Why do your people have seasons?

[lph]

Are the nisse attached to the family or the place? If the family moves, does the nisse move with them?

Oh, every house had it's own nisse. This dates from a time where every house had a barn. Or at least a woodshed, or some other kind of outhouse. Norwegians have traditionally lived on each their own farm, preferably on each their own hilltop, at best within waving distance of neighbours... I wasn't sure, but my dh is certain - the nisse was "stedfast", i.e. place-fast, i.e. attached to the place. Unrelated to the family. The guardian thing was only when he was in a good mood, he could be quite grumpy, but could be placated with small gifts.

In the 18th century many people truly believed in the nisse (no, I didn't know that, I looked it up), and that they were warding off bad luck by giving him porridge. I found a story about a servant girl who played a trick on the nisse by hiding the butter "eye", the pat of butter supposed to be on the top, at the bottom of the bowl and the porridge on top. The nisse was infuriated and struck down the farm's best milk cow. He then ate the porridge and found the butter at the bottom. He regretted what he'd done, and replaced the cow with the best milk cow from the neighbouring farm...

And there's a wellknown expression about "nissen på lasset", the "nisse in your belongings", which means not being able to escape from a vexing problem. It comes from a story about a farmer with a particularly mean nisse who tried to pack up and move from his farm, but the nisse hid in his belongings and just turned up at the next farm he moved to.

Actually I've used that when I'm having trouble with my bike and just can't figure out what it is. I have a nisse in my wheel...

btw: I'm blended too. To me it just means I have more "people" to choose from