Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: In the United States, many people celebrate the twelve Days
Speaker 1: of Christmas, or at the very least they're familiar with
Speaker 1: the holiday song that features ladies, dancing lords, a leaping drummers, drumming,
Speaker 1: and all manner of bird species. In Iceland, however, they
Speaker 1: celebrate the thirteen Days of Christmas, and rather than gifts
Speaker 1: from a true love, each day consists of a visit
Speaker 1: from one of the thirteen Yule Lads. The Yule Lads
Speaker 1: are kind of like a big group of brotherly Santa Clauses.
Speaker 1: If Saint Nick was a troll within affinity for theft
Speaker 1: and mischief. The legend goes something like this. On each
Speaker 1: of the thirteen nights leading up to Christmas, Icelandic children
Speaker 1: were told to place a single shoe on their windowsill.
Speaker 1: If they'd been good that year, they would wake up
Speaker 1: to a shoe filled with delicious candies. If not, they
Speaker 1: would find their footwear chock full of rotten potatoes. But
Speaker 1: whether you've got sweet treats or moldy vegetables, you still
Speaker 1: had to contend with each of the yule lad's unique personalities.
Speaker 1: For example, if the lad named gully Gawk visited your home,
Speaker 1: you might go out to check your cows, only to
Speaker 1: find all the foams scraped off the top of your
Speaker 1: milk buckets. If sheep coat clods stopped by, you might
Speaker 1: catch a skinny, bearded man suckling on your sheep. If
Speaker 1: Stubby broke in while you were cooking breakfast, you might
Speaker 1: find that all of the eggs had suddenly disappeared from
Speaker 1: your frying pan. And according to legend, one mule lad
Speaker 1: is known for stealing spoons and licking the leftover food
Speaker 1: off of them, and he's given the creative name of
Speaker 1: spoon liquor. Along the same lines, there's bowl liquor, potscraper,
Speaker 1: and sausage swiper. I'm sure you can guess what those
Speaker 1: guys get up to. But while most of the yule
Speaker 1: lads seem relatively benign, if a bit's annoying, a couple
Speaker 1: are downright creepy. There's one who will nab any meat
Speaker 1: that gets left around the house. He goes by the
Speaker 1: terrifying moniker of meat hook. Maybe most unsettling of all, though,
Speaker 1: is window Peeper, the guy who sneaks around outside your house,
Speaker 1: staring inside any windows you might have accidentally left open,
Speaker 1: planning how he could break in and steal your belongings.
Speaker 1: But the scariest Icelandic Christmas legend isn't any of the
Speaker 1: Yule Lads at all. It's their mother, Grilla. Grilla is
Speaker 1: perhaps the most fearsome creature in Icelandic folklore. A giant
Speaker 1: witch slash ogre, she spends the spring, summer, and fall
Speaker 1: collecting whispers. These whispers tell her which Icelandic children have
Speaker 1: behaved well and which ones haven't. During the winter month,
Speaker 1: once Gorilla ventures out from her cave to gather up
Speaker 1: all of Iceland's naughty children, she throws them in a sack,
Speaker 1: drags them back to her home, and boils them in
Speaker 1: a stew, which she eats all year long. And as
Speaker 1: if that weren't bad enough, Gorilla also has a pet,
Speaker 1: the Christmas Cat. Now, the Christmas Cat is a huge
Speaker 1: black flesh eating feline. Only it doesn't differentiate between good
Speaker 1: and bad children. It will feast happily on anyone who
Speaker 1: crosses its path. The only way to protect yourself is
Speaker 1: by wearing a brand new article of clothing. Now, just
Speaker 1: imagine yourself as a child growing up in Iceland hearing
Speaker 1: stories about Gorilla, her evil pet, and her mischievous children.
Speaker 1: You'd be pretty freaked out right. Well, apparently these legends
Speaker 1: struck such fear into the hearts of young Icelanders that
Speaker 1: in seventeen forty six, the country's parliament instituted a new law.
Speaker 1: Parents were legally banned from using the creepy creatures to
Speaker 1: scare their children. Gone were the days when a horrifying
Speaker 1: folk could convince kids to behave. And while the Yule
Speaker 1: Lads used to be presented as disfigured trolls, they now
Speaker 1: tend to look a lot like Santa Claus knockoffs, big
Speaker 1: jolly men with red cheeks wearing silly hats who come
Speaker 1: to make a bit of harmless trouble. They're more enduring
Speaker 1: than eerie. But Grilla, oh, her reputation was too far
Speaker 1: gone to be repaired even today. The winter which is feared.
Speaker 1: According to Brian Pilkington, an illustrator and folklore expert, children
Speaker 1: are truly terrified of grilla in Iceland. I visited children's
Speaker 1: play schools to demonstrate drawing skills, and if I draw gorilla,
Speaker 1: then two or three terrified children have to leave the
Speaker 1: room because it's too strong for them. This is living folklore,
Speaker 1: and honestly I get it. I don't want anything to
Speaker 1: do with gorilla either, but if I happen to cross
Speaker 1: paths with the Christmas cat, I might be tempted to
Speaker 1: give it a scratch behind the ear, provided I was
Speaker 1: wearing new clothes. Of course, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: terrible places that you could be stuck during the holidays,
Speaker 1: the airport, an awkward work party, in traffic on the interstate.
