?” asked Vigg.

Julvätten answered “no. You’re too short anyway.”

“Well, maybe,” said Vigg.

Soon the heath was behind them and they were inside the dark forest, which Vigg had heard Mother Gertrude talk about, the trees are so tall there that the stars seem to hang from their branches. Now and then light from someone’s home gleamed out between the tree stems. The Julvätten halted his team of horses beside a little barn.

And between the stones of the little barn’s foundation there stuck out a head with two glittering eyes, which stared at Julvätten. It was the tomtormen’s head, and it nodded in a polite greeting. In return Julvätten took off his fur cap and inquired:

Slithertail!

You know what I want to hear,

Say how things have gone this year.

The tomtormen answered:

Hard-working are those who herein dwell,

there’s now three cows and a horse as well.

“That’s not so very much” said Julvätten, “but there shall be more, where man and wife are so hardworking. They began here with empty hands, and have their parents to support also. Well then, how do they care for the horse and the cows?

Tomtormen answered:

The udders swollen, milk-pail full,

The horse has heart and strength to pull.

“One more word, good Slithertail: what do you think of the children here on the farm?”

Slithertail answered:

The lass is pretty, quick, and smart,

The lad is brave and true of heart,

The girl’s nature sweet and mild,

The boy’s, perhaps, a little wild.

“They shall get Christmas presents!” said Julvätten with a chuckle. “Goodnight, Snake Slithertail! Sleep well this Christmas!”

Tomtormen answered:

Good night, Rapp and Snapp!

Good night, Bright and Sprite!

Good night, dearest Christmas wight!

and drew his head back between the stones.

Back in the sleigh there was a box behind the seat. Julvätten opened the box, and out of it produced all kinds of different things: an ABC book and a pocket knife for the boy, a thimble and hymnbook for the girl, a skein of yarn, new reed and shuttle for mother’s loom, an almanack and moraklocka for father, and a pair of reading glasses each for grandma and grandpa.

But he also took two handfuls of something more, though Vigg couldn't see what they were. “They are blessings and well-wishes” said Julvätten, who then crept with Vigg to the stugan. Inside, the whole family sat around the fireplace and father read aloud from the Bible about the Christ Child. Quiet and unnoticed, the Julvätten laid his gifts by the door and walked with Vigg back to the sleigh. Then they set off again through the dark forest.

“You know, I really do admire the child that they were reading about back there in the stugan,” said Julvätten, “but I’ll not deny that I also admire old Thor of Thrudvang.”

“Who is old Thor of Thrudvang?” asked Vigg.

“Ah, he’s a solid fellow, a true gentleman, and a distant relation of mine,” said Julvätten. “He was stone hard against the wicked: he would strike them down with his hammer. But he held in honor the honest and the brave and the hardworking. Best of all he liked the farmers who cared for their soil well and raised worthy sons. When danger threatened the land Thor would cry out to the farmers “rise up!” and with sword and shield they gathered from mountain and dale, and the enemy could not withstand their heavy blows. You’re going to grow up to be a good man too, Vigg.”

“Of course I will!” said Vigg.

“But now,” said Julvätten, “Thor has since laid his hammer at the Christ Child’s feet, for he believes it is better to be courteous/forbearing/mild.

*

Julvätten’s next stop was at a threshing barn on a big farm.

From inside came a dull, steady thudding like that of flails, but the sound was nearly drowned out by the gurgle of a nearby creek as it squabbled with stones and spruce roots. The Julvätten knocked on a little hatch in the wall, which then opened. Inside stood four funny little men with bushy eyebrows, red hats and grey woolen shirts. They threshed by the light of a lantern, and the air was thick with the dust of chaff.

The Julvätten nodded at the little chaps and said

Tomte, tomte, tomte-men!

Threshing through the night again?

The tomtarna answered in chorus, not breaking the rhythm of their flails:

The flail resounds

Tick and tock!

