Holiday Warmup: "The Yule Cat" by Robert J. Sodaro

Now that the holidays are upon us, the WFQ crew is working on sending some goodies out to all of our subscribers (free and paid alike) in the same spirit as our 13 Days of Weird Flash from last year. This year, we have far more than 13 writers interested in sharing their work with you, so it may end up being more like a WFQ Advent calendar this time around, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, as we're getting organized, we have a long (by our standards, at least!) story by frequent WFQ contributor Robert J. Sodaro. "Bob" is an American writer, editor, graphic production artist, and designer. He currently produces his own Indy comics but contributes to several Indy publishers. He is the creator of several intellectual properties including Agent Unknown, Wülf Girlz, Girl Skout Wars, The Adventures of Hot Girl & Totally Hot Girl, and others. You can see his portfolios online at slideshare.net and his Freelance Ink site.

Bob was generous and allowed us to republish this story for WFQ subscribers. (The original is here.) We thought that there would be no better way to kick off the holidays than with a story about one of the darker figures from the Icelandic canon. (Does it get darker than eating children?)

Without further ado, The Yule Cat!

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After a decade of living in Australia, Olav Johannsson and his family moved back to Iceland. To be sure, for Olav, the move was more “To” Iceland than “Back To” as, even though Olav had been born on the island, shortly after his birth, his father’s company promoted him and moved him to an office in Australia. Now, a decade later, Jon took another promotion, which moved him back to the land of his own birth. Now while Jon and his wife Helga were happy to return home, Olav was — as could be expected — far less than thrilled. Having, quite literally, grown up in the mid-25s-to-high-30s-Celsius Down Under, to now facing temps from 3 to 12 degrees Celsius was akin to a prison sentence for the young lad. Needless to say, this was an overriding reason that he was such a sullen child upon relocation.

Unfortunately, this attitude proved a tad difficult for him to make friends, especially at the start of the new school year. Still, given the pleasant outgoing nature of Islandic children after a month of him interacting with the locals in his school, he did manage to become friendly with a few of them. Two classmates with whom he became especially close were a pair of twin girls his own age named Gudrun and Kristin.

The girls both had very outgoing and upbeat personalities, making it almost impossible for Olav, even at his most sour moments, to stay grouchy. Soon enough, the three became nearly inseparable. So, even when Olav would gripe about the weather, temperature, or lack of a sandy beach, the girls would look past his mood, and find ways to cheer him up. While his association with the girls did much to lighten his mood, there was always a layer of irritability underlying his personality over having been forced to move from the warmer climes of Australia to the fridged forever of Iceland.

As the end of the calendar year approached, and the temperatures began to drop even further, Olav became more and more sullen, even though Gudrun and Kristin did their level best to keep his spirits up. One Friday, which was also the first of December. As they were departing from their final class of the day, Olav inquired if they wanted to hang out and do something fun so as to cheer himself up. Only the girls declined, citing a chore they had to do at home. Disappointed, Olav headed home resigned to wallowing in his own misery.

Unfortunately, as the weekend and following week wore on, the girls seemed to have less and less time to spend with him. Finally, the following Friday, Olav, determined to get to the bottom of the situation, followed them home, intending to confront them about it. Only when he arrived, it was their mother that met him at the door.

“Hello, Mrs. Sigurdsson, are Gudrun and Kristin at home?”

“Oh, Hello, Olav. Yes, they are home, but they are quite busy just now.”

“Yes, they said something about chores at school. But I have a question about some schoolwork. I promise not to take up too much of their time.”

Sighing, Mrs. Sigurdsson responded, as she let Olav in. “Fine, but only if you promise not to distract them or take up too much of their time.”

“Thank you, muchly, ma’am” Olav responded as he entered and headed towards the girl’s rooms. As he ascended the stairs to their bedrooms, he heard noises coming from a room just off the common hall. Upon entering the room, which appeared to be some sort of sewing room, he saw both girls dutifully working on measuring, cutting, and stitching clothing.

Olav cleared his throat, causing the girls to both stop, and look in his direction. “Ah, hey Gudrun, Kristin. What’s going on?”

“Olav, ah, hello. Mother let you in?” Kristin asked.

“Yes, I told her I had a question about schoolwork, but truthfully, I was really wondering why you’ve both been avoiding me all week. I thought we were friends.”

“Oh, we most certainly are friends, Olav.” Gudrun responded, “But we really have to get this done before the 25th.”

“Get what done?” Olav asked? “What are you doing?”

“Were making our Christmas clothes.” Kirstin replied.

“We need to get them done before the holiday or the Yule Cat will get us.” Gudrun chimed in.

“The…yule…cat?” Olav repeated. “Wh-whatever are you talking about?”

The girls looked at each other, then at Olav. “The Yule Cat.” They said in unison.

“What the heck is a Yule Cat, and what does that have to do with making clothes?”

“Children who don’t have new clothes by Christmas will get eaten by the Yule Cat.” Kristin exclaimed.

“That’s right, you grew up in Australia, so you probably didn’t have any Yule Cats down there.” Gudrun continued. “You should hurry home and ask your parents. They grew up here, so I’m surprised they haven’t told you.”

With that, the girls hurried him out and returned to their sewing. Confused. Olav left the Sigurdsson’s and headed home. Upon entering his house, he found his mother in the kitchen, baking bread. “Mom, what’s the Yule Cat?” he asked as he sat at the kitchen table.

“What’s that, dear?” his mother responded as she paused in her breadmaking.

