Tag Archives: Sweden

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Bordering Norway and Sweden, the mysterious Finnskogen forest, with its deep rooted trees holds ghosts, curses and lingering spirits. Like the poltergeist-like ghost at Välgunaho farm, who drove its residents away and left it abandoned for over a century.

Deep along the border between Norway and Sweden lies Finnskogen, a wilderness that has frightened generations. The spruce forest closes in, the air turns unnervingly still over the marshland and twisting rivers, and the weight of something unseen settles over the dark paths. Even seasoned woodsmen avoid walking alone in certain parts beneath these branches once dusk arrives.

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Norway or Sweden

The forest and area is rather undefined, but one of the more well known hiking trails crossing it, stretches for 240 km on the border between Sweden and Norway. It gets its name from the Finish people that settled here in the mid 1600s. They needed wood for their farming. This created a unique culture with their own ways, language and they are now a recognized minority. Because of their own nature based shaman religion and rituals, there has been a lot of mystery and magic surrounding the place that was considered foreign and haunted.

**The Haunted Finnskogen:** The serene landscape surrounding Vermunden in Finnskogen, a forest steeped in mystery and folklore. // Source

Välgunaho: A Settlement Driven to Abandonment

In Röjden on the Swedish side of the forest sits Välgunaho, also spelled Velgunaho, a place so plagued by haunting that it was completely deserted in 1901, although some sources state it was in 1900. The year before had already become infamous as the ghost summer, a season of relentless activity that drove fear into the hearts of every resident and drove them out.

The Halinen and Saastainen family moved into Valea aho, “the bright shack”, in the 19th century. The name changed over time though, and when they moved out, their home was Velguna ho, “the ghost shack”.

Read More: Check out more haunted forests around the world

In 1866, a man named Henrik married Marit Olsdotter Saastainen in Röjden. She was eighteen years older than him, who had joined the family as a maid a few years earlier. Marit had serious problems with her eyesight and would eventually become completely blind.

He lived at Välgunaho with Blind-Marit who was practicing rituals, sometimes called witchcraft. She was said to be sensing the ghosts haunting her home, and she would say and warn others by saying: “Now the little ones are coming again”. She would also feed them, thinking they lived underneath the floorboards, and she poked down breadcrumbs from the edge of her bed.

Henrik’s brother Olof was deaf and mute and his sister Brita or Bitta is recorded in the church register as “almost deaf and mute”. Hearing loss seems to have been a hereditary trait in the Halinen family. A lot of family members were diagnosed as “deaf and dumb” by the priests. Meaning deaf and unable to speak of some sort of muteness most likely.

Every long Friday at Easter, Blind-Marit ordered Bitta to walk around the barn three times towards the sun and read ‘Our Father’ out loud. If they were churning butter, they put money in Kjinna they were churning in, and if strangers arrived for coffee, Henrik always put his finger in the coffee. If he didn’t, all hell would break loose. And even with all their precautions and superstitions, it did.

The Haunting Starts at Välgunaho

The first noticeable events occurred during an Easter weekend when the family’s cows ran around in the forest one morning, instead of staying safely in their locked stalls.

Henrik’s nephew, Sanla-August, or August Andersson that was his full name had been working in the forest in Trysil in Norway when he came home and heard about all the commotion at his uncle’s farm. Although not a particularly superstitious person himself, he went there on a bright summer day for a visit and experienced the darkness taking over the farm. He was often called over to help them clean up the mess the poltergeist was said to make.

Sanla-August who we have most of the story from said: “The hauntings began, if I remember correctly, during an Easter weekend. The cows were let loose in the barn and invisible hands untied the cowhides as soon as they were put around the cowhides. The milk pails were thrown over and every conceivable mischief that could harm the farm people arose. The invisible forces eventually became so common that they were given the name ‘he’. Many doubters, both learned and unlearned, visited Välgunaho. Some did not gain anything from the trip to the haunted place. ‘He’ chose to remain still. I saw that you had to hold on to the food containers, plates and pans, etc. with all your might, which wanted to turn over immediately when you sat down to eat. Välgunaho is and remains a mystery.”

When Marit and Brita were milking the cows, large stones would suddenly fly into the air, as if they were intended to harm the two women. The fear and anxiety grew stronger and stronger in the small family and the mysterious phenomena seemed to escalate over time. Soon “he” had moved into the warmth of the cottage and was also haunting the indoors.

“You had to use all your strength to hold on to the food containers, plates and pans and more that promptly wanted to turn over when you sat down at the table and ate.”

People reported objects hurled across rooms with violent force, as if angry hands were tearing through their homes. Crockery exploded against walls, furniture toppled without warning. In the middle of the night they were woken up by the long-table made from heavy wood that was turned around on the floor. Even furniture fastened was thrown across the room and was torn apart. In the barn, the cows were let loose and even the stove pipe from the house ended up on the roof of the barn.