Grain in mounds,

Straw in stock!

Julvätten didn’t look convinced. “Surely on Christmas Eve you can rest a little,” he said.

The tomtarna replied:

With ample flour

The loaf is round.

For every hour,

Every minute,

There can be found

Some gold within it.

“But you’ll remember where and when we are supposed to meet?”

The tomtarna all nodded and answered

Soon we shall our tidings bring

To the throne of the mountain-king

Julvätten again opened his box, and with arms filled with gifts he sprang up to the father, mother, and children of the farm. Among the things he brought was a rifle, for such should every man have for the defence of his country.

And so they went from stuga to stuga and farm to farm. Vigg peeped through a window at the parsonage and thought it was the nicest place of all. There sat the old pastor, whom Vigg knew well because he had come to the little stugan on the heath and there laid his hand on Vigg’s head while he listened to how Vigg was doing with his ABCs. Vigg also knew the pastor’s wife and their pretty daughters, who were all so nice to Mother Gertrude. The Julvätten liked the parsonage too, because the people there were always kind to each other, and to the animals, and wished everyone well.

The farm’s tomten came out from the haybarn and said hello to the Julvätten. “I suppose that all is well here,” said Julvätten in reply.

“Yeah, things are good here,” answered the tomten, “but nevertheless I have a complaint to pass on to you.”

“Let's hear it then!”

“Well, one day this summer Halter, the little calf, was very sad when she was no longer allowed to drink milk.”

Little Halter by the gate

weeping thus she softly spake:

Now is my mother

milked for others

and I must suffer

through the summer.

With belly hollow

the herd I follow,

my little muzzle

‘s not made to guzzle

brush nor grass nor heather cool,

warm milk I need, at least till Yule,

for Bridle is still so young, so young.

“How is Halter doing now?” asked Julvätten.

“Oh, she eats just as much grass and hay as the other cows, and she’s so fat that her coat shines.”

“Well, then there’s nothing to complain about!”

“Oh, I agree, but I promised her that I would pass it along to you.”

“And when you make a promise, you must keep it, you’re right about that. Well, farewell then, tomte of the parsonage. We’ll meet again soon!”

While the Julvätten and Vigg continued their journey in the forest, they met another tomte, wearing a long face and looking rather grumpy.

“Where are you going, kinsman?” said Julvätten.

Tomte wears his shoes away

To find another place to stay.

“Why is that?” asked Julvätten.

The tomten answered glumly:

Father often takes a nip

From a flask upon his hip.

Mother's a slob, (a lesser vice)

And the children are naughty, never nice.

“Still, try to stay one more year,” urged the Julvätten; “otherwise the last of this home’s peace and joy will leave with you. It may be that things get better, and then next year I can come to you with gifts.”

“Well, I will then, because you asked me to,” said the tomten and turned around.

*

In a moment the Julvätten stopped in front of a large building, where light shone out of many windows. “Here they expect a lot of presents,” said the Julvätten and opened his box.

Vigg was astonished over the finery he saw: bracelets and necklaces, brooches and buckles, silk and velvet. They glittered of gold, silver, and precious gems. He saw flowers made of silk and he smelled them, but they hadn’t any scent. He also saw loose braids and locks of hair, and these he wondered about most of all.

“What’s all this?” he asked.

“That’s fishing tackle” said Julvätten, who winked at Vigg. “It is with such tools as these that the young ladies catch their fish.”

“But what’s that?” asked Vigg, pointing to a golden star that the owner of the mansion would pin to his coat.

“That is also fishing tackle” said the Julvätten.

This Vigg couldn’t really grasp, because he had never seen more than a single piece of fishing gear before, and that was a rod.

The Julvätten pushed an apple seed into Vigg’s shirtpocket that made him invisible to the eyes of all others. Then they went up the great steps to the house. There the servants stood and yawned. Then they came into a grand room with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, in which the lady of the house sat and yawned. There also were the young ladies who were looking at a colorful board which educated them on the most important thing in their earthly lives: the most recent fashion trends in Paris. The lord of the manor sat half asleep with his hands clasped together over his belly, thinking about his great education, for in his youth he had studied latin, and then forgotten what he had learned.

