Yule, Chapter Three: December 13

Gunnar Gunnarsson stared blankly. It was as if she had told him that she were the daughter of Odin himself. His was a fretful stare, and she worried that the next words out of his mouth would be: “You’re crazy.”

“You’re crazy,” said Gunnar. Hanna exhaled with a whimper.

“I’m not,” she said.

“You must be.”

She gave him a defiant look. “Why’s that?”

Gunnar thought for a moment. “Well, either you’re crazy or lying or there’s such a thing as the Yule Lads.”

“I’m certainly not lying,” she replied. “I’d rather be crazy than a liar.” She suddenly wondered if not telling her father about Snorri’s brief residence would be considered a lie. She definitely meant to tell him, at least, and that was enough to convince her that it was, in fact, not.

“Then that means — ”

“I saw a Yule Lad,” Hanna repeated. “I’ve been hearing about them since I was born, and believe me, I would know one if I saw one. My pabbi is practically an expert. It was Sheep-cote Clod, I know it..”

“You were half-asleep. You said so yourself.”

“He had two peg legs, and he was after Snorri in our old pen. Isn’t that right, Snorri?” She turned to the sheep for confirmation, but she received none. Instead, Snorri opted for chewing Gunnar’s fresh batch of hay.

The benefit of being awake all night, Hanna had learned, was that she was ready to leave the house earlier than ever. She even skipped breakfast this morning and ran out the door just as soon as her parents began to stir. She hoped that meant they wouldn’t worry about her, at least. She had managed to wrangle Snorri out of the pen and guided her back to Old Gunnar’s farm just as young Gunnar emerged from the farmhouse, stretching and yawning and not quite ready to start his chores. He had been happy to see Snorri again, until Hanna started telling her story.

“It was a dream,” he said.

“It was real,” she replied. “And I can prove it.”

“How?” Gunnar asked. His tone didn’t suggest disbelief so much as dread.

“It snowed last night,” said Hanna. “Where there’s snow, there’s tracks. We can follow them!”

Gunnar looked from the farmhouse to the breakfasting sheep, weighing his options with the same great care he used for making every decision. “Let’s be quick,” he said.

As they trekked back to Hanna’s house, she recounted the story of how she’d found Snorri the night before, pointing to the picked-over thatch, and the various spots where she had to pull, prod, and otherwise wrestle the sheep along the way. Finally, they arrived at the house, and Hanna pointed out the old shambles of the sheep pen.

“It’s a wonder Snorri didn’t get out of this one last night,” said Gunnar, examining the crumbling stone walls.

“Maybe she didn’t want to,” said Hanna. “They say animals can sense things coming, right? Maybe Snorri knew what would come looking for her in the night.”

Gunnar seemed nervous. “All right, so where are the tracks?”

Hanna studied the pen. “I was standing here.” She pointed to one corner that backed up against the house. She could still see the missing chunk of stone she had used to scare away the Lad. “And he was standing on the wall on the far side. Right over there, which would mean — ” She walked around the perimeter of the pen until she found the right spot. “Here.”

There was a bald spot on the ground where the snow had been disturbed and shuffled and flung away, revealing a half-frozen muddy patch in the ground. Leading away from the patch were small holes in the snow and shallow trenches between them, where something had scraped away the snow between steps like tracks left behind by someone wearing stilts — or peg legs.

“Hanna?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I really wanted you to be crazy.”

“It’s okay, Gunnar.” It had sounded like a sort of compliment. At least now she knew he believed her, and to Hanna that was currently the most important thing in the whole wide world. If indeed she were crazy, at least she wouldn’t be crazy alone. “Want to follow them?”

Gunnar thought for a moment. “Let’s go.”

Hanna recounted even more of her story as they followed the trail. She knew the Lad had been scared, and like anything that’s afraid, it made a safe escape. They followed the tracks to the next cottage over, where the Lad had darted around to the other side. They found a series of holes there, as if it had waited and spun in circles to peer around the side of the house back at Hanna’s old pen. From there, the tracks went to the next house over and the next, staying always to the side opposite Hanna’s cottage. The further away they led, the bolder the trail became. Instead of lingering near the houses, the Lad had passed straight through the main avenue of the village, heading west and away from everything else.

As they rounded the top of a small hill, they could see the path continuing on for a long distance and they both immediately knew where the Lad had gone next. They looked at each other with concerned faces and then stared without moving at their next destination: Old Gunnar’s Farm.

“Gunnar, your other two sheep — ”

“I saw them this morning,” he said to her great relief. “Come to think of it, they did seem a bit rattled. I had to coax them to the hay, and I never have to do that.” By the time he stopped talking, he noticed he’d practically been shouting.

