 Tomten love to take care of animals. You’ve all seen those Christmas gnomes. You know, the cute ones with chubby bodies, stubby little feet, long gray beards, and tall, festive wooly hats that stand straight up (i.e., as if Santa’s cap took Cialis). They’ve likely been on the shelves of your local department store since the very second that Halloween officially ended. You may have already purchased a few of them. They may be decorating your Christmas tree or children’s bedroom right now. Well, dear reader, we have some important information to impart... information that might save you and your pets' lives. There are a few things you need to know about these guys. What are they? First off, they're not technically gnomes. They sure do look like them at first glance, but as any nerd who misspent large portions of their youth reading fantasy novels or the works of the Swiss physician Paracelsus knows, gnomes typically live underground and guard treasure. Gnomes, these are not. These little bundles of Christmas cheer are actually called Tomten (singular = tomte). They are nisse in Danish and tonttu in Finnish. At one point in time, so the story goes, they were normal-sized humans just like us. Farming was their gig. Many stories tell of their being the original owner of a nice homestead, caring for their land until death.  1900 Christmas card by Jenny Nyström. Nyström is considered the creator of the modern Swedish Santa Claus (jultomten), a small man with a long white beard and a red top hat. Creative Commons License (https://snl.no/Jenny_Nystr%C3%B6m) After they shuffled off their mortal coil, they somehow gained immortality, shrank a bit, and decided to stick around the farm. They’re kind of like miniature household deities. However, it would appear that one downside of a tomten’s eternal life is that they are forced to buy their hats exclusively from one very deranged haberdashery. There’s always a catch to immortality… What do they do? Tomten can be very helpful. Stories abound of them doing chores for the new owners and taking good care of animals. They legitimately care about their farm and want to help keep it running smoothly regardless of who owns it. Thus, they don’t behave much differently from any other good Swedish farmer. As you all know, Swedes are a diligent bunch, so these immortal ones are handy to have around.  This is a classic tomten tale with very good and traditional illustrations What do they like? Tomten generally like to work hard, be left alone, and be shown respect. Thus, if you accidentally spill a drink on the floor, you should apologize to any tomten who might be working below you. Apart from respect, tomten don’t need much in compensation for all their hard work. Unlike gnomes, they’re fairly uninterested in money or other fancy things. But, again, everything comes with a cost. So, if you want to truly keep your tomte happy, you can’t forget one important rule: make sure to give them porridge on Christmas eve with a pat of butter on top. Tomten are greedy for butter. They love the stuff as much as Golem loves The Precious. However, they apparently only need their #1 vice one day out of the entire year (don’t ask us why – we didn’t come up with this shit). Therefore, you would be wise to comply with this humble request, making sure to have a single bowl of porridge laid out for your squat friend every Christmas eve. Also, keep in mind that tomten are a bit like Mogwai from Gremlins movies: bad things can happen if you don’t follow instructions. We will type this again in bold: bad things can happen if you don’t follow instructions. Always please put the pat of butter ON TOP of the porridge. If you don't, you could make them angry.  Please don't forget the butter. What happens when they get angry? One story tells of a work-weary tomten who stopped by the house after everyone went to bed to enjoy his Christmas Eve repast. Looking down at the bowl of porridge, there was no butter. The audacity! The insult! A year’s worth of hard work and the stingy farmer can’t even spare one little dab of creamy goodness?!?! The tomten understandably flew off the handle. Red with anger, he ran out of the kitchen as fast as his stubby legs could carry him – his long beard blowing in the wind like he was in a diminutive Victoria’s Secret photo shoot. He threw open the barn door and entered. He stood at the door a moment in silence, his moonlit shadow much larger than his childlike frame would imply. Tension hung thickly in the air, and every single animal in the barn held its breath. Then, in a fit of blind, butter-induced rage, he killed the first cow he saw, blood spurting onto his red felt cap and bits of gore lodging into his long gray beard. When it was over, the tomte noticed rivulets of crimson melting the snow outside the barn. Righteous vengeance was his. Boathrocide isn’t easy work, though, so after he calmed down, he realized that he was still a hungry little tomte. He then walked back to the kitchen, leaving a trail of bloody little footprints in the snow, and tucked into his seemingly bland porridge. Then, he made a startling discovery… there WAS butter, but it was at the bottom of the bowl! Oceans of dairy-induced remorse overtook the tomten, and he bolted out the house again. The penitent little livestock slayer ran to the neighbor’s barn this time, quickly stealing a of cow to replace the murdered one. This tale doesn’t reveal whether or not the farmer noticed that he had a purloined heiffer in his barn, but who cares? The scales of tomten justice were righted nonetheless (except for the neighbor – tomten morality can be a bit fuzzy sometimes). Conclusions
Before deciding if tomten are right for you, consider the details we mentioned above. Though they are cute, remember that they are not ornaments. They can be helpful additions to any family, but they must be paid the buttery respect they deserve. And, before you ask, margarine is not an acceptable substitute. Don’t even try to give them any of that boujee whipped stuff either. Do you want your pets to die?!?! Disrespect can have consequences. Caveat Emptor, indeed… Happy (and safe) holidays from the PD team! Travel Notes: Tomten don’t seem to be associated with any particular part of Sweden. They instead seem to be generally Scandinavian. You can find authentic Swedish tomten at various stores. We purchased our very first tomte (named Ost) at a Maxi ICA Stormarknad (i.e., supermarket) outside of Uppsala, Sweden. We should also say that Ost was not very amenable to being on a plane, so we thank the old gods that we remembered to bring extra pats of butter in our carryon luggage. Even Samuel L. Jackson couldn’t have saved us from Tomten on a Plane.
