#danish folklore

[hapalopus]

British fairylore: Don't eat the fairies' food or you're gonna die

Danish vættelore: If you don't eat the vætter's food you're gonna die

(translation in alt text)

There's about 20 examples of this story from various parts of the country. The trolls get really insulted if you refuse their food.

[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.

[wolfhidewinter]

Valravn commission from earlier this year for Ruk_Eldr I love just being let loose on a character

[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

[wesley-de-cornualles]

Matthew Gregory Lewis, from 'The Water-King: A Danish Ballad', The Monk

[hapalopus]

To be fair, in Denmark/Northern Germany/Southern Southern Sweden, the most common animal bride was the Night Mare. Aka, this thing:

By comparison, a swan seems like a downright good idea.

so if there’s one single trope i’m always down to fight it’s the animal bride (folklore motif 402??) which a lot of you are probably familiar with as the selkie - the fisherman either falls in love, steals her skin to trap her on land/gain power over her, or they fall in love and THEN he steals her skin to keep her from leaving, and either way she spends a lot of time gazing sadly out to sea and then she or her child finds the skin and never returns again. and that’s awful on a whole lot of levels - it’s not love, it’s control.

BUT. but the thing is. you how selkies/seal women was a pretty common variation of this? another really popular one was swans.

i just want you to think about that for a moment. swans. like…I get it, they’re pretty, graceful birds, certainly it’s easy to imagine them magically becoming pretty graceful ladies? but have you ever fought a swan. swans are awful. swans are the devil’s geese. imagine seeing a pretty magic lady and being absolutely enchanted by her, and stealing her magic feather cloak, and then you go up and say ‘hey i’m in love with you, let me make you my queen, it will be great, we’ll be so happy’ and she just looks at you for a moment and…

you know i was going to say maybe she just shouts for her sisters and suddenly you’re realizing you’ve made a terrible terrible mistake bc you’re surrounded by big fucking birds who are all hissing. but honestly if this swan lady is as aggressively down to brawl as any other generally unhappy swan, then she’d straight up fuck you up on her own. she’d just deck you roundhouse, honestly. you don’t fuck with swans. why does this trope exist

[hapalopus]

i tried to Google it but I couldn't find

what's an alderperson?

"Ellefolk" in Danish - usually translated as elves, but I don't believe that's an accurate translation. "Ellen" is the alder tree, and the alderfolk are known for living around alder trees.

The alderfolk consist of young maidens, young men, children, old crones, and a king. The young maidens and men are beautiful and fair from the front, but with backs like hollowed-out rotted tree trunks. They often try to seduce humans to enter the alder woods with them, or to join in their dancing. Humans who give in to them go mad and want nothing more than to return to the alderpeople.

The children are described as "green" (either in skin or clothing, the stories aren't always clear) and can be seen playing in fields, on hills, and at the edge of the forest. People may hear their laughter and song without ever seeing them.

The alder crone is an ugly and dangerous, but nurturing, matriarch with tits so long she has to throw them over her shoulders to not trip on them. In Danish folklore, she's the main target of the Wild Hunt, and there are many stories of people seeing the Huntsman carrying a dead crone or two by their hair.

The alder king is one of Denmark's ancient "lesser kings" (småkonger). Most lesser kings are people, like King Amlet or King Skjöldr. Some say the alder king was a human once too, or that he ruled alongside humans - but he is definitely not a human now. He's rarely seen, and when he is seen his appearance is usually indistinguishable from the Wild Hunt (except, of course, that the alder king never carries around a quarry of alder crones). The alder king on Møn is referred to as Klintekongen. The alder king on Stevns is referred to as Stevnskongen. I'm sure many more of them have individual names. They don't take kindly to other kings entering their domain, and have been known to obstruct the King of Denmark's tours around the land.

The alder crone and the alder king are always referred to in singular, even if there are dozens or hundreds of them. It's always "the alder king," never "an alder king."

[thehmn]

I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what the mythical creature valravn from Danish folklore is but after diving deeper it’s more versatile than expected.

The version I was originally told is that a valravn (means “war raven” or more precisely “raven of the fallen” as in fallen people on the battlefield) is a normal raven that gained human intelligence by eating the flesh or brain of dead people after a battle. With the gift of intelligence also came the curse of only being able to fly at night. The only way to gain the ability to move around in daylight was to eat the heart of a young boy. Then the valravn would be able to turn into either a human or a raven/wolf beast and go wherever it wanted whenever it pleased.

But in the most well known song about valravens they’re all human men who were turned into ravens by either a witch or a female troll. A women was told her husband could only turn back if he drank her blood so she asks another valravn for help. It agrees in exchange for the life of her first son as soon as he has spoken his first three words, suggesting an infant would be too young.

In yet another version the valravn is a human who cannibalised dead people on the battlefield and turned into a raven or a human/raven/wolf monster that could only travel at night but would continue the cannibalism until it ate a young boy at which point it would be able to turn back to a human form.

So take your pick. You want a weird creepy raven that has decided it wants to be a human? Or a tragic story of someone who can only turn back by hurting their beloved? Or perhaps a wendigo style creature who became a monster after committing the taboo of cannibalism? Or maybe a mix? Because clearly Danish people in the past weren’t too worried about the valravn canon. The only generally agreed on lore is that they’re always male, can only travel at night and they eat humans or drink human blood to reach their final form or be cured.

[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

[briefbestiary]

A nocturnal magic beast. The valravn is an oft wicked thing of Danish folklore, typically born from the bloodied battlefield.

[postcard-from-the-past]

Danish folklore garments on a vintage postcard

[the-amaranthine-terminal]

"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)

[hapalopus]

I'm Danish, I can confirm! Throughout my childhood, every December we would make porridge and put it in the attic for our resident gnome. Farm gnomes love porridge

boyfriend and i got into an argument about whether or not gnomes live underground. he has stormed off to look for his “gnome book”

[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.