• Source: Nisse (folklore)

A nisse (Danish: [ˈne̝sə], Norwegian: [ˈnɪ̂sːə]), tomte (Swedish: [ˈtɔ̂mːtɛ]), tomtenisse, or tonttu (Finnish: [ˈtontːu]) is a mythological creature from Nordic folklore today typically associated with the winter solstice and the Christmas season. They are generally described as being short, having a long white beard, and wearing a conical or knit cap in gray, red or some other bright colour. They often have an appearance somewhat similar to that of a garden gnome.
The nisse is one of the most familiar creatures of Scandinavian folklore, and he has appeared in many works of Scandinavian literature. With the romanticisation and collection of folklore during the 19th century, the nisse gained popularity.




Terminology



The word nisse is a pan-Scandinavian term. Its current use in Norway into the 19th century is evidenced in Asbjørnsen's collection. The Norwegian tufte is also equated to nisse or tomte.
Other variants include the Swedish names tomtenisse and tomtekarl, the Swedish and Norwegian tomtegubbe and tomtebonde ("tomte farmer"), Danish husnisse ("house nisse"), the Norwegian haugkall ("mound man"), and the Finnish tonttu-ukko (lit. "house lot man").




= English translations

=
While the term nisse in the native Norwegian is retained in Pat Shaw Iversen's English translation (1960), appended with the parenthetical remark that it is a household spirit, H. L. Braekstad (1881) chose to substitute nisse with "brownie". Brynildsen's dictionary (1927) glossed nisse as 'goblin' or 'hobgoblin'.
In the English editions of the Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales the Danish word nisse has been translated as 'goblin', for example, in the tale "The Goblin at the Grocer's".




= Dialects

=
Forms such as tufte have been seen as dialect. Aasen noted the variant form tuftekall to be prevalent in the Nordland and Trondheim areas of Norway, and the tale "Tuftefolket på Sandflesa" published by Asbjørnsen is localized in Træna Municipality in Nordland. Another synonym is tunkall ("yard fellow") also found in the north and west. Faye also gives Dano-Norwegian forms toft-vætte or tomte-vætte.
Thus ostensibly tomte prevails in eastern Norway (and adjoining Sweden), although there are caveats attached to such over-generalizations by linguist Oddrun Grønvik. It might also be conceded that tomte is more a Swedish term than Norwegian. In Scania, Halland and Blekinge within Sweden, the tomte or nisse is also known as goanisse (Godnisse, Goenisse≈the good Nisse).
Reidar Thoralf Christiansen remarked that the "belief in the nisse is confined to the south and east" of Norway, and theorized the nisse was introduced to Norway (from Denmark) in the 17th century, but there is already mention of "Nisse pugen" in a Norwegian legal tract c. 1600 or earlier, and Emil Birkeli (1938) believed the introduction to be as early as 13 to 14c. The Norsk Allkunnebok encyclopedia was of the view that nisse was introduced from Denmark relatively late, and that native names found in Norway such as tomte, tomtegubbe, tufte, tuftekall, gardvord, etc., date much older.




= Etymology

=
It has repeatedly been conjectured that nisse might be a variant of "nixie" or nix but a detractor notes this is a water sprite and the proper Dano-Norwegian cognate would be nøkk, not nisse. Thus the term nisse may be derived from Old Norse niðsi, meaning "dear little relative". The common explanation in Denmark is that it is the diminutive form of Niels, as Danes in 19th century used to refer to a Nisse as 'Lille Niels' or 'Niels Gårdbo'.
The tomte ("homestead man"), gardvord ("farm guardian"), and tunkall ("yard fellow") bear names that associated them with the farmstead. The Finnish tonttu is also derived from the term for a place of residence and area of influence: the house lot, tontti (Finnish).




= Additional synonyms

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Norwegian gardvord is a synonym for nisse, or has become conflated with it. Likewise turvord is a synonym.
Other synonyms for nisse are Danish gaardbuk ("farm buck") and husbuk ("housebuck") where buck could mean billygoat or ram.



