Iceland, Yule Cat

Iceland, Yule Cat - 15 Year Anniversary Tag

I want to see Wildlife and Animals all over the World. Just don't keep me very long and don't put in the middle of a cache in wildness where are no visitors.

The Yule Cat is a huge and vicious cat who is described as lurking about the snowy countryside during Christmas time and eating people who have not received any new clothes to wear before Christmas Eve. He is the house pet of Gryla and her sons.

Though referred to as an ancient tradition, written accounts of the Yule Cat have only been located as recently as the 19th century. The threat of being eaten by the Yule Cat was used by farmers as an incentive for their workers to finish processing the autumn wool before Christmas. The ones who took part in the work would be rewarded with new clothes, but those who did not would get nothing and thus would be preyed upon by the monstrous cat. The cat has alternatively been described as merely eating away the food of ones without new clothes during Christmas feasts. The perception of the Yule Cat as a man-eating beast was partly popularized by poems of Jóhannes úr Kötlum as with the rest of the folklore.

Cat in Icelandic is Köttur, but as Icelandic words take on different forms depending on the sentence, then it can also be Kött, Ketti, and Kattar. And in plural that's Kettir, Ketti, Köttum and Kattar. And then there are some other words such as Kisa (e. kittie) and Kettlingur (e. kitten). A tomcat is called Högni, and a female is called Læða.

Cats have been around in Iceland for centuries, or since Iceland was settled in 870. The Icelandic cat is closely related to cats from Skåne in Sweden, the Faroe Islands, and the Shetland Islands, but much more distantly related to the cat breeds in the rest of the United Kingdom. The cats in Iceland's countryside are more original breed than those in Reykjavík, that have bred with imported species.

Pohatu Nuva 15 Year Anniversary Tag
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