Joulupukki

Joulupukki is a Finnish Christmas figure. The name "Joulupukki" literally means "Christmas goat" or "Yule Goat" in Finnish; the word pukki comes from the Teutonic root bock, which is a cognate of the English "buck", "Puck", and means "billy-goat". An old Scandinavian custom, the figure eventually became more or less conflated with Santa Claus.

Origins and description

The Joulupukki or "Yule Buck" is originally a pagan tradition. He is connected to Wōden of norse mythology and said to wear tight red leather pants and a tight fur trimmed red leather coat. On the Winter Solstice, going by the names of Jólnir (yule figure) and Langbarðr (long-beard), Wōden led the Wild Hunt accompanied by Thor driving his flying wagon drawn by goat bucks. The Joulupukki may also be a man turned into a goat-man on Christmas Eve, as seen in Elsa Beskow's Peter and Lotta's Christmas. There persists today in some parts of Finland the custom of persons dressing in goat costume to perform in return for leftover food after Christmas. Historically, such a person was an older man, and the tradition refers to him as a nuuttipukki.