About the Nisse*
A nisse comes from Scandinavian folklore. Small, mysterious and deeply rooted in Nordic tradition, nisser have been part of Danish stories for generations.
The Glimtari are not just Christmas elves.
They have different personalities, strengths, fears, friendships and ways of seeing the world. And their adventures can happen wherever imagination takes them, not just at Christmas.
Stories That Help Us Understand Each Other
We are not all the same.
Some children leap into things without hesitation. Others need time to think first. Some look for safety and reassurance. Some naturally try to keep everyone together. Others question things, challenge the rules, or simply experience the world a little more intensely than those around them.
The same is true of the Glimtari.
Behind the nisser and their adventures is a simple idea:
When we begin to understand why other people think, feel and react differently from us, it becomes easier to understand one another.
Meet the Nisse*
The Glimtari are created with distinctly different personalities.
Part of the inspiration behind them comes from the personality patterns described by the Enneagram.
That does not mean the stories are intended to teach children the Enneagram, or that people can be neatly placed into nine little boxes. Quite the opposite. The personality types are primarily a creative framework for developing characters who experience the world in very different ways.
Faced with exactly the same situation, one Glimtari may act immediately. Another may become worried. A third may try to calm everyone down, while a fourth wonders why they are doing things that way in the first place.
None of them necessarily has to be wrong.
They are simply seeing the same situation from different places. This is where many Glimtari stories begin.
Recognising Ourselves in Stories
When we read stories, we do not only meet the characters, sometimes, we meet a little of ourselves too.
A child might recognise their own caution in one character and their curiosity in another. They might recognise the need to succeed, the desire to help, the fear of getting something wrong, or that difficult feeling of somehow being different from everyone else.
That can lead to an important moment of recognition: “I feel like that too.”
But stories can do something else as well. They allow us to follow a character who reacts in a way we might never have considered ourselves and suddenly the thought becomes: “Oh... perhaps that's why they behave that way.”
That movement, from recognising ourselves to becoming curious about someone else, lies at the heart of Glimtari.
Stories as a Place to Practise Empathy
Interestingly, this idea fits with a growing body of research into fiction, reading and social understanding.
A recent systematic review and meta-analysis examining literary and prosocial fiction found a small but statistically reliable advantage in social-cognitive performance associated with reading these kinds of texts. The findings included effects relating to perspective-taking and theory of mind, our ability to understand other people's thoughts, intentions and perspectives. Importantly, the researchers also emphasise that these effects are not automatic and can depend on factors such as the text itself and the reader's engagement.
Research involving children is similarly nuanced. A 2025 meta-analysis brought together studies involving children aged 2 to 10 and found an overall effect of storybook reading on empathy-related skills, although the statistically significant effect specifically concerned children's prosocial skills. In other words, it would be too simplistic to say that "reading makes children more empathetic". Rather, research suggests that stories, in the right circumstances, can provide one setting in which social perspectives and skills may develop.
That idea sits naturally within the world of Glimtari.
A story can become a safe place to experience a disagreement from more than one point of view, without having to be caught in the middle of it ourselves.
No Glimtari Nisse Has All the Answers
It is important that personality in Glimtari is never only about strengths.
The brave one can also be reckless, the cautious one might notice a danger everyone else has missed.
The helpful one can sometimes forget their own needs, the independent one may find it difficult to accept help.
And the one who always tries to keep the peace might, at exactly the right moment, be the reason the whole group stays together.
A trait that is a strength in one situation can become a challenge in another.
Glimtari is not about discovering who is best.
It is about discovering what each of us brings with us, and what happens when very different personalities have to find a way forward together.
Why Reading Matters
First and foremost, Glimtari should be stories that children actually want to read but reading for pleasure has value beyond the story itself.
A recent review of research describes evidence connecting reading for pleasure with reading achievement and other learning and wellbeing outcomes, while also stressing that the evidence is complex and should not be reduced to simple claims of cause and effect.
Research involving adults has also explored how reading for pleasure may support processes including taking time away from everyday stresses, perspective-taking, self-understanding and feelings of connection with others.
And when children and adults share stories, the conversation surrounding the book can matter too. Research into shared book reading has examined its potential role in children's developing social and emotional competencies.
Which means a Glimtari story does not necessarily have to end when the book is closed.
“Why do you think she did that?”
“Who do you think was right?”
“What would you have done?”
“Was anyone actually completely wrong?”
Sometimes, a little nisse can be the beginning of a surprisingly big conversation.
For Children. For Young People. And Perhaps for Grown-Ups Too.
A younger child may simply enjoy the adventure and recognise the emotions.
An older child may begin to understand why the characters respond so differently to the same situation.
A young person might recognise something from friendships, family life, school or the groups they are part of.
And the grown-up reading alongside them may discover something about the child, and perhaps something about themselves too.
Glimtari is not intended to teach personality theory.
And it is not therapy.
It is storytelling.
But stories allow us, for a little while, to experience the world through someone else's eyes.
And perhaps to return with a slightly better understanding of our own.
