Christmas is a time for storytelling, for blending terrifying lore with festive spirit. One country certainly has its share of customs, traditions and mythologies: Iceland.
Icelandic lore
Some of these stories are sinister, such as that of the giant Yule Cat, or Jólakötturinn, said to scour the wintry Icelandic landscape and devour those not wearing new clothes by Christmas Eve. The legend is founded on logic: historically, Icelanders relied on wool production to survive, and hard workers were rewarded with garments made from wool. The shirkers, of course, received no new clothing. In short, the Yule Cat punishes the lazy.
Then there is the threat of the Yule Lads, or Jólasveinar, the thirteen sons of the troll Grýla. Oh, and they have a cat called … Jólakötturinn.Starting thirteen nights before Christmas, these mischievous young chaps descend one by one from the lava fields and create mayhem, from swiping sausages to peeping in windows. On each of the thirteen nights, children leave a shoe on their windowsill, along with cookies and milk. Traditionally, well-behaved children wake to find a treat in the shoe, while the naughty ones find a potato. Nowadays the practice is more benign, more akin to Santa visiting thirteen nights in a row.
But my favourite Icelandic custom is rooted not in folklore but in the country’s cultural heritage: the Christmas Eve tradition of exchanging books as gifts, which Icelanders call Jólabókaflóð, better known in English as the Christmas book flood.
The Christmas book flood
During the Second World War, paper was one of the few products not rationed in Iceland, thus making books a popular and accessible gift. In 1944, the Icelandic Publishing Association created the first ‘book bulletin’, known as Bókatíðindi, a list of books released for the Christmas season. Every household received a free copy, helping to popularise the Christmas Eve tradition of having dinner, exchanging books, and then reading the new books by candlelight, warmed by hot chocolate.
A literate land
Every October, Christmas book flood marketing begins in earnest, with social media, schools and coffee shops all contributing to the hype.
Marketers are perhaps preaching to the converted, given Iceland’s bookish provenance. Indeed, Reykavíc was named a UNESCO City of Literature in 2011. Statistics produced by the Icelandic Literature Centre highlight the national enthusiasm for reading: one in ten Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime; a third read daily; and they read, on average, 2.4 books per month. Unsurprisingly, their literacy rate is close to 100%, according to the World Atlas.
It is tempting, therefore, to use Iceland as a model for reigniting a love of reading for pleasure in the UK. The 24 December custom is, after all, a simple one that should be ‘eas[y] to replicate anywhere’.
It is true that the event itself is easy to replicate. But wider cultural replication is easier said than done, primarily because Iceland’s love of books is ingrained in the population’s collective character, thanks in part to a long history shaped by literacy.
Iceland’s cultural heritage
While wartime paper supply and the advent of the ‘book bulletin’ should not be underestimated, Iceland’s love affair with books and storytelling began much earlier.
The Icelandic sagas, written primarily in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, played a pivotal role in shaping Iceland’s love of books and high literacy rates. These prose narratives, recounting the feuds and adventures of early Icelandic settlers, transitioned oral stoytelling into written form.
Such a shift was made possible by the introduction of the Latin alphabet. When Iceland adopted Christianity in 1000 AD, missionaries taught Icelanders the Latin alphabet so that religious texts could be shared; the first book in the Icelandic language was a 1540 translation of the New Testament.
The sagas created a rich literary heritage that the nation’s readers have cherished ever since. The stories inspired pride in Icelandic identity and language, especially during periods of foreign rule, as when under Norwegian and Danish supremacy.
This pride sustained a tradition of copying, reading and discussing the sagas. During long winter evenings, families would engage in evening wakes, known as kvöldvaka, where sagas would be read aloud alongside handiwork. Because the sagas’ content was entertaining and culturally resonant, this motivated reading and contributed to a near-universal literacy by the eighteenth century, much earlier than in many other European countries.
The influence of sagas persists. They remain popular, inspire contemporary literature, and underpin traditions such as Jólabókafóð. In essence, the sagas have preserved Iceland’s history while igniting a passion for literature that has made Iceland one of the world’s most book-loving countries, with the highest per capita publication of books.
A British book flood?
The concept of the Icelandic Christmas Eve custom is not unknown in the UK. In 2015, Christopher Norris, pioneer of World Book Day, encountered Jólabókafóð while researching a commissioned blog. The entrepreneur seized the opportunity to promote a love of reading at home and beyond, and used a series of articles and blogs to encourage people to buy and read books over the festive period.
His first crowdfunding project, The Icelanders Cometh, followed in 2016, raising funds for libraries to buy in books translated from Icelandic into English. The project was so successful it exceeded its target figure by 3 per cent. And so Jolabokaflod CIC was born, continuing to promote reading for pleasure.
Nordic noir
Norris’s interest in Icelandic reading customs coincided with the popularity of Nordic noir in the 2010s. Icelandic writers like Ragnar Jónasson have seen their translated books find a ready readership in the UK. Indeed, I am currently working my way through Jónasson’s Dark Iceland series (in which the author makes occasional reference to Iceland’s reading traditions) and have recently watched Channel 4’s critically acclaimed The Darkness , starring Dougie Henshall and Lena Olin, based on one of his books.
But does our interest in Icelandic literature and reading habits translate into a passion for reading in the younger generation? Research suggest that the opposite is true, and points to the UK facing a reading crisis.
A reading crisis?
Research into young people’s reading habits by the National Literacy Trust reveals that reading for enjoyment is at its lowest level since tracking began twenty years ago. Only a third of 8–18‑year‑old’s claim to enjoy reading in their free time, while just a fifth read something daily in their free time, a 20% drop since 2005. In 2024, 9.8% of children (aged 5–18) reported they did not own a book. Research by BookTrust in 2023 found that almost a quarter of parents from low-income households do not share a book with their children before their first birthday, citing difficulty or lack of time.
As a former English teacher, I noticed a sharp decline in reading for pleasure in the early 2020s. Though saddening, the statistics cited come as no surprise. Schools across the country are working hard to address the issue, and the National Year of Reading in 2026 is designed to help tackle this worrying decline.
A Christmas miracle?
While Jólabókafóð is not a silver bullet, its association with Christmas could appeal to reluctant readers. The National Literacy Trust seems to agree, launching its own ‘book flood’ in November 2025, encouraging schools to create cosy Jólabókafóð eventsand providing resources to help them do so.
While this initiative is a short-term tactic rather than longer-term strategy, it does no harm to hope that it triggers a dicovery of the joy reading. Christmas is, after all, a time for miracles.
