Sweden – The Horrors of Writing

When the Bells Sing – Very Short Story

Once in a small village far to the north, there were three young men walking across a path from their home to the forest. They had axes resting on their shoulders and they were in a good mood because the sun warmed their faces and spring was finally hitting off. Johan was the fairest of the three and the youngest; baby face, they called him. But despite his childish appearance, he took the lead. Behind him were Jospeh and Hans who were older but also eager to get back to work. “Right where we left off,” Joseph said and gestured at a half cut tree.

“Thank god,” said Hans. “I couldn’t stand another week cooped up in the cottage.”

Johan nodded in agreement but remained silent. The other two noticed this and wondered what was on his mind. “Ah, it’s nothing,” Johan said.

But the two friends insisted and Johan said. “I don’t like the new priest, is all. Why can we only ring the church bell on Sundays?”

“I know what you mean, my misses is scared to death about trolls, but come to think of it, I’ve never seen any,” Hans said.

“That doesn’t mean they don’t exist! Besides, I don’t like the feel of the woods lately,” Johan looked around again.

“I’m sure you’re overthinking it. He’s from the city, after all, taught at University abroad! I’m sure he knows best,” Joseph said.

“Maybe, or maybe city folk don’t have to worry about elves and trolls and god knows what else.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about elves. We give them porridge ever so often, like any sensible person should.”

“But haven’t you heard? Father Magnus isn’t even doing that! I worry for the church…”

Hans and Jospeh gasped. “Well, maybe the church is different, protected, you know?” Hans said.

“Maybe, but I sure don’t like it.”

They started cutting the logs. After finishing off last seasons work, they started cutting down new trees. “Do you remember, Agnar?” Johan said.

“Your crazy grandpa? Sure.”

“Well, when he was young, he used to go to all sorts of places. Once, he climbed the mountain over there,” Johan said and pointed at the highlands in the distance. “He said that he saw nothing but wilderness as far as the eye could see.”

“Yeah, so?”

“The next village is far off and the city is even further. It’s a different world out there, but Agnar wasn’t discouraged by the distance and he walked for a whole week without seeing anybody. With immense luck he reached the city unmolested, all the way to the coast. He saw many different kinds of people. He was excited at first but after spending a month he found that the city wasn’t interesting. It was all about money and nobody cared about the creatures and peoples living in the forest, though he saw people place coins on the keel of their ship to the boat elf.”

“Boat elf? Never heard about that,” Hans said.

“If there are house elves…,” Joseph said.

“Right, anyway, Agnar went back home and never saw any reason to leave his home again. Point is, we are very different from the city folk, I don’t see how father Magnus knows what’s best for us.”

The two friends sat silently for a moment to let the story sink in, then, Hans said. “How do you he wasn’t making things up?”

Johan dug into his pocket and showed them a smoking pipe that was decorated with thin strings of gold and silver that looked like waves. The two friends gawked at it. “Do you think anyone around here could make such a thing? He spent all his money on it and I inherited it. I don’t smoke it though, it’s a memento of him, after all.”

All three went quiet again just looking at the pretty thing, but soon they got back to work. They worked until dusk and they felt good, they were looking forward to coming home and relaxing after a hard days work. On the way home, they heard some women giggling somewhere in the woods. They looked at each other and the curiosity got the better of them and they followed the noise deeper into the forest until they hit the meadow. To their astonishment, they saw three lovely maidens dancing naked in the grass. Joseph gasped, suddenly, and stopped the others from going closer.

“What’s the matter?” Hans said.

“It’s Lisa! We can’t look.”

Hans and Johan smiled and crept closer, to the edge of the undergrowth and watched the lovely girls dance, the dusk hitting their pale skin. Joseph refused to look, however and looked the other way.

