This Town in Sweden Can't Stop Burning Goats on Christmas
/There’s just something about the Yuletide season that fills the soul with festive cheer. It’s a time of year that makes you want to curl up around the fire, tell stories, and maybe even partake in some casual arson.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Today we’re talking about Christmas Goats! Would you believe that there’s a town somewhere in Sweden where the natural response to goats is “Kill it! Kill it with fire!”?
Well, pour yourself a mug of something hot, and let’s unpack that, shall we?
Yule
Though just about everyone enjoys the holidays, it’s no secret of course that Christmas, as we know it today, takes inspiration from dozens of other cultures and holidays, snowballing into the one night a year where the idea of 24/7 surveillance and home invasions seem charming.
One holiday that Christmas borrows heavily from is Yule, a Germanic holiday celebrating the Winter Solstice,
Or as they thought of it,
“The Rebirth of the Sun,” given that (in the Northern Hemisphere), the solstice is the day where the sunlight hours start getting longer again, signaling the coming return of warmth and bountiful crops.
The Norse tradition attributed this return of the light to the rebirth of Baldur, the Norse god of light and son of Odin and Frigg, who was killed at the summer solstice by Loki tricking Baldur’s blind brother to stab him with a branch of mistletoe.
The Yule Goat
Perhaps in reference to Baldur’s brother, Thor, who rode around in a chariot pulled by goats, the Norse people started making little goats out of the last grains left from the harvest, which were said to possess magical properties.
Over the centuries, goats became a common motif in Yule and Christmas celebrations, entailing everything from groups of young men dressed as goats wandering the neighborhood singing and pulling pranks, to some areas even considering the Yule Goat itself to be the gift-giving figure, with family members dressing up as the Yule Goat for some demented “visit with Santa” for the kids. Because nothing makes for a more charming holiday tradition than forcing kids into a game of “who has to interact with the hideous mutant goat-man first”.
The Gävle Goat
Anyhoo, it’s here where we get to the real thing I wanted to talk about today: The Gävle Goat.
In 1966 in the Swedish town of Gavle, a marketing consultant named Stig Gavlen, got the wild idea to erect a humongous straw goat in the middle of the town square. He brought the idea up with the city, and uh, they liked it!
They really GOT his GOAT if you know what I’m saying.
So Stig passed the idea off to his brother Jorgen, the fire chief, who got working on the design.
Then, gloriously, on the first of December, 1966, the Gavle Fire Department unveiled a monstrous 43 foot tall, 3-ton goat in Castle Square, a bleating beacon of bright beauty.
It was decided the Gavle Goat would become a new town Christmas tradition from that year forward. The town enjoyed their new goat friend for a little less than a month before something happened that changed the course of history forever.
Some chucklehead set the goat on fire.
They found the guy responsible, and he was convicted of vandalism.
But, with that precedent set, the townspeople seemingly just accepted the forced immolation of the goat as an unofficial part of the tradition.
In the 55 years that the Gavle Goat has been a thing, it has been damaged or outride destroyed, no fewer than 37 times.
I mean if an art installation gets screwed up every once in a while, sure, that’s just the odds you deal with if you put up something in public.
The Gävle Goat has an annual death rate of 67 percent!
Keep in mind, now, the city of Gavle doesn’t condone the burning of the goat! This was never part of Stig Gavlen’s vision. It was just supposed to drum up tourism by being a nice goat that people could come see during the holidays.
But like their patron trickster god himself, the people of Gavle just sort of collectively decided that, while they don’t have any real problems with the goat, an ant doesn’t have a quarrel with a boot either.
The Many Fates of the Gävle Goat
Over the years, this tension between the town officials and the people of Gavle over exactly what the real tradition of the goat is, has led to an arms race, with the townspeople developing increasingly more inventive ways to destroy the goat, and goat security becoming increasingly tighter to match.
Without further ado, I’d like to present the complete history of the Gavle Goat and its fate each year since its inception.
1966
The inaugural goat is financed by a group called the Southern Merchants and built by the Gavle Fire Department, and then burned to the ground on New Year’s Eve.
1967
The goat survives without incident.
1968
Even though last year’s goat went off without a hitch, a fence is added to keep people out.
Or keep the goat in? I’m not sure.
Anyway, the goat survives again.
