Just like her mother-in-law, Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg have been vilified throughout history. But the criticism of Maria Eleonora has been the opposite of that of Kristina – she was too extravagant, too emotional and…
Read part 1 here. Kristina of Holstein-Gottorp’s husband, king Karl IX died on October the 30th, 1611. Kristina then became the first Vasa queen to see her child inherit the throne, and the only one…
In the post about Anna of Austria, Kristina’s predecessor, we saw how Sigismund, king of Sweden and Poland, was challenged by his uncle, duke Karl, over the rule of Sweden. The conflict between uncle and…
In the last post about trolls, the concept of ”bergtagning”, where trolls kidnaps people, were explained. One version of this story is the Changeling, where the trolls take a human child from the cradle and…
As with giants, there is different types of trolls. In some stories, they seem related to the giants of the Folklore – large, brutal and rather stupid. But actually, in most Folktales, trolls are not…
A famous tale about giants is one about the building of Lund’s Cathedral. It was first written down in 1654 by Jens Lauritzen Wolf, but before that it had been told from generation to generation.…
Giants as a mythological creature exists all around the world. Here we’ll explore two types of giants – the ones in Norse mythology and the ones in Scandinavian Folklore. They differ rather drastically from each…
Scandinavian folktales are full of fascinating mythological and supernatural creatures. Some of the most common ones are giants, trolls, gnomes (”tomte”) and fairies, but also specific beings such as the Neck or Nix (”Näcken”) and…
This is based on a case-study of Älvdalen, where two sets of Witch Trials took place in 1668, and of how the society moved past the terrifying events and found reconciliation. Read part 1 here.…
How did the affected people and their societies deal with the aftermath of the witch trials? In the Nordic countries, circa 5000 people were accused of witchcraft, and around 1700 were executed (for Europe as…