Hopefully you already saw my earlier post with an overview of the Icelandic tradition of the Yule Lads. If you haven’t, go back and read that first so this will make more sense. According to folklore, today — December 12 — is the day when the first Yule Lad arrives.
The first Yule Lad’s name is Stekkjarstaur, which translates as Sheep-Cote Clod. His particular brand of mischief involves harassing sheep, but he is ultimately stopped by his stiff peg-legs.
Here’s how he’s described in the 1932 Icelandic poem, “Yule Lads,” by Jóhannes úr Kötlum:
The first of them was Sheep-Cote Clod. He came stiff as wood, to prey upon the farmer’s sheep as far as he could. He wished to suck the ewes, but it was no accident he couldn’t; he had stiff knees – not too convenient.
Sheep-Cote Clod arrives each year on December 12, and leaves again on Christmas Day, December 25.
And here’s a more thorough explanation, by Robert Nelson, on Medium.
Stekkjarstaur establishes a theme that will run throughout this series; a trouble-making imp breaks into your residence to steal some sustenance. In this case, sheep’s milk. He is, however, quite inept, as the poem shows, as a result of his disability. You see, he has two wooden legs, and as such, cannot properly bend down to suck the milk straight from the ewe’s teet.
By way of explanation, Icelandic farms historically did not look like their Anglo-American counterparts. When settlers arrived in Iceland in the middle ages, they made use of Iceland’s indigenous trees for fuel and building supplies. It takes trees rather long to grow in Iceland anyhow, but the armies of sheep that were brought to pasture in Iceland prevented any new forests from growing on the island until planned and protected plantings in the 20th century.
Farms were sod-houses, often not very large. For smaller, yeoman farms, sheep would probably live in the same structure, or possibly an adjacent structure, as the family. Very close living quarters. And so, Stekkjarstaur isn’t just raiding a barn. He’s raiding a residence.
Gimpy was the first, Stiff like a tree. He snuck into the stables, And fooled the farmer’s sheep.
He wanted to suck milk from them, – They did not care for that, And because he had peg-legs – It did not go too well.
Stekkjarstaur harbours a stiff temperament, is stiff temperament, is stiffly set in his ways and very conservative. Some claim he secretly practices yoga, but this has never been confirmed.
He’s the tallest of the brothers. That cross of troll, elf and human ancestry gave him a very long and rather stiff pair of legs. Legend says he walks as though they were made of wood, and he has to use a long walking stick to be able to walk properly. Some folk art portrays him as having two wooden prosthetic limbs, but I go more for him just having long, straight legs. They do help him take enormous strides, so he can travel further than anyone else in his family.
His specialty is in terrifying sheep and, on occasion, stealing them. So, starting on this evening and running through Christmas, Vikings make sure their sheep are well locked away or the next morning they might have some very terrified sheep … or, even missing sheep.
