Iceland's Dark Lullabies
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2017
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dreaming of a Dark Christmas, in Iceland
At the darkest time of the year in Iceland scary creatures come out to play. Storyteller Andri Snær Magnason used to be terrified by his grandmother's Christmas tales of Gryla the 900 year old child eating hag and her thirteen troll sons - the Yule Lads - who would come down from the mountains looking for naughty children in the warmth of their homes. These dark lullabies partly hark back to a pre-Christian Christmas when people worshipped the Norse gods.
As Iceland opens up to global influences after centuries of isolation Andri travels from farmstead to lava field and reflects on these traditions: whether the elves still crash your house to throw a Christmas party or the cows still talk on New Year's Eve; and what happens when you have to spend Christmas alone, locked inside Ikea?
Featuring the Graduale Nobile Choir conducted by Árni Heiðar Karlsson
Partially recorded in Binaural Stereo. Listen on headphones for the best effect.
Additional sound design by Phil Channell
Producer Neil McCarthy.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC sounds. |
| 0:34.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:37.0 | Hi, I'm Riana Dylan, and welcome to Seriously. |
| 0:47.0 | Today, we're taking you somewhere dark and full of terrors. |
| 0:57.0 | I've been dreaming of the dark Christmas. |
| 1:04.0 | In the days grew shorter, the trolls got larger. Griela came closer, and one by one, the 13 Santa clauses, |
| 1:10.0 | the pesky Ulylads came to town. |
| 1:19.2 | In this story, Andry Magnison and his producer Neil travelled to the west of Iceland at a time of year |
| 1:22.1 | where it's dark 20 hours a day. |
| 1:29.0 | The darkness invites imagination as the old folk stories merge with the new. |
| 1:35.0 | A lack of light is almost a canvas for creating your own nightmares. Immer yourself, that you can't go back in a great |
| 1:44.0 | how how |
| 1:45.0 | he's not all of |
| 1:47.0 | love |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.