“The Yule Cat. I was over the Sigurdssons talking to the girls to find out why they’ve been ducking me for a week, they were sewing Christmas clothes and told me this goofy story about a Yule Cat that was going to eat them if they didn’t finish making the clothes before Christmas.”

Picking up a towel to wipe her hands, Mrs. Johannsson sighed as she sat down. “Olav, The Yule Cat is an old superstition here in Iceland. The story goes that if children don’t receive new clothes by Christmas, this giant cat will come to their house to eat them. Honestly, it is really a tale told by parents to get their children to sew new clothes for themselves so that they have something new to wear for the holidays.”

“Then, why am I not making new clothes?”

“Well, first of all, as I said, it is just an old myth that has been around since the 1600s, and second, when we moved here from Australia, we bought you a tonne of new clothing. Not to mention, that with this recent raise of his, your father makes a good deal of money, so it isn’t necessary for you to waste your time learning how to sew just so that you have something to wear.”

“But aren’t you afraid that I’m going to get eaten?

Mrs. Johannsson laughed. “No, sweetie, like I’ve said it’s just a myth. It isn’t real.”

“What’s not real?” Came Mr. Johannsson’s voice from the front hallway as he arrived home from work.

“The Yule Cat.” Replied Olav. “But if it isn’t real, then why are Gudrun and Kristin making clothes, so they don’t get eaten?”

Pulling up a chair to the table, Mr. Johannsson sat down. “Well, as I’m sure your mother already told you, it’s an old Icelandic Christmas myth. Every country has them. The Yule Cat is known as Jólakötturinn and is a huge and vicious cat that is often described as lurking about the snowy countryside here in Iceland during the Christmas season. It is said that he will eat people who have not received any new clothes to wear before Christmas Eve. He’s said to be the house pet of a witch named Grýla, her husband, Leppalúði and their sons, the vicious and mischievous Yule Lads.

“Now the Yule Lads — sometimes referred to as Yuletide-lads or even Yulemen — are a group of 13 mischievous pranksters who are said to steal from or otherwise harass the population of local villages. Each of them has very descriptive names that generally convey their favourite way of causing mischief. The boys themselves arrive one by one over the final 13 nights leading up to Christmas and either leave small gifts in shoes that children place on windowsills, or a rotten potato in the shoe instead, if the child has been disobedient.”

“And you’re just telling me all of this now?” Olav exclaimed, looking from one parent to another.

“Again, we didn’t ever tell you because A) it is just an ancient myth, and B) because we were living in Australia, over 15,000 kilometers away from Iceland, and frankly I sincerely doubt that anyone in Australia had ever heard of the Yule Cat.” His father stated. “Now, while your mother and I grew up with these silly myths, we saw no reason to burden you with them, because they’re simply not real.”

“Not to mention,” Mrs. Johannsson interjected. “Being so far away, for so long, it never occurred to us that anyone here still believed in there being a giant cat that would eat you if you didn’t have new clothes by Christmas. So really while you don’t need to worry about it, you shouldn’t tease the girls — or any of your friends who might still believe — about it just being as mythical as Santa or Thor.”

Olav mulled all this information over for a moment, then smiled, and said, “Okay, I get it. It’s like all the really cool stories that the Aboriginals tell. Everyone is entitled to their own belief system.”

Clapping his hand on his son’s back, Mr. Johannsson smiled and exclaimed, “That’s my boy.” Then, looking at his wife inquired, “Now, what’s for dinner?”

Muchly calmed down and mostly mollified by his parents’ explanation, Olav promised that he wouldn’t say anything to the girls (or anyone else at school) about what he had been told. Taking his promise, a step farther, he would check in with the girls every couple of days on their progress with their new Christmas clothes. Finally, on Christmas Eve, when the whole district was gathered together for a community celebration, the girls showed up with their new clothes.

“Olav, where are your new clothes?” Kristin exclaimed.

“Oh, they’re home,” Olav fibbed, still not wanting to disillusion the girls.

“Aren’t you worried about the Yule Cat?” Gudrun gasped.

“Not really, I’m saving them for Christmas Day.”

Both girls seemed relieved by his admission, and the three of them then went on to enjoy the Holiday pageant. As it wound down, the girls headed home, and Olav headed back to his house. While his parents had gone straight back to their house, Olav opted to take a longer route, as he wanted to see all of the festive lights strung around their village. Everything seemed so much more joyous than their township in Australia. In spite of the bitter cold, the snow, and the lack of beaches, Olav was actually beginning to feel good.

As he was nearing his home, he felt as if he was being followed. A couple of times he caught sight of a shadow, just at the edge of his peripheral vision. As he continued on his way, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that someone or something was tailing him. At first, he thought that it might really be The Yule Cat, but the rational part of his brain took over and he soon convinced himself that it was just Gudrun and Kirstin, pranking him.

As he finally came to the walkway of his front door, he could most assuredly feel a presence behind him. Stopping at the front gate, he heard a low-pitched growl, so he decided to put an end to this charade and call the girls out. Spinning around quickly, he shouted, “Okay girls, I know it’s you…oh crap.”

The following morning, the Johannssons couldn’t find Olav in his room. Calling over to the Sigurdssons they learned that he wasn’t there either. More calls around the village revealed that not only was Olav missing, but so were as many as 16 children. None of whom had made new Christmas clothes.

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If you enjoyed this story, you can find more of Bob in the pages of Weird Fiction Quarterly, as well his own site, Is Nothing Sacred?, where he's chronicling the history of comic books. Expect to see more of his work in this space soon, as we get our official holiday story factory churning out some weird and chilling tales.

And if you'd like to dive more into the story of this kid-chowing kitty, here's a good video to get you started: