Episode 171 – Frosty the Snowman – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 171 Show Notes

Source: DanishFolklore

This week on MYTH, it’s once again time for the annual holiday special! You’ll learn that being a magical snowman isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, that stoves are very sexy, and that you shouldn’t steal a dog’s bone (especially while it’s still chewing on it). Then, in Gods and Monsters, a jolly Christmas elf is going to fly into a murderous rage over dairy. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 171, “Frosty the Snowman”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
The holiday season is here once more, which means it’s also time for our annual Holiday Special! This year’s special will dive into a classic Hans Christian Andersen tale about a snowman coming magically to life. If you’re thinking that this sounds an awful lot like a classic winter holiday song that inspired a popular animated tv Christmas special, then kind of. While I have to imagine that this much older story played at least some small part in inspiring its much more famous descendents, as you’ll see it is very different. As the old stories so often are.
Once upon a time, there was a snowman who was alive. Why was he alive? Was there some magic in that old silk hat they found? Don’t worry about it! No, really the story just cold opens with a living snow man complaining about how cold it is. This is just a totally normal thing that happens all the time in Denmark apparently. Anyway, the snowman, despite being made of literal frozen water, didn’t care for the winter. “It is so freaking cold out here that my ass is literally crackling! And that wind – it’s bitter enough to really blow life into you.” That is as close as we ever get to an explanation of why this particular snowman is alive. And I’m honestly not even sure that it’s meant as an explanation, given how casually it is tucked into other complaints about the cold. I think this nameless snowman (who I’m going to call Frosty because who’s gonna stop me) is just waxing poetic.
Shivering dramatically, he looked up into the sky, squinting against the blinding glare. “Worst of all is that bright asshole up there glaring at me like it has a personal vendetta against me. I’ve only been alive for what, an hour? What could I possibly have done to anger her? Fuck her, she’s not gonna make me blink. I’ll keep my two eyes right where they are, thank you very much.” Said eyes were made from two large rectangular pieces of tile which had been pressed into his snowy head. His mouth was made from part of an old rake, giving him long metal teeth. It honestly sounds like something out of one of those modern public domain horror movies instead of a beloved holiday figure. The animated version is more explicitly a Christmas story, what with the appearance of Santa Claus, but the song is just about winter as is this tale.
Frosty had come to life all at once amidst the triumphant shouting of the local children, but again that’s not really an explanation. I’m guessing the kids built him as a totally normal snowman, but given that their shouts are specifically ‘triumphant’ maybe they also did some kind of eldritch ritual to bring their creation to some icy parody of life as well? His first experiences had been the jingling of sleigh bells and the cracking of whips as townsfolk went about their normal business in their winter sleighs. In another bit of unexplained weirdness, our magical snowman knows what sleighs, jingle bells, and children are, but not what the fucking sun is. The gaps between what his frozen brain grasps and what it doesn’t are large and baffling.
Anyway, Frosty spent his first day of life warding off the glare of the sun and trying not to shiver himself to pieces. His perseverance won out and eventually, the angry glaring entity in the sky finally got tired of their staring contest and sank below the horizon. She was replaced by the much gentler illumination of the moon, which Frosty was much more a fan of. She was an enormous full moon, fat and round and bright and beautiful in the clear night sky. He liked this new version of the sky light, though he again had no concept of what a moon is. He thought it was just the sun in a new, less horribly blinding outfit. “Here comes that glaring monstrosity again, but it seems I’ve managed to outglare her. I’ve beaten her and managed to convince her to stop staring at me so intensely. I am kind of glad she’s around though – it at least gives me enough light to see by.”
The town was a vast and interesting place that Frosty longed to explore by this much more friendly night sun, but when he tried to do just that, he found that he was unable to move. The children had not thought to build him feet (because who does) and so he was stuck in the place where he had been born. He frowned. “Well that sucks. Everything looks so incredible and I want nothing so much as to move around and explore it all, but I don’t know how. I wanna be where the people are; I wanna see, wanna see ‘em dancin’, walking around on those, what do you call ‘em? Oh, feet.” Yeah, our Snowman pal is giving big Ariel energy right now but alas he has no sea witch to bargain with. “I saw those boys sliding across the ice earlier, which seems like something I should be able to do, but I just can’t seem to run.”