Hanna had to reach up to tug on his shoulder. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s keep going.”

Descending the hill, they noticed that the tracks were spread out wider than before, as if the Lad had sped up and bounded the rest of the way. Maybe he had seen or smelled the sheep from a distance. Either way, Hanna knew that it had to be difficult to cover this much ground without proper legs. She almost felt sorry for the Lad, if he was indeed one. The holes and trenches led straight to the stone wall of Old Gunnar’s sheep pen, and from what they gathered, the Lad had stopped just short of the wall. There was a clear patch on top where he had obviously struggled to get over, but the peg legs must have given him trouble the same way they did at Hanna’s house. The Lad must have given up on clambering over the wall, since a set of tracks led away and toward the gate close to the farmhouse, which was now securely closed and latched.

“He just walked right in,” said Gunnar. “Lot of good that wall does, I suppose, if someone can just use the gate.”

“Have you milked your sheep this morning, Gunnar?” Hanna asked.

Gunnar shook his head and trod through the snow to where the sheep now lingered after having finished their breakfast. He knelt down and felt for their udders to see if they were full and ready for milking. They weren’t.

“I haven’t, but someone has,” he said. “And I don’t think anyone else on the farm would’ve done it for me.” Milking the sheep had been Gunnar’s chore for as long as he could remember, and Old Gunnar lived by a strong sense of duty. Everyone at the farm had their own responsibilities, and the wellbeing of all depended on the jobs of the individuals.

“Then it was him. It was Sheep-cote Clod.”

Gunnar wasn’t keen on the idea of agreeing, but he relented with a nod. Without another word, he spotted the tracks leading away from the sheep hutch and started following them. Hanna kept close behind. The path led out of the gate and ran beside the outer wall of the pen due south. Even though the wall soon ended, the tracks led further and further south. They could spot the small holes and shallow trenches on some of the hills in the distance, but they grew too small and distant to follow with eyes alone.

“They keep going south,” said Gunnar.

“Dimmuborgir,” said Hanna. “He went home.”

“Hanna?”

“Yes?”

“Which Lad comes tonight?” Gunnar asked. Hanna could tell that he was deep in thought, and with all of the excitement of the night before and today, she hadn’t stopped to realize that this was just one Yule Lad, and there were still twelve more to come.

“Tonight?” She thought for a moment, putting the stories in the right order from her memory. She suddenly wished she’d paid closer attention to her father’s stories, but she was able to piece things together quite easily. “Tonight is Gully Gawk. He hides in the gullies on the outskirts of town, watching the cowshed, and when the coast is clear, he sneaks in and steals all the milk.”

“And what about Sheep-cote Clod? Is he gone for the year? Or will he be back tonight?”

“I’m not sure,” said Hanna. She was stumped. She always heard about the Lads coming to town, but she was never quite sure when they were supposed to leave. Eirík had never been specific on that particular detail. “But I happen to know an expert on all things about the Yule Lads.”

***

“Pabbi!” she yelled as she ran back toward her house. She knew that at this time of day he would surely be home. She glanced at the sky, and the sun was midway up. The day wouldn’t last much longer, so she had to be quick. She could see her father working outside, breaking up logs for their fire and for some of the more disadvantaged neighbors around.

She knew that her father was an important man. He called himself a lawspeaker, which sounded like a very important title. The facts, as Hanna knew them, were that he was charged with memorizing all of the laws of Iceland, which seemed like an important job, and he spent most of every summer away from the village. Every year, he was summoned to the great Althing, the parliament that served all of Iceland, which assembled in a far valley called Thingvellir. There he would recite the laws when called upon to do so. All of this sounded very important to Hanna, but to her he was important for being her father. The memorizing sounded difficult, but she suspected that he had a natural gift for it. After all, he had memorized every single story his father had ever told him, and Hanna wondered if she would ever be responsible for memorizing the same stories for other children.

“Pabbi!” He could hear her now. She saw his long body straighten, and the axe he had been swinging over his head into the fat birch trunk that laid on the ground below him now rested on a shoulder. She stopped short of crashing into him, wary of the accidental directions the axe might take, and stooped over the log to catch her breath.

“Hello, my dearest. Why aren’t you playing?” He looked around at the sky and observed the sun clear of any clouds, still high in the sky. “You should be chasing young Gunnar Gunnarsson through Old Gunnar’s pastures about now, eh?”

She shook her head. “We did that yesterday. Besides, Gunnar should be here any moment.” She looked behind her and saw his lanky form desperate to catch up, but Hanna had been running too hard and fast. Every breath was sharp and cold, and it made her cough every few minutes. Once Gunnar finally arrived, Hanna was feeling more herself. “We have an important question for you, pabbi.”

