#danish folklore

[thehmn]

Here’s a bit of fun folklore.

The largest rock in Denmark is nothing much to look at if you come from an area with mountains but Denmark is mainly made of sand and dirt that was pushed down from Sweden and Norway during the ice age and they gifted us a few big rocks in the process.

The biggest rock came to rest on Funen and became the focus of much lore. People couldn’t figure out how such a huge rock ended up in the middle of a field and eventually named it Damestenen which means The Lady’s Rock (or very directly and literally translated to LadyStone)

It was named so because people believed it had been thrown by a woman. Sometimes a human woman, sometimes a magical witch and sometimes a troll woman, but either way she supposedly got angry at Svindinge Church and threw the rock at it but missed.

It’s not uncommon to explain large or weird rocks near churches as someone wanting to destroy it. Roskilde Church where all the Danish royals are buried has this stone nearby

It’s said to look like that because the devil or a troll threw it and his fingers dug into the stone.

But The Lady’s Rock is the only one believed to have been thrown by a woman which is pretty fun.

[little-ghostgirl-31]

The little match girl!!

Thanks guys for this amazing 2024 year! I’ve really progressed with my art journeys! Everyone has been so kind on likely my original art journey, I hope people enjoyed my art this year and that I’ve helped people learn some new things!

I’d like to thank @sissiarte for inspiring me to get back into digital art, they’ve really helped me to learn get into Irish mytho and they are an overall great artist!

[hapalopus]

Apparently horses in heat are immune to ghosts (translation in alt)

[marine-indie-gal]

Inktober 2024 Day 30: Agnete and The Merman

A Danish Folktale Ballad found in "The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad" about a Sea King who fell in love with a Woman from Land.

Agnete was already a Married Woman & had children but when she meets a Merman one day, A Sad and Lonely Sea King who he falls deeply in love, asks her to join him under the sea to be his own Queen. So Agnete left the land & her First Family behind as she married a New Husband & bore him his Children. However, their Marriage would be very short lived when she hears the loud bells of Church & leaves her Merfolk Husband behind to return to her Real Family.

In some versions of this Story, she does either return to the Sea (even for a few visits when you have Two Different Families).

Agnete & The Merman (c) Danish Folklore

[briefbestiary]

If it happens to like oats, perhaps you could bribe it from your sickbed...

[itwasdeunderjordiske]

🖤Introduction🖤

Hey everyone! I'm Line - a Danish folk practitioner (of the Sjælland and Bornholm regions🤙) looking to have a chat with my fellow witchy folks out there. I've been practicing since 2019 but grew up with the local stories and lore. I am not a norse pagan and I don't work with runes or seidr or have much to do with anything 'viking' in general. My practise is based around the folk beliefs that continuously lived alongside christianity and the syncretized practises that developed from that - aka I deal much more with the after-viking stuff 🧚‍♀️🕯

Name: Line

Age: 26

Pronouns: she/her

Sexual orientation: lesbian

My big three: Gemini 🌞, Cancer 🌜, Capricorn ⬆️

Witchy interests: herbalism, water magic, death magic, animism, working with plant and animal spirits, småfolk/de underjordiske

[themasc]

I gotta read this later!

A wild (mother) goose chase for a lost fairy tale

In august 2020 Forbes published an article about how writer and illustrator Pete Jordi Wood had uncovered a “charming gay fairytale” that “has been lost for 200 years”. In particular a story where a sailor wins the hand in marriage of a handsome prince. Wood is quoted as calling it an “unbelievably and fabulously gay” plot, and: “an ancient tale with a positive portrayal, of a guy who can be read as gay or asexual, but certainly queer”.

Obviously I was wild to read it, but sadly Wood’s adaptation of the fairy tale had been published as a limited edition children’s book and virtual exhibition that I could not access. Even more disheartening, the folklore sources were not named on his website, and his research was only available in a limited edition essay collection and zine that I would have to buy.

To make matters worse, the Forbes article said that Wood had translated variations of the story from Danish, German and Frisian. That was absolutely too close to home for me not to go looking for it! Except I had very little to go on, because again, Forbes didn’t give sources.

The article said only this:

Wood called the story “The Dog And The Sailor”

The protagonist is an adventurous sailor with an overprotective mother who defeats a beautiful evil witch and wins the hand in marriage of a handsome prince.

Wood found it in the Stith Thompson’s six-volume Motif-Index of Folk-Literature under a tale type called “The Dog and the Sea” which existed in multiple languages (Danish, German, Frisian and others), but not in English.

It was first written down in the 1800’s.

I could find only one mention online with more information, on the Simmons University website:

“Originally a Danish folktale documented by the folklorists Nikolaj Christensen and Jens Kamp, this story has been translated into English for the first time by Pete Jordi Wood.”

