The Yule Cat Who Counted

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The story

A farm family in Iceland is told that everyone who doesn't get a new garment before Christmas will be eaten by the Yule Cat. The whisperer tells how the youngest son sews himself a jumper out of his brother's old blanket and counts the cat's footsteps through the snow.

How it begins

Up in the far north of Iceland, where the farms sit alone under the mountains and the sun goes away in December and forgets the way back, there is a rule that every grown-up and every child knows by heart. Before Christmas Eve, you must have something new to wear. A new jumper. New socks. A new scarf knitted by somebody's careful hands. Because if you do not, the Yule Cat will come down from the hills, and she will eat you. Nobody has ever seen her eat anyone. But everybody has seen the cat. She is as big as a farmhouse, black as a pit, and she walks on…

The folklore behind it

• The Yule Cat