Atlas
A lava castle seemingly made to hide a troll
At Dimmuborgir, the landscape does not look like a mere lava field: rather, it resembles regal ruins, made up of black pillars, arches, caves, and passageways that the imagination readily reads as rooms and corridors. It is precisely this form, among the most recognisable in the Mývatn area, that has made the association with a hidden and threatening dwelling feel natural. The site is now a protected natural monument; its formations are the result of an ancient lava flow that emerged around 2,300 years ago, and the area has long been developed as a tourist destination as well. (ust.is)
The name itself aids the imagination: Dimmuborgir is explained as “Dark Castles” or “Dark Cities”, and among its best-known formations is Kirkjan, the “Church”, a lava cavity with an almost architectural outline. Yet the folkloric reading does not replace the geological one: lava is lava, and the story belongs to another plane of reality, born from the way human beings have inhabited and interpreted such an unusual place. (northiceland.is)
Grýla, her Yule children, and the cat that punishes those without new clothes
In the version most recognisable today, Grýla is the monstrous mother of the thirteen Jólasveinar, Iceland’s thirteen “Yule Lads”, and alongside them appears the Jólakötturinn, the Yule Cat. The modern story presents them as an unsettling, unwieldy family: Grýla is the mountain ogress, her sons arrive one by one in the days before Christmas, and the cat watches over those who have not received a new garment to wear. This is the form that the twentieth century made more settled and familiar, but it is not the tradition’s starting point. (hi.is)
The history of the Jólasveinar is even more fluid. The oldest sources do not present them as thirteen fixed and kindly characters: in folkloric texts, they are often restless and ill-mannered, feared by children, and sometimes associated with the fear of theft or winter punishment. Only later did they become more domesticated figures; the decisive turning point came with Jóhannes úr Kötlum, who in 1932 published the celebrated poems about the Jólasveinar and consolidated the thirteen names best known today, albeit with some variations from earlier tradition. (arnastofnun.is)
Where this unsettling family really comes from
Here, chronology matters more than dramatic effect. The name Grýla is attested in the medieval period in non-Christmas contexts, and in Iceland it also appears in a list of names for monstrous female creatures; her specific association with Christmas, by contrast, is much later and becomes established in sources from the late seventeenth century. The same is true of the term jólasveinn: the word appears in writing only at the end of the seventeenth century, in a Grýlukvæði attributed to Stefán Ólafsson, where the Jólasveinar are the sons of Grýla and Leppalúði. (hi.is)
Oral tradition, too, was never uniform. Some collections speak of a variable number of spirits or a less stable genealogy; other versions, especially from eastern Iceland, tell of Jólasveinar arriving from the sea in boats made of seal skins, rather than descending from the mountains. This variety does not weaken the legend: rather, it shows that Grýla’s family circulated for a long time as a set of fluid figures, adapted to different regions and contexts before being fixed in the form most widespread today. (arnastofnun.is)
Why Dimmuborgir of all places
The most important point, if Dimmuborgir is to be read without forcing the evidence, is this: its link with Grýla and the Jólasveinar is real as a contemporary cultural association, but it should not be projected backwards as though it were medieval proof. The sources that establish the history of the name Grýla and the evolution of the Jólasveinar do not place Dimmuborgir at the centre of the story; the connection with the lava field is instead reinforced by tourism, local interpretation, and seasonal promotion. A study of tourism in North Iceland explicitly observes that marketing stakeholders present the Jólasveinar as inhabitants of the protected area of Dimmuborgir. (ferdamalastofa.is)
That said, the association works because the landscape supports it. Dimmuborgir is made of structures that resemble shelters, castles, and secret entrances; such a place needs little invention to become the home of a family of trolls. The contemporary legend does not arise from nothing, but rests on a place name that already sounds like a threshold, and on a natural architecture that seems built to conceal hostile presences. (ust.is)
What can still be read in the landscape today
Another trace survives in the Mývatn landscape, subtler but older than the tourist narrative: the name Grýla appears in several Icelandic place names, and in the Mývatnssveit area there is Stóra-Grýla, a large lava rock near Geirastaðir, along with other places called Grýluklettar. A place-name study by Árnastofnun suggests that these names may have served as barnafælur, names used to keep children away from dangerous places. In this sense, Dimmuborgir is not the only site in North Iceland to have been associated with Grýla: it is, however, the one where the folkloric reading and the natural setting now coincide most powerfully. (arnastofnun.is)
Visitors to the site can still recognise this double reading: on the one hand, the natural monument, which must be respected by staying on marked paths and not damaging the formations; on the other, the cultural memory that in winter revives the names of Grýla and the Jólasveinar, turning the lava field into a narrative home. It is a rare case in which the landscape does not illustrate the myth: it hosts it, contains it, makes it plausible. (ust.is)
