tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3739684561063978507.post3314117758464953067..comments2024-03-22T21:58:18.933+00:00Comments on ShukerNature: NIGHT-RAVENS - OR WHAT'S IN A NAME?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15628598508836601012noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3739684561063978507.post-91140265290132283482016-06-17T11:39:29.759+01:002016-06-17T11:39:29.759+01:00Interesting article. I wonder if the nattravnen is...Interesting article. I wonder if the nattravnen is related to the German nursery bogey nachtkrapp. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05990564432778690216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3739684561063978507.post-74505560523573545642011-01-03T01:23:23.437+00:002011-01-03T01:23:23.437+00:00I've just received the following fascinating e...I've just received the following fascinating email regarding the Swedish night-raven tradition:<br /><br />Hi.<br />My name is Håkan Lindh, and I just read your article abort the Night-Raven. As I myself live in “Night-Raven county“, I thought I should add a few details.<br />The creature is also known from my region, Halland, that is along the westcoast north of Skåne. Both Skåne,Halland and Blekinge were Danish up till the eighteenth century, so the folklore here differs sometimes from the rest of the country.<br />In Halland it is spelled Nattram, ”ram” being an older form for raven that is still in use in Danish. Here the creature is a part of beliefs related to ghosts. The story goes that if a person got murdered and buried in a hidden grave, you needed to put a stake through him just to keep him from start haunting. The harder the wood the better, since the stake would hold him until it rotted away. But when it was gone, the dead person would reappear as Nattram, searching for his murderer. Sometimes he was described as not looking like a bird at all, but a skeleton with a black cape, or a human skeleton with wings. But usually he was heard but not seen, making loud noise. To meet him was bad, you could get sick if he came too close. But he could never touch the ground, so if you heard the noise you just had to lay flat on your face, then the Nattram could not harm you.<br />The same belief about a spirit being unable to touch the ground was said about the Wild Hunt and spectral armies that were believed to exist too. If you lay down when they approached you, you were safe from harm.<br />Sweden has a few other ghostly animals, like Kyrkogrimmen, and Gloson. The last is my personal favourite: a spectral sow with red glowing eyes and flames in her mouth, her back as sharp as a razor...and if you met her she'd try to slice you open by running between your legs! She is sometimes also described as an aspect of a murder-victim, but other times she is her own. She was often seen during the annual ritual of Årsgång, when an aspiring magician went on a quest for visions and power. He had walked nine years in a row on special nights to a well, or a churchyard, or other places of power, and on these walks he met supernatural beings as a kind of trial. Gloson were sometimes one of them.<br />But beside sea monsters and lake monsters, this country has hardly anything in folklore that could hide cryptids. Sad but true.<br />Äring och fred.<br />Håkan<br />PS<br />The staking of murder-victims was not entirely a story. Our only bog-body, the medevial man from Bocksten, had been staked three times when buried in the bog, once through the heart.<br /><br />Thanks very much, Håkan, for sending this very welcome addition to the night-raven story!<br /><br />All the best, KarlDr Karl Shukerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06222845702628862829noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3739684561063978507.post-29672025372658631972010-11-13T05:30:47.838+00:002010-11-13T05:30:47.838+00:00An interesting post! Folklore from a part of my co...An interesting post! Folklore from a part of my country that I rarely visit. <b>But Mr Svensson’s interpretation of <i>le</i> to mean <i>joint</i> seems to be driven by an agenda.</b><br /><br /><i>Le</i> is a dialect form of <i>led</i>, which of course means <i>joint</i> – but as any Swede knows, it also means <i>loathsome</i>. (Etymologically it is the cousin of English <i>loath</i>.) For example, we call the Devil <i>den lede</i> (the loathsome one), <i>lekatt</i> (loathsome cat) is a word for stoat, etc. When <i>le</i> shows up in a monster name, it obviously means <i>loathsome</i> and has nothing to do with joints.<br /><br />Svensson’s agenda seems to be to make this creature into a pterosaur, and that’s why he twists the Swedish language so. However, I think it is very far-fetched that someone in naming a pterosaur would emphasize its <b>joints</b>, of all things, so I hope we can all agree to drop this ”joint-raven” idea altogether.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3739684561063978507.post-11388053166325435532010-11-11T10:28:26.756+00:002010-11-11T10:28:26.756+00:00The anecdote about the moonlight backlit revealing...The anecdote about the moonlight backlit revealing it's skeleton reminds me of an almost identical scene in Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World", where one of the characters sees a pterodactyle fly across the moon, which illuminates its body, showing it's skeleton. Maybe this is yet another literatic reference to the night raven?Timothy-Donald-Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00297140670811904034noreply@blogger.com