Biblical Exorcism and Shamanic Practices

They tried to get Kosila-Ola, a person well versed in the mysterious rituals of the forest-finns to scare the evil forces away with gun-powder and salt and pepper. It didn’t really work. They summoned a Christian priest who brought his bible, but as soon as he put it on the table it was thrown into the wall. Nothing seemed to work, and it only seemed to worsen.

Ole Henriksen, a Norwegian teacher from Rotberget didn’t believe any of it, and decided to stay over one night. A coffee burner or pot above the stove was thrown through the room and knocked on his fingers. Eventually, everyone left, and Henrik Olsson moved that fall and they tore the farm down, leaving only cairn stones and rusty copper cauldrons. After this it remained abandoned and known as the haunted place.

**Back at the Haunted Välgunaho:** Sanla-August who talked about his family’s experience at the place where it all happened, years after. Photo taken by Dagfinn Grønoset. // Source: Digitalt museum

Afterwards, they preferred not to talk about what happened in Velgunaho. When people told them about the ghosts, August from Sanala interrupted and said: “Don’t add to it. What happened is more than enough.”

The Forest That Punishes the Living

Those who know the legends warn never to remove anything from Finnskogen. A pinecone, a stone, a fragment of old wood. It does not matter. The forest’s guardians are said to punish anyone who steals from it. Tales circulate about travelers whose luck soured immediately after pocketing a harmless trinket, suffering accidents, illness or a strange streak of calamities that only ceased when the object was returned.

Throughout time, people wandering there came for the haunting. We know about it today much to the work of Dagfinn Grønoset who wrote Finnskof of Trollskap where he interviewed Sanla-August, then an old man in 1953. Another well known Finn, Nitaho-Jussi once brought a group of people up to see, warning them about not disturbing, “the little grey ones.” as he called them. But one kicked a stone and in the same moment, his home caught fire and burned to the ground according to the stories.

Even in more recent times, people have blamed the mystery that happened on the farm for strange things happening. A bus of tourists once had a motorstop after they had passed through. Two women were taking white stones with painted crosses that the locals had put up around the farm. The guide Kjell Magne Nordvi convinced the driver to pretend to not be able to turn his key. He asked if someone had taken something from the place and asked them to deliver it back. After this, the bus started just fine, but definitely helped add to the story.

According to stories, the ghostly phenomena were now instead moved due east, to Rikkenberget in the southern Finnish forest.

A Wilderness That Watches

Finnskogen remains a place where folklore and fear walk hand in hand. The wind seems to whisper in a language older than the trees, and many believe the spirits who tormented Välgunaho never left. Wanderers swear they have felt unseen eyes following them on the trails. Others hear knocking in the underbrush or the sudden rustle of branches when no breeze stirs.

Why did the haunting occur? Some speculated that the old woman at the place was said to have been in contact with the devil and “became blind and unable to fulfill her obligations to the highest of the same.”

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References:

Finnskogens hemmeligheter – Aller Travel Reisemagasin

Spøkelset på Välgunaho – Finnskogene

Finnskogen – inte bara mystik

Ukategorisert

The Nordic Grave Dwelling Haugbúi Draugr (ᛏᚱᛅᚢᚴᛦ)

20. April 2026 Mirror Leave a comment

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An ancient ghost coming from the depths of graves across the nordic countries, the Haugbúi Draugr could be both dangerous and even deadly. Not merely a specter, but the rotten flesh of the dead, the ghosts are remembered as The Walking Dead of the North.

The draugr is not a distant spirit or a whisper in the dark, but the body itself, risen from the grave, swollen with death and driven by hatred, envy, or an unbroken will.

To the Viking mind, death did not always end a person’s power. A strong, malicious, or deeply wronged individual might carry their force beyond the grave. And even after the vikings are long gone, the stories of the draugr haunting the lands remain.

**The Norse Draug**: The word draug itself is derived from the Old Norse word draugr , which originally could mean the ghost of any deceased person. The draugen was originally a dead person, either living in a mound (in Old Norse called haugbúi ) or going out to haunt the living. They were corporal ghosts. // Illustration: Kim Diaz Holm

The Living Corpse of the Draugr

Unlike ghosts made of mist or memory, the draugr is corporeal. It has weight, strength, and substance. It can leave footprints in snow, crush bones with its grip, and wrestle the living like a man made of cold iron. In many stories, the draugr guards its burial mound or the land it once owned, attacking anyone foolish enough to trespass.

**Haugbúi Draugr**: In the Bronze and Iron age, people of power were often buried inside huge mound dwellings or tumuli. This led people to believe that the hills were haunted, and that these corporal ghosts resided inside of them. Although the Haugbúi is rather a type of draugr, it’s used as an umbrella term to separate it from the Norwegian Sea Draug. // Image: Osberghaugen / by **Karl Ragnar Gjertsen**.

