Published December 22, 2017
Thrifty Reykjavíkings toting sack lunches to work this morning found themselves awkwardly confronted by an olfactorily endowed man sniffing his way down Laugavegur.
“I saw him sticking his nose in some woman’s coffee, and then bounding across the street for a long, drawn out whiff of someone’s brown-bagged pastries. I just knew he’d sniff me out next,” said Johannes, who, once targeted by Gáttaþefur, sincerely regretted grabbing a Tupperware of left-overs on house way out the door this morning. “Sure enough, he practically buried his nostrils in last night’s plokkfiskur. So I guess I’m going out for lunch today.”
The Yule Lad put his sizeable snout to hard work, hitting a bouquet bonanza outside the city’s assorted bakeries and cafés and trailing bewildered tourists laden with plastic grocery bags as they scurried back to their Airbnb.
Cartoonist and lifelong rhinophobe Halldór Baldursson watched Gáttaþefur from a safe distance and sketched the Yule Lad’s likeness. That drawing has been turned into a festive collectible figurine by the fine people at Icemart. Pick one up to instantly inject some Icelandic holiday tradition into your home.