“Yes?” Eirík stroked his beard, waiting.

“Well, you see, it’s about the Yule Lads — ” Gunnar started.

“Ah!” said Eirík. The curiosity disappeared from his face, replaced by a look of pure joy. It was as if he had been waiting for this moment for a very long time. “Go on!”

“We know when they come to town,” said Gunnar.

“But when do they leave?” Hanna finished, rather to the point.

“Leave? Hrrm,” said Eirík. While he stood and thought, the axe still dangling from one shoulder, she wondered if this was the same way he looked when working for the Althing — his hands running down his beard, his eyes locked on something far away in the sky, his mouth drawn tight and grim. He looked more serious than Hanna had ever seen him, and there was something very fair and wise about his expressions. It was as if any moment he would start spouting rules and regulations of sheep farming or reciting the strictest punishments reserved for the worst sort of men she could imagine. “They appear through Christmas Eve, but it’s only on the day after Christmas that they start disappearing.”

“So if I understand correctly,” said Hanna, “on Christmas Eve, all thirteen Yule Lads are running around?”

“Hrrm. Yes, I suppose so,” said Eirík. Then he boomed with laughter. “I hadn’t thought of it like that before. My old pabbi only told the tale of when they came to town, but we never heard much about what happened next.”

Hanna and Gunnar shared a nervous look. They knew now that they had a lot of work to do and not much time in which to accomplish it. Hanna studied her father closely as he smiled and boomed and wondered what, if anything, she should tell him. She could tell him about Snorri and the man, which probably wasn’t really a man, in the night, but she didn’t want to make him angry. He’d want to know about the Lads of course, if indeed there were Yule Lads holed up in Dimmuborgir just waiting for the sun to go down to sneak into town and cause trouble, but she wanted to be sure first. Just one more night, that’s all she needed, and she nodded in agreement with herself.

“Why the sudden interest?” her father asked. He was still beaming at having answered his daughter’s question about one of his favorite subjects.

“Gunnar was wondering,” said Hanna.

“I—I was wondering,” Gunnar agreed.

“Old Gunnar doesn’t tell the old tales the way that you do, Pabbi. I was telling Gunnar all about Sheep-cote Clod and his peg legs and—”

“His enthusiasm for chasing the sheep, sir,” Gunnar added with his simple smile. “We don’t have many left on the farm, you know, but it was fun to imagine a Lad chasing them around just the same.” That wasn’t true; actually, it quite terrified him to think of his sheep being chased by a troll.

Eirík took the heavy axe from his shoulder and buried the head into the log in front of him, startling both children. Then he leaned against it in a way that made Hanna think of her father as a strong Viking warrior. He may not have fought in any battles or raided any cities, but she knew that he was a leader of sorts and felt proud of him just the same.

“You know, young Gunnar, you’re welcome to stay with us this night. When we finish supper, we’ll gather around the fire, and I’ll tell the tale of the next Yule Lad. That old sneak Gully Gawk will be watching the cowsheds tonight, you know.”

“Thank you for the offer,” Gunnar said, “but I have chores to finish tonight.”

“Duty! I respect that in a man,” boomed Eirík. “Another night, then.”

“We have to go, Pabbi. I’ll see you at sundown!” Hanna tugged on Gunnar’s sleeve and ran through the snow-covered village, leaving him to chase after her. Her father watched them go, laughing, and then heaved the axe back onto his shoulder, where it sat for a brief second as Eirík lined up his next swing and exploded a large chunk of wood off the side of the trunk.

She ran and ran until she was out of the village. She could hear Gunnar closing in behind her. He breathed loudly when he ran, and he gasped and wheezed as he caught up to her. They stopped midway between the village and Old Gunnar’s farm, and the walls of the pen looked like thick, dark lines drawn in the snow.

“Here’s the plan,” said Hanna. Inspiration had struck her while on the way to Old Gunnar’s farm, and she knew what they had to do. “We need to find a way to protect the sheep tonight.”

“What about Gully Gawk?” asked Gunnar.

“Well, we know what to expect from Sheep-cote Clod, so we can prepare for him. I think—” she began, and she already knew that she was going too far. This wasn’t going to work, and it was going to get them both in a terrible amount of trouble. She said it anyway. “I think we need to sneak out tonight and go looking for Gully Gawk. It’s the only way we’ll know he’s out there, and we can find out what he’s up to.”

“I don’t know, Hanna.”

“We’ll be fine,” she said while forcing herself to smile.

“How will we know where to look?”