The consequence of all this is that I have been hunting for this fairy tale for a very long time and with the help of two amazing Danish followers and a lot of frantic internet searches, I’m finally convinced that I have! So, if you want to follow me into my obsession, you can find it all under the readmore.

Keep reading

[postcard-from-the-past]

Danish folklore garment on a vintage postcard

[the-path-to-forever]

"Her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose leaf, and her eyes as blue as the deepest sea." 🧜‍♀️

"Putri Kinasih" 🦪

"Yang Diampuni" 💎

"There was Lorenzo slain and buried in, There in that forest did his great love cease; Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win, It aches in loneliness - is ill at peace As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin: They dipp’d their swords in the water, and did tease Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur, Each richer by his being a murderer." 🌿

"How long in there, in terms of years? 0.000000000067 seconds for the body to Jaunt, but how long for the unparticulated consciousness? A hundred years? A thousand? A million? A billion? How long alone with your thoughts in an endless field of white? And then, when a billion eternities have passed, the crashing return of light and form and body. Who wouldn't go insane?" 🐁

"Meine Mutter die Hur, die mich umgebracht hat, mein Vater der Schelm, der mich gessen hat, mein Schwesterlein klein hub auf die Bein, an einem kühlen Ort, da ward ich schönes Waldvögelein, fliege fort, fliege fort!" 🕊️

"Εφύρα" 🪨

"Lanang Mas" 🥒

(literary references)

[froggytroll]

Some of you don't know Trolska Polska and I'm here to change that. If you like the goblincore aesthetic this might be your new favorite band.

[hapalopus]

Alright, you got me there, a modern folk song is technically a folk song xD

I have a major soft spot for folk songs involving transformations, so I was thinking of those:

Germand Gladensvend: Bird monster wants woman's firstborn, she hides her firstborn, firstborn grows up and turns into a bird to fly to the love of his life, he runs into bird monster, bird monster eats his eye and drinks his blood but lets him go, lover doesn't want firstborn because he's ugly now, one maiden tends to his wounds, maiden swears revenge on every bird, firstborn turns into a bird to fly back home where he came from, maiden cuts up every bird she can find, maiden never finds firstborn again but she does find his cut-off hand

Valravnen: Magic raven sees a sad maiden, magic raven asks what's up, maiden misses her lover who's in a faraway land, raven promises to take maiden to her lover if she'll promise raven her firstborn, they fly to maiden's lover, maiden and lover are married and have a child, raven kills child and drinks child's blood, raven is turned into a knight, and in some versions they revive the child through the power of prayer

Jomfru i Hindeham: Mom tells son not to shoot the white doe with the golden collar, son sees the white doe and forgor that he's supposed to ignore it, son shoots the white doe and starts cleaning the carcass, son finds his sister's corpse under the doe's skin, son has regrets

Jomfru i Ulveham: Evil step-mother turns maiden into a pair of scissors but the maiden enjoys being scissors, evil step-mother turns maiden into a sword but maiden enjoys being a sword, evil step-mother turns maiden into a wolf, maiden lives as a wolf for 8 years (doesn't enjoy it), maiden kills and kills and kills but the curse can only be lifted if she drinks her brother's blood, step-mother is pregnant with boy, maiden hunts step-mother, maiden kills step-mother, maiden extracts the baby and bites his toe, maiden has tasted brother's blood and turns human again, baby brother survives, maiden adopts baby brother and gets him baptized

Nordic Folk Songs

🇩🇰Denmark: watch out, the lanternman will get you!

🇸🇪Sweden: watch out, the troll woman will marry you!

🇳🇴Norway: watch out, YOUR SISTER WILL DROWN YOU IN THE RIVER AND TAKE OVER YOUR FIANCE AND YOUR CORPSE WILL BE TURNED INTO A HARP AND TAKEN TO HER WEDDING WHERE IT WILL PLAY TWO NOTES AND KILL HER DEAD

[beefjerkybuffoon]

Nobody, not even Milton, could stop me from making my vaguely Elster Signalis inspired au ra

[hapalopus]

Nogen der ved, hvad den her meddeler kan have ment med "speræe"? Personen levede i Munkebjærgby og Sneslev i løbet af 1800-tallet. Ordet står i citationstegn, hvilket betyder at det er skrevet så nær den originale midtsjællandske dialekt som muligt.

[mask131]

Fragments of fright (9)

From Richard Cavendish’s The Great Book of the Supernatural

THE MESSENGERS OF THE AFTERLIFE

Most people do not know when they will die - but a few of them are apparently warned of their imminent demise, thanks to the appearance of a ghost. This messenger of the afterlife can be a wraith, or a mysterious animal, and many families are proud of "owning" one.