Given that he’s a magically animated anthropomorphic snowman, it should come as no real surprise that Frosty has been vocalizing all of his thoughts aloud because he never learned to think quietly. Thus it was that an old watchdog heard him talking in the town square in the middle of the night. It was his job to alert to anything strange happening while everyone was asleep, and a talking ice monster definitely counted as ‘strange’. “Hey! You! Get away! Go!” This old mutt was no longer a young pup, and his voice had grown hoarse from his years of being a housedog lying under the stove. “Git! Scram! You want to run, you say? Well the sun will teach you how soon enough! I watched your predecessor last year, and his predecessor the year before that! They all go away when the sun gets serious, and you will too!” See? Like I said, magical snowmen coming to life is apparently a totally normal thing in Denmark. It happens every year.
Frosty completely missed the aggression of this barking hound. To be fair, he was much more focused on what exactly the dog was saying than how he was saying it. Unfortunately, he had absolutely no context for the odd kind-of warning since he’d only been alive less than a day. “Man, I really wish I understood what that furry creature was saying. It sounds important and vaguely unpleasant, but I guess I just won’t worry about it. He called that thing in the sky the sun, I got that much. And she certainly is no friend of mine, not with all her glaring and scowling at me like that. I’m glad she toned it down but now I’m worried that it won’t last.”
The dog barked until he got bored. No one came to investigate (which kind of undercuts the point of even having a watchdog in the first place), so he gave it up as a lost cause. Circling around his doghouse three times, he curled up inside and went back to sleep, leaving the snowman to meditate on the meaning of icy life all by himself for the rest of the night.
As the watchdog had warned, the sun did indeed come back and with her came a drastic change in the weather. A thick, damp mist had settled over the countryside at night, riming the world in a hard frost. When the sun rose though, it turned the stark, frozen landscape into a thing of indescribable beauty. Frosty had never seen anything like it. The trees and bushes were coated in a white layer of hoarfrost, making them look like a forest of white coral on some strange ocean floor. Every twig seemed to blossom with glittering white flowers. The branches that hid behind the leaves during the rest of the year were on full display, a delicate latticework against the bright blue of the sky. The birches swayed in the wind as though they were alive (well, more alive than trees usually are). The light of the sun shimmering off of every surface as though it had been crusted in diamonds was the piece de resistance. The snowman was dazzled by the countless lights twinkling on every surface and from every angle.
About that time, a young couple strolled around the corner to walk through the garden turned winter wonderland. They sauntered over towards the snowman, taking in the majestic expanse of snow-capped trees. “I love the winter, especially the first snowfall! Summer can’t come close to showing us a lovelier sight than this.” Her eyes sparkled with delight, mirroring the twinkling ice and snow all around. The young man laughed in agreement, one hand waving towards the snowman. “You’re right, my dear. And we can’t have a magnificent fellow like this in the summertime either, can we?” The young woman’s tinkling laugh joined his and they danced off through the snow to a song that only they could hear, snow crackling under their steps.
Frosty looked over to the watchdog, who had crawled out of his kennel again with a huge yawn. “Who were those two? I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before, but I’m also like a day old. You’ve been around this town square a lot longer than I have – do you know them?” The old dog yawned again to show that he was in no hurry to do anything for this snowy interloper. “Of course I know them. I know everyone who’s supposed to be here. She often pets me, the good stuff behind the ears, and he once threw me a bone still dripping with fresh meat. They’re good folks, the kind I don’t bite.”
“That’s all very interesting, but it doesn’t really answer my question, watchdog. What are they supposed to be?” The hound rolled his eyes (I’m picturing Wylie Burp from the animated classic An American Tale: Fievel goes West). “They’re sweethearts, of course! One day they’ll move into the same kennel together and share the same bones to gnaw on. It’s all very sweet. Hey you! Fuck off! Git!” I don’t know who exactly the dog is barking at right here. Maybe he’s still mad at the snowman or maybe a squirrel darted across the snow. He’s going to keep doing it, and the story is never going to clarify it. Maybe this is just one of those yappy dogs who barks at literally nothing but the wind.
“Sweethears, huh? I’m not entirely sure what that is. Are they as important as you or I?” The dog laughed hoarsely at the snowman’s naivete. “Are they as important…they’re members of the master’s fucking family is all! I know that you can’t be expected to know much, what with being born yesterday and all that, but still this is ridiculous. Everyone knows the master’s family – they’re the most important people in town. Unlike you, I have age and wisdom, so I know these things. I know everyone in the house and everyone around the town. I can remember a time when I lived inside where it’s nice and warm instead of out here, chained up in the cold. Hey! Go away! Shoo!”
