Thanks, Eya.
I've never seen this kind of nisser before. They look like squirrels or mice to me.
Nisser are usually translated into elves in English, because there is no equivalent to nisser outside Scandinavia AFAIK.
But nisser resembling elves, i.e. with the pointed ears is a very recent thing in DK, only about 80-90 years old.
In fact it's no more than 400 years since nisser began to be be personified in a human form and also depicted and that was during the 1600s.
Nisser started out, most likely in prehistoric times, as a kind of house-spirit or perhaps even a house-god.
Over time that spirit evolved and got a personality of it's own, so that around 1.200-1.000 years ago, the spirit was looking after the house/farm and the family and livestock living there - provided it was shown proper respect!
But if shown disrespect or mocked it could be a very vindictive creature, causing accidents, illness, fire and even death.
The creature was very old and it would take up residence in a house often looking after several generations of the family living there - but sometimes if a family moved, the nisse would tag along.
That has led to a Danish saying: Nissen flytter med = The nisse moves with you/tags along. = That if you have issues that are not addressed, say you being anti-social, these issues will follow you to your next address or workplace.
Anyway, during the 1600s the nisse was personified, and he (it was always a man) was dressed just like any other farmer at the time. This guy here is Norwegian though:
https://andreasfaye.no/wp-content/u...kort_med_nisse_og_grot_18886771365-scaled.jpg
By the mid 1800s the way Christmas was celebrated both in DK and the rest of Europe took a dramatic change!
Now it became a cozy feast a family event, not least involving the children, rather than a new year celebration as it had been for I don't know how long. And that meant that the nisse changed as well. Now he became a pretty nice guy, okay, a bit grumpy from time to time also also prone to play mischief but otherwise harmless. - Nothing like the pretty creepy and scary guy of beforehand.
Overtime he married and certainly by the late 1940s he had loads of children as well. Usually not too bright though but full of pranks and pretty cute.
So over the past 450 years the nisse has developed from this somewhat fearsome dude:
https://images-bonnier.imgix.net/fi...r-Niels-Gaardbo.jpg?w=1024&q=60&fit=crop&crop
To a real family-man:
https://images.guloggratis.dk/listings/full/ddaec6de-3565-4d82-8d83-8748ef5fb1b1.jpg
These elvish-like nisser, who are singing for us, are from the early 1990s.
(They spend a couple of hundred years in USA, hence why they are singing Danglish