The Monstrefact: The Tomtar

novel series. It makes great use of Nordic folkloric creatures, including the house spirit known as a nissa in Danish tradition and the Tomdar in Swedish tradition. The nissa, according to folkloress Carol Rose and spirits varies, leprechauns and goblins, tends to household chores and accepts only a bowl of porridge as a reward if slighted it all. However, they can prove quite mischievous and even cruel. The Tomtar Rose explains,

seems to reveal darker shades of the tradition. She shares that they were believed to be the remnants of a previous race of people displaced by invading Vikings, who were then forced to occupy ancient forts, ruins, and other lonely places of the country, and maliciously harassed the victorious humans who now ruled over their former kingdom. But eventually humans learned to appease these spirits and make use of their talents, getting them to do farm and domestic work during the night.

The trick once more was a gift of porridge on Christmas morning, accompanied by bread and maybe a little tobacco. Rose writes quote. To give the tomtar any better gift during the year would be sure to offend him, and he would do no more work in trolls in the mill. The supernatural stakes of water power, Academic Merril Caplin makes an interesting argument about the possible connection between this and

other Scandinavian traditions and the use of water mills. This, of course, is vital technology that harnesses the power of running water. Such hauntings, if you will, are sometimes described concerning specific water mills, which may tell us much about how the people who use them thought about the powerful and sometimes fickle natural resource they harnessed and depended upon them.

The argument I think aids us in considering various accounts of helpful and sometimes harmful household spirits, supernatural entities for sure, and important folklore motifs, but stand ins for forces of chance and chaos, partially or even largely outside of our control. While they serve other purposes, they also stand as cultural tools used by pre modern societies to manage social anxiety

and economic risk. So as you're leaving cookies and milk out for Santa this year, and maybe a carrot for Rudolph, do consider an additional helping of porridge, bread and tobacco for the top Tar. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact, The Artifact, or Animalius to Pindium each week. As always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.