Norwegian here, and I'd like to try and clear up things up about the nisse and their anti-fascist hats.

First off, the "unseen folk spirits" called Nisse, may wear some red clothes, because it's a very Norwegian colour. They can be understood as small trolls living in your house and for example snatching things. An answer to why socks disappear and you only have unmatched socks now - well it's obviously the sock-nisse that's been afoot again!

But the reason it was a resistance symbol, was real people wearing red hats. Hats of this shape were a symbol of the french revolution in 1790, and were therefore popular in all of Europe. They stayed popular as a resistance in Norway specifically, because we were under Sweden at the time. The hats were both red and blue, national colours of Norway.

Then came the ban on the Norwegian flag in December 1941 as well as it's colours (the flag is mostly red, with a white and blue cross). Any use would be seen as a demonstration against the Nazi occupation. So people made Christmas cards with red santas and Norwegian flags with the text "merry Norwegian Christmas". When those were seized, people made cards with nisser in other coloured hats, or without hats at all, as a comment on the ban - but we don't know how many actually sent these cards. And some started wearing red hats. ANY red hats, but they often had the common look of being pointier, and they were rarely identical as many were homemade.

But yes, the traditional nisselue (santahat) is fairly long and pointy.

I was unaware of this part of our history, as the use of the paperclip is more widely known in Norway. The paperclip kept papers together and were therefore worn on jackets to symbolise unity. I found English articles about these: https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/norways-nonviolent-resistance-in-wwii-the-power-of-a-paperclip-part-1/

Unfortunately I haven't found any sources about the hats in English, but here's one with a lot of pictures of Christmas cards: https://www.forskning.no/andre-verdenskrig-historie-jul/slik-viste-nordmenn-motstand-mot-nazistene-med-julekort/2294369

https://snl.no/nisselue

https://norskfolkemuseum.no/da-nisselua-ikke-kunne-vare-rod

The French Revolution hats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrygian_cap

The actual origin of the Norwegian red hats