Talk:Nisse (folklore)
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Why did someone edit the tomte picture into a "nisse" picture? The illustration of a nisse is just... Some strange "art". My tomte picture is a real illustration of what the people actually believed in.—Precedingunsigned comment added byHom san (talk •contribs)18:07, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
1st) The books of Astrid Lindgren, a Swedish author, have been translated into English. The word used is "Tomten", never "Tomte" or "Nisse". I believe that most English speakers who know this concept will have come across it through these books.
2nd) I sometimes receive a catalog which sells "Tomten" dolls and such, again the terms Tomte and Nisse are not used.
3rd) Google gives more results for Tomten (about 18 million) than Tomte (about 7 million) and Nisse (about 8 million) combined.
4th, and perhaps most important) The word "Tomte" does not look like an English word and does not have an obvious pronunciation. Thus the word really can't catch on with the general public. Written as "Tomten" it has a single obvious pronunciation. This probably explains why the word is translated as "Tomten".
I do not want to go to all of the effort to change the name of this page, but as an English speaker I am sure that Tomten is the correct name for this article.— Precedingunsigned comment added by2602:306:3135:4190:851C:9F54:C2:1D7 (talk)01:19, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are some Wikipedia articles which refer to "Tomten" and some "Tomte". Is this a problem? -dcljr 19:49, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
In wikipedia in general it seems Tomte is used everywhere. I find that odd when that is only a Swedish word and Nisse is much more common (used in Norway, Denmark and parts of Sweden). Should we rename the article, or are there too many Swedish contributors who oppose a less Swedish bias?
Could someone post about how this ancient, pagan Norse figure turned into the modern day garden gnomes we have around outside of Scandinavia? -Bloodofox 9/28/05
The Jultomte and the Santa Claus are the same. The tomte that wants porridge is another creature.The difference between the Jultomte and Santa Claus is that the Jultomte comes through the door and that he comes on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. Then the Jultomte can live on the North Pole but we should know that Greenland and Lappland are north of the pole circle.
Is this a real sport? Is it notable? It looks like nonsense.惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ *08:29, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In Denmark the " julenisse" and the " julemand" are two different things. The julenisse is the creature from the Scandinavian folklore which protect the house, but the " julemand " is just the Danish word for santa claus/ father christmas.— Precedingunsigned comment added by86.52.8.238 (talk)01:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is some confusion here between nissen and Julemanden.
The Danish name for Santa is Julemanden (the Christmas Man). It is he who lives in Greenland. When nisser is said to live in Greenland, it is as Santa's little helpers. Santa has no association with elves. He is much as in the US, including the flying sled. However, since the gifts are given after dinner on Christmas Eve in these parts, he cannot sneak in during the night. If you have someone dressed up he may knock on the door, or simply appear in the living room.
If a nisse rather than Julemanden is said to bring the gifts, he does not live in Greenland. He usually lives in the attic of the house. While he may be called nissen, "the nisse", this is understood to mean "the nisse that lives in this house", not "the one and only nisse" (as opposed to Julemanden, who is a singular individual). If you have someone dress up as a nisse, he should not knock on the door, since the nisse lives in the house.
Klausok17:16, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is something I've never been able to find an answer to, and even with all the information in the Wikipedia "Santa Claus" and "Tomte" articles, it isn't there. Is it a coincidence that the word "nisse" has the same etymology as Santa Claus? "Nisse" comes from "Nils", the Scandinavian version of "Nikolas". But Nissen/Tomten is originally a completely separate tradition from St. Nikolas or Sinterclaas. They merged later, first in Denmark in the 1840s according to this article. Either the common name is completely coincidental; or the words "nisse" or "tomtenisse" for the Scandinavian creature was influenced by St. Nikolas long before nissen was connected to Christmas, which seems unlikely. Here in Norway the going explanation of the origins of Julenissen is that the word "nisse" comes from St. Nikolas. I've read this countless times, but I can't make it fit.195.159.217.98 (talk)10:25, 30 November 2007 (UTC) (Nick)[reply]
The word "nisse" comes from Denmark, where the creature could also be called "Niels", "Niels Gårdbo" or "Pug". "Nisse" was also used in Skåne (Sweden) and in Norway mostly in the East. The name is an abbrevation of Nikolaos or Nils, and came via Germany after the Reformation. The modern julenissen is rooted in the saint figure St. Nikolaos, and it was probably the similarity of the names "Nikolaos" and "nisse" which led to a mixing with julenissen in the 1800s and connected the farm nisse with Christmas.
In older times nissen was also called Gårdbo. In Sweden he was called "tomte" and in Norway "gardvord". ... "Nis" or "Nisse" is an abbrevation of the boys' name Niels. "Nisse" is also a name - not just a species! Perhaps in reality it's a noa-name, a kind of "cover name", which one could use because the real name was too secret and dangerous?
I think it is very difficult to tell since people in the Romanticism often changed the folklore according to their own agenda. It may very well be (and I'm speculating here) that the word "nisse", as referring to "tomte", started to appear in the 19:th century with the birth of Santa Claus. /Benzocaine (talk)17:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. At least in Sweden, instead of Santa Claus, there used to be a man known as "Julbocken" ("The Christmas goat") who came with the presents. I think this tradition of the goat originally came from Germany. And this was not very long time ago. I think my grandparents didn't have a Santa Claus, but a Julbock. Disney and Coca Cola have done a great job in marketing their Father Christmas... /Benzocaine (talk)17:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Tomte page is very useful and informative, but, like all pagan traditions, the Church colonised the celebration of yuletide which marks the winter solstice when candles and the yule log were lit to welcome the return of the light and renamed yuletide as Christmas (mass to celebrate the birth of jesus). In Sweden it is still called Yule (jul - yuletide just means yule-time -jultid).
