#huldre

The huldra in the icy waterfall cave you just stumbled upon...

you know its bad when the white boy says "Livin' the Dream."

A comic that was supposed to be posted around Christmas. Then holiday demotivation happened. But no issue, surely it can be finished afterwards, right? Then the capital of my country was slightly taken over by insurrectionists until they got bored and left and the majority of them seemingly faced few to no consequences. And then school happened. So here we are. But, better late than never. 

This little comic strip is based on a specific Norwegian legend, which can be found here: http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/oskorei-and-haug-folk-the-dangers-of-a-norwegian-christmas/ and also in Christiansen's Folktales of Norway. 

The beings the protagonist, Jacob, sees are called the Haug-folk. Or, literally, the Mound Dwellers. The name seems to be synonymous with tusse and huldre-folk, or hidden folk. They are a type of being which live underground together, usually in large groups, specific to Norway (but similar beings can be found across Northern Europe). They tended to be content with their life, full of vast riches beneath the earth living forevermore. Unless the topic of salvation came up. Sometimes they took children and left changelings, or got a fancy for a young human which they took with them. Some stories depict life with the huldre-folk to be drab and boring, where they waste away into a grey nothingness. In this case, however, it appears to have turned out for the better. With the huldre-folk Guro Ljoseng finds riches beyond her imagination as a peasant farmer and love with the leader of their mound. Tostein, the haug-man in question, is a sight to behold. He stands tall with a blue cloak, legs that reach down to the ground when he rides, and a nose long enough to tickle his horse's mane. As far as other stories are concerned the huldre-folk don't appear, if they are seen at all, to be all that dissimilar to human beings. Exceptions to this trend tend to be extreme: they are either the most beautiful person you've seen, or have exaggeratedly ugly features, such as Mr. Tostein's nose. More often than not this is paired with sex: females are beautiful, males are ugly. A pattern which occurs throughout the world of hidden neighbors. In the past I might've described haug-folk as like orangutans, with the largest males developing extreme noses and height in response to becoming the dominant member of their group. Now though, I think Tostein's just got a really long nose and that's just how it is. 

In the book this instance of the haug-folk are compared to the oskorei, a regional Norwegian wild hunt. Similar stories though show that mound-dwellers like to come out during Christmas to celebrate. Danish mound-folk will raise their hills on pillars of fire or gold while they celebrate. Christmas is usually a time of magic, for the places where it's practiced, and even if they aren't elves or angels supernatural beings like to get in on the action. In addition, these terrible riders don't fly through the air like most others do.