“That’s the easy part. We already know where he’ll be, the story says so.”

Gunnar wasn’t sure he completely understood, but Hanna seemed fairly confident. He took that as a good sign, but he really probably should have known better.

“Fair enough,” he said. “What about the sheep?”

“That should be easy enough,” said Hanna. “We know Sheep-cote Clod can’t make it over the walls. He could barely get into the pen at my house, and the walls here are so much taller and thicker. You saw the tracks yourself, and you know there’s no way he could get in to Old Gunnar’s pen that way. All we need to do is make sure that he can’t get in through the gate.”

“We do have a lock, I suppose.”

“You have a lock?” Hanna asked. She didn’t imagine it would be this easy.

Gunnar nodded.

“Why don’t you keep the pen locked up in the first place?”

“Who would want to steal our sheep out here?” Gunnar asked, throwing his hands toward the small village. “We’ve never had a Yule Lad after them before.”

“I guess that does make a difference.” Hanna crossed her arms, disappointed that she couldn’t make a more convincing point. She studied the sky, hoping to change the conversation. “It looks like it might stay clear tonight. I don’t see any clouds on the horizon, so we’ll have the moonlight on the snow to light the way.”

She dug her foot into the snow, hunting for something. When she obviously couldn’t find what she was looking for, she expanded her search to a wider area, leaving a clear spot on the ground. Finally, she came across a long stick—a small birch limb that had been stripped with the knots whittled away. It was a marker she had planted months back, before the biting cold and the snow settled in, that had since been uprooted by the wind and rain. In the summer months, when the sun lasted far into the night, they had planted it to mark the exact halfway point between the village and the farm. She still remembered the stiff paces she took to measure the distance. Now she grabbed it up, held over her head with a solid grip, and heaved it downward into the ground. It stood, once again, on its own accord.

“We’ll meet here tonight,” she said. “Wait four hours after dark, and watch for the light of my candle coming from the village.”

Gunnar nodded. “Then we fight trolls.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Hanna. “If last night was any indication, they’re more scared of us than we are of them. We’re the children of Vikings!”

“Actually, my father was a farmer. I thought you knew that.”

“Oh, you know what I mean. It’s going to take more than a couple of hungry trolls to keep us down.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Hanna hoped she was right.

***

They had another pot of lamb stew for supper that night, and once again, her mother recruited Hanna to help with the peeling and chopping. She was getting rather good at it, knowing exactly how to peel a potato (carving the skin down and away in a spiral pattern until there was only one long strip of peel) and the best way to chop a Swedish turnip (lopping off the end with the greens so she could lay one side flat against the table and then dividing it into quarters for an easier approach). She was becoming something of an expert in the kitchen, and that idea frightened her as much as it thrilled her. Hanna loved her mother dearly, but a part of her—a small, dark secret part that whispered things she didn’t want to hear—was afraid that she might be turning into her mother. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, she told herself, but the call of adventure and exploration was too great to ignore. She wanted so much more out of life than to run a home.

“Are you feeling well, Hanna?” her mother asked. Hanna found herself hovering over her bowl of stew, spoon in hand, as if she didn’t know how she had gotten there. A hundred different things were running through her mind, and she realized that she hadn’t actually started eating yet. “You’re usually done by now.”

“I’m just thinking,” said Hanna.

“About Christmas?” her father asked.

“In a way,” she replied, unsure of how much she should give away. “I’m thinking about the Yule Lads, pabbi.”

“Oh? Now, that’s what I like to hear,” Eirík boomed.

“You’re taking after your father,” said Freyja, shaking her head.

“Maybe soon it’ll be her instead of me telling these stories after supper.”

“She can tell whatever stories she wants. Now eat up, Hanna.”

Hanna dove into her stew, and soon her spoon was darting from her bowl to her mouth in a manner her parents could recognize. She was hungrier than she thought she was, and she sopped the bottom of the bowl with a hunk of crusty bread. In a matter of minutes, she was completely done.

“I have another question, Pabbi,” she said after sucking the last drops of broth from her fingers. “It’s about the Lads again.”

His eyes lit up.

“Have you ever seen one?” It was a simple question—innocent enough and full of a meaning that she wasn’t quite ready to disclose. She braced herself, waiting for his loud, deep laugh to toll through the house.

But Eirík did not laugh. He looked at her with soft eyes and a softer smile. “Oh, my Jóhanna. I know that I can be—what’s the word?”

“Enthusiastic?” Freyja offered.

“Yes, I can be enthusiastic about my stories, but stories are all that they are. Don’t be afraid of them.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Hanna. She crossed her arms defiantly.

