Spring and the Goddess of Dawn
While in many places the frost still crouches deep in the ground and the mountains sleep under a thick blanket of snow, the first harbingers of spring are already appearing in sheltered corners and sunny places: snowdrops and crocuses greet the first warming rays of sun, the young trees begin to bud…
Myth, fairy tales and the power of crisis
In myths and fairy tales, the heroes and heroines are pushed towards change through crisis that most often manifest as an adventure they will live on their own, and which will ultimately lead them towards a state of completeness and self-knowledge they would not have been able to acquire without enduring a…
Trolls, dwarves and elves: magical creatures of the north
Norse paganism and folklore is filled to the brim with otherworldly beings, many of which are still alive and kicking in Scandinavian popular belief! In this article we will discover the magical creatures of the North, such as trolls, nisser, nøkk, elves and dwarves. trolls The trolls are a well known race…
John Bauer, Swedish illustrator of Scandinavian folklore, mythology and fairy tales
Discover the secrets of the dark gloomy forests of Sweden, meet the nasty trolls, the gnomes and travel alongside young princesses able to tame even the biggest bears. Plunge with us in the mythic world of John Bauer and discover the magic hidden behind mountains and rocks with the fantastic illustrations of…
The Age of the Wolf and Ragnarök - The end of the world in Norse mythology
Brothers shall fight and fell each other,And sisters’ sons shall kinship stain; Hard is it on earth, with mighty whoredom; Axe-time, sword-time, shields are sundered, Wind-time, wolf-time, ere the world falls; Nor ever shall men each other spare. – Völuspá Just as Indian mythology knows the Kali Yuga and Hesiod and Ovid write…
Women of the North: Honor and power in Viking society
Honor Women in the Viking age were, like men, concerned with honor. An insult to the housewife was just as bad as an insult to the man of the home. Insults in the Viking ages were no negligible matter. An attack on a person’s honor was an attack on the whole bloodline,…
The Winter solstice: The Sun is caught by the wolf to be reborn
“The night is dark and full of terrors” may be a quote from a fantasy show but it echoes deeply with the Baltic mythology. The night is a magical and powerful but terrifying time when witches and wizards have more power, and various sorts of critters come scurrying out from the deep…
The winter solstice
It is quite easy during the dark days of the Christmas season to go deep, to get closer. In the summer, on the other hand, one tends to become more ecstatic, drawn out into the open in the dance of the blossoming nature. In the winter nights though one would rather experience…
Art-ificial Intelligence
If an algorithm creates an illustration, why should it be called anything else than a tool creating an image? If an image is aesthetic, does it make it a work of art? If someone would use a program and click on a button to generate a picture, would that person be an…
The Wild Hunt, the ancient ghosts ride across Europe
The months between the autumn and spring equinoxes have been since ancient times populated by dark creatures, myths and lore linking to the otherworld. Different kinds of festivities in celebrating the ancestors, rituals involving the honourable dead or tales of ghosts and demons are being celebrated to this day in some regions…