1969
A chicken-wire netting is put on the inside of the goat to give the frame more structural stability.
This goat then burned.
1970
2 drunk teenagers speed run the tradition and torch the goat after 6 hours. Since the town didn’t get much use out of the first one, some generous donations came in, and a new goat was constructed out of lake reed.
1971
At this point, the Southern Merchants got sick and tired of financing goats, just to see them die, so they took their ball — I mean, goat, and went home.
Not wanting to see the tradition die, the science club at the local High School, Vasaskolan, created their own miniature goat for the festivities. The poor little thing was smashed to pieces.
1972
This year the goat didn’t burn down, it _collapsed_ because its construction was sabotaged!
1973
The goat was somehow stolen. What the thief wanted with a large straw goat, I don’t know, and I don’t think I’ll ask.
1974
Once again, the goat succumbs to the flames.
1975
For unclear reasons, the goat collapsed again, though if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it was probably a loud noise.
1976
Some hooligans in a hotrod blasted threw the goat in a hotrod
1977
Fire yet again.
1978
The townspeople kicked the goat to pieces as it owed them money.
1979
While the goat was still being built, a preemptive strike rendered the work-in-progress a pile of ashes. The science club tried again to rebuild the goat with fireproofing, aaaand it was broken to pieces.
1980
The goat was burned on Christmas Eve
1981
The goat avoided the flames.
1982
The goat did not avoid the flames
1983
Somebody busted its kneecaps
1984
Doubleplus Burned.
1985
Some drama emerges among the factions of people who built goats in Gavle emerges. The local high school students decided to go for the Guinness World Record for the world’s tallest Yule goat. They succeeded with a goat that was a full 41 feet tall.
Creator of the original goat, Stig Gavlen, felt like the high schoolers didn’t win the record fairly because the neck was “excessively long” and that it wasn’t “as attractive” as the Southern Merchant’s goat.
I really hope that’s a translation problem.
Oh, by the way, the world-record goat burned too.
1986
Egged on by the crosstalk the year prior, the Southern Merchants came out of retirement and decided to build a goat again for the first time in 15 years because they clearly knew how to do it better and——Oh, what’s that? It got burned
From that year on, Gavle would have 2 goats, one by the Southern Merchants and one by the Natural Science Club. And they were locked in a bitter rivalry.
1987
The goat was treated with heavy amounts of fireproofing, but it still burned.
1988
English bookies noticed the somewhat random distribution of burning years and surviving years and started taking bets on the fate of the goat.
FIGURES that would be the year the goat survived, after a literal 6-year hot streak.
1989
In a particularly fire-hungry year, the goat was once again burned before it was even finished, and when another one was created, it too met an untimely smoldering end.
1990
Not taking any chances, the public assembled to protect the goat from harm. Their efforts paid off, and the goat survived.
1991
This year, a cheeky entrepreneur slapped an advertisement in front of the goat. People were annoyed, but for some reason, nobody, including the planners, realized that the ad wasn’t authorized by anyone, and so they just got away with it.
Probably as a divine rebuke from Thor himself, the goat burned.
1992
A bloodthirsty, heinous criminal struck in the dead of night and burned both the Southern Merchants’ and the Natural Science Club’s goats in one go. The Southern Merchants had the gall to rebuild their goat, and the fiend struck again!
The yuletide terrorist was convicted for all 3 attacks and sent to jail
1993
Perhaps because of the insanity the year before, the Swedish Home Guard was brought in to protect the goat. Unsurprisingly, people don’t find themselves very interested in burning goats when staring down the barrel of the Swedish military, so the goat survived.
1994
The goat survived and followed the Swedish hockey team to the Hockey World Championship in Italy.
1995
A Norwegian burned the goat down on Christmas morning
1996
Security is added in the form of webcams, monitoring the goat’s condition. This apparently worked, and the goat survived
1997
Both goats were attacked, but neither was destroyed, suffering only minor damage from fireworks.
1998
In the midst of a major blizzard, the goat mysteriously burned down.
1999
Within hours of being finished, both goats were set ablaze.
2000
Now carrying the tradition into a new millennium, the Southern Merchants’ goat was set on fire, and the Science Club’s goat was carried away and thrown into a river.