“Of course not.” He reassured her with a gentle hand on her her shoulder. “To answer your question, no, I haven’t ever seen a Yule Lad.”

There was a sparkle in his eyes, and Hanna could sense that he was watching her closely, as if all of her secrets were plainly written on her face. His look had an intensity that made her realize how her father had gotten such an important job in the first place. Eirík wasn’t just good at memorizing things, she discovered; he was also good at reading people.

“Why do you ask?” He leaned closer. “Tell me, Hanna, have you ever seen a Yule Lad?”

“No!” She realized her reply might seem too sudden and desperate and tried to temper her mood. “No, of course not, pabbi. I was just curious. That’s all. The way you talk about them—the way you tell their stories—it’s makes you sound like you’ve seen them yourself. I knew it was a stupid question, but I had to ask.”

“Ha! No, no, the descriptions you own to your grandpabbi. Old Einar told the best tales this side of Thingvellir. Lucky for me that I’m simply skilled enough to remember them all.” Eirík sighed. “Speaking of which—”

Hanna quickly picked up her cue. “Tell us about Gully Gawk, pabbi. Surely it’s time for a story.” She noticed her mother’s small, pointed smile. “After I help clean the table, of course.”

“Of course,” said her mother.

The dishes were washed and stacked, and the pots were scrubbed so fiercely that Hanna had to roll up her sleeves to keep them from getting soaked. This was a simple enough chore, she knew, having heard all sorts of stories about the various jobs Gunnar Gunnarsson has around his family’s farmhouse. She spared a moment to think about Gunnar, imagining him nervously locking the sheep pen gate and waiting by his window for the night to come. But Hanna gathered with her family around the fire. Eirík threw on a fresh log, and the flames reached up, crackling, to receive it.

“Tonight is the second night of the Yule Lads,” he recited. Hanna thought of him again as the lawspeaker of the Althing, and she saw him in a new, perhaps more respectable, light. He was in his element now. “Last night, we heard the story of Sheep-cote Clod limping to town on his peg legs, chasing any sheep he could find until either he or the sheep could not continue. Where he succeeded, he drank sheep’s milk straight from the udders. Tonight, though, we hear of another Lad. This one craves milk as well, but only the milk of a cow will satisfy Gully Gawk.

“He creeps out of the shadows of the Black Gates, and in the dark of the night, he comes to town. The hair on his head and his beard are both gray as ash, like storm clouds in the winter, and he sneaks along the village edge, spying on folk from ditches and gullies and ravines. He is a master of hiding, this Lad, and patient, as well. He watches the cowsheds, where farmers keep their stores of milk nice and cold, and he waits. The herders rest their eyes, the milk maids retire to bed, and eventually, there’s no one to watch the shed. Then, and only then, does he strike. He’s not the fastest of the Lads, doesn’t strike like lightning in the night, but there’s no one better at creeping and crawling than old Gully Gawk. Chances are, if you found yourself in a field with him at night, you wouldn’t even see him at first. You may see something on the ground—some low, rough shape like brush or a pile of rocks, but if you were to look close enough, you may find a bushy, gray beard on those rocks. That would be Gully Gawk, the skulker and master of hiding.

“Once in the cowshed, he sets to work. It isn’t just the milk he’s after; in fact, he’s inclined to leave the skim behind. No, the Lad wants the cream—the thick froth that rests atop the milk. He’ll drink every drop until he’s full, and this Lad—much like the others—is very rarely full. With no cream, you may know, we have no butter, and oh, the butter! It wouldn’t be Christmas without butter, I say. Butter is the foundation of all that is good and delicious in this world, and let no one tell you differently. So for the second of the Lads, lock your sheds tight, and keep a close eye under hills and holes, for Gully Gawk comes to town tonight.”

Hanna was deep in thought and sighed. What did she know about cowsheds? Her parents certainly didn’t have one of their own, though they kept a good bottle or two of milk around the house at all times, and most of that was sheep’s milk bought from Old Gunnar’s farm. Occasionally, they had the odd bit of pure cream, but it usually became butter through some mysterious and likely magical process that Hanna never completely understood. She did know there were cows somewhere on the edge of the village and hoped that Gunnar knew more than she. He was a farmer of sorts, after all; he’d have to know.

“Great story tonight, pabbi,” she offered with a genuine smile. She wondered if she could get any further information from her father. “Are there any cowsheds nearby?”

“Only on the outskirts of town, my dear. Perhaps I can show them to you tomorrow.” Eirík looked from his daughter to his wife, who gave a slight nod with the smallest of grins planted on her face.

“And perhaps afterwards I could show you how to make butter,” added Freyja.

