I’m always extra fascinated by folklore tropes that show up in a wide variety of cultures, so let’s look at another one: the supernatural/inhuman wife. These are usually stories about a man winning himself a wife that is decidedly not human, either through trickery or courtship. But it never lasts, because these stories all seem to have the same ending, the wife leaves:
Almost all selkie stories, both from Celtic and Nordic tradition, are an example of this. A man steals a selkie’s pelt and thereby binds him to her or leaves her stranded on land and in her desperation persuades her to come back with him and become his wife. After many years and many children she always finds her pelt, however, and as soon as she does she runs off to the sea. In most cases it turns out she has a husband and children in the sea too. In most she keeps leaving presents for her children and in some she still feels affection for her human husband, but she never goes back ashore. There are similar tales about swan-maidens.
An Aboriginal story from the Guugu Yimithirr-speaking people called “The forest spirit and his ten beautiful daughters” tells how the great hunter and warrior Gabul, the Carpet Snake, goes to the mountaintop where the powerful Forest Spirit, lives. He bests him in an unarmed fight, demanding to marry one of his daughters as reward before he will let him go. He takes the most beautiful of the ten daughters home to be his wife but starts worrying when she does not eat or drink. Eventually he takes her to the river and there she promptly turns into a fish and swims upstream back to her father’s mountain, leaving Gabul ashamed and broken-hearted.
There are also stories about fairy wives, most notably two from Wales. One, collected as “The Shepherd of Myddvai”, has a shepherd courts a beautiful maiden that dwells in a lake by bringing her bread. She agrees to go with him if he promises not to strike her three times without cause. Of course he promises this, but he taps her once for dallying to spur her into action, once in confusion when she weeps at a happy wedding, and once in disapproval when she laughs at a sober funeral. She declares their marriage ended and flees back to her lake, only returning once her sons are grown to give them gifts of healing. In the similar tale “Touched by Iron” a farmer’s son falls in love with a fairy maiden and the promise he must make her father is to never touch her with iron. One day as he helps his wife off her horse, she is touched on the knee by the stirrup of the saddle and vanishes. But with her mother’s help she does get to visit him sometimes afterwards, by standing on a large floating turf on a lake, so it could not be said she had set foot on human earth.
In a Chinese story called “The Painter”, from the 9th century bundle Wenqi lu, a learned man buys a screen with a painting of an inhumanly beautiful woman on it. The painter tells him of a ritual that might bring the woman to life and the man manages to call her to him. She steps out of the painting and consents to stay with him, they even have a son together. When the child is two years old, however, the man speaks with a friend of his, who immediately suspects the woman of being a dangerous creature and gives him a celestial weapon to kill her. As soon as he arrives home, his companion sobs that she is a mountain spirit who never asked to be painted by the painter and never asked to be called by him. She steps back into the painting, taking her child with her, leaving the man alone with a beautifully painted screen that now shows both her and the little boy.
It’s been ages since I posted here too, sorry! But anyway, I upped this comic too, probably you’ll have some reading to catch up if you only follow me here, buuuut… If you’re up for Edwardian shenanigans, here you go!
Till Queendom Come is a project about an Indian Rakshasi who’s trying to find her lost heart after the East India Company stole it, a Jotunn who didn’t feel like going back to Norway after the Vikings invasions, and the youngest granddaughter of the last druid of St. Ives who’s now trying to keep on the family tradition on her own in spite of being the wrong gender to do so. Started as a project set in Edwardian England, born in a urge of sudden irritation about seeing Victoria being romanticised everywhere by a cynical comic artist who majored in English. You can read it here on the hashtag #oscarpoppins (which was its unofficial title until now and in my mind will always be), or on Webtoon.
I was delighted to see a trollkors in the comic! I have one myself. However, I don’t think there is any evidence for trollkors as amulets before the 1990’s. That was then the design was created by the smith Kari Erlands from Dalarna in Sweden. She claimed it was modeled after a protective rune found on her grandparents’ farm, but this has not been verified as far as I know.