As they gawked, The bushes suddenly rustled beside them. “Change your mind, eh?” Johan said, thinking it was his friend, instead, it was a large creature with leathery skin and a big fat nose looking stupidly at the ladies with them. The two friends froze, scared stiff. The creature had long braided hair that dragged on the ground and a thick tail with a puff of hair at the end like a broom. They were too scared to enjoy the ladies and kept glancing at the troll when they saw he was upset about something.

From the bushes, across to them, the priest emerged. The girls shrieked and quickly covered while the priest scolded them. The troll growled and with two flicks of his fingers, the priest turned into a rat and the girls ran away in fear. The two friends ran too and they grabbed Joseph, who wasn’t aware of any of this, back to the village without looking back.

They never saw the priest again, although there was a rat that skittered near the church. They didn’t dare kill it but they made it a point to keep ringing that bell everyday no matter who came and told them otherwise.

18 January, 20246 January, 2024 by Stamphers

The Swedish Myth

In Europe, Sweden was amongst the last to be christened. I think there is a correlation between the time of christendom and how pious a country is. Granted, Sweden was highly religious, as most of Europe were, during the renaissance up until the end of the 1800s. But this is a relatively short time spann, considering how much earlier other countries became christened. This could explain why the people in the southern Europe remained Catholic while countries in the North converted.

But let’s backtrack a bit, because the nature of Norse mythology and the geographical location of Sweden, is also important when learning about Sweden.

It was actually with relative ease the vikings embraced Christianity. They saw Jesus as simply as yet another deity in their already large roster of gods. Not much changed for the converted, but in time, as we all know, the christian belief and practises overtook the Norse. It is said that the people in Svealand (the area around Stockholm) in the 11th century would still call for Thor’s aid when charging into battle, which is a sign that the old Norse traditions died hard.

I’d like to believe, as a Swede myself, that another reason Scandinavians converted with relative ease is that we are a very practical people. It’s easier to believe in one god rather than several, after all. However, something that remained even though Sweden was Christian, were the stories about the creatures hidden in the woods, under your house, in the sea and in the darkness of the night. These tales about trolls and other magical creatures stayed in people’s consciousness for many centuries to come, especially in isolated villages, which Sweden had many of. It is well known that Sweden is sparsely populated for its size, this was especially true a couple of hundred years ago. Imagine, large stretches of untouched forests and a village, with only a couple hundred people were the nearest neighbour is a week away on foot. This meant that the peasant communities had to be self-sufficient and it’s not hard to imagine the tales being told in such small and isolated communities. Parents telling their children about trolls snatching kids if they are not careful, or about werewolves and Draugs by the campfire during winter.

But it wasn’t just the wilderness where these fairy creatures could be found, they could be found on ships and in homes, were the animals lived and under rocks. There were ways to appease these creatures, much like they had done with the Norse gods before them. One such tradition was to offer a bowl of porridge to the house elf to keep the home safe and don’t cause mischief. These creatures weren’t strictly evil but there were those that were malicious and could kill you if you angered them. These tales became christened, of course, as they became more and more associated with the devil. A very clear example of this change is that they say trolls hate the sound of church bells and could be driven away by the holy cross and such. It was a comfort for these people to have these explanations to why bad things happened to them and that they had ways to prevent misfortune.

These traditions were so hard to get rid of that there are documents about maidens running around naked in the meadow in 1600 century Småland as a ritual of fertility.

All these things, I believe, has shaped how Swedes view themselves and the world today. For instance, the famous Swedish melancholy stem from Stig Larssons movies, but has roots further than that. It is not so much that we are a depressed people, we are an inward looking people, think a lot and are more comfortable within small groups. We aren’t very spiritual either, though most people would acknowledge that there’s “something” that we cannot explain. But if we don’t believe in Gods anymore, nor fairy creatures, then what is this “something?” We don’t have an answer to that and it’s how should be when confronting the otherworldly. The norse Gods were faceless, imageless; we knew they existed and our sacrifices matter, but that was all we knew. Perhaps we are going back to this ambiguity?

A little brain dump from my part. Hope you enjoyed it!

30 December, 201827 December, 2018 by Stamphers