Many comments on this page haven't made that distinction which muddies the issue. The saints associated with yuletide - Nicholas (Santa Claus) and also Lucia (Santa Lucia) on 13 December - are christianised additions to the far older pre-christian welcoming of the turn of the seasons with the longed-for return of the light. Sunrise in Stockholm isn't until around 9 am followed by a long dawn as the sun climbs slowly above the horizon and sunset is at 2.30 pm preceded by a long dusk. So only a short part of the day, some 3 or 4 hours is with full daylight.
My suggestion would be to make a clearer distinction between the pre-christian festival and the various Christian additions made by both Orthodox and Roman Churches. Jim Kemeny 10:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC)—Precedingunsigned comment added byJim Kemeny (talk •contribs)
What about using Leprechaun as the English/American name. The Leprechaun are in danish said to be an Irske (Irish) nisse. Or using Goblin as the English/American name as the firstHarry Potter film says. The film is translated from english to danish and in the film Goblin is translated to Nisse.—Precedingunsigned comment added by109.56.8.250 (talk)14:49, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have to specify right away that I am talking here about the nisse/julenisse in the contemporary Norwegian imagination, so some or all of this may be incorrect in a Danish or Swedish context (actually, I think the article needs to distinguish more clearly between the three, particularly when talking about the nisse/julenisse merger). In that Norwegian context, however, I think the article understates American influence on the julenisse. In Norway, the contemporary julenisse is practically indistinguishable from the American Santa Claus. He lives on the North Pole, he is overweight and jolly with a long white beard, he arrives in a sled pulled by flying reindeer. It is true that he still competes in some contexts with a more traditional Norwegian conception of the julenisse (more similar to the nisse of folklore) and most adults, at least, are aware of the more traditional julenisse, but by and large Norwegian children think of Santa Claus when the julenisse (or just nisse) is mentioned. The result is that the traditional nisse (the protector of the farm as described in the article) is generally more clearly distinguished from the julenisse than the article seems to suggest. The "farm nisse" is mostly associated with old folktales, while the Americanized julenisse is very much "alive" in the contemporary culture.Maitreya (talk)12:57, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A Danish Nisse, a type of GNOME or Elf(The small kind) associated with Christmas in Danish tradition but not to be confused with the Norse mythology. A Nisser is a human-like mythical creature of Scandinavian folklore. Nisser to have enough for Disposal with gnome and Leprechaun. In Old Danish fairies Story as a small gray man with a red hat as thanks for the help from an nissen peasant gifts the nissen a bowl of porridge but if the farmer forgot to give the Nisse porridge white Nissen gets angry and made life miserable for the porridge. Publicly nisserne can also move by WHEN Danish moving overseas, not only with the horsevogns. Jensen (1997) showed that there is nisser of the dance Western Indie Islands.Blake found and so out of it is a Scandinavian minority in the Midvest of use, elsewhere these, Nisser grew up. This is shown on this map where the colors show how many Danish and Swedish and Norwegian and Finland is each tally. In most of history can Nisser talk with animals and to animal and do great use of forest animals!so maybe Wikipedia was part of the dance Nissen and the Norwegian Nissen and two research side and give the Swedish Tomte one page.
Recently, Nisser are also associated as the helpers of Santa Claus, which may be worth mentioning in the article.194.255.151.28 (talk)12:57, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
From a Swedish perspective, this article seems to wildly alternate between describing a tomte and Jultomten which are very much two different things (albeit the difference has decreased over the years). Like the Swedish article correctly describes, a tomte is a mythical short grey and bearded creature that took care of the farm if treated nicely (or committed horrible mischief if not). The tomte had however nothing to do with handing out presents and existed long before Julbocken (the yule goat) was replaced by the modern Jultomten (basically a mix between a tomte and the American Santa Claus).Perkelton (talk)04:11, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In Norway and Denmark the tomte is called nisse. Only in parts of sweden it is called tomte. And even then it's sometimes called tomtenisse. Instead of saying "tomte, also called nisse", wouldn't it be better if it was "Nisse, also called tomte"?— Precedingunsigned comment added byKnutfAen (talk •contribs)19:06, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Why doesHaltija redirect to here?Some haltijas can also be called tonttus, but not all of them.The old haltija article was fine enough.85.29.118.124 (talk)17:06, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I feel we are confusing readers unfamiliar with the concept; heck, as a native Swede, I feel confused myself.
Let's start by listing a few facts that need better integration:
Anything else? More generally, perhaps it's time to split off the "modern tomte" into an article of its own, so it can reside betweenSanta Claus andNisse?CapnZapp (talk)10:13, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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(Re: the non-WP:RS website extant as ofthis edit)
Sorry for the unwieldy section heading, but I wasn't sure quite how to say this. My attention was drawn to the very precise claims, in the introductory section, regarding the maximum height of a nisse. Such specificity didn't sound very folkloric to me, and when I moused over the nearest superscript I saw that the source was apparently an article in a periodical called The Paranormalist. It seems to me that purported data from such studies do not belong here.Jcejhay (talk)13:05, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to be essentially the same concept as the Estonianpäkapikud. Someone should add a reference about them to the article.H2ppyme (talk)14:57, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
-Hist_septentrionalibus-p127-stable-tomte(detail_center).jpg){kind=link}