The principle behind the trollkors is very old, though. According to folklore steel and crosses were believed to protect against the trolls. If you carved a cross above your door, the trolls couldn’t enter. And if you carried some steel on you, you were also safe. It was good to put a pair of scissors in your unbaptized baby’s cradle, since scissors were both made of steel and crossed themselves.
In Scandinavia, Oskoreia (also called Åsgårdsreia, Julereia or Odens Jakt in other regions) meaning “Asgard Riders” is the modern folk belief related to Christmas that traces its roots back to the Old Norse tradition commonly known as The Wild Hunt.
Oskoreia is a Yuletide tradition viewed as a phantasmagoria of dream-like images of hunters (usually led by Odin) and hunted engaging in battle, typically signalled by the howling of Odin’s wolves, always one louder and the other quieter. The group of riders may be alive or dead, real humans or deities, insignificant or noble, male or female and with many regional variations. It is said to have foretold changing weather in many regions but it could also mean imminent war and unrest. According to some reports, the forest turned silent and only a whining sound along with dog/wolf barking could be heard.
The pursuit can span across the sky but it is said that the hunt may never get closer to the ground than an “ox can wear its yoke”. If caught in the path of Oskoreia it is believed that a person may be swept up into the mayhem and so a good strategy to keep safe is to jump to the ground, thus making oneself lower than the height of an ox’s yoke and allowing the hunt to pass above.
In some regions, folk wisdom advised that people should carry some iron/steel and some bread with them as they walked during the Yule season in case they might encounter Oskoreia. If one should find themselves face to face with Odin, then they should throw down the iron/steel in front of them to ward off trouble. Further, if the person should meet his wolves then they should throw the bread, which they will eat instead of the person.
Another tradition stemming from Oskoreia is the “Christmas goat walk” (”Gå julebukk” in Norwegian) in which masked and costumed people (now usually children) go from door-to-door, singing carols for rewards of sweets.
A red bearded warrior, hunting trolls with his axe on his travels does not require us to make a huge leap of imagination in order to note similarities with the norse god Thor. However, there is far more to the comparison that St. Olav may have been used to reimagine pre-Christian beliefs surrounding Thor if we look a little deeper…
Following Christianisation in Northern Europe, many Scandinavians kept their heathen beliefs alive through syncretism with Christianity. A strong case can be made for this practice being evident with the Catholic saint and former king of Norway, Olav Haraldsson, celebrated each year on 29th July.
In Scandinavia, from long ago through until more recent times, St. Olav’s day was the day when the people would pray for thunder (named directly from Thor) and (as they referred to it) “the rain of the Æser” to prepare the crop for harvest, which they so eagerly awaited to come to fruition at this time of year.
St. Olav, like Thor, could control trolls and giants, according to legend. When he travelled around Norway on his Christening mission, the trolls often tried to block the way for him. He then used his power to turn them to stone, as if he was the sun, using a cross instead of Thor’s hammer, mjølner
One story, from the area of Ringerike, tells us that when St. Olav tried to pass a place called Krokkleiva, an angry giantess jumped out of the mountainside and said: “Saint Olaf with the red beard, you are riding too close to my cellar wall!” But St. Olaf replied: “Stand you there in wood and stone until I return!” Whereupon the giantess was turned into stone. Similar stories are told about various landscape features throughout Norway. People also saw other traces of St. Olaf in the landscape, such as footprints of his horse. A stone in Setesdal is said to be his chair, two rocks near Stiklestad are his bowl and cup, etc…
Another famous landmark is The Well Of St. Olav at Karmøy: “The legend claims that King Olaf was followed by enemies through the strait Karmsund. He sailed his ship to the western side of the island. From here the King and his men started to drag the ship over land from Torvastad to Vikingstad.The hard work made them thirsty and the King stabbed his clenched fist in the rock. Immediately it came roaring up clear water so everyone could drink.” Most interesting about St. Olav’s Well is that it is located in Torvastad and just a few hundred meters to the west we find Hovland. As the name suggests, it was likely to have been a pagan hov (temple). We know that water played a major role in Norse mythology, and perhaps the water in St. Olav’s well also had a sacred function in Pre-Christian times.
