Chapter 8 - Gammelnok meets The Bearded Giant 

The animals around me were now fully engaged and paying attention.

I of course enjoyed this..

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The large bearded man demanded to know what was going on. My captives had no explanations and shrugged their shoulders in despair. They looked miserable. They were sure they had caught an intruder, but he/she/it had slipped through their fingers.

Slowly things went back to normal, work continued, parcels were wrapped and labels attached.

The bearded man sat back and closed his eyes, appearing to sleep. I started to feel safe and eased out from underneath my Chameleon Cloth.

How wrong could I be. The bearded man was not sleeping but keeping an eye open for the invisible intruder.

Suddenly I was grabbed by the scruff of my neck and hoisted up to be face to face with this giant.

I was scared out of my wits, but tried to remain defiant and indignant, being the one who had been kidnapped, forgetting that I was the intruder in the first place.

Deciding to go on the offensive, I protested loudly at this treatment muttering 'Himmel und Erde' under my breath, accusing him of running a sweatshop with slave labour.

He just looked at me through his beard with kind eyes and started to chuckle happily.

"I have heard of you", he said in GammelDansk. "You live with the Samii people and have done so for at least a hundred years. You know reindeers. I need a helper."

I asked him to explain what they were all doing in this vast cave. He told me the story of how he had gotten involved with the small people so long ago.

"Once a year", he started, "in the darkest part, when the sun barely rises above the horizon, and that for maybe an hour a day, this part of the world was in need of cheering up. The constant darkness was depressing and people were miserable.

I had with me a small band of thrifty little people, call them elves, dwarfs, nissers or pixies, call them what you want. The main thing is, they wanted to make small gifts they could distribute among local children close to the darkest night of the year.

It all felt very good, giving you a warm feeling inside seeing smiles on their faces when they received a brightly wrapped parcel.

Word spread unfortunately, and children started writing to us from all over the world, care of Santa Claus, The North Pole. Incredibly even though we are a long way from the North Pole, and I have no idea who Santa Claus is, the letters reached us throughout the year, children asking for toys and gifts.

Now we had a big logistical problem and that is where you come in..