Near synonyms

According to Oddrun Grønvik, the nisse has a distinct connotation and is not synonymous with the haugkall or haugebonde (from the Old Norse haugr 'mound'), although the latter has become indistinguishable with tuss, as evident from the form haugtuss.
There are two 14th century Old Swedish attestations to the tomta gudhane "the gods of the building site". In the "Själinna thröst" ("Comfort of the Soul"), a woman sets the table after her meal for the deities, and if the offering is consumed, she is certain her livestock will be taken care of. In the Revelations of Saint Birgitta (Birgittas uppenbarelser), it is recorded that the priests forbade their congregation from providing offerings to the tompta gudhi or "tomte gods", apparently perceiving this to be competition to their entitlement to the tithe (Revelationes, book VI, ch. 78). There is not enough here to precisely narrow down the nature of the deity, whether it was land spirit (tomta rå) or a household spirit (gårdsrå).
Later folklore says that a tomte is the soul of a slave during heathen times, placed in charge of the maintenance of the household's farmland and fields while the master was away on viking raids, and was duty-bound to continue until doomsday.
Henning Frederik Feilberg makes the fine point of distinction that tomte actually meant a planned building site (where as tun was the plot with a house already built on it), so that the Swedish tomtegubbe, Norwegian tuftekall, tomtevætte, etc. originally denoted the jordvætten ("earth wights"). The thrust of Feilberg's argument considering the origins of the nisse was that there were various nature spirits―i.e., tomtevætte ("site wights"), haugbue ("howe/mound dwellers"), "underground wights" (undervætte, underjordiske vætte), or dwarves, or vætte of the forests―always moved around Nature and occasionally staying for short or long periods at people's homes, and these transitioned into house-wights (husvætte) that took up permanent residence at homes. In one tale, the sprite is called nisse but is encountered but by a tree stump (not in the house like a bona fide nisse), and this is given as an example of the folk-belief at its transitional stage.
Some commentators have equated or closely connected the tomte/nisse to the haugbonde (
Several helper-demons were illustrated in the Swedish writer Olaus Magnus's 1555 work, including the center figure of a spiritual being laboring at a stable by night.(cf. fig. right). It reprints the same stable-worker picture found on the map Carta Marina, B, k. The prose annotation to the map, Ain kurze Auslegung und Verklerung (1539) writes that these unnamed beings in the stables and mine-works were more prevalent in the pre-Christian period than the current time. The sector "B" of this map where the drawing occurs spanned Finnmark (under Norway) and West Lappland (under Sweden). While Olaus does not explicitly give the local (Scandinavian) names, the woodcuts probably represent the tomte or nisse according to modern commentators.




= Possible precursors

=
The story of propitiating a household deity for boons in Iceland occurs in the "Story of Þorvaldr Koðránsson the Far-Travelled" (Þorvalds þættur víðförla) and the Kristni saga where the 10th century figure attended to his father Koðrán giving up worship of the heathen idol (called ármaðr in the saga) embodied in stone; this has been suggested as a precursor to the nisse by Feilberg, though there are different opinions on what label or category should be applied to this spirit (e.g., alternatively as Old Norse landvættr "land spirit").
Feiberg remarks that in Christianized medieval Denmark the puge (cog. Old Norse puki, German puk cf. Nis Puk; English puck) was the common name for the ancient pagan deities, regarded as devils or fallen angels. Whereas Feilberg here only drew a vague parallel between puge and nisse as nocturnally active, this puge or puk in medieval writings may be counted as the oldest documentation of nisse, by another name, according to Henning Eichberg.




Appearance



The Norwegian nisse was no bigger than a child, dressed in gray, wearing a red, pointy hat (pikhue = pikkelhue; a hue is a soft brimless hat) according to Faye.
In Denmark also, nisser are often seen as beardless, wearing grey and red woolens with a red cap.
The tomte, according to Afzelius's description was about the size of a one year-old child, but with an elderly wizened face, wearing a little red cap on his head and a gray wadmal (coarse woolen) jacket, short breeches, and ordinary shoes such as a peasant would wear.
The tonttu of Finland was said to be one-eyed, and likewise in Swedish-speaking areas of Finland, hence the stock phrase "Enögd som tomten (one-eyed like the tomten)".
There are also folktales where he is believed to be a shapeshifter able to take a shape far larger than an adult man, Since nisser are thought to be skilled in illusions and sometimes able to make themselves invisible, one was unlikely to get more than brief glimpses of him no matter what he looked like. Norwegian folklore states that he has four fingers, and sometimes with pointed ears and eyes reflecting light in the dark, like those of a cat.

The Tomte's height is anywhere from 60 cm (2 ft) to no taller than 90 cm (3 ft) according to one Swedish-American source, whereas the tomte (pl. tomtarna) were just 1 aln tall (an aln or Swedish ell being just shy of 60 cm or 2 ft), according to one local Swedish tradition.




