So what, right? It's just a goat statue. It doesn't even make noise or drag around cars with its tongue or anything. Except that the Gavle Goat does have one special power ... the power to be burned down, against city officials' best efforts, almost every year.
Via NYMag
Because even animals deserve Viking funerals.
It started in 1966, the first year the goat was erected, when vandals burned the giant straw sculpture down on New Year's Eve. Since then, Swedish goat-burning has mutated into an annual criminal tradition, with goat-vandals plotting various ways to evade the law and bring down the mighty sculpture, even getting tattoos to celebrate their success.
Like hapless characters in a weekly sitcom vainly trying to improve their situation, city authorities have attempted over and over again to stop the citizens' ritual goat-pyre. They set up goat-watching shifts staffed by volunteers and even soldiers from a local infantry division: the goat burned down anyway. They doused the goat in flame-retardant chemicals: someone still managed to set fire to it, possibly with the aid of a Christmas miracle. When burning wasn't possible, residents have resorted to knocking the goat over with a car, kicking it apart, and trying to steal it with a helicopter.
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After that, the perpetrators planned to simply blend in among all the other helicopters carrying goats.
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