Scandinavian Folklore

I am currently traveling in Scandinavia with my oldest son and his wife. Therefore, my blogging activities are a little bit less than usual. This particular post is not a super-fact, but it features some interesting facts regarding Scandinavian folklore and mythology. Yesterday, we visited a Norwegian Fjord called Sognefjord, which is said to be the dwelling of a number of Huldra, which is their name in Norwegian, or Skogsrå (forest fairy) in Swedish. Sognefjord is also known to be a narrow deep and long fjord. Sognefjord is one mile deep and 45 miles long and it is surrounded by tall mountains.

Me on a boat in Sognefjord Norway.
The beginning (or end) of Sognefjord. Sognefjord is one mile deep and 45 miles long and surrounded by tall mountains.

A Huldra or Skogsrå or Tallemaja in Swedish is a seductive female creature who lures men with her beauty and beautiful singing and then kills the men. It should be noted that I read that if you meet a Huldra in the forest and you treat her with respect she will not kill you. She would just enjoy your company for a while, talk to you, sing to you, show you the beauty of the forest, and then she would let you go. It is only the rude and selfish men who don’t respect her boundaries whom she kills. What do you think is the truth?

Imagining how a Huldra would look like. Stock AI-generated image ID: 2400845203 by Shutterstock AI Generator.

We took a two-hour cruise on Sognefjord and after the cruise we took a train to the top of the surrounding mountains. Along the way we encountered a Huldra by a waterfall. She sang to us in her beautiful voice, and she seduced us all, both men and women, to take photos of her with our phones and posting them on social media.

My photo of the Huldra (in red) by the waterfall in the Norwegian mountains. She seduced us all into taking photos of her for Facebook. Her seductiveness was feared in medieval times, but in modern times we refer to the seductiveness of the Huldra as a “tourist trap”. On Facebook we call it clickbait.
A close up of the Huldra we encountered. Sorry, my phone camera is the best and it was at a distance.

Scandinavian Folklore Creatures:

The Huldra / Skogsrå is not the only creature in Scandinavian folklore. There are many. Below is a list of Scandinavian folklore creatures.

  • Huldra / Skogsrå – the aforementioned female forest spirit who may kill the men she lures with her beauty and beautiful singing.
  • Troll – Trolls are large ugly creatures with magical powers. They typically live in caves and sunlight is dangerous to them. They are typically hostile to humans and may kidnap people, including children, to work in their mines.
  • Näcken – is a male creature who lives by the water, creeks, rivers, ponds and lakes. He lures children and others to their death. In southern Sweden (Scania) he seduces people by skillfully playing a violin thus creating irresistible music.
  • Vittra or Vitterfolk – are supernatural spirits or small invisible people who have a lot in common with people. They own cattle and they sometimes interact with people. Usually, they stay out of your way, but if you hurt them, for example by throwing hot water out the window without warning them first, they may take revenge on you and burn down your house. Vittra are not evil but not friendly either. The belief in Vittra is especially prevalent in northern Sweden.
  • Tomtar – gnomes – nisse – is another type of small magical people related to vittra but unlike vittra they are friendly. They may help you with your projects and duties as long as you are nice to them. They help you with your farm and your animals, warn you of danger, and bring you gifts for Christmas if you in return give them food, such as porridge. The Swedish Santa Claus is not one guy, but a Tomte, and there are many Tomtar, often one Tomte per house. It makes a lot more sense. How could one guy bring presents to all the children around the world? He would have to fly faster than the speed of light. No, it is rather an army of Tomtar who does that work. The Walt Disney Santa Claus invention is not realistic. Ancient superstition makes more sense.
  • Storsjö odjuret – this is a Swedish lake monster like the Loch Ness monster. It resides in a lake in northern Sweden.
  • Kraken – a gigantic octopus that can bring down entire ships.
  • Blodstämmare – this is not a creature but a very common superstition in northern Sweden. There are people, blodstämmare, who can stop the flow of blood by uttering magical phrases while focusing their minds on the person in question. This power is usually used for good to help people who are bleeding. It can also be used for evil, like black magic, to stop the blood flow in someone’s heart. This superstition is based on Sami (indigenous north Scandinavian people) Shamanism and north Swedish Christian fundamentalism (Laestadians). It is respected enough that some north Swedish hospitals has used blodstämmare in emergency situations. The father of a close friend of mine called a blodstämmare when he had a bad nosebleed, and it worked. I know anecdotes are not valid scientific evidence, but maybe someone should do a study.
An illustration of a Tomte. Shutterstock ID: 2060057882 by PLIMPLUM.