As his name might imply, Frosty didn’t understand that some creatures might be deeply bothered by the cold. He was made of literal fucking snow after all. Although on the other hand, he opened this story by complaining about the cold. “The chill is very lovely, it’s true, but I’m curious about this ‘inside’ you speak of. Tell me about it? But can you not rattle the chains like that? It makes my insides shiver whenever you do that.” I don’t know if this snowman has misophonia that’s triggered by clinking chains (which I totally get) or if he’s got some other unexplained trauma in his magical head. The old watchdog was grateful to be included for once (he missed being an indoor dog more than he let on), so he was happy to keep talking. “Awoo! Scram! Skedaddle! Anyway, I came here when I was just a puppy. I was the cutest damned thing that you ever saw, laying all curled up in a velvet-covered chair in the master’s house. Better still was when I could crawl up into the mistress’ lap and chew on her fingers. They would kiss me on the nose and wipe my little paws with an embroidered handkerchief and everything. Life was amazing.
“But then I grew up. As I got bigger, they stopped calling me ‘the handsomest little guy anyone ever saw’ or ‘my little puppsy-wuppsy.’ Soon, they decided I was too much hassle and gave me away to the housekeeper, and I moved down to the basement. You can see down into it from where you’re standing right now, the place that was my home. The housekeeper was a big ol’ softy, so I got the run of the place. Heck, you could say that I was basically the master down there. Sure, it wasn’t as nice as the upstairs part of the house, but I was in charge, comfortable, and not constantly being annoyed by grabby children. The food was just as good and I even had my very own cushion that belonged to me and only me. Best of all, my cushion was right next to the stove, which is the grandest thing of all this time of year. I used to creep right up underneath it and nap, as warm and snug as a bug in a rug. I still dream about that little hidey-hole under the stove sometimes. Hey! I saw that! Get out a here!”
Frosty was intrigued by this tale, though he had no frame of reference for much of it. “This ‘stove’ thing sounds interesting. Is it very beautiful? Does it look something like me?” So it seems our snowman has a healthy dose of self confidence. Good for him. The dog chuffed a canine laugh. “It looks quite the opposite of you, actually. It’s as black as coal where you’re as white as, well, snow. It has a long neck and a brass stomach. It eats firewood and belches flames from its mouth. You can’t get too close to those or you’ll burn yourself terribly. If you stay beside or under it though, it’s the coziest thing imaginable. The very peak of comfort. I bet you could see the stove down in the basement from where you’re standing.”
And so Frosty peered down towards the window into the basement where the old watchdog indicated. Sure enough, he saw a brightly polished thing with the aforementioned brass stomach where a warm, inviting fire was glowing. A very strange feeling swept over our snowman at this point, one he didn’t understand or have a name for. Pretty much everyone who isn’t made of snow knows it though – it’s the longing for a warm, snug place to rest after a long day out in the cold. Despite not understanding the feeling, Frosty felt it keenly. He had never even been near a stove or a fire, but he somehow missed them. He couldn’t understand how anyone would ever abandon such a feeling once found. “But why would you leave her?” Much like the sun from earlier, our dear snowman imagines that a source of warmth and light must of course be female. “How could you ever leave such a wonderful place as that?”
The old watchdog snorted indignantly. “You think I wanted to leave? Shit, I’d be in there right now basking beside the fire if I wasn’t chained up out here. The people in the house forced me to live outside now. Look I might have bit the master’s youngest kid but in my defense, he kicked away the bone that I was gnawing on just to be a dick! ‘A bone for a bone’ is what I always say. Unfortunately, the humans didn’t see it that way. The little brat cried and so I was chained up outside thereafter without even getting to explain my side of the story. It’s bullshit is what it is. I’ve lost my voice being out here so long, barking and howling at everything. I’ll probably die out here, but there’s not much I can do about it. Anyway, that’s my story. Get out here, asshole! Yeah, you!”
The snowman stopped listening as the dog’s story devolved into hoarse shouting at the world around him. He was mesmerized by the sight of the brilliant brass beauty in the basement. Down in the housekeeper’s room, the stove stood on its four legs looking just about the same size as ol’ Frosty himself. For the first time in his very, very short life, the snowman was in love. Or at least infatuated. “What is this feeling, so sudden and new I felt the moment I laid eyes on you?” He thought about it, but he still had no word for it. “It’s like a crackling inside my chest. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to get inside that basement and meet her. It’s an honest, innocent wish and surely innocent wishes come true.” I mean, they definitely don’t, but I can’t really blame a one day old for being naive. “It is my biggest wish, my only wish. It would simply be unfair if it never came to pass! I must find a way inside so I can meet this ‘stove’ and lean against her glowing brightness. I’ll do it, even if I have to break a window to get in!”