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You’re driving along a winding mountain road late at night. The radio is once again playing that song from The Breakfast Club that you’d sooner forget and you’re becoming sleepy. You change the station in the hopes of hearing some invigorating Pantera, but you are instead treated to that terrible song from Katy Perry about her transforming herself into a lion or tiger or something. If you don’t get some stimulation, you could fall asleep and slip off the road into the valley below. Should this happen – and if you survive – your Geico payments are going to go through the roof. As you ponder this dilemma, you suddenly spy what looks to be a woman standing alone on the side of the road. She’s hitchhiking. Though you realize that this is fairly odd behavior in 2024, you must admit that you momentarily forgot that you were tired. Maybe chatting with a stranger you pick up on the side of the road could help pass the time until you get into town? What could go wrong?  The "Devil's Elbow" outside of Altoona, Pennsylvania. It's probably the favorite haunt of the Ghost of Wopspy and the site of many fatalities. As she falls more clearly in line with your headlights, you notice that she’s wearing a white dress, is fairly attractive, and has long black hair flowing over her shoulders. Though not exactly dressed for hiking in the mountains at night, she probably has an interesting tale to tell. On a whim, you stop the car, put on your blinkers, and invite this mysterious lady into your car. She gets in the back of the car as if you were her Uber driver. Odd. Oh well, if this helps avoid a sleep-driving incident, you can tolerate a bit of haughtiness. You then slam on the gas pedal to get the car moving before you get rear-ended by another driver. When the engine quiets down, you try to engage the lady in a bit of light conversation. No response. As you peek at her in the rearview mirror, you notice that she’s completely ignoring you. Sadly, this is starting to feel like junior high school all over again... You glance back, more closely this time, and notice that she has a disappointed, wistful, almost melancholic expression on her face as she stares out the window. You are just about to ask her if she’s OK when you notice that a big turn is coming, so you focus on the road so that bad things don’t happen. After you pass the curve, you return your attention to the dour hitchhiker and, looking back in the mirror, come to the startling realization that she’s gone(!!).  A wooded area hiding the few remains of the Wopsohonock Hotel, destroyed by fire in 1903. How can this be? Did she pass out on the floor? Could she have jumped out of a moving car without making a sound? You are deeply unsettled, so you stop at the first pullover you see and get out. You search the back seat of the car only to find that crumpled old Taco Bell bag from last week and an old box of sun-bleached Kleenex. No hitchhiker. There’s not even a single strand of her long black hair… Strange tales like these have been told about a short stretch of highway near Altoona Pennsylvania for decades. In fact, for one of us, this was the very first ghost story they ever heard. As with many ghost stories attached to a particular area, there are some variations. There are people who claimed to have seen the lady walking and there are also stories of her getting in the front seat. We’ve also heard that she screams a lot, and if you hear three screams from this ghostly lady in white, you die. Pretty dramatic stuff for a small city in Pennsylvania Even though Altoona isn’t big, it has had a pretty interesting history. It’s primarily known today for Boyer Candy Company – the makers of Mallo-cups (i.e., like Reese’s peanut butter cups but with coconut marshmallow replacing the peanut butter) and Clark Bars, which taste like peanut butter and toffee coated in chocolate. Altoona is also home to the Railroaders Memorial Museum and is the birthplace of Sheetz convenience stories. However, it’s probably most famous for the Horseshoe Curve, a massive set of three train tracks that spans two ravines and is shaped like – you guessed it – a big horseshoe. It was such a key piece of US infrastructure that Hitler sent a German U-Boat to Long Island that dropped off four Nazis with sabotage on their mind. Their dastardly plan was to destroy the curve. This secret mission even had a name: Operation Pastorius. Fortunately, the Nazis failed after the FBI caught wind of the plot.  