Every Christmas since 1966, a straw goat with arcing horns and red trim has stood proudly in the central square of a small Swedish town called Gävle. And for 24 of those years, the poor goat has ...

A giant straw “Yule goat” in the Swedish town of Gävle was torched Friday night for the first time in five years, bringing back the long-running tradition of arson that’s led to the holiday ...

On the left, the 2021 Gävle Goat, a Swedish Christmas tradition, stands unscathed at its inauguration in the town of Gävle in November. On the right, the bones of the goat are all that remain ...

A giant straw Yule goat in the Swedish town of Gavle, 200 miles northwest of Stockholm, was set ablaze on December 17 for the first time in five years, reviving a long-running tradition of locals ...

The goat is a centuries-old Scandinavian yule symbol that preceded Santa Claus as the bringer of gifts to Swedish homes. Many Swedes place a small straw goat underneath their Christmas trees, or ...

Every year, the town of Gavle, Sweden, builds a giant Christmas goat. And every year, people try to bring it down. This time around, despite a guard, the Gavlebocken didn't even last for 24 hours.

The Christmas goat in Gävle, Sweden, burns to the ground on Dec. 23, 2001 — one of the dozens of times it's been set aflame. (Andreas Bardell/The Associated Press) ...

The Gavle Yule goat, a 12.8 metre high statue made of wood and straw erected every year before Christmas as a marketing ploy, is famous for being routinely destroyed by locals.

Gävle police at the scene of the blaze, with the yule goat corpse in the background. Photo: Pernilla Wahlman/TT Sweden's most famous yule goat, Gävlebocken, has once again succumbed to flames in an ...

A giant straw Yule goat in the Swedish town of Gavle, 200 miles northwest of Stockholm, was set ablaze on December 17 for the first time in five years, reviving a long-running tradition of locals ...