Kringle is a Northern European pastry, a variety of pretzel. Pretzels were introduced by Roman Catholic monks in the 13th century in Denmark, and from there they spread throughout Scandinavia and evolved into several kinds of sweet, salty or filled pastries, all in the shape of kringle.
In Danish and Norwegian, the word is kringle, plural kringler; Estonian: kringel, plural kringlid; Latvian: kliņģeris, plural kliņģeri; Swedish: kringla, plural kringlor; Finnish: rinkeli; German: Kringel and Icelandic: kringla. The word originates from the Old Norse kringla, meaning ring or circle.
In the Netherlands, a particular type of sweet kringle is well known under the Dutch name krakeling.
The shape of the kringle has given name to a similarly entangled feature found in some proteins, the so-called Kringle domain.