Who is Gryla from Red One? – The Mythological Origins of this Icelandic Witch
Updated: 2 days ago
In case you’ve spent the last few weeks fast asleep under an enormous pile of half-wrapped Christmas presents, then you’ll know that Red One is a Christmas film blockbuster following the adventures of Callum Drift.
Callum – played by beefy charismatic man-mountain Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson – is an elf. No, sorry, he’s the leader of E.L.F security (stands for Enforcement Logistics and Fortification if you’re asking, and I know you’re not), task force tasked with the protection of Father Christmas. Unfortunately for our pal Cal, St. Nicholas goes and gets himself kidnapped, so it’s up to the heroic beefcake and cheeky naughty-list layabout Jack O'Malley (played by Chris Evans) to track down Santa and save the day.
To say anymore about the plot for the film would be an entire spoiler land, but it’s probably not too much of a spoiler to say that it’s an evil witch called Gryla who is the mysterious kidnapper.
Interestingly, Gryla wasn’t just invented by the writers of the screenplay, she has a long and infamous history as a mythological character from Icelandic folklore.
Gryla, or, to refer to her correctly, Grýla, was a humongous witchy giant who lives in the icy wilderness. Around the 17th century, the myth of Grýla became linked to the story of Christmas. Grýla became an anti-Santa (not the Aunty of Santa, that would lead to a very confusing family tree). Rather than gifting children with presents from her sack, she kidnapped kids and stuffed them in her sack instead. Why? Well, prepare your vomit bag (sorry, did we not mention you’d need a vomit bag for this blog? Our bad), it’s because she likes to eat them. That’s right, she gobbles up kiddy winks like an afternoon snack! Well, she makes soup out of them, so more of an appetiser before the afternoon snack, I guess.
Thing is, she only eats naughty children. Which accounts for the Red One Gryla's obsession with punishing those on the naughty list. Grýla is pretty similar to the mythological figure Krampus, who, funnily enough, turns up in Red One and you can find elsewhere on the Imagining History Blog. Grýla has thirteen sons, known as The Yule Lads, but don’t worry, they aren’t into the whole children eating diet like their mum, instead they just play pranks and nasty tricks on poor humans like you or me. Along with her sons, Grýla has a pet, the Yule Cat, and you can read more about this scary nasty giant tabby right here.
The earliest references to Grýla date all the way back to the era of the Vikings, to the Prose Edda by the Skald Snorri Sturluson. Here she’s a bog standard troll-women, so it appears that she’s been levelled up over the last few centuries to become the super-powerful sorceress that we see go toe-to-toe with The Rock in Red One.
We loved Red One! Super fun, delightfully silly, and cram-packed full of interesting spins on mythological characters; we highly recommend the film for ages 12 and up!