Descriptions vary, but certain traits return again and again. Draugrs are often bloated and dark, their skin stretched tight by decay. They reek of death, a thick, sour stench that announces their presence before they are seen. Their eyes may glow with an unnatural light, or stare blankly from faces frozen in rage.

Some draugrs grow in size and strength after death, becoming far more powerful than they were in life. Others can change shape, slipping into the form of animals or mist, or riding the night winds to terrorize farms and villages. The draugr’s motivation was primarily envy and greed.

Glámr and the curse of the draugr

One of the most famous draugrs appears in Grettis saga. Glámr was a shepherd whose arrogance and defiance marked him even before death. When he died under cursed circumstances, he rose again, haunting the countryside, killing livestock, and driving men mad with fear. Glámr’s draugr is not merely violent, but malevolent, spreading despair wherever he goes.

***The Icelandic Draugr Types:*** The Draugr tale evolved differently in the nordic countries. In Iceland, the closest draugr ghost after the viking age and the saga era would be the Skotta or Mori. They also fall under the Old Norse Mythology of a Fylgja, that were supernatural spirits that followed or latched onto people. But the tales of the Fylga evolved and when we read about Skotta, they were not like totem animals or someone coming with your prophecy like in the old sagas. Icelandic ghosts are often described as being not like apparitions, but in real flesh that interacted with the living, like the nordic Draugr. And when we read about Skotta, the female version, she was highly dangerous and also deadly. *// An illustration to the Icelandic legend of the Skeleton in Hólar Church (Beinagrindin í Hólakirkju). From Icelandic Legends : Collected by Jón Arnason, illustrated by Jules Worms.*

When the hero Grettir finally defeats Glámr, it requires enormous physical strength and courage. Even then, the victory is incomplete. With his final breath, Glámr curses Grettir, ensuring that the shadow of the draugr follows him for the rest of his life. This reflects a core belief in draugr lore: even destroyed, the dead can still leave scars.

A second death

In Norse belief, killing a draugr was rarely simple. Weapons alone were often useless. To end its reign, the animated corpse had to suffer a second death. This might involve beheading the body, burning it, or destroying it so completely that nothing remained to rise again. Burial mounds were opened, corpses pinned down, and ashes scattered to the wind.

The main indication that a deceased person will become a draugr is that the corpse is not horizontal and is found standing upright, or in a sitting position, indicating that the dead might return. Breaking the draugr’s posture is a necessary or helpful step in destroying the draugr.

***The Sea Draugr of Norway:*** Originally, the word draugr simply meant ghosts, and there are stories about them across Scandinavia since before the Viking area. This ghost is not the same creature as the draugr of the Viking sagas, the corporal ghost even though they share a name. The sea draug belongs to coastal Norwegian folklore and is shaped by centuries of fear, loss, and respect for the unforgiving ocean, especially along the coast of western Norway stretching up to the north, the draug is almost always a ghost from the sea. Read More: *The Sea Draug: The Ghostly Fisherman of the Norwegian Coast*

Heavy stones were placed on graves. Bodies were buried with care, or weighted down, to ensure they stayed where they belonged. The most effective means of preventing the return of the dead was believed to be a corpse door, a special door through which the corpse was carried feet-first with people surrounding it so that the corpse couldn’t see where it was going. The door was then bricked up to prevent a return.

The Mound Dwelling Ghost Across the North

The draugr is not confined to one land. Variants appear across the Nordic world, from Iceland to Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Each region shaped the creature slightly differently, but the core idea remained the same. The dead could walk. The past could rise up and harm the present.

The Nynorsk terminology, which often differs from the Bokmål usage by being more closely related to Old Norse, still defines the draug primarily as a revenant. Ola Raknes could therefore define a vampire as a “Blodsugar-draug” in his English-Norwegian dictionary .

Today, draugrs are often portrayed as Norse zombies or vampiric undead in games, films, and novels, mostly because of their slowness in movement and how sometimes, their form and fate could sometimes be contagious and they could make the living one of them.

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References:

draug – Lille norske leksikon

Draug

Draugr – Wikipedia

Uncategorized

The Haunted Vicarage — Sweden’s most ghostly crowded house

11. November 2021 Mirror Leave a comment

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Even the home of the priests can’t keep the ghosts at bay. And in this house, the ghosts outnumber the living.

**Haunted**: Many ghosts have been reported haunting this house throughout the years since it was built.

In the idyllic countryside of Sweden Borgvattnet is an old village deep in the forest. There are around 70 people living there, going about their business in the serene landscape of green trees. In this small village, the Borgvattnet Vicarage, a building from 1876, lies, used to house the priests connected to the local church. There are many residing in this vicarage, adding to the number of people in the small place, although not exactly living.

