Ute Knut - What the Hygge!: An A-Z of Nordic Nonsense

common throughout the Nordic lands, the aardvygge uses its long, pig-like snout to sniff out cosy log fires, steaming mugs of glygge and old slippers, which it effortlessly wrests from unsuspecting victims using its sharp claws and powerful legs.

the famous cry of Ebenezer Skrygge, antihero of Denmarks favourite Christmas tale. Skrygge is invited to, yet declines to participate in various events of seasonal hygge until a sickly child and a ghost terrify him into joining in and conforming, as all good Danes surely must.

(lit. The Bridge) Danish TV comedy genre, named after the classic series, featuring a mismatched pair of gloomy detectives in distinctive knitwear investigating a series of grisly slayings. In Denmark, where nobody is gloomy or a serial killer, this is the stuff of hilarious family entertainment and the phrase klygge off, Brygge, hygge, glygge is the local equivalent of Netflix, wine and chill.

1) comfort snack best served at nose temperature over the course of a long winter evening in front of a log fire.

2) creepy crawly

See also rygge-bygge.

cancer-causing drug thankfully now almost unheard-of in the land of herring and foraged moss, and so heavily taxed that a single packet of cygges now costs more than dinner for four at Copenhagens most acclaimed raw food restaurant.

the sense that one has experienced exactly the same moment of cosy domestic hygge many times before and that there might, in fact, be more to life than this.

hygge addict

tool used to work the soil in ones garden in order to provide airy and stylish living spaces for all the bygge therein.

ovoid shelled structure, smelly when rotten in the state of Denmark; induces hygge when served with bacon.

See also pygge.

a state of general spiritual malaise following too much hygge; may result in poetry, throwing oneself off a brygge, or both.

traditional Danish rural ice-house, made by burying blocks of ice under layers of moss, bark, herring, toadstools, plywood, etc. Now entirely obsolete in Denmark, where everyone has fridges, the frygge has (since its inclusion in a lavish coffee table book) proved very popular in parts of North London, where it has caused thousands of deaths from food poisoning.

1) the unique, almost palpable aroma of any room in which hygge is said to have taken place, comprising particles of Lego, herring, folding bicycles, plywood, smugness and Faroese knitwear.

2) (perj.) a term used to disparage those who regard hygge with less than 100% credulity.

Det James Nunn total fygge, nej? Ja. Absolut.

warm, cosy, onomatopoeic variant of booze popular in Nordic parts.

live performance of hygge-inducing electro-trance-whale-song at which Bearded Norsemen sway gently while gazing at their felt slippers.

Danish philosopher who argued that the ultimate purpose of Being was sharing cinnamon cookies with friends in an exquisitely simple beach hut as the summer evenings grew shorter.

1) (n.) the Danish art of reaching a state of near-catatonic cosiness by sitting around a fire in a knitted jumper and felt slippers, scoffing cookies, downing glygge, and (best of all) pretending to have special words for ordinary things.

2) (n.) utter nonsense

3) (v.) to laugh all the way to the bank; often used of knitwear manufacturers at Yuletide.

the name given by the Danish press to the then Prime Ministers plan to dole out free hygge to disenfranchised, hydde-wearing youth in the hope that they would look less threatening on Copenhagen street corners if they were dressed in felt slippers. The policy was quietly dropped after thousands of well-meaning social workers were stabbed to death during its first week in operation.

a dissenting group of proto-hygge practitioners forced out of France into exile in the late 17th century with nothing but an armful of logs and a zippo lighter. Many eventually settled in Denmark.

secret society of hygge practitioners often accused of making sure all the best Lego pieces go to fellow members.

the smallest known particle of hygge that can exist in a given environment. It might be a few crumbs of cinnamon cookie on the lips of a photogenic child, or the last sunbeams of a late summer day gilding the last tufts of ginger in Grandpappis beard, or some other bilge. Named after an almost unbearably contented seafarer of the mid-19th century.