2001
Some Yank from Ohio thought the tradition sounded like fun so he traveled to Sweden and burned the goat himself. It’s unclear whether or not he was aware that the tradition was actually illegal, but nonetheless, he did it.
Dude spent 18 days in a Swedish jail and was ordered to pay 100,000 kronor in damages. The court confiscated his cigarette lighter, and in the ultimate mom-brand passive aggression, they said, “He’s clearly not able to handle it”
The American guy said in court that he was no “goat burner”, he thought he was allowed to do that.
Big surprise, the guy fled back home without paying his fine.
2002
Someone TRIED to burn the goat, but they failed, and the goat made it out alive.
2003
Burned.
2004
Burned.
2005
As if to underline the cartoonish insanity of the tradition, this year’s goat was taken out by a pair of masked vigilantes, dressed like Santa and the gingerbread man. The duo shot a flaming arrow at the goat and fled the scene. They were featured in that week’s episode of Sweden’s “Most Wanted”.
2006
Who wants to follow that act? That’s right, nobody, so the goat survived and was literally stored in a secret location, like some sort of relic.
2007
The main Southern Merchants goat survived, but the Natural Science Club’s goat was pushed down on the 13th, and then as it lay dying, it was burnt on Christmas Eve.
It was put out of its misery, a Christmas miracle….
2008
Apparently, word got out about this awesome tradition, and 10,000 people showed up for the inauguration of this goat.
On Boxing Day someone tried to light it on fire, but some good samaritans decided to ruin their fun and put it out.
The next day it burned down anyway because someone lit it on fire in the middle of the night.
2009
The entire town of Gavle lost their flipping minds.
Starting on December 7 there was an attempt on the Southern Merchants’ goat’s life, which was unsuccessful.
A few days later on December 11th a particularly inept attacker made an attempt to throw the Science Club’s goat in the river, but couldn’t do it, then tried to light it up to similarly pathetic results.
On the 23rd, the Southern Merchant’s goat was targeted by cyber-terrorism!
Two online webcams were pointed at the goat, and hackers subjected them to a DDoS attack, essentially making them unavailable, and with the cameras offline they swarmed and torched the goat.
2010
One of the guards standing watch over the goat reported that they were offered a bribe to look the other way so the goat could be stolen via helicopter.
Unfortunately, the bribe was not accepted, so the heist was not carried out.
2011
Early on, the Southern Merchants decided to hose down the goat, hoping to create a protective layer of ice on the goat. The weather had other plans, though, and the ice melted, and oh they’re already burning it.
2012
Burned
2013
Burned. Even though it was soaked in flame-retardant.
2014
Three separate attempts were made, but the main goat survived.
2015
With singed facial hair, a lighter, and wreaking of gasoline, a 26-year-old was picked up fleeing the burning goat. He was arrested.
2016
The goat was burned the day it went up on its 50th birthday. Police actually connected the arsonist to the crime through DNA forensics, using a hat that was dropped at the scene. The goat was replaced by the high school’s goat, which was then hit by a car.
2017
Security really stepped up. A double fence was erected, along with cameras and guards. Nobody dared.
2018
Security ratcheted up with continued fences, cameras, and guards, but this time town moved a taxi stand closer to the square to greatly increase the foot traffic.
It worked again.
2019
Double fence, 24-hour CCTV cameras, 2 guards patrolling 24/7, and K9 unit to top it off. This didn’t stop people’s love of mischief though. Someone called in to say “oh no, the little goat is burning!” Only for people to get there and find that someone just lit up a mini goat they had brought with them.
2020
Last year there were ahem things happening in the world?
So people didn’t really gather for the goat’s inauguration, which was broadcast online. It was the fourth year in a row that the goat has survived, it’s the longest living streak yet!
2021
Now, I’m not suggesting that anyone do anything illegal. My legal team has instructed me to inform you that, by no means should you, the people of Gavle, do anything to this poor, innocent giant goat. Think of the kids.
But, if you couldn’t tell, I kind of dig this tradition. Again, not encouraging any foul play.
All I’m saying is that, if the people of Gavle were to somehow deploy some kind of cloak and dagger operation, with spies installed within the ranks of the goat guards, instigating some kind of Rogue One-esque back door in security that allowed for kind of remote destruction of the goat…
It wouldn’t not warm my soul.