= Shapeshifter

=
The nisse may be held to have the ability to transform into animals such as the buck-goat.
In one tale localized at Oxholm, the nisse (here called the gaardbuk) falsely announces a cow birthing to the girl assigned to care for it, then tricks her by changing into the shape of a calf. She stuck him with a pitchfork which the sprite counted as three blows (per each prong), and avenged the girl by making her lie precarious on a plank on the barns ridge while she was sleeping.




Offerings


Even in the mid 19th century, there were still Christian men who made offerings to the tomtar spirit on Christmas day. The offering (called gifwa dem lön or "give them a reward") consisted of pieces of wadmal (coarse wool), tobacco, and a shovelful of dirt.




= Porridge-lover

=
One is also expected to please nissewith gifts (see Blót) a traditional gift is a bowl of porridge on Christmas Eve.
The Norwegian household, in order to gain favor of the nisse, sets out under thecatwalks sweet porridge, cake, beer, etc. on Christmas eve or each Thursday evening. But he is very picky about the taste.
The nisse likes his porridge with a pat of butter on the top. In a tale that is often retold, a farmer put the butter underneath the porridge. When the nisse of his farmstead found that the butter was missing, he was filled with rage and killed the cow resting in the barn. But, as he thus became hungry, he went back to his porridge (rice pudding) and ate it, and so found the butter at the bottom of the bowl. Full of grief, he then hurried to search the lands to find another farmer with an identical cow, and replaced the former with the latter.
In another tale localized in Hallingdal, Norway, a maid decided to eat the porridge herself, and ended up severely beaten by the nisse. It sang the words: "Since you have eaten up the porridge for the tomte (nisse), you shall with the tomte have to dance!" The farmer found her nearly lifeless the morning after.
In Sweden, the Christmas porridge or gruel (julgröt) was traditionally placed on the corner of the cottage-house, or the grain-barn (lode), the barn, or stable; and in Finland the porridge was also put out on the grain-kiln (rin) or sauna. This gruel is preferably offered with butter or honey. This is basically the annual salary to the spirit who is being hired as "the broom for the whole year". If the household neglects the gift, the contract is broken, and the tomte may very well leave the farm or house.
According to one anecdote, a peasant used to put out food on the stove for the tomtar or nissar. When the priest inquired as to the fate of the food, the peasant replied that Satan collects it all in a kettle in hell, used to boil the souls for all eternity. The practice was halted.
The bribe could also be bread, cheese, leftovers from the Christmas meal, or even clothing (cf. below). A piece of bread or cheese, placed under the turf, may suffice as the bribe to the tomtar/nissar ("good nisse") according to the folklore of Blekinge.
In Denmark, it is said that the nisse or nis puge (nis pug) particularly favors sweet buckwheat porridge (boghvedegrød), though in some telling it is just ordinary porridge or flour porridge that is requested.




= Gift clothing

=
In certain areas of Sweden and Finland, the Christmas gift consisted of a set of clothing, a pair of mittens or a pair of shoes at a minimum. In Uppland (Skokloster parish), the folk generously offered a fur coat and a red cap such as was suitable for winter attire.
Conversely, the commonplace motif where the "House spirit leaves when gift of clothing is left for it" might be exhibited: According to one Swedish tale, a certain Danish woman (danneqwinna) noticed that her supply of meal she sifted seemed to last unusually long, although she kept consuming large amounts of it. But once when she happened to go to the shed, she spied through the keyhole or narrow crack in the door and saw the tomte in a shabby gray outfit sifting over the meal-tub . So she made a new gray kirtle (mjölkaret) for him and left it hanging on the tub. The tomte wore it and was delighted, but then sang a ditty proclaiming he will do no more sifting as it may dirty his new clothes. A similar tale about a nisse grinding grain at the mill is localized at the farmstead of Vaker in Ringerike, Norway. It is widespread and has been assigned Migratory Legend index ML 7015.




As helpers


According to tradition, the nisse lives in the houses and barns of the farmstead, and secretly acts as their guardian. If treated well, they protect the family and animals from evil and misfortune, and may also aid the chores and farm work. However, they are known to be short tempered, especially when offended. Once insulted, they will usually play tricks, steal items and even maim or kill livestock.




= Harvesting

=
In one anecdote, two Swedish neighboring farmers owned similar plots of land, the same quality of meadow and woodland, but one living in a red-colored, tarred house with well-kept walls and sturdy turf roof grew richer by the year, while the other living in a moss-covered house, whose bare walls rotted, and the roof leaked, grew poorer each year. Many would give opinion that the successful man had a tomte in his house. The tomte may be seen heaving just a single straw or ear of corn with great effort, but a man who scoffed at the modest gain lost his tomte and his fortune foundered; a poor novice farmer valued each ear tomte brought, and prospered.




