Matilda Berger

(FINAL OUTCOME) 

NYK/NÖKKEN/NYKKJEN/NØKK

An omen for drowning.

A mysterious water creature who lures people to their deaths. He is sometimes a beautiful young man who tricks women into jumping into the pond where he then drowns him. However majority of the time he is seen as a monstrous creature with eyes watching just above the water surface.

Here he is surrounded by water lilies, however in Scandinavia these are known and ‘Nix Roses’ after a tale from the forest of ‘Tiveden’ about a man who tries to give his only daughter away to a Nøkk in return for great hauls of fish. The daughter refuses to be given away and instead stabs herself to death, staining the water lilies red.

In other stories you could bring the creature a treat of one or more of several things…

Three drops of blood

A black animal

Some Brännvin – Scandinavian vodka.

He is also a shapeshifter….    

CHANGELING

The changeling is linked to the Huldra. When the Huldra steals a child, she would replace it with a changeling – a sort of monster child. It looks pretty much identical to a normal baby, but signs that it’s not are:

Excessive crying, refusing to speak/learn to speak, ugly, won’t grow, over-eats.

You can prevent your child being replaced by a changeling by baptising it, putting a piece of metal in the cradle or carving a cross on the cradle headboard.

If it is too late and your child has already been replaced, you can get the huldra to take back the changeling by treating it badly or taking it to get baptised.

FOSSEGRIM

Another strange water creature, the Fossegrim is a naked young man who sits underneath waterfalls and plays the sound of nature on his fiddle: the sound of water or the wind in the trees.

HULDRA

A Deceptively beautiful woman who had bark and tree like features on her back and the tail of a cow. They often lured people to their homes, either to marry them or kill them.

She is also linked to Adam and Eves children…

Adam and Eve had lots of children and one day Eve was washing them. God came to visit and so she hid the dirty children. God asked if there were more children and Eve said no. God said ‘Let all that is hidden remain hidden’. The hidden children became ‘De Underjordiske’, ‘the ones living underground’.

Huldra is said to be one of these hidden children who escaped and managed to stay above ground.

She is flirtatious and neither good nor evil. However, they are known to sometimes steal children…

CHURCH LAMB.

The first founders of Christian churches in Scandinavia would bury a lamb at the alter – a church lamb. The lamb is meant to represent Christ and if you were to attend the church when there wasn’t a service you might see the lamb. If you did, it often meant a child was going to die.

PROTECTION FROM NYK

You could protect yourself from the Nyk in a few ways.

Either you could throw a needle or a steel cross in the water or you could sing a riddle.

The riddle in the picture translates as:

“ Nyk! Nyk! Needle in the water! The virgin Mary threw steel in the water! You are sinking, I float!”

GHOSTS

An interaction with a ghost could cause sickness.

BÄCKAHÄST (BROOK HORSE)

This is the Swedish equivalent of the ‘Nyk’ and it is more common within the year walk tradition.

Simliar to the Scottish Kelpies, the Brook horse is a white horse who lures children onto its back. Every time a child gets on, the horses back lengthens to accommodate for more children. Once it has enough it leaps into the water and drowns the children taking their souls with it forever.

CHURCHES

During a year walk, upon entering the graveyard you were meant to walk up to the church and walk counterclockwise around it three times, after which you were to blow through the keyhole of the church door, temporarily renouncing your faith. This was meant to fully open you up to the spirits.

Window between worlds of the living and the dead

During a year walk, if you followed the proper steps and preparation and completed the walk, the windows of the church would show visions of the future.

Rites of passage

The church can be inhabited by the supernatural when we are not there.

These are the 9 Myriorama cards I made illustrating and a pseudo-pagan tradition in Sweden called ‘Årsgång’ meaning, ‘Year walk’. each card features a different entity you could meet on your walk.

On the backs of each cards is a description of what that particular card is showing.

From top left to bottom righty have...

Ghosts

Bäckahäst

Church and the Church Grim

Huldra

Church Lamb

Protections against entities 

Nyk

Changeling