The Grump that Stole Yule

All the heathens down in Heathenville liked Yule a lot, but the Grump who lived just east of Heathenville did not.
The Grump hated Yule the whole yuletide season, now please don’t ask, why no one quite knows the reason.
It could be perhaps that his wingas weren’t wrapped just right, it could be perhaps that his butthole was too tight.
But I think that perhaps the most likely reason of all was that his joy was ten sizes too small.

But whatever the reason, be it his anus or his tights, he stood there on the eve of the solstice picking fights.
He’d scream and yell with all his might saying that only he of all heathens was the one who was right.
“On Eostre they hide eggs, that’s not in the Heliand!”, you see the poor Grump liked things quite bland.
The heathens of Heathenville were colorful and fun, they had holidays galore, even ones based on the sun!

But the Grump stared angrily westward at all the joviality, completely unaware he was out of touch with reality.
“You’re doing it all wrong” he’d huff and he’d puff, until at last he decided he had just had enough.
And the Grump stood there with his anus puckered tight, “I must find a way to set them all right!
Every year I stand here through the Yuletide and tell them they’re wrong, I try and I try, I’ve tried for so long.
Why for how many years have I put up with this now, I must find some way to squash their joy, but how?”

The Grump thought long and hard, then he got an idea, and awful idea, the Grump got a wonderfully awful idea.
“I know just what I’ll do”, the old Grump hissed, as he squinted his eyes and balled up his fist.
He trundled off back to his workshop to scheme, to think of a scheme that was rather quite mean.
“I’ll steal all the Yule from the solstice you see, then all the heathens will have to get Yule from me!
And I’ll make it lunar, only the moon is right after all, three moons after winter is the only right call.
None of that sun funny business,” he fumed and he plotted, “They must accept the calendar as I have allotted!”

He made a floppy gray hat and a gray cloak, so that he would look like Woden to anyone who woke.
“All I need is an eye-patch and a horse to ride,” but horses you see were loud in their stride.
“I can’t risk waking anyone, even with my disguise,” so he sat down some more his plan to revise.
“I’ve got it!” he shouted with voice rather coarse, and he made a quick eight-legged hobby horse.

Galloping off on his stick-steed towards the town, he rode all in gray with a grim resolved frown.
All their windows were dark, all their fires died down low, as he galloped up to the first house in the snow.
He slithered and slunk all around the whole village, seeking every present and decoration to pillage.
Then he galloped back eastwards home to his hovel where he would await the coming of the heathens to grovel.

“They’ll have to accept I was right of course, because Hakon the Good is the absolute best source!”
When the heathens awoke and found they’d been robbed, yet they didn’t break down in crying sobs.
Instead they were annoyed, angry even, why they knew just one man who cared so much what is was they believed in.
Not even the Christians gave them this much annoyance, they were too busy with their own Yule-inspired flamboyance.
This must be the Grump, it could be no other person! Was yelling not enough? Why did he decide to worsen?

All the heathens young and old marched themselves right out to the Grump, marched right up to on his door thump.
“So you’ve come to grovel, you know that I am right; there is no arguing with my sources they are airtight!”

But the heathens just laughed and said “You fool! Don’t you know there are other sources for Yule?
Bede for one places it on the day that the sun does cease from its lessening and changes to increase.
Which means the solstice if you don’t know; so just leave us alone you old crow!
You and those like you huff and puff every year whenever any holiday comes near!
You make things less pleasant and less fun when you cry over our holidays of the sun.
But they’re our holidays, we can celebrate them whenever and however we please, no matter how you may sputter and wheeze.”

The heathens of Heathenville roared loud at the Grump for all of the years he had been such a rude lump.
They gave him the boot and told him to pack it in, because you see he would never win.
They had too much joy in their holidays to be so easily squashed, they were not so easily brainwashed.
We can hope that next Eostre or Yule he and those like him will keep their mouths shut, before they receive a firm boot planted right on their butt.