In Viking times, before the conversion to Christianity (and after it, too), people in Norway believed in different supernatural beings living in the landscape. Landscape features could also be made by them, such as mountains being petrified trolls, or a ravine being the axe blow of a giant. With these stories about St. Olav, this way of thinking and explaining the landscape takes on a Christian mask, yet it is still fundamentally a continuation of traditional beliefs.
A Scandinavian/Nordic folk belief pre-dating the Viking Age, a tordenstein (in Norwegian), known as a ‘thunderstone’ in English and ‘dynestein’ in Old Norse, refer to recovered Stone Age flint axes/tools (usually dug up from the earth after many years beneath the surface) used as talismans, protective amulets and sacred objects in heathenry. Believed to have been hurled to earth by Thor, within lightning bolts during thunderstorms, as weapons to destroy trolls, alver (elves) and other malevolent vetter (mystical or spirit creatures), to protect the world from chaotic forces. This ancient tradition is one of the longest continuously running and most widely spread customs in human history, practiced for many thousands of years across many cultures, in various different ways.
When thunderstones were first excavated from Viking Age graves, they were initially dismissed as accidental additions because they were dated as much as 5000 years before the burial. As more evidence emerged and more examples were excavated (including one in an untouched, sealed stone coffin), it was soon understood that these thunderstones held significant importance. Some unearthed examples were even carried to Iceland all the way from Norway by treacherous sea voyage! It is believed that they protected houses and people, along with protecting the hamingja (”luck”).
To the Vikings, there were three essential properties for a thunderstone, according to Olle Hemdorff, an archeologist from the University Of Stavanger, Norway and expert on the topic:
“The form had to be similar to an ax or a hammer—that is, a ground stone or flint. The stone had to have ‘flaming’ properties, which flint and quartz have. And all the stones were damaged with the edge chipped off—'proof’ that they fell from the sky.”
In Scandinavian folklore, thunderstones are seen as potent magical artefacts and anyone lucky enough to dig one up possesses a very powerful charm. Often worshipped as famial or ancestral deities/powers, they are said to protect against spells and witchcraft, if kept on the person. Similarly, if placed within the wall of a home, they will bring good luck, prevent lightning from striking and protect against bad magic. When used within a sacrificial blot ceremony, the thunderstone would be venerated with an offering of beer, poured over the stone, or anointed with butter.
Photographs:
My own tordenstein.
Lightning shower (CNN, 2014).
Artistic recreation of Viking Age woman with tordenstein in excavated in Kongshaugen, Norway.
Photograph of the Stone Age greenstone axehead and grave goods found buried with the Viking Age woman (as above)
In Norse Mythology (and indeed also modern folk belief), the way in which humanoids can posses wings, fly or literally transform to a bird is to undergo a feathered transformation known as Fjærham/Fjederham (in modern Scandinavian tongue) or Fjaðrhamr (in Old Norse). Fjær/fjeder/fjaðr means “feather” and ham/hamr means the form or shape. So it literally translates as “feather-form”. The most prominent examples of “feather-form” are Freya’s feather cloak, which is used by Loki in Þrymskviða, the Norns who are said to transform into swans to travel midgard and the hero, Germand Gladensvend, from the Danish folk ballad of the same name.
It’s been ages since I posted here too, sorry! But anyway, I upped this comic too, probably you’ll have some reading to catch up if you only follow me here, buuuut… If you’re up for Edwardian shenanigans, here you go!