Do I believe in the existence of any of these creatures? No, I don’t, but I am curious, what are the mythical creatures in your culture?

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Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

40 thoughts on “Scandinavian Folklore”

    1. Thank you so much Sara. We are having a great vacation, but I should say that I grew up in northern Sweden so I’ve been here a lot. When I was a kid we visited Denmark, Finland, the rest of Sweden, and later on Norway. Now my kids get to visit with me.

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    2. I could tell. I knew that “Kjeldsen” is a Danish name. My daughter has been to Sweden seven times already and to Denmark three times. You should visit Denmark and it is great that you are planning a trip. Copenhagen is a beautiful city. Tivoli is a great and original amusement park and they’ve got a lot of interesting beers and breweries in Copenhagen. I have not yet visited the rest of Denmark (only gone through by train), but I’ve heard it’s beautiful.

      The funny thing is that the Danes understand me when I speak Swedish but I don’t understand them when they speak Danish. I can read Danish newspapers though. On this trip I talked to some Norwegians about it and they said the same thing. The Danes understand Norwegian but the Norwegians don’t understand them. Norwegians and Swedes understand each other though. It is something with spoken Danish that makes it very difficult to understand.

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    3. Ha ha yes maybe. A friend from college, Alyce, learned both Swedish and Danish after her father was murdered in a robbery in Philadelphia. She decided she wanted to move to Scandinavia after that. Exactly why she picked Scandinavia I don’t know. I forgot to ask. She just came up to me at a wedding of a common friend and started speaking fluent Swedish to me. I was completely shocked. Both by the fact that she was fluent in Swedish and the reason for wanting to leave the US. Then she moved to Denmark, found a Danish husband and she is still there. We’ve visited her a couple of times on our Scandinavian trips.

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  2. What lovely pics. I hope you, your son, and daughter-in-law had a wonderful time. Funny tourist trap. 🙂

    When my brother and I were little and obnoxious—I like to think we’ve grown out of the worst of it—my grandmother used tell us that we sounded like a couple of banshees. I don’t know if you’re familiar with a banshee. It’s a bit of Irish folklore, spirits come to warn of a death in the family. They scream and wail.

    Many years later, I found out a branch of the family does indeed have a banshee attached to it by tradition. I’ve never heard her or seen her, and I’m not in a hurry to do so.

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  7. Hi Thomas, this is a fabulous post. I knew some of the mythical creatures but some are new to me. I’m benchmarking this so I can come back and do more research on these myths. In English folklore we have fairies which are actually evil and will steal your baby and leave a changeling in its place. I was explaining this to a black colleague on Friday. Native African people have their own mythical creatures, I have a book on these. The English also have elves which are not pleasant and aligned with Norwegian trolls. The Irish have a plethora of mythical spirits and creatures.

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    1. Thank you so much Robbie. There are many mythical creatures and certainly know very few, the well-known Scandinavian ones (well known among Scandinavians) and the well-known American ones. I read about the English fairy stealing babies but I know nothing about African or Asian ones.

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      1. Hi Thomas, we all learn about the culture we are exposed to. Learning about other cultures is part of the joy of this WP community. I don’t know that much about Scandanavian myths although I do know a bit because of reading Hans Christian Anderson’s stories.

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    2. Yes that is a very good point Robbie. One of the joys of the WP community is learning about other cultures and viewpoints. I’ve been exposed to Scandinavian and American cultures a lot but I’ve missed much else.

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    2. Actually vitter folk have scared me a bit too even though I don’t believe in them. For example, when you walk in the forest and there’s rustling in a bush but you don’t see anyone or anything, and you start thinking, maybe they are real afterall, then you think, no of course not.

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  9. Fascinating folklore, Thomas! 😃 The Hulda sounds similar to mermaids, who also lure men to their deaths with beauty and singing. I love the idea of them letting the good men go and only killing the rude and selfish ones! 😎 The Kraken are known all over, and there’s an NHL hockey team in Seattle. Famous phrase: “Bring on the Kraken!”. 🐙

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    1. I knew about mermaids but I did not know about the rest you said. I cannot believe I missed that there is an NHL team in Seattle called “Bring on the Kraken!”. That is something I should have known. “Bring on the Kraken!” I will remember that.

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