Stekkjastaur has barely begun his Christmas visit when another milk thief follows him into town. This one leaves the sheep alone. Giljagaur, the Gully Gawk, has his eye on the cowshed.
The second of Iceland’s thirteen Yule Lads arrives during the night of December 12, ready for the morning of December 13. His name points to his hiding place: the gullies where he waits before venturing onto the farm.
Waiting in the Gully
Giljagaur keeps out of sight in the gullies, narrow channels cut into the ground. From his hiding place, he waits for a chance to slip into the cowshed.
Milk is what brings him there. Like his brother Stekkjastaur, he is drawn to the farm’s animals, but Giljagaur’s theft belongs among the cows and milking pails.
A Thief Among the Milking Pails
Once inside, Giljagaur hides among the stalls and helps himself when the people tending the cows are distracted. In Jóhannes úr Kötlum’s poem below, a conversation between the workers gives him his opportunity.
The tale turns an ordinary part of farm life into Christmas mischief: milk goes missing, and a watchful little thief has someone else to thank for it.
Giljagaur stays until December 26. Stekkjastaur leaves the day before him, and Giljagaur follows in the same order in which they arrived.
Then his visit is over for another year. Until next Christmas, the cowshed has one fewer thief to watch for.
Giljagaur in Verse
The Gully Gawk Verse
by
A Kick in the Cowshed
Gully Gawk slid silently into the cowshed,
saw the bull and didn’t want to come closer.
Looking into every corner he didn’t see a soul and
thought he might try and get some milk.
He took hold of a teat, and milk ran into his palm,
but the cow was annoyed and gave him a kick.
A Different Kind of Christmas Visitor
Giljagaur’s story keeps the Yule Lads close to the farms where their mischief belongs. His hiding place, the cowshed, and the stolen milk give him a character of his own. For children waiting by their shoes, he is also the second visitor in a procession that has only just begun.
Read about the first arrival, Stekkjastaur, then meet the next brother, Stúfur, the Pan Thief. Explore all thirteen Yule Lads or the story of their mother, Grýla.