= Animal husbandry

=
The Norwegian nisse will gather hay, even stealing from neighbors to benefit the farmer he favors, often causing quarrels. He will also take the hay from the manger (Danish: krybbe) of other horses to feed his favorite. One of his pranks played on the milkmaid is to hold down the hay so firmly the girl is not able to extract it, and abruptly let go so she falls flat on her back; the pleased nisse then explodes into laughter. Another prank is to set the cows loose.
As the protector of the farm and caretaker of livestock, the tomte’s retributions for bad practices range from small pranks like a hard strike to the ear to more severe punishment like killing of livestock or ruining of the farm's fortune.
The nisse is connected to farm animals in general, but his most treasured animal is the horse. The stable-hand needed to remain punctual and feed the horse (or cattle) both at 4 in the morning and 10 at night, or risk being thrashed by the tomte upon entering the stable. Belief has it that one could see which horse was the tomte's favourite as it will be especially healthy and well taken care of. Sometimes the tomte will even braid its hair and tail. Undoing these braids without permission can mean misfortune or angering the tomte.




= Carpentry

=
The tomte is also closely associated with carpentry. It is said that when the carpenters have taken their break from their work for a meal, the tomte could be seen working on the house with their little axes. It was also customary in Swedish weddings to have not just the priest but also a carpenter present, and he will work on the newlyweds' abode. Everyone then listens for the noises that the tomtegubbe helping out with the construction, which is a sign that the new household has been blessed with its presence.




Wrath and retribution



Despite his small size, nisse possess immense strength. They are easily offended by carelessness, lack of proper respect, and lazy farmers.
Observance of traditions is thought to be important to the nisse, as they do not like changes in the way things are done at their farms. They are also easily offended by rudeness; farm workers swearing, urinating in the barns, or not treating the creatures well can frequently lead to a sound thrashing by the tomte/nisse. If anyone spills something on the floor in the nisse's house, it is considered proper to shout a warning to the tomte below.
Some stories tell how the nisse could drive people mad or bite them. The bite from a nisse is poisonous, and otherworldly healing is usually required. As the story goes, a girl who was bitten withered and died before help arrived.




= Exorcism

=
Although the tomte (def. pl. tomtarna) were generally regarded as benevolent (compared to the rå or troll), some of the tales show church influence in likening the tomte to devils. Consequently, the stories about their expulsions are recounted as "exorcisms".




Similar folklore



The nisse shares many aspects with other Scandinavian wights such as the Swedish vättar (from the Old Norse vættr), Danish vætter, Norwegian vetter or tusser. These beings are social, however, whereas the nisse is always solitary (though he is now often pictured with other nisser). Often comparable to the Latin American "Duende". Synonyms of nisse includes gårdbo ("(farm)yard-dweller"), gardvord ("yard-warden", see vörðr) in all Scandinavian languages, and god bonde ("good farmer"), gårdsrå ("yard-spirit") in Swedish and Norwegian and fjøsnisse ("barn gnome") in Norwegian. The nisse could also take a ship for his home, and be called skibsnisse, equivalent to German klabautermann", and Swedish skeppstomte. In Finland, the sauna has a saunatonttu. Also related is the Nis Puk, which is widespread in the area of Southern Jutland/Schleswig, in the Danish-German border area.
In other European folklore, there are many beings similar to the nisse, such as the Scots and English brownie, Northumbrian English hob, West Country pixie, the German Heinzelmännchen, the Dutch kabouter or the Slavic domovoi. Usage in folklore in expressions such as Nisse god dräng ("Nisse good lad") is suggestive of Robin Goodfellow.




Modern Nisse



The tradition of nisse/tomte is also associated with Christmas (Swedish: Jultomten, Danish: Julenisserne, Norwegian: Julenissen or Finnish: Joulutonttu.)
In the modern conception, the Christmas nisse will deliver gifts at the door, in accordance with the modern-day tradition of the visiting Santa Claus, enters homes to hand out presents. This original "household spirit" was no "guest", but the modern jultomte was a reinvention of the spirit as an annual visitor bearing gifts. He has also been transformed from a diminutive creature into an adult-size being. In Denmark, it was during the 1840s the farm's nisse became julenisse, the bearer of Yuletide presents, through the artistic depictions of Lorenz Frølich (1840), Johan Thomas Lundbye (1845), and H. C. Ley (1849).

