[Scene: A cozy cabin near Lillehammer. Snow falls gently outside. Lars and Ingrid are sitting by the fire, drinking coffee and eating pepperkaker (gingerbread cookies). A small bowl of rice porridge sits on the windowsill.]
Lars:
You still leave porridge out for the Nisse, Ingrid? Isn’t that like… giving a tip to Santa’s underpaid cousin?
Ingrid (serious):
It’s not a tip. It’s respect. If you don’t treat the Nisse right—especially around Christmas—you will regret it. They get cranky.
Lars (grinning):
Right, and next thing you know, your socks disappear and the butter turns sour?
Ingrid:
That actually happened. Two years ago, I forgot the porridge on Christmas Eve. The next morning? All the goat cheese had vanished. I looked everywhere. Even checked the mailbox.
Lars:
You ever think that maybe the goat cheese went bad or a raccoon got in?
Ingrid:
Inside the fridge, Lars?
Lars (chuckling):
Well, maybe the Nisse hired a raccoon intern.
Ingrid (smiling but firm):
Laugh all you want, but these stories go back centuries. My mormor used to say, “A content Nisse keeps the barn warm.” And you know what? Her barn was never drafty.
Lars:
Maybe because she insulated it properly? Wood, sawdust, stone? You know—actual materials?
Ingrid:
You have no poetry in your bones.
Lars:
I have plenty of poetry. But I like my poems with stanzas, not with invisible beings swiping my lefse.
Ingrid (playfully):
Skeptics always get the short end. I bet your slippers go missing just often enough to make you wonder.
Lars:
That’s just my cat, Freya. She has a vendetta against my left foot, I’m convinced.
Ingrid:
What if she’s possessed by a Nisse?
Lars (laughs):
If that’s the case, he’s got a thing for leather and shedding. Maybe he’s lonely.
Ingrid:
Exactly! You see? Now you’re making room for possibilities.
Lars:
No no no. I’m just humoring you. There’s no scientific evidence that Nisse exist. No photos, no DNA, no sightings that weren’t clearly a confused squirrel or a slightly drunk farmer.
Ingrid:
Oh please. There are plenty of photos. They just look like garden gnomes. And science doesn’t explain everything. Love can’t be measured, yet we know it exists.
Lars:
Sure, but love has biological and psychological explanations. Nisse are more like… folklore therapy. They’re charming, sure. But not real.
Ingrid:
And yet you watch Lord of the Rings every year like it’s a documentary.
Lars (grinning):
Hey, I know elves aren’t real. I just wish I had Legolas’s hair.
Ingrid:
Fair. But folklore holds cultural truths, even if not literal ones. Treating your home and traditions with care—that’s what Nisse remind us to do.
Lars (softening):
Okay, I’ll admit that’s a nice metaphor. Keeping the spirit of the home alive. But can’t we do that without offering porridge to a being we’ve never seen?
Ingrid:
Why risk it? It’s one bowl of porridge. Worst case? Nothing happens. Best case? The Nisse keeps the internet from going down during your next Zoom meeting.
Lars (raising an eyebrow):
…Wait. That did happen last Christmas. I had five bars and still got booted off.
Ingrid:
You didn’t leave porridge, did you?
Lars (mock serious):
Alright, alright. Next year, I’ll put out a bowl. Maybe even with a sprinkle of cinnamon. But only as an insurance policy.
Ingrid (triumphant):
That’s all the Nisse ask.
Lars:
Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me to knit them socks.
Ingrid:
They do love wool.
[They clink their coffee mugs and laugh. Outside, the wind gently rattles a loose shutter. Lars glances at the porridge bowl and shakes his head with a reluctant smile.]
END
Science Vs Superstition 
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