The Hohenzollern dynasty, which reigned successively over the Brandeburg, Prussia and Germany (until the abdication of the kaiser Wilhelm II at the end of WWI) was boasting the existence of a "family ghost". This specter tied to their bloodline was a White Lady - a female ghost dressed in white, with a mourning armband, usually seen before the death of a member of the family, and appearing in the royal residences of Berlin or other Germany regions. It was believed that she might be the ghost of a princess of the 15th century, who was cruelly abused by her husband, who was a Hohenzollern. The dynasty of the Hesse of Darmstadt (Germany) also had its death herald - a Black Lady this time, in a mourning outfit, her face hidden by a dark veil. This ghost was supposed to be the archduchess Maria-Anna, wife of the archduke Ferdinand.

In the Danish royal family meanwhile, disasters were believed to be announced by the apparition at Gurre, south of Helsingor (a location that inspired the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet), of the ghost of king Valdemar IV, who ruled on the Denmark in th 14th century and died at Gure in 1375. Another strange fact of the history of the Danish crown concerns the queen Astrid, killed in 1935 by a car accident. Some times after her death, she supposedly appeared before numerous people during a spiritism séance organized at Copenhague by the medium Einar Nielsen. A picture of her "manifestation" was apparently taken - but unfortunately, these kind of pictures are very easy to falsify and thus do not make an actual, solid proof of the ghost's apparition.

The Hasburgs, who ruled over the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were traditionally warned of any upcoming tragedy by the appearance of a group of great white birds circling in the sky. They were seen in 1889, soon before the double suicide of the heir-prince Rudolf and his mistress in Mayerling. Later, the emperor Franz-Josef the First also saw them in 1898, on the eve of the murder of his beloved Elisabeth. Finally, these sinister birds were spotted in 1914, before the Sarajevo attack which killed the archduke Franz-Ferdinand and caused World War I.

The most famous of these "messengers of death" is without a doubt the Irish banshee, which makes the pride and glory of the greatest and oldest families of the island. The banshees howls and wails with a melancholic voice through the night, crying the death of a family's member soon before it actually happens. She can appear as a beautiful maiden with a red shirt, or a green dress under a gray cloak ; or she can appear as an old hag. This "dual face", the beautiful maiden and the ugly hag, were the usual manifestations and appearances of the great goddesses of the pre-Christian Celtic religion, of which the banshee seems to be a remnant. It seems that getting rid of a banshee is hard, since there are records of them still wailing near the old domains of families that left Ireland a long time ago. A few years before the publication of this book, an American that was visiting the Aran island in the Galway bay, organized a party, with lot of music and dancing. As the night was ending, the young man returned home, playing accordion. The noise he made distressed the neighborhood, and someone had to go explain to a poor frightened old man that what he heard wasn't the screams of a banshee, but the sounds of a drunk playing very badly the accordion. Reassured, the old man knew three more weeks of peace... Until he heard the ACTUAL wails of the banshee, and soon after died.

According to a very old tradition, the death of the bishops of Salisbury is announced by the arrival of mysterious white birds flyig over the plain. Other bad omens - not necessarily meaning "death" - are the black dogs, or rather the black hounds, usually of an enormous size, that supposedly haunt the British countryside. Peel's castle, on the isle of Man, is the lair of one of those monsters, the Moddy Dhu, whose mere sight causes a person's death. You will also be doomed to die if you meet the Shriker dog, which hides in the Burnley cemetery (Lancashire). Many more sinisters black hounds are believe to wander on the paths leading to cemeteries. In a lot of popular beliefs and local folklore, dogs are associated with death, probably because in the distant past hungry dogs used to dig up corpses to eat them. There could also be something related to the strong belief that dogs are able to sense entities invisible to humans. Ghosts of dogs are particularly dreaded in the East-Anglia, where strikes the formidable Black Shuck, whose only eye shines in the darkness.

During World War II, an American air-pilot and his wife lived in Walberswick, in the Suffolk, and they had there a terrifying experience. During one whole night, an enormous black dog tried to enter in their house, and they only prevented it from doing so by piling up furniture in front of the door, that the animal nearly split open. At dawn, the beast left, but without leaving any prints in the mud surrounding the house. This event happened during a storm night - which reminds one of the old beliefs claiming that storms are caused by the mad run in the countryside of a pack of infernal hounds, whose howls causes death, madness and misfortune. In some regions, these hounds are led by the "Wild Hunter". In Denmark, it is king Valdemar that leads the pack, in Normandy the Devil himself ; in northern England it is "Gabriel's hounds" led by the Angel of Death, while in the Dartmoor the dogs follow sir Francis Drake riding a hearse. All these legends inspired without a doubt Conan Doyle when he wrote one of Sherlock Holmes' most famous adventures - The Hound of the Baskervilles.

