Gårdstomten, "The Tomte"

In Sweden we have different kinds of mythological beings and tales, one of the beings that we have is the Gårdstomte. Directly translated its sort of Farm-Santa, but in this case Tomten relates to the PRE-santa version, a little person or gnome that helped the farmers on the farm, more like santas little helpers. 

Every christmas (and every Thursday) the farmers had to give the Tomte a plate of porridge (or rice pudding on Christmas) to make sure he was kept happy, if they forgot to put butter in the porridge, or forget the porridge entirely, the Tomte would be so angry and make mischief or leave the farm for good, putting the famer and his family in a tight spot without any extra helping hands.

If you want to read more about the Tomte you can read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisse_(folklore)

So now you know who fetched the rice pudding Ivar and Mathias put out in our latest Christmas video!

A swedish writer called Viktor Rydberg once wrote a classical poem about the Tomten that we listen to every Christmas, here you can read the poem: http://www.tomtenposter.com/Tomten.html

We also attached some traditional pictures of the Tomte painted by Jenny Nyström. Jenny Nyström is one of Swedens most popular painter for Christmas pictures and cards.