Frosty still hasn’t mastered the concept of ‘inside thoughts’, so he said all of this aloud. The old watchdog, who had curled back up inside the relative warmth of his kennel again, snorted derisively. “Fat chance, snowman. You’ll never get inside the house, and good thing too. You’d melt clean away if you ever got near that damned stove.” Frosty shook his head, still gazing longingly at his beloved stove. “I don’t care. I’m as good as gone anyway. It feels like my insides are breaking up from loneliness.” Depending on how warm the day is, that might not be loneliness cracking him up, but simple temperature.
Frosty spent the rest of the day staring down at the stove in the basement. It wasn’t like he could go anywhere anyway, and he didn’t exactly have anything better to do. He didn’t mind though – gazing upon his beloved was almost as good as being close to her. Almost. The day passed and the sun began to set. As twilight fell, his wonderful stove only looked more inviting than ever. A mild glow came from the grating, not like that cold gleam of the moon or the harsh glare of the sun. No, this was the dim relaxed light of a comfortable night in a cozy space, watching the snowflakes dance across the windowpanes. Every time the door was opened to the room, the fire blazed up and roared out of the stove’s mouth. The firelight glowed on the staring face of the distant snowman, lighting up his chest with an imagined echo of that fading light. He longed, more than anything, to bask in the full glory of the stove’s radiance just once. “I simply can’t stand it any longer! She looks so beautiful when she sticks her tongue out like that.” I know he’s talking about the fire, but it still feels unbelievably dirty somehow.
Being winter, the night was very long but it didn’t feel that way to the lovesick snowman. He stood there, lost in his own thoughts as he stared longingly at the distant stove; they froze in the bitter cold until they crackled. When morning came, the windowpanes of that basement room were covered with ice. It created the most beautiful ice flowers that Frosty had ever seen, but alas it hid his beloved stove from view. Not even the heat of his desperate gaze could melt the thick rime of ice, though it creaked and cracked as the day grew warmer. It was exactly the kind of frozen day that a snowman like our Frosty should have loved, but he was too busy feeling bereft at not being able to see the stove to notice. How could he enjoy anything at all when he was so stove-sick (a direct quote from the original tale)?
As dawn well and truly broke, the old watchdog crawled out of his kennel and shook himself awake with a huge doggy yawn. He saw Frosty standing in the exact same position (not that he could move anyway) still staring at the place where the stove was hidden. “That’s a strange and terrible infatuation for a snowman to have. I mean, I get it though. I used to have it too, but I eventually learned to accept being an outside dog. No sense in torturing ourselves longing for a stove we can’t get to. Get out of here! Shoo! The weather feels like it’s about to change so it probably won’t matter much longer anyhow.”
The old watchdog must have smelled the coming change on the wind because, sure enough, the weather did indeed take a turn for the warmer. The snow-covered world began to thaw. That was good as far as removing the ice from the window so that Frosty could see the stove, but it was very bad in that it also began melting the snowman himself. He got slimmer and slimmer as more and more of him turned to slush until, one morning not many days later, he collapsed entirely. From his spot in the kennel, the old dog watched it happen impassively. Another winter gone, another dead magical snowman. He’d seen it before and he was sure he’d see it again.
As the pitiful pile of slush that had once been Frosty melted away, something could be seen standing up stiffly from the very center of it. Soon, enough snow had melted for the watchdog to recognize the pole that the boys had built their snowman around. “So that’s why that daft snowman was so obsessed with the stove. His body had been built around a stove rake. Maybe it’ll get used again and he’ll get his wish to visit with the stove, even if he won’t be alive to enjoy it. On the other hand, that rake looks kind of old and worn so maybe not. Doesn’t really matter either way. I guess he’s over it now, in a way. Hey! You! My yard! Fuck off!”
Inside the house, a group of little girls were singing. “Oh woodruff, spring up fresh and proud, round about! And willow tree, hang your woolen mitts out! Come cuckoo and lark, come and sing! At February’s close we already have spring. Tweet-tweet cuckoo! I am singing with you. Come out, dear sun! Come out, skies of blue!” And with their thoughts already turned to the warmth and renewal of spring, nobody thought about the vanished snowman anymore.