On the other hand his neighbor, the old councilman, was an uneducated man for he only knew his bible and the lawbook and a little more besides, but he had, the poor fellow, no latin to forget.

Julvätten laid out his gifts, which were received coldly, except for the star. When he presented the star and said that it was a gift from the king to the lord of the manor, the lord stood up and smiled and bowed and talked about the grace of the king and his own unworthiness. Then he went into the nearest room, where he thought nobody could see him, placed himself in front of a mirror, pinned the star upon his box and all the sudden he jumped up and did what the ladies would have called a battement and said to himself “now I have achieved my life’s ambition, and such may a man receive, if he is a good boy.”

“Is he really a boy?” asked Vigg.

“He does seem to be a child,” answered Julvätten.

*

So they came to an even larger house, where also light shone out of many windows. The Julvätten lifted and waved his fur cap and cried “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!”

“Why did you shout like that?” wondered Vigg.

“That you may know in twenty years or so, but not now,” said Vigg’s traveling companion, looking rather mischievous. He opened his box again and took out a few books with very lovely covers.

“They are beautifully bound,” he said, “but what is their surface to their content? They hold the noblest of ideas that humans have thought. For the Mr. and Mrs. up here I could think of no better Christmas gifts.”

Vigg stayed in the sleigh while the Julvätten went up to the house. Julvätten told Vigg nothing of the strangest things he saw there, but I know what was there and I can tell you about it. He saw a boy the same age as Vigg, a daring, handsome boy that he foresaw would be Vigg’s most faithful brother in arms in battles for the just, the true, and the good that would come. And in a cradle he saw a baby girl whose little mouth was like a rosebud. Julvätten knew that someday, when this little girl was married, she would call Vigg her dear husband.

*

Now they drove to the king’s palace, which was much bigger again than the nobleman’s house. “I have some gifts to deliver here to the king’s son, “said Julvätten, “and quickly too, because afterwards we need to journey to my king, the mountain king, and then back to Mother Gertrude on the heath.”

Once again the box was opened, and what Vigg got to see then surpassed all else. On a big plate of silver stood thousands of warriors on both horse and foot. When you turned a crank they saluted and turned to the right, then to the left, the horses reared up, and the riders swung their swords. On another plate, which depicted the sea, there were ships with cannons, and when you turned the crank the cannons shot at a fortress, and the fortress returned fire with their own artillery. But the third silver plate was the strangest of all. It had many small houses with fields and meadows around them, and hundreds of people inside and out, all so small that you couldn’t really see them properly without a magnifying glass. But then there was much to be seen! There were men harvesting grain, there were millers, smiths, weavers, tailors, shoemakers, masons, builders, carpenters and many other sorts of working men besides, all hard at work. You could see their wives setting the table and waving their playing children in to eat. But you could also see pale, hungry children and their broken-hearted mothers who hardly had any food to give them at all.

With these curious playthings the Julvätten sprang up to the king’s son. “My prince,” he said, “do not look only to the soldiers and the warships! Look also to the working people. Bless them in your prayers! And when you become king, make your highest goal to increase the well-being of your people and ease their suffering! Then on the day of reckoning the great judge will tell you: what you have done for the poorest among my brothers, you done unto me.”

Julvätten was soon back again. Rapp and Snapp, Sprite and Bright snorted and whinied. Julvätten took the reins, sat down by Vigg in the sleigh, and set them off in blazing speed through a dark forest.

“Where are we going now?” asked Vigg.

“To the mountain king,” replied Julvätten.

*

Vigg was troubled, and after a moment of thoughtful silence said “Is your box empty now?”

“Nearly,” answered Julvätten and stuck his pipe in his mouth.

