Askasleikir aka Bowl Licker arrives on the 17th and leaves on the 30th.

Bowl Licker comes to town on 17 December. In the past, Icelanders ate from lidded wooden bowls that they sometimes kept under the bed or on the floor. Bowl Licker would hide under the bed, and if someone put their bowl on the floor he grabbed it and licked the inside clean.

Bowl Licker, the sixth one,
was shockingly ill bred.
From underneath the bedsteads
he stuck his ugly head.

And when the bowls were left
to be licked by dog or cat,
he snatched them for himself
– he was sure good at that!

This one requires a bit of an explanation. You see, there is a certain kind of food container in Iceland called an Askur, which doesn’t have an equivalent elsewhere. The “bowl” this lad licks is the Askur.

There are two reasons why him licking these is mean. The first is that an empty Askur would be left out for the cat or dog of the house to lick as a bit of a treat, and Bowl-licker would snatch it from the pet for himself. The other reason is that sometimes he might snatch one of these when it’s full, and over Christmas the Askur is traditionally filled with all kinds of special treats that each person is meant to be responsible for on their own and pace over Christmastime. Essentially, Bowl-licker will steal your candy-filled stocking. And then lick it.

Defense against Bowl-licker:

• Don’t use an Askur (practically no one does this anymore)
• Don’t skimp on the pet food, he only wants scraps to steal from them
• In fact, don’t have pets
• Eat all the candy first, you disgusting pig