The Wopsohonock Overlook. Among dark tourists and paranormal investigators, though, the Altoona area is far more famous for being the haunt of the “White Lady of Wopsohonock (Wopsy) Mountain” or, more simply, “The Ghost of Wopsy”. But how did she come to mess with people dumb enough to pick up hitchhiker’s while driving? Shortly after the horseshoe curve was created, a fancy hotel was built high on the beautiful Wopsohonock mountain right outside of Altoona. More like a resort, this hotel was quite posh, with 60 rooms, a bowling alley, shooting range, etc. It also had a four-story lookout tower that, on a clear day, afforded unobstructed views of several different Pennsylvania counties. However, to get to the Hotel or the lookout tower, you had to drive either a car or horse-drawn carriage up a very treacherous road. At a key point, if you deviated from the road, you would have a steep (i.e., deadly) drop down to the valley far below. This part of the road has been called “The Devil’s Elbow”. Multiple deaths resulting from vehicles careening off this road have been documented for years, and local police still struggle to deal with the aftermath of these unfortunate incidents. The dangerousness of the Devil’s Elbow remains despite the more modern metal guardrails. It should therefore surprise no one that the Ghost is associated with the Elbow.
In one of the more popular origin stories for the Ghost, a young couple in a forbidden romance (of course), decides to elope. The drive down the treacherous pass and skid their car off the devil’s elbow. Both perish from an accident, and the woman’s spirit continues to haunt that stretch of highway today, searching in vain for her lost lover.
Another story describes how, before the lady became a ghost, she was stood up on her wedding day. Wracked with grief and embarrassment, she soon died in an automobile crash and was burned to death. Beset with a post-mortem desire for vengeance, she now lurks in the area, bothering potential lovers who park at the lookout. If you hear her scream three times, you and your lover will die. So, make sure to turn up some romantic Pantera songs whenever you're necking in the Wopsohonock. However, local historians trace the original story for the “ghost” all the way back to 1926. The tale goes something like this… A man and woman were bootlegging moonshine from Cambria County into Blair County. Their car skidded off the road and fell down the embankment of the Devil’s Elbow. The woman, (we’ll call her Mrs. G to protect relatives who still live in the area) died in the hospital shortly after the crash. The man in the car (Mr. T – not the one with the mohawk) wasn't her husband, however, and some salacious rumors soon began to spread. Interestingly, the man survived and, after being cleared of manslaughter charges, later became prominent in Altoona politics (it turns out that Ted Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick scandal was not really that unique after all). According to Dr. Jared Frederick, a historian at Penn State’s Altoona campus, this tale has many features of what helps create a good ghost story. Namely, there is an abrupt death, lost love (i.e., Mrs. G had a husband and five children she would never see again), and a potential miscarriage of justice. We would also throw in the fact that a dangerously famous location and the potential for flapper-era salaciousness doesn’t hurt either. Therefore, it’s possible that the spectral hitchhiker and terminal screamer famous around this lonely stretch of Pennsylvania highway might just be the disembodied spirit of Mrs. G clad in alabaster white and meting out vengeance for that potential miscarriage of justice. We’re not quite sure what righting wrongs has to do with scaring driver’s out of their wits and killing couples who make out in parked cars, but we’re obviously not fancy paranormal investigators. We’re just a couple of dark tourists who enjoy a good ghost story every now and then. Feel free to post if you have any of your own. Directions The Wopsohonock lookout can be found on the aptly named Look Out Road in Dysart, PA 16636. Even though the four-level lookout tower burned to the ground (along with the Wopsohonock Hotel) in 1903, you can still get scenic views of the area. It is particularly nice when leaves change color in the fall. You can find the Devil’s Elbow nearby (i.e., on the way back to Altoona). If you REALLY want to find the exact location, just ask a local or do a quick online search. We would publish the coordinates, but we don’t want to encourage people to do what we did (i.e., hang out of the car taking pictures while driving) and feel responsible for any deadly aftermath that might ensue. Please don’t try this for yourselves, we’re professional degenerates. Side Trips The Horseshoe Curve is a short drive away and would be a shame to miss if you're in the area. If you fancy a drink after ghost-hunting, the Knickerbocker Tavern (3957 6th Ave, Altoona, PA 16602) has an incredible selection of bourbons and other spirits and a very nice, relaxed atmosphere. Should you have children or just want to act like one, you could visit DelGrosso’s Amusement Park and Laguna Splash Water Park in nearby Tipton, PA Kings tend to be a sensitive lot. This could be due to their royal upbringing or the inevitable mild to severe narcissism that develops along their way to being ensconced in purple velvety kinghood. It may also arise from the simple fact that just about everyone who is not a king would love to be in their position no matter the cost to the king, his kingly life, or even the lives of his entire royal family. Power can be quite a drug. The hunger for power is a high risk/high reward venture, though, and can have consequences. As the wise Omar said in that hit 2000's show The Wire, “You come at the king, you best not miss.” Two Swedes learned this lesson the hard way on December 11th, 1317.  