It was as if someone had offered to expose the secrets of the universe, and Hanna was at first inclined to say no. There would be too much to do tomorrow—too much scrambling and planning for the next Yule Lad and all the ones still to come. But these were her parents, and they were looking at her now, waiting, hopeful for a positive reply.

“That sounds wonderful!” she mustered. It wouldn’t be so bad, she decided, to find out more about butter and cows. It might even be useful, and there was something exciting about the opportunity. But for now, she faked a yawn. “I can’t wait,” she said in the middle of it, “but I think I’m ready for bed.”

“As you wish. Sleep well,” they said, and they tended to the fire as Hanna retired to her small, corner room, where the covers of her bed would provide a fantastic distraction while she waited to sneak out into the moonlit night to meet Gunnar.

The hours that followed were relatively quiet. The only exceptions were the soft voices of her parents that eventually died away and the constant crackle of the fire against a fresh pile of wood, one that would take the entire night to winnow away to embers. She peered out the window into the dark, wondering what weird things were skulking about her small village at this time of night. It was still early, though, and if this had been summer, the sun would still be blazing high in the sky. Oh, how she loved and hated thinking about summer. She loved it the same way she loved thinking about Christmas when it was still months away; it was something to look forward to and something to spend nights dreaming of. She hated it because it reminded her that right now there was no warmth in her world, except for that of fire and family, and that sometimes everything you know is cold and desolate and hollow.

Finally, the time had come, and she quietly snuck out of bed and changed into her thick winter clothes. She took the candle from her window—a long, yellowed thing made of tallow that was firmly melted into the socket of the brass candle holder, and slipped her finger securely through the loop. She dipped the wick into the fire until the flame caught, and she was ready to face the night.

Outside, it was clear and still. Nothing moved, not even the wind, and the moonlight hit the still-snowy ground, giving her a pale blue world to explore. She passed the old sheep pen by her cottage, sparing a single glance to make sure that Sheep-cote Clod hadn’t come back thinking Snorri was still there, but there was nothing. She hurried along, down the avenues of Reykjahlíð, focused completely on reaching the marker. But there were many shadows along the way, and she wondered if any Yule Lads were watching her there. Once she found Gunnar she’d feel better, she knew—safer and more secure. It’s always nice to be surrounded by people just as terrified as you.

She soon saw the marker, still posted where she had left it, and crested the slight hill that served as the halfway point between the village and the farm. A ways ahead, just a few minutes out, she saw a dark figure trudging through the snow.

“Please be Gunnar, please be Gunnar,” she whispered to herself, and she felt relieved when he was finally close enough to recognize.

“I’m not sure about this, Hanna,” he said, confirming any doubts that this was indeed Gunnar Gunnarsson from Old Gunnar’s farm.

“Did you check the gate on your way out?” Hanna asked, ignoring his concern.

“Safe and secure,” he said. “No Lad is getting in there tonight.”

She peered over his shoulder anyway, as if she could watch the gate from so far away. She trusted Gunnar, especially when it came to farm things, and that reminded her about the mission at hand.

“We need to find cowsheds,” she said. “I know there are some around here somewhere, but you probably know better than I do.”

Gunnar nodded. “There are two farms to the east, on the other side of the village. Those are where the biggest herds are in these parts, and I know there’s a cowshed at each one.”

“Any gullies nearby them?”

Gunnar shrugged. “There are gullies everywhere.” He was right, she knew. Between natural fissures, rock outcrops, and manmade ditches dug to siphon away rainwater and provide irrigation, Gully Gawk could be hiding anywhere.

“The evening milking should about be done,” Gunnar added. “We need to get to Björn Thorsson and Thor Björnsson’s farms as quick as we can.”

Hanna paused. “Björn Thorsson and Thor Björnsson? That’s a bit confusing.”

“They’re cousins. Besides farmers aren’t exactly renowned for their creative name choices,” said the boy named Gunnar Gunnarsson. Hanna was inclined to agree.

“Let’s go.”

They raced back toward the village, and the feeling that was heavy on Hanna’s mind was no longer fear or dread or anything of that sort. No, now she was feeling the pure exhilaration. She was breaking so many rules that she didn’t dare count them, but she was running in the middle of the calm, snowy night to stop a troll from some dire act (if stealing cream could indeed be considered dire). This night was not some terror-filled cautionary tale; it was an adventure, and it was glorious.