Hans Christian Andersen’s stories may not be as dark and visceral as those of the Brothers Grimm, but they’re often more bleak and depressing. Can you imagine the animated special if it ended with Frosty melting away to a puddle and everyone just kind of moving on with their lives and forgetting he’d ever existed? An entire generation would have been traumatized! And so with this version of our magical snowman returned to the slush from whence he came, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s monster is the tomte.
Also known as a nisse, a tonttu, or a tomtenisse depending on which part of Scandinavia you’re in, the tomte is a small gnome-like creature that typically wears a red cap and gray clothing. Looking an awful lot like your common garden gnome, this household spirit is like many others we’ve seen: benevolent if kept happy, cruel and tricksy if pissed off. In many stories, they are able to transform into a variety of animal shapes, including a goat, horse, or goose. The traditional gift to appease your home’s tomte was a bowl of risengrod, a sweetened porridge or rice pudding, left in the barn on Christmas Eve (though I wonder if it may once have been the winter solstice instead). Earlier sources suggest that this offering used to be pieces of coarse wool, tobacco, and a shovelful of dirt. Personally, I’d take the porridge too.
Generally living in the barn, a pleased tomte will help out with keeping up the stables and tending to the livestock. They are known to pull extra hay into the cribs of their favorite horses or cows as a little treat. They may also, if they like the homeowners, steal trinkets or useful items (especially hay for the animals) from neighbors, a habit which can cause quite a bit of strife with the victimized neighbors if discovered. And that’s if they’re in a good mood. If they’re feeling pranksterish, they can hide objects, set the cows loose, antagonize the milkmaids (such as by knocking over the milking pails), blowing out candles at inopportune moments, or holding on to hay to make it impossible to pull out to feed the animals (and often letting go suddenly so that their victim falls ass over teakettle).
Tomtes are easily insulted, and it almost always goes very bad very quickly when you antagonize one. One story says that a man walking along the road one evening met a tomte going the other way. Annoyed, the man ordered the smaller figure out of his way in a loud, rude voice. The next moment, he found himself being tossed bodily over the hedge and into a snowdrift. Another says that there was once a young woman who wasn’t happy that it was her job to bring the porridge out to the tomte on Christmas Eve. She did so with bad grace, mocking the small spirit and calling him all kinds of insulting names. Pissed off, the tomte revealed himself to her and danced a strange, menacing dance. The next morning, she was found lying dead in the barn. Seriously, don’t fuck with spirits.
One of the most famous tales is of a milkmaid who was tired of the local tomte constantly pranking her as she worked in the barn. When it was her turn to bring the porridge offering, she hid the pat of butter at the very bottom. Tomte’s are notoriously finicky about their porridge, so the apparent lack of butter was an outrage. In vengeance, the little spirit slew the family’s only cow. Again, don’t fuck with spirits. Once his revenge was complete, he still sat down to eat his meal. When he discovered the butter at the bottom and realized it had only been a prank and not a grave insult, he felt bad about his hasty cow murder. To make up for it, he snuck over to the neighbor’s house in the night and stole their best cow. A for effort, D for execution.
In modern times, the tomte has become an annual holiday gift giver very much in the mold of Santa Claus. Instead of the milk and cookies left out for Santa in the US, you have sweet porridge for the Jultomte, who is now a jolly little Christmas elf. In return for this gift, they emerge from the nearby forest to bring presents for the children. This role is often played by a parent or other adult in a fake beard showing up on the doorstep to sing songs and deliver the gifts (and of course, to eat the porridge). Honestly, it really makes the Elf on the Shelf thing even more creepy than it already was. So if you see a jolly looking figure in red with a white beard in the forest this Christmas, make sure you’re very polite. And for fuck’s sake, don’t forget the butter.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Instagram as MythsYourTeacherHatedPod, on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated, and on Bluesky as MythsPodcast. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, it’s our annual New Year’s special! We’ll be diving into part one of a two-part story about the creation of man, at least if Moon and Toad can stop squabbling long enough to actually pull it off. You’ll see that Toad really fucked us over, that it also could have been a lot worse, and that you can make a pretty cozy bed with the right leaves. Then, in Gods and Monsters, the king of fishes and an asshole leopard with a lot of relatives are going to fight over the hand of a lovely young elephant. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.