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Mara999 In reply to Zeonista [2018-01-24 18:54:01 +0000 UTC]

Pretty much, according to most existing lore. The nice ones might give the farmers a helping hand with last-minute work to survive the winter, anything from helping feed the animals to cobbling up some shoes. The traditionalists will probably just go on an inspection round and declare the farm unworthy of any future happiness, especially if the offering of Christmas porridge isn't pleasing enough.

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Zeonista In reply to Mara999 [2018-01-25 02:43:41 +0000 UTC]

Tomtes are much like the brownies, pixies and other helper fairy-folk from the British Isles. Helpful enough on their own terms anyway. I first heard about them in D'Aulaire's Trolls by the wonderful D'Aulaire couple in my childhood days. They got lumped in with dwarves and other such folk as "gnomes", which I suppose was good enough for children. The trolls in that book usually were shaggy or wild-haired with bushy beards sometimes and animal tails. Their portrayal of Norse mythology in another book has remained among my favorite images of them all my life. 

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Mara999 In reply to Zeonista [2018-01-25 12:57:44 +0000 UTC]

I have to check out that book, some time. All these creatures have ultimately very similar origins, as there has been such a long history of sharing ideas all the way between India and Ireland, so there are bound to be many recurring archetypes of entities in the folklore of different regions. I don't know how well it applies to brownies and various European house-gods, but the tomte at least is a leftover of ancestral worship that used to be practiced all over in Fennoscandia. The name shares its origin with the Scandinavian word tomt, which means estate. The idea is that the first person laying claim to a piece of land becomes bound to it, as they are the first owner and will remain the real owner regardless of who keeps living there.

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Zeonista In reply to Mara999 [2018-01-25 19:19:46 +0000 UTC]

I have a fond nostalgia for the D'Aulaires since they were popular enough to be in school and public libraries when I was young. Mr. D'Auilaire was Swiss but Mrs. D'Aulaire was Norwegian. They immigrated to the USA and went back and forth between books on American historical figures, general children's tales, and the stories of older times. (They won a few awards for children's literature, so that undoubtedly helped.) I suspect that Mrs' D'Aulaire did the writing and Mr. D'Aulaire did the illustrations which was a nice blend of modern and ancient motifs. 
www.amazon.com/DAulaires-Troll…
www.amazon.com/DAulaires-Norse…
www.amazon.com/dAulaires-Norwe…
www.amazon.com/Children-Northl…
www.amazon.com/Terrible-Troll-…
The Dwarfs from the Norse Myths were recognizable, admittedly less polished & friendly than Disney and more akin to Narnian folk. The various "gnomes" of D'Aulaire's Trolls had a wilder look, with light-reflective eyes and hair & beards not unlike a wild or half-tame animal instead of a demi-human. In their own way they were just as alien as the trolls, if less dangerous. The hulder-folk who were presented as kin to the trolls were also strange beings, with strangely alluring women who could take a young shepherd to perdition...or make him a fine wife! (The hulder-wife's children according to that book were the benefactors of their mother's faerie lore & knew how to treat the gnomes right.) 

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Mara999 In reply to Zeonista [2018-01-25 19:48:04 +0000 UTC]

I've read similar books by other authors as a child, thanks to both my parents being quite bookish and interested in history. Even my father, who has no higher education and is a throrough working-class drudger. Thanks to them I discovered a seven-part book series on folktales from all over the world, with very little skimming over of all the sex and violence in old folklore. My dad had gotten the series for free after a kindergarten had first bought the books, without realizing that folktales and fairytales tend to be quite different in content, as fairytales are usually Disney-fied versions of the stories.

Trolls are probably among the most varied foltloric creatures and have no specific set appearance, because the word means roughly "magic". That is why the word is used for so many different types of supernatural creatures, both ugly and beautiful. This comic adaptation of an old Norwegian story does a good job of showing how varied trolls can be in size and appearance:
www.girlgeniusonline.com/funex…

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Mara999 In reply to 69Rakazam98 [2017-12-06 09:54:29 +0000 UTC]

Jag ritade tillsammans med barnen just då, så kanske om de bett om en katt skulle jag ha satt med den. I nästa tomtebild kanske.

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69Rakazam98 In reply to Mara999 [2017-12-06 12:53:22 +0000 UTC]

En hustomte med en katt och ett stort fat gröt är ju ett måste för var tomte 😃

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