The passed through the village, unhindered and unseen—they hoped. For once, Hanna fell back and let Gunnar take the lead. He was much more accustomed to navigating the various farms that dotted the landscape around Reykjahlíð, as he gleefully demonstrated. He led them through gates and fences and around walls and sheds and shacks and homes, and Hanna was certain that, if it were not for the tracks they left through the crisp blanket of snow on the ground, she would not be able to find her way back if left on her own. So she kept up with Gunnar at every opportunity, barely letting his feet leave the ground before her own were occupying the print he had just made. The flame of her candle shook violently as she ran, and she tried to shield it as best she could.

Finally they came to an enormous field. It was partly bordered by low stone walls, much like the ones at Old Gunnar’s farm, but there were tall wooden stakes, as well. Whoever owned this land had evidently put a lot of work into maintaining it. They followed the fence—northward, as far as Hanna could tell, since Gunnar had made such a winding path—until they noticed a stone wall that shot out and away, dividing the field into two large sections. Further out, Hanna could see two large sheds that were practically back-to-back, separated only by the wall.

“Are these them?” Hanna asked.

“Mmhmm,” Gunnar affirmed. “They built their cowsheds right beside each other. Cousins,” he said with a mystified shrug. “Climb up on my back.”

Hanna appraised the fence. It was higher than the walls. Those she could handle without any problems. After all, they were meant to keep animals in—not people out. The wooden fence was another matter entirely. Gunnar knelt down with his back to her. She climbed up and, with the extra few feet, was easily able to swing her feet over the fence and land with a crunch of snow on the other side. Gunnar scrambled over, landing less gracefully with his gawky limbs, and they followed the stone wall out toward the sheds.

They decided it would be best to split up, so that each of them could check a shed at the same time. They both felt a nervous pang about being left on their own, but neither mentioned it aloud. They approached the first shed, and Gunnar grabbed a lantern that was hung just outside. It would be dark in the sheds, and venturing in without any light would be useless. He pulled out the short, well-used candle and dipped it into the flame of Hanna’s. It took a moment to catch, but once it did, he placed it back into the lantern. The extra bit of flame lit up a much wider area now, chasing some of the shadows of the walls and shed away.

“I’ll take the other side,” said Hanna. With a nod that she hoped seemed somewhat confident, she hopped over the stone wall, and they approached both sheds at the same time. Hanna waited cautiously outside the door and listened intently. She could hear some stirring inside and wondered how much of it was caused by the cows resting for the night in their stalls. Both cowsheds were dark, so she knew that there weren’t any milk maids or herders or farmers still inside, but it wasn’t a milk maid or a herder or a farmer that she was worried about finding there.

She took a deep breath, and the door opened with a long creak. She heard another creak from the other side of the wall and knew that Gunnar had been just as cautious about entering. The light from her candle spilled into the room, and the first thing she saw was the floor of dirt and straw that stretched out the length of the building right in front of her, and lining each side was a row of wooden stalls, each occupied by a thick brown cow. They noticed her, and a few of them mooed at her, as if she were disturbing their rest.

“Hi, cows,” she said. “Don’t mind me. I’m just looking for a Yule Lad. I don’t suppose you’ve seen him? Gray beard, loves cream.”

She wasn’t surprised to not hear an answer. She felt less alone now, even if every cow in the entire shed—and it was a very big shed that looked even bigger on the inside—was staring at her with big, soft eyes. She felt the extra boost of courage she needed to move forward. Eventually, a room opened up on the far side of the shed, and a row of objects caught her attention. She swept the candle over a tidy row of tall metal milk cans, all full and waiting for the milk maids to return in the morning. Her finger plunged into the opening at the top and darted to her mouth. The cream was still there. Seeing no other hiding places, she left the way she came in, taking care to peer into each stall as she passed. The cows didn’t seem to mind too terribly.

Back outside, she closed and latched the door securely. It was firm, but there was no lock and nothing to prevent anyone else—especially a Yule Lad—from walking right in, where the cream was practically begging to be stolen. She jumped slightly when she heard a loud thump, but it was only Gunnar, closing the door to the shed he’d just checked. He shook his head.

“Nothing amiss,” he said. “The cream was still there and everything.”

“Same here,” said Hanna. She looked back to the door. “If he hasn’t come yet, then how are we supposed to stop him?”

“I thought you had a plan for that.”

“I had a plan for finding him.”

“Which we haven’t done yet,” Gunnar added. He cast a glance at the flat snowy fields around them and the short stone wall that stretched a little further east. “Maybe—now hear me out—you were wrong.” He could feel her eyes on him, but he did not dare to meet them. “Maybe you did chase someone away from Snorri last night, but maybe it was just a highwayman or a bandit far from home. Maybe it wasn’t a Yule Lad at all.”