The beautiful Nyköping castle. Well worth a visit even if you’re not a student of history. Our macabre tale begins when a man with the very regal name of Birger Magnusson became King of Sweden in 1290. Only 10 years old at the time, his reign lasted until 1318. He had two similarly royal brothers: Eric Magnusson, the Duke of Södermanland and Valdemar Magnusson, the Duke of Finland. Both were covetous of their brother’s position. The three brothers’ relationship is a complex tale of politics, intrigue, and shifting alliances that could easily fill a book, not just a silly blog. Most important for our tale is that, in 1306, his two Ducal brothers staged a little coup. They captured King Birger and his wife and temporarily imprisoned both of them in the dungeons of Nyköping Castle. And you thought your siblings were horrible…  Nyköping castle grounds. Imagine what it must have looked like in the 14th century. The coup and subsequent shenanigans resulted in other royals intervening in order to quell this Swedish mischief. Namely, the Kings of both Denmark and Norway eventually settled the matter in 1310 by splitting Sweden between the three brothers. Birger remained “King”, but in name only. All was well again, or so it seemed. Seven years after the split, Birger invited both Eric and Valdemar to an early Christmas celebration with him and his wife at Nyköping Castle. This olive branch must have been unexpected, even shocking, but probably felt like a legitimate opportunity to reconcile the brothers’ long-fractured relationship. Therefore, both agreed to attend the party. If we know anything about Swedes, they can’t resist a good banquet, and are very skilled at them, especially around the holidays. We’ll do a post on Julbords (i.e., Christmas tables) at some point, but back to the tale. Nyköping Castle is not a huge place. Therefore, it probably did not seem suspicious that, when the dukes arrived at the castle, their retinues of troops were asked to lodge in the town of Nyköping and not in the castle with their Dukes. Can you see where this is going?  This is supposedly where the brothers starved to death... After the celebratory banquet, which lasted from the evening of the 10th until the early morning hours of the 11th, the two dukes were captured. King Birger had them placed in the same dungeon that formerly housed both him and his wife. Unlike his own time in the dungeon, this was never intended to be a temporary captivity. Legend has it that King Birger, in an overly dramatic yet still kingly move, threw the keys to the dungeon into the nearby Nyköping river. The king then cut off all their food, leaving his brothers to slowly starve to death over Christmas. Signed documents reveal that both of them were alive as of January 18th, so this must have been a long, torturous death for both of them. Birger’s plan didn’t lead to peace, though. He was ousted later that same year and driven into exile. He shuffled off his mortal coil quite far from Nyköping (i.e., Denmark) in 1320. One wonders if he felt any guilt – or even an occasional pang of regret – from such ill treatment of his kin. Perhaps he felt justified? We may never know. Regardless, as you’re eating your lovely Christmas dinner this year – even if it comes from a microwave – you might let your thoughts linger a moment on the memory of those two Dukes, Valdemar and Eric, whose brother allowed them to starve to death over the holidays. Your own family probably isn’t that bad, so this may make you feel at least a little thankful for what you have. Merry Christmas. Visiting As you can see, much of Nyköping castle is still standing today, and it makes for an extremely fun visit. We’ve been there twice, always in the winter, and the castle grounds are breathtakingly beautiful in snow. Only a 90-minute drive from Stockholm, it is a worthwhile day trip. You might also visit the local museum which has an excellent gift shop with reproductions of medieval glassware for sale. Save some time to wander around the town as well, especially by the river in the evening.  Isn’t Sweden lovely? We didn’t stage this shot. It’s in town just a short walk from the castle. |
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