#the gävle goat

[hasgavlebockenburneddownyet]

time lapse of all the birds yesterday

[montreal-derogatory]

The biggest benefit of being a certified nail tech…

Is that I can put WHATEVER THE FUCK I want on my nails and it always looks professionally done, because it is.

I wasn’t feeling traditionally festive this season, but I have been enraptured by the Gävleboken, and whether the goat will burn. So I decided to do my December set based on beloved holiday arson traditions.

Without further ado, my magnum opus

[thelovelyblark-barg]

oh please let me on this map please I won't do anything bad I promise I can be trusted near the hay goat

[ikeepseeingghosts]

A few suggestions made by Some Guy* on the news on how to protect the goat from birds:

- fill the air with unpleasant smells

- cover the goat with piano wire

- petrolium gas cannon

- kill a few birds and leave the corpses on the goat as a varning

* apparently he was an airport inspector, the closest we got to a professional on "how to ge rid of birds from a giant goat"

[chalksoul]

As someone that celebrated christmas/yule in Gävle most my life I always cheer for both the defence and crime teams. But this year the Goat must go down for a simple reason.

Boring as fuck defence. Nothing new. No armoured knights. Nothing fun. They could at least give the guards silly hats or something.

(fun fact, if you spend a lot of time as a teen in Gävle you can't fathom how many dudes are implying that they *might* be one of the arsonists that got away when hitting on you)

[luminarai]

Between 2017-2022 the Gävle goat has only burned down once, at one point reaching an unprecedented four year survival streak (prior to this, it had only managed a maximum of two years in a row), and well. I’m not saying that the world needs more ritualistic sacrifices of large flammable icons to appease and balance the unknown forces of good and evil in the world, I’m just saying that it wouldn’t hurt to try, you know?

[rave-lord-nito]

Just thought I'd let you all know that in lieu of being burned, nature itself has this year turned upon Gävlebocken and it is currently being devoured by a flock of birds

[foundfamilyhq]

[dullurbancryptid]

the only thing im looking forward to this Christmas is the Gävle Goat burning

[knight-of-the-graces]

I have just informed my parents of the existence of the Gävle Goat.

My father, the wonderful man that he is, suggested someone give it a Viking funeral, since Sweden is a Nordic country.

Please. I beg of you. That would be the funniest thing ever.

[miniar]

The Gävle Goat is a modern pagan sacrifice for the new year.

Ever heard the term "scapegoat"?

In the nordic languages there's "syndabokk" or "the make goat of sin" roughly, in variants.

The tradition is to put all your emotional baggage, all your sins, all your troubles on a sacrificial animal, traditionally a male goat, and to either chase it away, even off a cliff in some old tales, or to sacrificially slaughter it and cook it's meat, or something of the sort.

That way, all that baggage can be left in the old year, or in the dark, or somesuch, don't have to bring it with you into the new.

If you don't have access to the Gävle goat, you can make your own. You can write down all the shit you want to let go off on a piece of paper, fold it, could even go fancy and learn how to make an origami goat or somesuch, or make or buy a tiny straw goat from ikea, or whatever strikes your fancy, either way, get your shit together, like all your shit, put it in your "scapegoat", and ritually Burn it.

If you feel you've seen this information and suggestion before, like a couple years ago, but written "better", this is a fast and loose rewrite of my old post. I'm not digging through the VAST backlog of my tumblr to find the original. Absolutely Not.

Anyway.

Hope you have a good new year's eve.

[hasgavlebockenburneddownyet]

Holy shit there are so many birds

[torchwoodglobal]

To anyone in need of an on-fire goat, I’ve got you covered in miniature. Thanks again to @un-pearable for the crochet pattern.

Before and after photos and commentary under the cut.

Wishing you all the good luck a tiny burning goat can provide!

Man this thing was hard to burn! Even using twine made of essentially grass and stuffing it very loosely with very flammable paper it was hard to get lit and hard to keep alight.

My tips for anyone interested are:

- airflow is your friend! Crochet with very loose tension and don’t overstuff. Maybe have a hairdryer on hand for a bellows

- also, pre-warm your goat. He burnt much better once he warmed up

- maybe try busting a hole through the neck into the body too, that would help with airflow and heat transfer

- wicks are important! Use a twine with flyaway hairs and find a product for the decorative red that catches easily but burns away slowly. I used cotton string and it did not cut it

- where you light matters, I recommend mid horns, end of tail and chin above beard

- fire safety! Make sure you’re lighting your goat away from dangers of creating a bushfire, your goat might be less opposed to this burning thing than mine. Be safe and have water on hand. Make sure your goat is really extinguished afterwards, I put mine in a sink full of water because he was determined to smoulder. Check your goat burning area for stray sparks and embers too!

[yourlocalbreadenthusiast]

The goat's looking a little rough.

Look at him. The birds have torn him down to the framework.

Also

Is that a person up there?

[orchidsflowergarden]

Praying for next year. Let her burn!

[feijoaaas]

i know this will get zero notes but it’s pretty funny as a swede to read about the Gävlebocken because we don’t use “the” obviously, instead we just stick endings onto words which then indicate if it’s plural or singular etc

for example a christmas tree is “en julgran” where one is en and jul=xmas gran=pine tree, but if we’re talking about a specific one or a singular one it’s julgranen. another example is a dog is hund but the dog is hunden.

so we just say Gävlebocken because it’s the one and only. so reading the Gävlebocken kinda reads like THE ONE AND ONLY YEAH IM TALKING ABOUT THAT ONE MADDAFOOKER HE GETS BURNT BUT HE GETS UP AGAIN YOU KNOW HIM WE ALL KNOW HIM IT’S THE ONE, THE ONLY, THE UNSTOPPABLE, THEEEEEE GÄVLEBOCKEEEN!!!!! like some sort of announcer for the biggest heavy weight boxer champion of them all entering the arena for the match of the century

and it’s just very funny please keep it up :D