Hanna huffed. “I know what I saw, and you’ll be sorry that you didn’t believe me. Just you wait, Gunnar Gunnarsson.” She stomped off along the stone wall. From here she could see the eastern border of the fields, where more wooden fencing sprouted, and something caught her eye. On the other side was a long outcrop of stones that seemed to follow the fence in both directions. Something about it hardly seemed natural. “Gunnar, wait, what is that? Where all the rocks are?”

“That? Oh, well, this part of the field may be in a low-lying area. I’ve seen it before, and it’s probably just a ditch to divert the water away from—” He stopped. Their eyes widened.

“So it’s a gully?”

“I think so.”

They quickly devised a plan to split up once more. They followed the fence in opposite directions, creeping low enough that neither they nor the light from their candles could be spied by anyone on the other side. A hundred paces down the line, Hanna stopped and set her candle through the fence, first scooping up enough snow to build a small cover for the light, and she climbed and threw herself over the top, landing flat on her stomach in the snow. Further down, she thought she make out the shape of Gunnar doing the same thing, though she imagined he was even less graceful about it. The gully was plainly in front of her now—about four paces wide and deep enough that anyone could crouch down inside for concealment. Behind her, the cowshed was still in sight, and she gave it one last look as she pressed her back against the fence and dashed off as fast as she could, running straight toward the gully. Near the edge, she leapt, and for a moment, she felt as if she were flying—until her body landed in the snow on the other side. She hoped that Gunnar had been able to cross without any problems of his own, but she couldn’t worry about that now. Now she headed back the same direction from which she had come, back toward where the stone wall broke away from the fence, this time following the gully. The sides of it looked quite smooth, though there were the occasional piles where rocks had washed up against each other in the flooding rain. She peered down ahead of her, as far as she could see with the spilled candlelight. Gunnar appeared, heading toward her and lighting a stretch of the gully with his own lantern light.

“Anything?” he asked in hushed tones. He held the lantern aloft over a particularly heavy pile of rocks in the gully, just large enough to cast a shadow he couldn’t quite penetrate.

Hanna shook her head. To the west, she could clearly see both cowsheds, and they both looked as dark and vacant as they had a few minutes earlier. Gunnar, however, continued to plumb the depths of the gully below them. “I don’t understand,” she said. “He’s supposed to be here.”

“Hanna,” Gunnar said to get her attention.

She looked at him, but his eyes were still focused downward.

His words came out a whisper so soft that Hanna had to step closer just to make them out. “Those rocks have a beard,” he said.

Hanna gasped and jerked her candle away to light the remaining shadows of the rock pile, but she was too excited and moved too quickly. The weight of her whole body shifted, and she lost her balance. She tried to anchor her foot down on the edge of the gully, but it was no use—she found no solid ground, just snow. Down, she fell, into the deep ditch.

It all happened quickly, so Hanna was never sure if anything that followed was done by instinct or sheer accident. She kept the candle firmly in her hands, and as she tumbled down, she saw the gray haired-head hiding behind the rocks. She saw the bearded face react and pull back, looking up at her with a look of shock.

“Uh oh,” came a deep voice as she somersaulted toward its source.

Just as she crashed into the snow below, there was a sudden spark of light, and Hanna looked up to see that her candle had caught against the gray beard that could belong to one other than Gully Gawk. He yelped as the flame singed his whiskers and looked around helplessly for a brief second before scooping up a big handful of snow and driving his chin into it. He yelled again, and this was the sound of fear if Hanna had ever heard it, and Gully Gawk scrambled up the wall past a wide-eyed Gunnar Gunnarsson and hightailed away from both children. The cowsheds were the last thing on his mind.

“Did we get him? Where’d he go?” Hanna leapt up after him, but struggled and could only pull herself up so far. It took a second before a dazed Gunnar realized she needed help. He grabbed her by the forearms and lifted her until she could plant her feet on firm ground once more.

“South,” said Gunnar. “He went south. The Black Gates are south.” He mused to himself as if Hanna hadn’t asked a question at all.

She took off in the same direction for a little way, hoping for another look, but Gully Gawk was long gone.

“Hanna,” came Gunnar’s voice. “I’m sorry if I doubted you. But now I really wish you were just crazy.”

Hanna dusted the snow from her arms and chest. “It’s okay, but it’s getting far too late. We should go. I don’t think he’ll be coming back tonight.”

“That was a Yule Lad.”

“Yep.”

“That was Gully Gawk.”

“I thought we already established that?”

“Hanna, you’re taking this way too calmly,” said Gunnar. He threw a hand to his forehead and rubbed at his temple.

“Of course I’m calm,” said Hanna. “I’m always calm when I go to war.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Did that sound convincing?”

Gunnar shrugged. “I think I’d like to go home now.”