“Everyone else has gotten Christmas presents, but don’t you have anything for me?”

“I haven’t forgotten you either, your present is still lying at the bottom of the box.”

“Please, show it to me.”

“You can wait until you get home to Mother.”

“No, Julvätten, let me see it now!” said Vigg impatiently.

“Well, look then!” said Julvätten, as he turned around in the sleigh and drew a pair of thick woolen socks out from the box.

“Was there nothing else?” mumbled Vigg.

“Would they not be welcome? Don’t your own socks have holes in them?”

“Mother can darn them. You have given such nice, fun things to the prince and the others, you could have given something like that to me too.”

The Julvätten didn’t return a single word, instead he just laid the socks back in the box, but he drew hard on his pipe and looked troubled, just like Vigg.

The journey continued in silence. Vigg pouted and said nothing, envying the prince for his splendid gifts, and being grumpy about the wool socks. Julvätten was also quiet, and smoke billowed out of both corners of his mouth. But the spruces sighed, the forest brooks chattered, and the snow crunched under the horses’ hooves. At the edge of the forest a lantern-man ran along to light the way, but it was needless, because with the stars and the shining snow it was plenty bright enough to drive.

At last they came to a mountain that rose straight up. There they stepped out of the sleigh. Julvätten gave Rapp and Snapp, Bright and Sprite an oatcake each. Then he knocked on the wall of stone, and a great crack opened in it. He took Vigg by the hand and walked into the crevice, but they had not many steps before Vigg was afraid.

For it was dreadful there. It would have been the blackest night in there, if the darkness wasn’t here and there broken by the glowing eyes of vipers and poison toads, who slithered and crawled on the wet outcroppings of stone.

“I want to go home to Mother!” cried Vigg.

“Swedish lad!” said Julvätten.

Vigg didn’t have anything to say to that.

After they had walked for a bit Julvätten asked Vigg “What do you think of that toad there?” He was pointing at a great green brute that sat on a stone and stared at the boy with big round eyes.

“It’s nasty,” said Vigg.

“It is you who has brought her here,” said Julvätten. “Do you see how bloated it is? It is swollen with discontent and envy.”

“You say I’m the reason it’s here?”

“You are indeed! You were jealous of the prince’s gifts and scorned the present that I, out of a friendly heart, wanted to give to you. For every wicked thought that a person who lives in these parts thinks, there comes a toad or a snake here into this cave.”

“That was naughty of me,” said Vigg, and now he was ashamed.

They walked further around many bends and went ever deeper into the mountain. After a time it began to get brighter, and when they turned a corner Vigg looked with astonishment upon a great, shining hall.

The walls were of crystal and along three of them stood unpleasantly grinning dwarves holding torches, the light of which was shattered into all the colors of the rainbow by the crystals. By the fourth wall sat the mountain king on his golden throne. He was dressed in a cloak of rock wool, strewn with gemstones, but he looked gloomy and sad. On a throne at his side sat his daughter clad in a silver dress, and she looked even more sorrowful, it almost seemed as if she was dying. She was very pale, and very beautiful.

In the middle of the chamber hung an immense scale, and around it stood gnomes, servants of the mountain king. They were putting things into the bowls of the scale, sometimes into one side, sometimes into the other.

And before the king’s throne there stood a countless crowd of tomtar from all the farms and homes for miles around, and they recounted all the things that the people in whose houses they stayed had thought, said and done over the course of the year. And for every good thought and every good deed they spoke of, the gnomes put a golden weight into one bowl of the scale, and for every wicked thought or unkind deed they put a snake or toad in the other.

“Vigg, you know, the thing is,” whispered Julvätten, “is that the princess is very ill. She’s going to die soon if she can’t get out the mountain, for she longs to breathe the free air, and see the gold of the stars and sun, and she has a promise that if she can see the sky, then she may also see the angels, and win eternal blessedness. She longs and she yearns, but out of the mountain she may not go until a Christmas Eve comes when the bowl of good sinks to the floor and the bowl of wickedness rises to the ceiling. But as you can see, right now the bowls are so very even.”

