For film historians, there is nothing more exciting than rediscovering films once thought 'lost' - and given that early films were often destroyed or poorly preserved, it is a very rare treat when one is found. You can read about some of the more famous examples here.

The latest classic to be rediscovered is the first Christmas cartoon from Walt Disney. The Guardian reports that a 'near complete' version of 1927's Empty Socks has been found in one of Norway's National Library facilities, close to the Arctic Circle. Film reels in the facility are stored in a temperature controlled room.

The cartoon stars Oswald the Lucky Rabbit - the character created by Disney and Ub Iwerks before the former went on to create his more famous mascot Mickey Mouse. Oswald appeared in more than two dozen films between the 1920s and 1940s, and recently was 'resurrected' to feature in the video game series Epic Mickey.

The rediscovered copy of Empty Socks is unfortunately not complete - it is estimated between 30-60 seconds of the 5-minutes and 30-seconds long cartoon are missing. However, previously only a 25-seconds long section of the clip, preserved at New York's Museum of Modern Art, had been known to exist - making the recent find a major coup.

In a statement, library archivist Kvale Soerenssen said, "at the beginning, we didn’t know it was a lost cinematographic treasure. The film was in two reels which weren’t clearly labelled." Empty Socks has been digitised, and a copy has been sent to the Walt Disney Company.