The Research Behind the Idea
We are careful about making big promises about what stories can "do" to people.
Research into reading, empathy and social understanding is substantial, but its findings are also nuanced. Recent reviews identify positive associations and modest effects in particular areas of social cognition and social behaviour, while results can also depend on factors such as age, reading context, the kind of story being read and the reader's engagement with it.
Selected Research
Chang, L. (2026). Empathy and perspective-taking in literary fiction: a systematic review and meta-analysis of psychological evidence and theoretical insights. Frontiers in Psychology. [frontiersin.org]
Ciesielska, M., Kucirkova, N. & Thomson, J. (2025). How the Type and Context of Children's Storybook Reading Relate to Select Empathy Skills: A Meta-Analysis. Early Education and Development. [tandfonline.com]
Roza, S. A. & Guimarães, S. R. K. (2022). The relationship between reading and empathy: An integrative literature review. [pepsic.scielo.org]
Cremin, T. & Scholes, L. (2024). Reading for pleasure: scrutinising the evidence base – benefits, tensions and recommendations. Language and Education. [tandfonline.com]
Schapira, R. & Grazzani, I. (2025). Shared book reading and promoting social and emotional competences in educational settings: a narrative review. Frontiers in Psychology. [frontiersin.org]
About the authors*
My name is Jan. And when I was a child living in northern Denmark, a nisse lived in my childhood home.
I never saw him. After all, nisser are good at hiding and doing things in secret, but I could sense his presence. Things would disappear and turn up in strange places. There was a feeling that someone was watching over me.
At the same time, I always felt an urge to tell stories. Or to play the nisse myself for my siblings, even though I was just a child.
Only later did I learn the whole storytelling truth.....
A real nisse in my childhood home. This particular nisse is named Vergil.
Vergil is a blue nisse, a storyteller.
A nisse who sees deeply and remembers everything.
One evening, several years ago, he gathered great courage to approach me. Nisse are never seen but Virgil could see that as I was an adult acting in the role of nisse for my own children I understood the magical role that nisse have.
Virgil came to me with a concern:
‘Humans are forgetting us. Humans no longer believe in magic. The nisse School is becoming emptier and emptier. What happens when the magic disappears? I don’t quite know how the connection between nisser and humans works. But the less humans believe, the smaller we nisser become. And the fewer of us there are. But as long as there is belief, THEN... our magic lives on.’
I learned that nisser speak in a pitch that we humans cannot hear so we began to write to each other, to find a solution.
Vergil has a son, Lysrik—also a blue elf—who is a dreamer and a storyteller and together, Vergil and Lysrik wanted to write down the Glimtari elves' stories. They wanted to tell the tale of Lysrik and his Glimtari classmates— of their adventures at Elf School, their challenges, and their friendships. And I promised to help them share these stories with the world.
Now Vergil and Lysrik give me the stories, and I help pass them on to you.
There is a special reason why the stories are coming out now. Lysrik and his friends are finishing Glimtari Elf School this summer. After their long summer slumber—from June to September—they will venture out as house elves for the first time.
The first time meeting real humans.
The first time putting everything they’ve learned into practice.
They are nervous., excited, happy and they hope, by sharing their stories, that children (of all ages!) will get to know them a little. Perhaps recognize themselves in Niju’s empathy, Kvid’s worries, or Bella’s energy.
The stories needed more than just words, they needed more to come to life, so that isn’t the whole story. With the elves’ help, I met Fiona.
Fiona is from the UK, a place where nisse don’t usually live.
Many years ago Fiona met a nisse called Emelira by chance (or was it fate?). Fiona had always been different, able to see things others didn’t. After decades volunteering as a girl guide/scout leader in the UK, US, Japan and Denmark Fiona could understand the difference empathy, inspiration and magic makes for people whether it comes from Danish nisse, yokai (Japanese spirits) or other ancient wisdoms. She could sense magic that was hidden.
When she first saw Emelira, a small, purple, frightened nisse she knew she could help. Emelira wrote to Fiona, (since humans cannot hear nisser speak).
"My family is in Denmark. I want to travel there and spend time with them, especially my Godchildren who are growing older day by day but I don’t know how to get home. I arrived here a long time ago in the suitcase of a Danish Au Pair”
Fiona didn’t think twice and booked a ticket to Denmark where Emelira was reunited with her godchildren including a young nisse called Viola, who is in the same class as Lysrik. By this time Fiona and Emelira had developed a strong friendship and both shared the love of being part of a community making a difference and the curiousity of what it is to be human, from enneagram inspiration to stories of inspiring action.
Together, the idea of a collaboration blossomed, with Vergil and Lysrik acting as storytellers, and Emelira and Viola sharing and illustrating the stories to bring them to life.
With the help of Fiona and I (Jan) the Glimtari nisse vision is for as many people as possible, no matter their age, to experience empathy, inspiration and a little magic that the Glimtari nisse bring. Will you help us bring this vision to life?
*Of course this is written with just enough empathy, inspiration and magic so you can understand who is behind this project, in a way Glimtari nisse would approve of.