[themousefromfantasyland]

@thealmightyemprex @ariel-seagull-wings

For some reason a lot of people suddenly started asking about Well Men, so I made one of my messy info pictures for them.

This is literally all the info there is on Well Men as far as I know. Not a lot, but it gives you a lot of room for story ideas.

[cursecuelebre]

Top Recommendations for Norse Pagans that aren’t Problematic.

There is a lot of books by people who are racist and part of far right side of Heathenry and I’m going to try my best and list the books I have that helped me on my path that isn’t problematic and have questionable intentions. Books and YouTube channels.

Anglo Saxon Socerery and Magic by Alaric Albertson. He is very knowledgeable in his work and path especially on runes which includes the rune poem to make your own interpretation and witchcraft side of things. He even talks about the Elves which I appreciate because not a lot of Norse authors talk about them. It’s more Germanic than Norse but I can’t see any problem adopting certain aspects since they are very similar. I will say he does take himself a bit serious at times but his information is so good and worthwhile. I have not read his first book on Travels through middle earth but it focus on more the pagan side.

Poetic Edda and Prose Edda: it’s what every Norse pagan needs. It’s the foundation of Norse paganism not bibles but myths and tales that can help along our journey. There is tons of translations, but my favorites are Dr. Jackson Crawford Poetic Edda and Anthony Fawkes Prose Edda. But look into other sagas as well like Volsung which Dr Jackson Crawford also wrote about.

Beowulf. More of a Germanic tale but again includes it has roots of Germanic sorcery, traditions, religion like the concept of Wyrd (Fate), the runes, and values within his society like loyalty and mythical creatures. Again there is many translations even Jrr Tolkien did a incompleted version of Beowulf but I think Tom Shippey finished that version I could be wrong. Nonetheless explore more than one, the oneI have is by Seamus Heaney.

Grimm Fairy Tales this mostly German Folklore but it’s still quite important to learn about in German folk magic, creatures and entities in German folklore tends to be very real to the practitioner in their spellwork.

The Way of Fire and Ice by Ryan Smith a very progressive outlook in Norse paganism, he talks about creating communities in Norse paganism and calling out and denouncing Nazis in the community how Norse Paganism is inclusive and how to be open to all types of people. But he has a beginner approach to the deities, beliefs, values within Norse paganism.

Look into a lot of academic sources that’s where you will find a lot of information on Norse paganism and religions.

Tacitus Germania - A Roman historian talking about the Germanic tribes their culture and customs.

Saxo Grammaticus history of the Danes

The Viking Way by Neil Price it goes good in depths about magic in Scandinavia like Seidh

Dictionary of Norse Mythology a quick guide to northern myths, if you are trying to find a specific god and you don’t have time to look up in a book it’s in there with great information to each one.

Children of Ask and Elm: History of Vikings by Neil Price on Scandinavian culture during the Viking age

Some YouTube Channels

The Norse Witch: Bente lives in Germany and their channel encompasses all of Norse paganism more around magic. They do interviews with other Norse witches of folk magic like Icelandic and Danish. Even gives good book recommendations and advice on general spellwork as well!.

Dr Jackson Crawford he is an author but he also has a YouTube channel. He was a professor in Colorado on Norse culture, mythology, and language and now is a full time YouTuber. He did a series of videos on the runes which are more historically accurate. Discusses the myths and the language and what do they mean. Jackson Crawford isn’t a Norse pagan nor he doesn’t care if you are one but just letting you know he isn’t coming from a pagan perspective.

The Welsh Viking also like Jackson Crawford but still has really great knowledge on Viking culture.

De Spökenkyker who is a channel that focus on German Folk magic living in Germany who is a practicing German Folk Witch.

Please feel free to add on any recommendations that are helpful and useful to the Norse pagan Community!

Update:

Just adding new sources from the comments that I really enjoy I have been notfied that some YouTubers aren’t that great after all. You may find other people’s reblogs with their names but I have edited them out. But here’s some more reminder these are good perspectives and ideas as well in the community that aren’t problematic it’s okay to listen to these folks and gain some perspective or historical insights of course let me know if I’m mistaken or they are problematic that I didn’t know about.

- Welsh Viking (YouTube) and his more historical like Jackson Crawford in that sense

- Mathias Nordvig (Author) - Notably Astaru for Beginners

- Arith Harger (YouTube)

- Call of The Runes by Walter McGrory (his teaching of the runes is really great and includes the rune poems)

- Elves, Witches, and Gods by Cat Heath - If your interested in magic especially Seidr Cat does a great job of explaining her practice again HER practice it’s following someone’s example but you can adapt into your own practice of course.

- A Practical Guide to Asatru by Patricia M Lafayllve - She has interesting points and a good read.

These some of these authors utilise their knowledge based on history and their own practice and I think it’s okay to read or listen to them.