Scandinavian Yule Goat Key Ring

The Yule Goat is one of the oldest Scandinavian and Northern European Yule and Christmas symbols and traditions. The Yule Goat is nowadays best known as a Christmas ornament, a figure, often made out of straw or roughly-hewn wood. In older Scandinavian society a popular prank was to place the Yule Goat in a neighbour's house without them noticing; the family successfully pranked had to get rid of it in the same way. The modern version of the Yule Goat figure is a decorative goat made out of straw and bound with red ribbons, a popular Christmas ornament often found under the Yule tree or Christmas tree. Large versions of this ornament are frequently erected in towns and cities around Christmas time — these goats tend to be set on fire before Christmas. The Gävle goat was the first of these goats, and remains the most famous as well as the most burnt down.