What does it mean?

Heldiggris is a compound of the word lucky, heldig, and pig, gris. The word is used to compliment someone’s luck, so you wouldn’t get the same reaction as if you were to call someone a “swine” in English.

As the word is quite friendly and playful, it can be used in all manner of social situations. We aren’t quite sure why the pig was chosen as a lucky animal, but such is the pig’s perceived luck that the hit film Babe (about a pig with aspirations to be a sheepdog) is called Heldiggrisen Babe (The Lucky Pig Babe) in Norwegian.

Luckily, Norway’s language council (Spåkrådet) has more of an explanation. Apparently, the first piggy banks to pop up in Norway were often equipped with lucky symbols, and as such, they were lucky pigs.

There’s also a theory that heldiggriser (lucky pigs ) escaped the butcher’s knife before Christmas. The chance of a pig being able to do something like that at its fastest was considered so unlikely that the coin griseflaks was termed.

This term to describe luck is much more intense. Were you to see your friend win the lottery in front of you, you would exclaim grsieflaks! This would equate to something like, “shit, that was lucky!”.

However, there isn’t a lot of evidence to support the origin of the word.

Use is like this:

Skal du til Spania neste uke? Heldiggris! Jeg har alltid hatt lyst til å dra dit.

Are you going to Spain next week? Lucky you! I have always wanted to go there.

Heldiggrisen Sam vant 10 millioner kroner i lotto forrige helg.

Lucky Sam won 10 million kroner in the lottery last weekend.

Heldiggris!

Lucky you!