The Legend Of The Yule Goat

Long before Santa Claus took to the skies with his team of reindeer, there was the Yule Goat, also called Julbock. To be fair, Santa's reindeer are fairly new in the scheme of things, appearing for the first time in the 1823 Clement Clarke Moore poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" — you probably know it as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" – according to The Durango Herald.

The Julbock myths mirror many of today's Christmas legends. The Yule Goat has powers similar to those of Santa's reindeer, according to CBC. The goat can fly, and it often carries Santa on his yearly journey to deliver his sack of goodies around the world. In older, more traditional legends, as Storey explains, Julbock did the deliveries all by itself, going from home to home while handing out small gifts to every family it visited. This story slowly changed over time to involve gnomes or elf-like creatures riding the Julbock's back because, apparently, goats can't be trusted with simple tasks like delivering presents worldwide. It wasn't much of a leap for this version of the Yule Goat to become synonymous with Santa's bridled reindeer.

Remnants of the Yule Goat legends have been kept alive in Scandinavia. Goat decorations, typically fashioned out of straw and red ribbons, can be found around Christmas time in countries such as Norway, Sweden, and Finland, celebrating this benevolent Christmas creature. But here's the thing: the Julbock symbolism wasn't always so lighthearted.