Ethnology is a big interest of mine and therefore it happens that I translate some tales that suit my fancy when I'm feeling a bit bored, or upon request. Since they have grown in amount over time I thought I could just as well make a post collecting the links to all of them in one place.

All the tales and legends are from Sweden, my native country. Since I usually describe where the story comes from by Swedish geography, that is the historical provinces of the country, you might want to check out this map.

( Fairytales )

( Legends )

( Other )

Context: we are currently learning about Christianity in Religion class. When the first- and secondyears go orientating in the woods, we go to visit different denominations in the Swedish church.

Apparently visiting a Pentecostal congregation and getting all fired up about their sexist and homophobic interpretation of Christianity is a great way for my class to bond.

I feel like... You know, I should be really offended about the fact that I was told that my sexuality is a choice and that we'll all go to hell for not believing in Jesus Christ as our Saviour, but. When we were sitting there I was mostly squirming in some kind of horrified glee over meeting people who are actually stupid enough to believe that.

AND EVERYONE GOT SO PISSED OFF, IT WAS HILARIOUS. One of the two guys in particular got really aggressively defensive whenever anyone questioned their beliefs, and the entire class was basically the same (claiming that believing in evolution is a choice and that God is on the husband's side in domestics can do that.

Religious bigotry isn't really amusing, but I. I have never actually met people like this; I'm very familiar with the Lutheran Church of Sweden, which is pretty liberal about, well. Everything.

So basically I couldn't stop thinking "Hahaa omg people like this actually exist, why". If I wasn't laughing I'd be crying.

(Even my teacher in Religion started cracking up at some points. Which is just... Bad.)

But yeah. A pretty dull day overall, the three first churches were very sensible and PC. But several things that were brought up during the last visit reminded me of several errors in text interpretation, so... I talked to my teacher, and now I'm ridiculously excited about getting to talk about the problems with manuscript copying and translation errors in a textbased religion.

Now I need to do some last-minute baking for LGBT society tomorrow. At eight in the evening. *Sigh*

Do any of you remember the good old days when I used to post stories and other tidbits of trivia related to the folklore of my beloved Scandinavia?

I'm asking because it's seven in the morning, I've stayed up all night and I feel like killing some time.

So earlier... Yesterday, following exchange was had on MSN:

taiyou_to_tsuki: But I was reminded of this (... by the Thor fandom), and now I've wanted to find material and write something about it on LJ for a long time.
nevermore_1106: About what?
taiyou_to_tsuki: Eventual connections between hammers and fertility rites in Norse religion and Scandinavian folklore. >3>
nevermore_1106: Haha! That was a very nice way of saying "I HAVE MJOLNIR IN MY PANTS".

( A summary of the conversation/explanation that followed behind cut )

... I've often seen people who are a bit more well-acquainted with Norse mythology state that Thor was not only a thunder god and slayer of giants, but a fertility god as well and a sort of "patron" of peasants. However, I have never once seen anyone elaborate on what that fertility aspect means. Above is a possible explanation.

Þrymskviða is btw indubitably one of the most popular myths in Northern Europe, and has been for about a millennium. Several medieval ballads based on it from Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland survived to the 19th century, resulting in some edits and changes. Some day, I might compile and translate them if anyone is interested.

Another fun trivia about hammers: they were, as stated above, mainly protective symbols against evil. While not as prevalent as crosses (obviously), they still sometimes appeared in everyday rituals. The by far most recent example was recounted by an informant whose 92-year-old grandmother still carved hammers into the dough before baking bread in the early 1990s (!!!).

(Bread in itself was considered protection against evil, so the process of baking it was very delicate and required safety measures. Bread = Srs business in rural Scandinavia).

- It was terrible to behold how the blood poured down her breast while she greedily drank.

The comment was made by an old man when describing an indelible memory from his childhood. [...] It occurred in Hova, Västergötland, when the last public execution was performed some time circa 1870. The man, at the time a young man aged 12-14, was hired as a guard at the event. Those who were to be executed were husband and wife, sentenced to death for familicide. The husband was beheaded first and when the head rolled a man immediately ran forth. In a small bowl he collected the warm, running blood and handed it over to a soldier's wife.

- Hardly had she had time to drink up, the narrator continues, before two hussars on horses, one of them her brother-in-law, closed up on both sides of her.

They took her by one arm each and started riding down the road while the woman ran between them as well as she could. The man tells that the purpose of that action was to make the blood mix well with her own.

Blood was thought to contain life force and was used to heal the sick in Scandinavian tradition.

As morbid as the above story may seem, the thing that gets to me most is how this was not an in any way unusual occurrence. There are witnesses describing how guards had to fight back the pressing masses trying to collect blood in bowls, bottles, spoons etc. at public executions.

Usually, though, the blood of a slaughtered animal would do. Drinking the blood of a recently killed cow was a custom still practised in Sweden as late as the 1930s.

... "A particularly cruel method was to catch a snake, stick a needle and a thread through both of its eyes and then let it go. The man murmured during this despicable ritual a verse, for example:

"Like the snake longs for its sight,
So you shall always long for me".

He then fastened the needle to the woman's clothes, in the hope that a strong, burning love would soon light up in her heart."

- Ebbe Schön, "Folktro om Ödet och Lyckan" (2002).

... Love magic. It is kind of terrifying.

Poor snakes.

"The Borders of My Home Expanded"

A study of cultural Scandinavism in the nineteenth century

(Kari Haarder Ekman, Makadam Förlag 2010. Copied down here for quick references and perhaps for some people's viewing pleasure?)

( Summary in English )

This post will once again reaffirm two things about me:

1. I am really bored now in summer.

2. I am a huge fag.

So here. Have a DenSu fanmix.

( History sticks to our feet )

I'd be rather grateful if you tell me if you snag and/or like this. Besides the fact that comments are always fun, it'd be nice if someone shares my slightly unusual taste in music. XD

X-posted to kalmarunionen and denmarkxsweden. Sorry for the spam.

F-List reminder: still leaving for Tunisia the 10th. Will be back a week later/the 17th. <3

Today was boring.

Have some Swedish legends.

( Dalsland )

( Närke )

( Östergötland )

Girlfriend wanted to hear this story; I thought I could just as well make a complete post about it here.

In the 1670s, in Småland, the south of Sweden, the mistress of the Röckla estate died while giving birth to her first child. This doesn't seem like a particularly special event, but for some reason there would be many stories and rumours to circle around her death, even when her widowed husband was still alive.

The priest of Virestad parish back then was called "Master Nils" by the local population. There were lots of stories told about him too; that he knew magic both of the good and bad kind. Maybe this was what originally spurred the legend around Röckla.

The forests of Småland are old and big. The trees are tall and the rocks are big and covered with moss; in some parts the light may come trickling down through the crowns of pines and aspen. They are real troll forests, and trolls are in my experience more usual in Småland than anywhere else in southern Sweden.

The story of Per and Kersti of Röckla is no exception. The first time I heard about it, was in a folk song from the 1800s that I decided to upload and translate.

( Sent om en afton... )

Google Maps tells me, that Röckla still stands down in southern Småland, Virestad parish. But if Per's family lives there to this day, I do not know.