In 1932, Jóhannes úr Kötlum published a collection of poems entitled Jólin komám més állás ávættir (Christmas Comes with Verses about Icelandic Christmas Elves). Jóhannes úr Kötlum used mostly the same names for the elves as Reverend Páll Jónsson á Myrká (1812-1889) seventy years earlier in Jón Árnason's collection of folk tales. With this poem, it can be said that Jóhannes has set strict limits on the names of the elves, their number and the order in which they travel to settlements. There are thirteen elves in the book, although there are legends that there were many more. Tryggvi Magnússon illustrated the book. Griffla published the book in an English translation by Hallberg Hallmundsson in 2015 under the title Christmas is coming: verse for children and in 2022 Mál og menning published the book in Polish in a translation by Nina Słowińska under the title Idą święta: wiersze dla dzieci and for this reason the exhibition and catalogue are partly in Polish. The National and University Library of Iceland acquired the original copies of the drawings in Christmas is coming in 1989 and they are preserved in the manuscript collection. 

Exhibition catalogue