Speaker 1: But of all the awful locales, I can confidently say
Speaker 1: that one would be worse than all the rest. A
Speaker 1: German pow camp in World War Two. Just imagine there
Speaker 1: would be no eggnog or Christmas movies to speak of.
Speaker 1: I know I'm being glib here, but honestly, it wasn't
Speaker 1: funny at all. During World War II, about ninety four
Speaker 1: thousand American soldiers found themselves in German prisoners of war
Speaker 1: camps all throughout Europe. One of these was at Colditz Castle,
Speaker 1: located outside of the city of Leipzig, Germany. Colditz Castle
Speaker 1: was a huge Renaissance style estate that the Nazi Army
Speaker 1: transformed into a prison. It sat at the top of
Speaker 1: a hill four hundred miles away from the closest Allied forces.
Speaker 1: Now due to its geography and not to mention the
Speaker 1: fact that there were more guards than prisoners, Colditz had
Speaker 1: a reputation for being impossible to escape from. But the
Speaker 1: soldiers trapped inside weren't totally out of luck, especially during
Speaker 1: Christmas time is he. Based on the rules of the
Speaker 1: Geneva Conventions, organizations like the Red Cross were allowed to
Speaker 1: send supplies to those being held as prisoners of war.
Speaker 1: Care packages could contain things like clothing, food, medical supplies,
Speaker 1: and even small games. Playing cards were a common gift
Speaker 1: to send to POWs, and the US government knew this.
Speaker 1: The US playing card company, makers of the famous Bicycle
Speaker 1: branded card decks, also knew this, and they knew that
Speaker 1: together they just might be able to help American soldiers
Speaker 1: inside Colditz Castle. So let me set the scene for you.
Speaker 1: It's Christmas of nineteen forty three, American POWs clamor over
Speaker 1: the Red Cross packages they have just received. Each one
Speaker 1: contains a deck of bicycle playing cards. One astute soldier
Speaker 1: notices an incredible tiny detail. The card decks are all
Speaker 1: wrapped in cellophane. On most of the decks, the clear
Speaker 1: plastic wrapping is perfectly symmetrical, but on one the seal
Speaker 1: is crooked. The soldier takes the deck with the crooked
Speaker 1: wrapping that night in his cell, under the cover of darkness,
Speaker 1: he shuffles through the fifty two cards over and over again.
Speaker 1: He is sure the cellophane must have been a clue.
Speaker 1: There must be some kind of secret hidden inside the deck.
Speaker 1: And then he notices that the cards themselves are made
Speaker 1: out of thin layers of paper. At the corner of one,
Speaker 1: the layers are beginning to come apart. He peels the
Speaker 1: card into two separate pieces and sees something printed on
Speaker 1: the inside. The soldier's heart starts to race. He checks
Speaker 1: outside his cell to make sure no guards are around,
Speaker 1: and then he stays up all night peeling the cards
Speaker 1: apart one by one, and then he arranges them together
Speaker 1: like a puzzle, revealing a map of Germany. Not only
Speaker 1: did this map show soldiers how they could get from
Speaker 1: Coldt's Cap to their closest allies, but it also marked
Speaker 1: areas to avoid and landmarks to look out for along
Speaker 1: the way. It was an escape manual masquerading as a pastime.
Speaker 1: It was the best Christmas gift they could have possibly received.
Speaker 1: All in all, these playing card maps helped thirty two
Speaker 1: soldiers successfully escape from Coldot's Castle. Allied forces took control
Speaker 1: of the estates in April of nineteen forty five and
Speaker 1: liberated those still trapped inside. Because of the secrecy of
Speaker 1: the operation, it's unknown exactly how many escape map decks
Speaker 1: were produced. Many have likely been lost, damaged, or hidden.
Speaker 1: These days, only two known decks remain, and they're both
Speaker 1: on display at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: I know because I've seen them both myself with my
Speaker 1: own eyes. As for the US Playing Card Company, they
Speaker 1: did even more than produce secret escape maps. They also
Speaker 1: made a special card deck that contained images of military
Speaker 1: vehicles from various countries. Rather than being covertly smuggled into
Speaker 1: pow camps, these decks help civilians identify planes, tanks, and
Speaker 1: ships from other nations. Even today, the company embraces the
Speaker 1: role it played in World War Two. They released a
Speaker 1: commemorative escape map deck back in twenty thirteen, which mirrors
Speaker 1: the one the soldiers in Kolditz Castle received. Luckily, though,
Speaker 1: if you buy one, you won't have to spend hours
Speaker 1: peeling the cards apart. The map is printed on the
Speaker 1: front of each one, serving as a reminder of the
Speaker 1: creative and curious problem solving that took place all those
Speaker 1: Christmases ago. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious.