Image and text by Nimue Brown

Do you ever wonder what happens to the Yule logs after Yule? Do you even notice when they leave? During the coldest part of the year, the Yule logs will have made themselves at home in your abode. Most people welcome this due to their habit of consuming dropped items of food and small rodents. There are thus far no reported cases of a Yule log getting large enough to eat a person but I have no doubt that a large enough log would do so.

Once the worst of the snows have passed, the Yule logs will eat whatever decorations you have thoughtfully decked them with. Then they will sneak out of your home and likely you won’t give them a second thought until they show up again next year.

New arrivals on the island may have mistakenly burned the logs that mysteriously turned up at their hearths. Or tried to. This is a terrible mistake. A Yule log is so hard to burn that it will put out your fire, plunging your home into freezing conditions. As it fails to burn it emits both awful smoke and terrible screeching noises. You will be obliged to open all the doors and windows. Yule logs don’t kill people, but freezing certainly does.

Obviously it’s a bit pointless mentioning it this late in the season. Sorry about that, if you’re reading this in a non-corporeal state. There are so many things that can kill a person who wasn’t expecting them that it’s easy to lose track.

Once the Yule logs have left your home, they may not go far. They are most likely to join existing wood piles, where they continue to eat anything small and foolish enough to get close to them. If there’s one in your woodpile and you disturb it, you may be bitten. The Yule log will be at the bottom of the pile, so long as you only take wood from the top you will be safe.

Probably they breed in the warmer part of the year. I do not know how they breed. I find I am entirely happy in my ignorance.