Setting: A cozy apartment in Aarhus, Denmark. It’s a cold winter evening. Emma and Lukas, both in their early 30s, are sipping tea and chatting on the couch surrounded by candles and soft blankets.
Emma: (glaring at the corner of the room)
Lukas, I swear—he moved it again.
Lukas: (looking up from his tea)
Who moved what now?
Emma:
The spoon! I left it next to the sugar bowl last night. Now it’s in the bathroom sink. That’s classic nisse mischief.
Lukas: (snorts into his tea)
Maybe your spoon just wanted a bath.
Emma:
I’m serious! I forgot to leave him a bit of risengrød yesterday. And now he’s messing with my stuff.
Lukas:
Emma, you’re a brilliant marketing manager who just led a national campaign, and you’re telling me a mythical house elf sabotaged your kitchen because you skipped a bowl of rice pudding?
Emma:
It’s not sabotage. It’s a reminder. The nisser keep balance in the home. You respect them, they protect you. You forget them—they remind you who’s boss.
Lukas: (grinning)
So the cosmic guardian of your home is a tiny bearded guy in a red hat throwing spoons around?
Emma:
Exactly. And you shouldn’t mock him. Remember last Christmas? I gave him porridge every night, and my heater never broke down once. Year before that? I forgot. Total disaster. Heating went out, mail got lost, and I dropped my phone in the toilet.
Lukas:
That’s not a pattern, that’s bad luck… or user error. Correlation doesn’t equal causation, Emma.
Emma:
And yet, your mail’s always late. Maybe your apartment’s nisse is feeling neglected too.
Lukas: (chuckles)
Or maybe PostNord just sucks.
Emma:
Fine. Let me ask you this—how do you explain all those stories passed down from our grandparents? Whole villages in the old days used to build little nisse doors and leave food offerings. Are you saying generations of Danes were just… gullible?
Lukas:
Not gullible—creative. It was their way of explaining the unexplained. Like how ancient cultures made up gods for thunder and crop failure. It gave life meaning and routine.
Emma:
But doesn’t that make life dull? Just reducing everything to random chance and faulty systems?
Lukas:
Not dull. Just real. I find it more amazing that the universe doesn’t need magic to be interesting. Plus, if the nisse were real, don’t you think scientists would’ve caught one by now?
Emma:
Caught one? Please. They’re clever. Like quantum particles. The moment you try to observe them, they vanish.
Lukas:
So now the nisse are subatomic?
Emma: (laughing)
Maybe! You can’t disprove it!
Lukas:
True, but I can’t disprove the Flying Spaghetti Monster either. Doesn’t mean I should leave pasta out for him.
Emma:
You’re just afraid to admit that deep down, your inner child wants to believe in the nisse. Remember when you were eight and refused to go in the attic alone because you thought one lived up there?
Lukas: (grinning sheepishly)
Okay, fine. But I also thought my goldfish could read my mind. Childhood isn’t always a reliable source of data.
Emma:
Still, isn’t there room for a little mystery? A little magic? Especially in the dark Danish winters?
Lukas:
Maybe. I’ll grant you that. But I still think the spoon thing has more to do with you being half-asleep than any vengeful elf.
Emma: (sighs)
Well, I’m leaving out porridge tonight. You do you. But don’t come crying to me if your slippers go missing.
Lukas: (raising his mug)
Deal. And if they do, I’ll conduct a full scientific investigation—with you as the prime suspect.
[The next morning]
Lukas: (texting Emma)
Okay. My slippers were on the roof. Did you…?
Emma: (text reply)
I warned you. The nisse knows. 🧝♂️
Science Vs Superstition 
Tell Us What You Think