Something remarkable happened in my town earlier today. The Great Straw Goat of Gävle (or ‘Gävlebocken’, in Swedish) was inaugurated for the 51st consecutive year – a beloved town tradition that started 50 years ago, back in 1966.
Picture source: Wikipedia. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.
Goat is a historic symbol of Christmas in Scandinavian countries. It is believed here that Santa Claus travels on the goat’s back (sorry, Rudolf!). This belief probably has the old Norse religion as its origin. Thor, was example, used to travel in a chariot pulled by two goats.
Anyhow, back in 1966, an advertisement professional Stig Gavlén decided to attract tourists to Gävle by building a giant straw replica of the Yule Goat and putting it in the middle of the city. His brother, Jörgen Gavlén, then a chief of the town’s fire department, got the task of building the enormous goat with the help of his fellow firefighters. Since then the goat has been set-up on the Palace Square every year, four weeks prior to Christmas.
Already that first year the goat was set on fire on the New Year’s Eve. Thus a new (illicit) tradition was born – to burn down the goat in the days between Christmas and the New Year. A lot of creativity (and sometimes alcohol) was involved in executing the schemes: my favourite is when two men, dressed as Santa Claus and the Gingerbread Man shot flaming arrows at the goat. A few times the goat managed to survive unscathed. In fact, the largest bookmakers accept the bets on whether the Goat will burn this year or not. You can also leave your prediction by upvoting the relevant comment below. I myself am pretty sure it will be burnt down once again.
The people of Gävle are very fond of their local celebrity. Swedish passports even feature the Yule Goat on one of their pages, dedicated to Gävle. Here you can see mine:
This year the inauguration ceremony drew spectators from over 100 countries, according to the media. There was music, fireworks, laser show, and choir singing. Thousands of people gathered together to celebrate the half-century old straw mascot. Today has been a very windy and cold day, so I didn’t stay there for long. Besides, I’m not a big fan of huge crowds. I get easily stressed among many people. So just a brief sight of the Great Straw Goat was enough for me to satisfy my curiosity. Long Live the Yule Goat of Gävle! Or at least long enough to last until the New Year. ;)
