#jul i Blåfjell

[ifindus]

Is blåfjell au gonna make a comeback this year?🗻💙

Maybe?? Don't think we really have a plot or anything, but drawing Norway in blånisse attire is always fun 💙

[captain-mozzarella]

Du e kul viss du såg på blåfjell når du va liten B)

Blåfjell bra for sjelå

[nellipusen]

skal innrømme at om jeg hadde gått i fjellet og ropt og ekkoet hadde svart med å true meg hadde jeg også blitt litt nervøs

[bees-n-bones]

å ja, de tre kjønnene

[reloaderror]

didnt think i’d be 24 and enter december like: me and my emotional support televised advent calendars. but here we are

[thesinglesock]

Urgent message to all norwegians:

Jul i blåfjell will FINALLY be available to watch on NRK nettTV this year

[queenmeriadoc]

A little break, so here’s some of my art, based on a Norwegian tv program

[aromantisk-fagforening]

Wait actually further on that "nisse" thing. So in Norwegian folk belief there's a common concept, called a couple different things:

«tuft», «tuftekall», «tomt», «gardsbonde», «godbonde», «haugebonde», «gardrud», «rudkall» «rundbonde» (via wikipedia)

now I won't claim to understand every name, but some of them are like adjective-farmer, and "rud" is a suffix used for farms that were abandoned after the Black death. (source: me, hi I'm Norwegian this is taught in like fourth grade)

variations include (via wikipedia)

fjøsnisse - fjøs: house for "fe" which means like, cows and similar, sheep, pigs etc. (google translate just lied to me so please tell me the English word)

skipsnisse - ships (boats)

kirkenisse - church

hagenisse - garden. (see also: cobolds, garden gnomes, dwarfs)

in Norwegian jul tv you'll find most fjøsnisser, such as in "jul i Blåfjell" (jul in Blue Mountain) - a jul calendar tv program. I think also most cozy jul books too, but please prove me wrong.

translations & equivalents include:

tomte - sweden

goblin, gnome - England

Wichtel, Heinzelmännchen, Kobold - Germany

jólasveinar - Iceland

Contexts of "Nisser" in Norway

national-romance, because the period was about making a national identity it's not surprising they pulled up with nisser. Ibsen wrote plays with them. (via wikipedia)

the era of enlightenment. Wergeland portrayed nisser as bigoted and ignorant, as opposed to elves. (via wikipedia)

(pagan/heathen¹) yule times (jul), from as early as year 900 in icelandic & Norwegian culture it was for example tradition to set out porridge with butter for nisser, if you didn't they'd be pissed. (via NRK)

1. I think it's pagan/heathen, though 900 was during the Christening of Norway (year 850-1100) (sources: store norske leksikon, norgeshistorie)

(and cause apparently it's not common knowledge, "christmas" (originally "jul" or "yule" (which it still is called in Norway today)) does originate in Norse mythology and Nordic tradition, with supernatural spirits and animal sacrifice (source: store norske leksikon), and beer (ref that NRK article)) (and no I don't care if you ""disagree"" with history unless you are an actual historian). (and I don't care about christian aspects of the holiday today, bother someone else).

[ifindus]

hear me out: Norge, Island og Sverige = blånisser💙 / Danmark = rødnisse❤️ / Finland = grånisse🤍

Men ja? 👀 Hadde det altfor artig med å designe antrekkene deres, men ja?? Jul i Blåfjell AU når???

[linglinginjapan]

Målet for dagen var Shibuya Blue Cave Illumination、青の洞窟

Det er absolutt sant at det var en fin blå opplysning, litt som jul i blåfjell? kanskje ikke helt da, men det ble veldig intenst syntes vi. Fikk nesten vondt i øynene etter hvert, og som forventet var folkemengden gedigen.

[leagueraised]

not to be norwegian on main, but i just found out the norwegian advent calendar tv series jul i blåfjell is airing again for the first time in 11 years, and they made it available to watch internationally, and i literally screamed in the car

[bees-n-bones]

skrukke/tistel/skinntryta ot3

[yaytheboop]

You’re laughing. NRK finally has the license to stream Jul i Blåfjell which defined the childhoods and christmases of tons of norwegian kids, who are now crying because we love that show to much, and you’re laughing

[thesinglesock]

remember when we used to do awfully photoshopped Christmas Icons for december? I’ve got mine locked and loaded:

[405blazeitt]

as of day 2, jul i blåfjell feels like an argument against monarchy

[bogkeep]

also, from the wikipedia page about saint lucy's day:

Lussinatta, the Lussi Night, was marked in Sweden 13 December. Then Lussi, a female being with evil traits, like a female demon or witch, was said to ride through the air with her followers, called Lussiferda. This itself might be an echo of the myth of the Wild Hunt, called Oskoreia in Scandinavia, found across Northern, Western and Central Europe.

Between Lussi Night and Yule, trolls and evil spirits, in some accounts also the spirits of the dead, were thought to be active outside. It was believed to be particularly dangerous to be out during Lussi Night. According to tradition, children who had done mischief had to take special care, since Lussi could come down through the chimney and take them away, and certain tasks of work in the preparation for Yule had to be finished, or else the Lussi would come to punish the household. The tradition of Lussevaka – to stay awake through the Lussinatt to guard oneself and the household against evil, has found a modern form through throwing parties until daybreak. Another company of spirits was said to come riding through the night around Yule itself, journeying through the air, over land and water.

There is little evidence that the legend itself derives from the folklore of northern Europe, but the similarities in the names ("Lussi" and "Lucia"), and the date of her festival, 13 December, suggest that two separate traditions may have been brought together in the modern-day celebrations in Scandinavia.

i am fully aware that the "well christmas is actually borrowing from all of these PAGAN traditions" argument is very much the edgelord atheist reply, usually responding to the moral panic about "oh no!!! people are forgetting what christmas is REALLy about!!!!" and i really do Not want to posit that christmas is a secular holiday, because it's very much not, and i think we'd all be better off if we stopped acting like it is. but also. i very much get the feeling that a lot of christmas/midwinter traditions in scandinavia and probably many other places in europe (gestures at krampus) are... proxies, i think, for pre-christian traditions and celebrations. compromises. if you listen to scandinavian christmas songs, you'll find that a LOT of them are about barns and mice and nisser/tomter - and it's hard to explain the concept of a Nisse to non-scandinavians. i suppose they look like gnomes but they are a kind of elf but if you imagine gnomes or santa's elves you're on the wrong track entirely. they're just, one of the Underground People, kind of like trolls - oh, wait. everyone go watch hilda on netflix. that's the vibes. (i also think NRK re-released jul i blåfjell on their website for everyone to access, but it's only available in norwegian </3) the reason i'm even thinking about this is because i've been listening to too many podcasts and video essays about moral panics surrounding the war on christmas. because of course. there's something deeply fascinating to me in the contrast between cultural celebrations - from the "remember christmas is about BABY JESUS!!!" crowd to the scandinavia solstice vibes of 'the sun is gone and there's trolls out there - oh yeah no this is totally about jesus btw'. im so fascinated by how some people want christmas to be a secular standard holiday celebrated by all AND also remember how super mega religious it is, but you can't have both, can you? like either way you've got corporations and consumerism eating away at it from both ends so like, make up your mind. is it sacred or is it cheap? ultimately holidays boil down to whatever traditions you keep and that's gonna be a different thing for everyone. so

it DOES seem very strange to celebrate a random saint from syracuse in the culturally lutheran protestant but also majorly atheist scandinavia that nobody other than italy celebrates, i know, but it makes a lot of sense when you consider how it coincided with the winter solstice in the julian calendar and how mayybeeee it's easier to convert people if they can keep their traditions and stuff