Till Queendom Come is a project about an Indian Rakshasi who’s trying to find her lost heart after the East India Company stole it, a Jotunn who didn’t feel like going back to Norway after the Vikings invasions, and the youngest granddaughter of the last druid of St. Ives who’s now trying to keep on the family tradition on her own in spite of being the wrong gender to do so. Started as a project set in Edwardian England, born in a urge of sudden irritation about seeing Victoria being romanticised everywhere by a cynical comic artist who majored in English. You can read it here on the hashtag #oscarpoppins (which was its unofficial title until now and in my mind will always be), or on Webtoon.
I was delighted to see a trollkors in the comic! I have one myself. However, I don’t think there is any evidence for trollkors as amulets before the 1990’s. That was then the design was created by the smith Kari Erlands from Dalarna in Sweden. She claimed it was modeled after a protective rune found on her grandparents’ farm, but this has not been verified as far as I know.
The principle behind the trollkors is very old, though. According to folklore steel and crosses were believed to protect against the trolls. If you carved a cross above your door, the trolls couldn’t enter. And if you carried some steel on you, you were also safe. It was good to put a pair of scissors in your unbaptized baby’s cradle, since scissors were both made of steel and crossed themselves.
Anyway, great update!
(Me with my trollkors.)
Thanks for the extensive explanation! Since you pretty much wrote all that I was able to find (and couldn’t add in the notes because Webtoon didn’t allow me to add more images, oops), I’ll contribute with an explanation of why exactly I chose that symbol.
I read that it’s a modern interpretation of the rune Othala, and that there are no sources more than Kari Errands stating its roots. The discourse about the material is something I didn’t found and for which I thank you!
I actually debated for some time whether to keep it or go for something else, I wanted something more specifical than just a word or a sentence written in runic alphabet (because Winnie would have asked the meaning and thus wouldn’t have written it, she’s a good girl).
Going further in my search and avoiding all the traps of dubious websites with no sources, the best bet I found was a digitalisation (with transcription and translation, you can find it here) of the Huld Manuscript, which is a nice manual of Runes and sygils used in Iceland for all kind of purposes, with the necessary instructions, compiled by Geir Vigfússon in 1860, with old and new symbols.
The only problem was that beside the runes being medieval and later than the ones Darcy uses (which are your average elder Futhark used in Norway, with an addition of Anglo-Saxon Futhorc because he did learn those as well when he moved)… The sygil that protects the user from evil spirit in the Huld Manuscript is the Daviðs Insigli, aka David’s Sygil.
Darcy never converted to Christianity, and in the end I preferred for him the newer symbol, but which has less of a Christian feel to it (or would have called it in another name, if the symbol was re-branded after the conversion, but I haven’t yet found anything on the topic, and I know not enough Old Norse to make up names). It felt more “on brand” for his character, if a little anachronistic for the period.
A shitton of words later, I’m really glad you liked the update!
While Tolkien was heavily inspired by Nordic folklore, his ubermenschen depiction of elves is incredibly different from the one in folklore.
The elves of Scandinavia are beautiful to be sure, beautiful, terrible and cruel.
Like most other creatures of myth they were rarely, if ever, seen in daylight. The fair folk lived underground, in the hills and mountains and only emerged in the early mornings or late evening when the sun already set. Instead you would most likely stumble upon them in the early morning dancing over fields covered in morning dew and mist.
You would hear them before you saw them, hear their music and their laughter, but if you were unlucky their music would stay in your ears forever. And then you saw them, pale, beautiful girls in white dresses twirling through mist. You would want to follow them, to join in their dance, but any human who danced with the elves would inevitably fall seriously ill and die just a short time after.
Even if you never encountered the actual elves, you could probably find signs of their presence, the most common one being the ‘’fairy ring’’, a circular formation of mushrooms, left by the fair folks dancing.
Most people took great care to maintain a good relationship with the elves, because they could make your and your families lives miserable if enraged. People would leave needles, coins and other trinkets for the fair folk. In fact, archaeologist has found sacrificial sites, meant for the elves, in Scandinavia that date back to the Iron Age.