More than once has the Swedish news media as well as a number of paranormal researchers found their way up to the quaint vicarage, looking like a cute inn to relax and enjoy nature as it has been open to the public since 1970. But the rooms available for rent are not necessarily just for you. The rooms are already all occupied by the ghosts, and therefore, it has earned the name of Sweden’s most haunted house.

The Ghost Priest

The story was first only whispered among the priests living there as well as inside the church of Sweden. But one priest would break the silence and make it the most famous place in the country at the time.

When the priest Erik Lindgren came as the new priest of his area, he came alone. The furniture was still something he was waiting for to settle into the old vicarage that was to be his own home. Therefore he was surprised and a bit scared when he started hearing stuff from the second floor. It sounded like heavy objects being dragged across the floor. When checking he found the second floor to be empty. There was no furniture there, and there was no one in the house but him. Or so he thought in the beginning, but it was only the start of the paranormal hauntings he was about to experience, living in this house.

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Although it was not something that had been spoken about publicly before the haunting of the house was well known within the church. In 1947 that was about to change as a journalist heard about the haunting of the vicarage. He got the priest, Erik Lindgren to tell about his experiences and an article was published on the matter. The curiosity was overwhelming from the public and Lindgren himself had to block his phone in the end because of all the journalists trying to get to him to talk about the paranormal occurrences.

Lindgren was meticulous and noted down every strange encounter in detail he experienced. But the list got so long that he stopped when he just accepted this was just a part of his everyday life. There were a lot of different activities going on in the lonely house. Everything from light turning off and on, invisible figures “crashing” into him making it hard to work and always giving him a feeling of someone watching him, never giving him a moment’s peace. From the second floor where he had the first day of the house heard heavy stuff being dragged over the floor, footsteps when there was no one there was constantly heard.

The worst experience though, was on this particular day when he was sitting in his rockin chair, reading a book in 1945. The chair started to rock harder and harder so violently that he fell on the floor. When he sat down again, it happened once more, making it hard to stay seated. He felt a force from behind, going through him. His legs started to shake and he lost footing, falling on the ground. After this interview, the chair got famous and in the 60s, it turned up on one of Sweden’s entertainment shows before being bought back to the vicarage in the 80s.

Some of the spotted ghosts:

So many encounters of different kinds have been reported. Shadow of a man passing by, the sound of footsteps coming to the front door and music playing out of nowhere. Some of the ghosts though, have a bit more story to them.

The Gray Lady

More and more priests started coming forward with their stories. Like the priest Rudolf Tängdén who was also sitting in the great hall reading in 1930. Suddenly a gray clothed lady appears in the corner of the room. She walks towards him, taking small slow steps before changing direction, turns and walks into the office. He followed, but found nothing when he entered.

The Crying Ladies

**Ghosts in the Rooms:** The rooms in the vicarage each carry their own ghost legend. *What makes this particular house so haunted?*

In the house there is a room called ‘the cryers room’. It’s been called that since the notary for the church, Inga Flodin stayed there on a business trip in 1941. She stayed in that very room and was awoken during the night. She finds three figures sitting on the couch, watching her intently. She turns on the lights, but nothing changes, they are still sitting there, staring. Flodin pinches her arm as well as letting her alarm clock ring to check if she really is awake. But, yes, she is. She notices that they all look incredibly sad, wearing a black, a purple and a gray dress. One of them is knitting. The woman in the gray dress looks particularly sad with red circles under her eyes. In a staring deadlock, Flodin can not do anything but stare back, petrified as well as curious and confused about what is going on. However, eventually she falls asleep.

The Maid’s Baby

In the pink room there are those claiming to hear the sound of cries of a baby, even baby figures have been spotted around on the property. Story goes that at the end of the 1800s, an unmarried maid gave birth out of marriage. There were also rumours that the father was the priest in the house at the time. The maid was then locked up to the birth of the child that never grew up. Most likely the child was killed and buried on the north side of the house, outside the pink room. Now both the maid and the baby wander the house.

The Dead Priest Wife

One of the first documented sightings of ghostly activity came from the priest Nils at the start of the 1900s. Nils had grown up in the house as the priest’s son before he himself became the priest. Through the years he experienced stuff in the house he was sure was his mothers doing. Like the time when he watched all the clothes on the clothesline being ripped from the line.

His mother was Martha and died young giving birth to Nils. His father, Per, didn’t take the death of his beloved wife well. It was a cold spring and the ground was still too hard for the body to be buried. Therefore it was stored in the house as Per simply couldn’t be parted from his beloved. And it might have been a bit too long. In any case, several of the guests have also seen shadows and shapes, pulling their clothes, sitting in the bed, in none other than in the yellow room, the same room where Märta died.

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