Country meme, bonus question 2, part 1
Feb. 24th, 2018 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scripsixspike4evax asked: And if I may add a question, what myths & legends are associated with Sweden? I'm interested in mythology & it's always fun to find out something like this about another country.This going to be long, and I won’t cover everything. In fact, this is turning so long it will come in two posts. Sorry. Naturally we share some mythology and legends with other countries. You will find myths about giants, troll and werewolves in Sweden, but no vampires though.
Several of our myths and legends originate in the Asatru. For example there is Odin’s Hunt, which people believed in well into the 19th century. He is hunting the rå, and there are many stories about people encountering a running woman, and then a man on a horse comes and ask which way she ran. It’s best to answer truthfully… The rå herself is a female being, who can be found in the woods (also called Huldra), but also in mines, mountains and the sea. She protects her dominion, and is usually benevolent if you respect her. For example, when you enter Sala silver mine you have to knock three times in the stone wall, and don’t ever use swear words in there. She is highly seductive, and if you gift her with something she will give you good luck in hunting or fishing. She looks like a beautiful woman, but with some kind of oddity, like having a fox tail, or a hollow back. She is most likely a remnant of old pagan goddesses, for example the sea rå may originally have been the sea goddess Ran. Frigg, Odin’s wife is also mention up until the 19th century. Don’t use your spinning wheel on Thursday night, because she may want to borrow it!
Offerkast (Offer means sacrifice and kast is an old form for a rise in the ground) is an example of a legend which is still living today. It’s a place where someone has dies a gruesome death, and to prevent this person to become a ghost, you have to throw a coin, or a branch, at that place. And this is something people still do. It can be fairly modern; there is one where a young woman was raped and murdered in 1915. There are literally thousands of years old, like “Fantans heap”. The legend says that a woman who had murdered her husband was stoned to death at that place. An excavations provided coins dated back to the 16th century. And under that; a grave which is at least 2000 years old.
Lots of places in sweden has a legend about the pestilence child. A small child shows up, carrying a rake and a draw hoe. The child asks if it should use the rake or the hoe. In places where the answer was the hoe, everyone died of pestilence, where they answered the rake, some survived.
Sweden is a very large country, even if the population is small. During summers, especially in the northern part of Sweden, young women and children lived in shielings during summer, to take care of grazing animals. They were very isolated, and apart from the fear of bear and wolf. To call their animals they used a very special music form called kulning, but they also used flutes, or horns, and, probably most famous, the birch trumpet. It can be heard very far, and it could be used to communicate with other siblings, or the home farm. There are several legends of women being attacked by robbers, who threatens to rape her. In some stories she climbs a tree, breaking the branches as she climbs and then call for help by her singing. In others she stalls them by playing music. They don’t understand the meaning of it, but in reality she calls for help through the music. All these legends ends with help coming in time to save the girl.
The myling is the ghost of a child born out of wedlock and murdered by its mother. Sometimes it never stops growing, though it retains its baby shape. It either longs to be buried in holy ground, or it want to take revenge on it’s mother. There is a story about a man on his way home and is pestered by a voice who repeatedly cries “Grandfather, may I suck?” In the end he grows so annoyed he tells the voice it can. When he comes home he finds his daughter dead,blood streaming from her breasts and her dead babay came hom and nursed her to death. A related being is the nattramn (natt means night and ramn is an old swedish word for raven). It’s the ghost of a child which has died before baptism, and it is in the shape of a bird, usually a raven. It only flies at night, low to the ground. Some legends says it flies toward Jesus tomb, but it can only fly by night. When it reaches the tomb, it will have peace.
The Lindworm is a large snake. It’s usually quite friendly, but the bite is poisonous. It has very large eyes, and long scales on the neck, which looks like a mane. When it’s in a hurry, it bite its tail and roll over the ground like a giant wheel. It may be a prince in disguise. In the mid-19th century, a folklorist was so convinced it actually existed that he announced a monetary reward for anyone who found it. There is also the vitorm /white work), which is the king of all snakes, and have a white crown on its head. He sleeps under an oak which never loses its leave in winter, and anyone who eats its mate, will get magical powers.
Vittra belong to the north of Sweden. They looks likes humans, and they are also mortal. There is a legend that adam and eve had many, many children. One day Eve saw God coming to visit, and was ashamed they had so many children. So she hid half of them. Gos asked her is the children he saw was all she had, and she said yes. So he told her she would never see her other children again, and they became the vittra. They live too close to humans in a kind of paralee universe, and if you are a good neighbour, they will help you with your animals. They can be invisible, so don’t our out water without warning. A wet vittra is a miffed vittra. Other parts of sweden have the vätte, the tomte or the invisible ones underground who all share the characteristics that if you are good to them, they will be very helpful. But they might also play practical jokes on you. I used to work at an out of doors museum in Stockholm called Skansen. They have a lot of old houses from various parts of sweden, and even a 19th century town street, complete with a vätte. He enjoys shutting doors which have been propped open, or pull out the electrical cords of the cleaner vacuum cleaner. I used to work with a woman who swore she had seen him, a small man clad in grey, an early morning.
Bysen is also a small man clad in grey, but he is a much more annoying character. He is the caretaker of the woods and if he finds people in it, he will put a spell on their sight so they can’t find their way home.He also disturbs lumberjacks in their works.
Näcken is another being who has been around since Sweden’s pagan days. He usually looks like a beautiful young man, and he may want to drown you. In more recent myths he is very good at playing the fiddle, and it is possible to get him to teach you. He can also look like a beautiful white horse, bäckahästen and in that case he definitely wants to drown you. He enjoys luring children to climb him, and then he will run into the water. If there are many children, his back will grow longer so all can find a room. You can scare him away by invoking his name, or God’s, or by throwing a piece of iron over him.
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Date: 2018-02-25 01:55 pm (UTC)Also, really loved the kulning, especially seeing the cows come right up to the girl one by one.
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Date: 2018-02-25 02:40 pm (UTC)i have a friend who can kula, and it sounds amazing when you stand next to her.
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Date: 2018-02-26 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-27 04:17 am (UTC)Thank you for sharing all that!
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Date: 2018-05-07 10:53 am (UTC)I have actually grown up with a version of the song in the first video you post: granddad (who grew up in a farm in Morgedal and learn't it as a boy) used to sing it to me by my crib:
Tolv mann i skove:
tolv mann var dei,
tolv sverd bar dei.
Store-stuten stinga dei,
bjøllekua binde dei;
hengde bjølla upp i et tre,
stjelde bort bondens bufe.
I loved the creepy feeling of it, obviously. He also sang the song of the enormous crow "Mannen gjekk seg i veaskog", and it made an unforgettable impression on a young mind. So I think it's safe to say that these traditions still live and thrive.