The Julvätten had hardly said this before he too was called forward to give his account. He had an awful lot to report, and it was nearly all good because what he had to say came only from the Christmas season. And during the time of year when we celebrate the birth of a child who, though born into poverty, through innocence and goodness became the King of Ages, people tend to be nicer to each other than otherwise.

The Julvätten continued his story and the gnomes laid more and more golden weights into the scale, and the bowl of goodness grew noticeably heavier.

But Vigg was on pins and needles because he was afraid that his name would come up, and when Julvätten did mention his name Vigg flinched, went pale, and blushed. What the Julvätten said about Vigg and the wool socks, I will for his sake not repeat, but I must say that into the bowl of wickedness one of the gnomes did place that great green toad, the same one that Vigg saw before in the cave, and it weighed a lot. Everyone’s eyes (except the kind Julvätten’s, which looked some other way) were fixed on Vigg. The king’s, his daughter’s, the gnomes’, the dwarves’, the tomtarna’s, and everyone’s eyes were either stern or sorrowful, but the princess’s eyes in particular were so mild, and so full of suffering that Vigg couldn’t bear to see them, and he covered his face with his hands.

The Julvätten now recounted how Mother Gertrude on the heath, though penniless, had taken little Vigg under her wing, fatherless and motherless as he was. He told how she braided rugs and bound brooms to sell at the general store so she could provide food for him, and how she sewed and patched his clothes, how she labored with joy and love, and how she bore sacrifices for his sake. How she rejoiced in his lively nature and bold heart and red cheeks and faithful eyes and gladly forgave him his boyish mischief – yes, every night before she slept she prayed to God for him. And on that very day she had traveled far away through the ice cold winter to the village, just to bring him a candle and a few other little things to brighten him up that Christmas Eve.

And while the Julvätten was saying all this, the gnomes laid heavy gold weights onto the good side of the scale, and the ugly green toad hopped down and disappeared into the cave. Tears came into the eyes of the fair princess, and Vigg sobbed loudly.

Yes, he sobbed even in his sleep, when the mountain king’s hall and everything in it was gone, and Vigg lay in his bed in the little stuga on the heath. There the Julvätten, after finishing his journey, wished him goodnight, though Vigg was so sleepy that he didn’t hear it. A bright fire burned merrily on the hearth when he awoke, and mother Gertrude leaned over him and said “Poor little Vigg, to be alone so long in the dark! I couldn’t come earlier, because the village is so far. But now I have a Christmas candle and wheatbread and a pepparkaka for you and even a bit of bread that you can give to the songbirds tomorrow.”

“And look!” added mother Gertrude, “here is a pair of wool socks that I knit for you for Christmas, just what you need, since you wear out your clothes so fast. And here is a pair of leather shoes that I bought you so you don’t need to trudge about in clogs over the holiday.”

Vigg had wished for a pair of leather shoes for a long time, and now he looked them all over with happy eyes. But he studied the wool socks even longer, so that mother Gertrude thought that he wanted to find something wrong with them. But the thing was, that Vigg thought they looked just like the socks he saw in the Julvätten’s box. Then Vigg threw his arms around mother Gertrude’s neck and said “thank you mother, for the socks and the shoes – and so much for the socks!”

*

The kettle was then set over the fire, a white cloth spread over the table, and the christmas candle was lit. Vigg ran about in his new socks and shoes. Now and then he stopped by the window and looked thoughtfully out at the heath. He didn’t rightly know how his return journey had come about. But he knew for certain that the Julvätten was kind, and mother Gertrude was kind, and that Christmas Eve was a wonderful evening, that much he was sure of.

Outside a thousand stars shone down upon the quiet heath. And in the heath’s only home there was warm fire, warm hearts, and joy.