tanadrin:

necarion:

brawltogethernow:

Am I a Gävlebocken information resource now because I posted about it once at three a.m. I am not. I’m just going to type from the heart on my phone without fact-checking properly. Each of you as private individuals have to fact check.

Once a year in Gävle, Sweden they build a massive Yule goat out of straw. Once a year the public takes it upon themselves to try to set it on fire and destroy it. This is illegal. The people displaying the goat do not want this to happen. You’d think at this point 55 years into the thing they’d have sort of good humoredly accepted the game they are participating in, but they have not. Every time an arsonist succeeds they tighten security on the goat. Nevertheless, trying to kill this Christmas symbol is Tradition, and when the goat burns the world rejoices. More extreme goat protection measures are responded to with greater feats of human ingenuity and/or dumb luck. A team got it with flame-tipped arrows once.

The Gävle goat has been set at least somewhat on fire the majority of times it’s been erected, but stood untouched for an unprecedented four year streak from 2017 to 2020, widely regarded as a shit bundle of years. Like not to be American about a seasonal Swedish tourist attraction but that sure is every single year the Trump administration was in office. Restrictions about gatherings mean its 2020 survival was literally a symptom of COVID-19. So to our innately apophenic species the decoration being reduced to ash and structural skeleton yesterday feels like a good omen, a necessary sacrifice even. Hats off to the brave vandal that got it this time. I am unclear if there’s a way to internationally crowdfund his likely fines.

There is a chart describing the yearly fates of the goat and its smaller sister goat on Wikipedia and it is hilarious.

Spokeswoman Rebecca Steiner said she was devastated by the attack on the seasonal institution.

“It’s just a week before Christmas and I cannot understand how a person can carry out this kind of attack to a Christmas symbol known all over the world,” she told the BBC.

the annual Yule offering must be made to propitiate the dark winter gods of chaos, lest they reign unchecked over the ensuing year