The image shift in Sweden (to the white-bearded and red-capped) is generally credited to illustrator Jenny Nyström's 1881 depiction of the tomte accompanying Viktor Rydberg's poem Tomten, first published in the Ny Illustrerad Tidning magazine She crafted the (facial) appearance of her tomte using her own father as her model, though she also extracted features from elderly Lappish men.
Carl Wilhelm von Sydow (1935?) charged that the make-over of the tomte came about through a misconception or confusion with English Christmas cards featuring a red-capped and bearded Santa Claus (Father Christmas) wearing a fur coat. Nyström squarely denied her iconography of tomte introduced foreign material, but she or others could have emulated Danish purcursors like the aforementioned Hans Christian Ley in the 1850s, and it is said she did construct her image based on Swedish and Danish illustrations.
Herman Hofberg's anthology of Swedish folklore (1882), illustrated by Nyström and other artists, writes in the text that the tomte wears a "pointy red hat" ("spetsig röd mössa"). Nyström in 1884 began illustrating the tomte handing out Christmas presents. The equivalent to the Swedish jultomte was in Norway called julenisse.
The tomte is accompanied by the mythical Yule goat (Julbocken). The pair appear on Christmas Eve, knocking on the doors of people's homes, handing out presents. The tomte/nisse is also commonly seen with a pig, another popular Christmas symbol in Scandinavia, probably related to fertility and their role as guardians of the farmstead. It is customary to leave behind a bowl of porridge with butter for the tomte/nisse, in gratitude for the services rendered.
Gradually, commercialism has made him look more and more like the American Santa Claus, but the Swedish jultomte, the Norwegian julenisse, the Danish julemand and the Finnish joulupukki (in Finland he is still called the Yule Goat, although his animal features have disappeared) still has features and traditions that are rooted in the local culture. He doesn't live on the North Pole, but perhaps in a forest nearby, or in Denmark he lives on Greenland, and in Finland he lives in Lapland; he doesn't come down the chimney at night, but through the front door, delivering the presents directly to the children, just like the Yule Goat did; he is not overweight; and even if he nowadays sometimes rides in a sleigh drawn by reindeer, instead of just walking around with his sack, his reindeer don't fly—and in Sweden, Denmark and Norway some still put out a bowl of porridge for him on Christmas Eve. He is still often pictured on Christmas cards and house and garden decorations as the little man of Jenny Nyström's imagination, often with a horse or cat, or riding on a goat or in a sled pulled by a goat, and for many people the idea of the farm tomte still lives on, if only in the imagination and literature.
The use of the word tomte in Swedish is now somewhat ambiguous, but often when one speaks of jultomten (definite article) or tomten (definite article) one is referring to the more modern version, while if one speaks of tomtar (plural) or tomtarna (plural, definite article) one could also likely be referring to the more traditional tomtar. The traditional word tomte lives on in an idiom, referring to the human caretaker of a property (hustomten), as well as referring to someone in one's building who mysteriously does someone a favour, such as hanging up one's laundry. A person might also wish for a little hustomte to tidy up for them. A tomte stars in one of author Jan Brett's children's stories, Hedgie's Surprise. When adapting the mainly English-language concept of tomten having helpers (sometimes in a workshop), tomtenisse can also correspond to the Christmas elf, either replacing it completely, or simply lending its name to the elf-like depictions in the case of translations.




= Modern adaptations

=
An angry tomte is featured in the popular children's book by Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf, Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige (The Wonderful Adventures of Nils). The tomte turns the naughty boy Nils into a pixie in the beginning of the book, and Nils then travels across Sweden on the back of a goose.
Nisser/tomte often appear in Christmas calendar TV series and other modern fiction. In some versions the tomte are portrayed as very small; in others they are human-sized. The nisse usually exist hidden from humans and are often able to use magic.
The 2018 animated series Hilda, as well as the graphic novel series it is based on, features nisse as a species. One nisse named Tontu is a recurring character, portrayed as a small, hairy humanoid who lives unseen in the main character's home.




= Garden gnome

=
The appearance traditionally ascribed to a nisse or tomte resembles that of the garden gnome figurine for outdoors, which are in turn, also called trädgårdstomte in Swedish, havenisse in Danish, hagenisse in Norwegian and puutarhatonttu in Finnish.




See also






Explanatory notes






References






= Citations

=




= Bibliography

=




Further reading


Viktor Rydberg's The Tomten in English
nisse, Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Hong, 1992), p. 40
The Tomten, by Astrid Lindgren




External links



"Tomten", poem in Swedish by Viktor Rydberg

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