A “hulder” is a beautiful supernatural female creature who owns cattle, resides in mountains and hills, and attempts to lure young men, especially with games and songs in Scandinavian folklore. Her back resembles a hollowed-out tree, and she has a cow’s tail. “Hulder” comes from Old Norse hylja (“to conceal”), which is the root of the Norse name Huld, which is a name for the trolls.
According to Norwegian folklore, the hulder lures men into the mountain, from which they cannot escape if they stay too long. If the hulder woman marries a human, however, she will lose her tail, and the couple can live in the village on equal terms with other people. In Swedish, she is called “skogsrået.” In Danish, hulder is sometimes referred to as “hyldefolk,” as they have been associated with the elder tree—the “elder mother” from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale is one example.
The Origin of the Hulder in Folklore
The concept that the departed make a triumphant return to this world at designated holy periods gave rise to these folk stories, along with a set of taboos and the practice of offering sacrifices to the ancestor spirits.
Celebrations of rebirth in both culture and the natural world took place around the winter solstice, or Yule, and Christmas periods. In Christian times, however, ancestral spirits were portrayed as dangerous entities that should be avoided at all costs, and so these scarier sagas came into existence. They underwent a metamorphosis into hulders, or troll-folk, who arrived around Christmastime to cause chaos and ruin the holiday spirit. The original identity of hulders is not known anymore.
When it became illegal to worship ancestors, the hulders adopted certain aspects of beliefs about the dead, even though they were not originally ancestral spirits. As time went on, the practice of worshipping the dead faded away. However, at the winter solstice and other significant holidays, notably Christmas, remnants of this cult persisted in certain regions, either as a matter of custom or as a measure to ensure one’s safety.
Folktale Stories About Hulder
In the Bible
Hulders are part of many folk stories and, ironically, they even made part of the Bible. A Norwegian tradition tells the tale of an unexpected visit from God to Adam and Eve, which is believed to be the genesis of the underground dwellers. When God came, Eva still hadn’t bathed and combed all of their children, despite having a large brood after being kicked out of the Garden of Eden.
The children she wanted him to see were the ones she chose to highlight, while the rest were hidden. “Well, those who are dulde [hidden] shall be hulde [invisible].” God, however, saw right through her. Because of this, the offspring and their descendants now reside in the hills and mountains, where they are almost invisible to the naked eye, and they are called hulders. Hulder is also known as Tallemaja, or “pine tree Mary” in Swedish folklore.
“Two gunshot distances away”
The hulder is one of those popular underground creatures in Scandinavian folklore. There have been sightings of this monster in the Finnskogen region as late as 2013. Harald Polden, a hunter, recounted his meeting with the hulder in the Helleland wasteland east of Egersund. Boiling water over a fire, he unexpectedly saw a lady across the bog, “two gunshot distances away.” When he used his binoculars, he allegedly saw her haughty stance, brown hair, and emerald eyes.
The length of her skirt and her long braids both baffled him. Polden saw that she was walking about barefoot as her skirt crept up slightly, and a third braid—a cow’s tail—emerged under the skirt.
All of a sudden, she leaned forward. Also about this time, Polden’s pot overflowed. He removed it from the flames, but at that moment, nobody was standing by the swamp. A local mother and daughter listened intently as he told them the tale. The little girl turned to her mom and said, “There you go.” Like Polden, she had been through it in that same spot.
A Violin Player
So many spelman (Swedish folk music players) allegedly learned their music from Hulder since they are also musical women. It was a summer day when Ole Arntsen (1823–1911), a smallholder (croft) and spelman from the Halsen farm in Sæterlandet, was cutting grass for his goat from the roof of his boathouse. Someone he couldn’t see smacked him in the head out of nowhere. He passed out, rolled off the roof, and crashed upon the pebbles of the shore.
He lay there, puzzled, after doing a serious injury to himself. A hulder perched on a big rock along the stream greeted him as he heard violin music. Then he heard someone playing the violin, sitting on a large rock by the water. Hulder had clogs on her feet that had iron attachments. She was creating a rhythm with her violin by hitting the stone with her iron-clad shoes. That is the reason Ole referred to the tune as “jar-førå” which has become a proper Norwegian folk song.
2002
Just north of Arendal, close to the hamlet of Gautefall, a little girl snapped an alleged photo of a hulder in November 2002. This was at the same time as a string of phone calls from locals who claimed to have seen a hulder, describing her as wearing a summer dress, walking barefoot in the snow, and carrying a cow’s tail in her wake.
Hulder, the Protector of Cattles
Since the hulder was believed to have her cowshed just below the human cowshed in Lofoten, it was deemed best to keep a stall in the cowshed unoccupied. When she felt crowded in her own stall, she would politely ask the humans to let her use their vacant one. In exchange, she watched after the well-being and prosperity of the humans’ cows.
On the other hand, the hulder is very vindictive; therefore, using her stall might result in injury to the animal standing there, or even many animals. The hulder was allegedly so impeded that a farmer in Lofoten had to relocate his cowshed no less than three times. He couldn’t understand why his animals weren’t doing well. According to the man, his cowshed was just over her dining table since hulder informed him one night.
Even after relocating the shed a short distance, the man’s livestock continued to perish, and they were forced to pull their lifeless bodies to the brink of the river. As he slept one night, the hulder informed him that her child’s cradle was now directly over his stable and that a lot of terrible things were dripping down on the baby. He had to relocate the stable once again, but once he did, he and the animals were finally at peace.
Marrying a Hulder
There were allegedly hulders on the farm in Tjentland in Ryfylke, particularly in the cooking house, where they gathered and prepared meals just like everybody else. A hulder and her daughter once entered the kitchen while the family was baking. The eldest son of the farm found the girl attractive, and he was warned by her mother: “If you touch her, you must take her as your wife, whether you like it or not, as much as you know.” But the boy laughed and continued to giggle with the girl.
So, he became engaged to her, but he started to feel uneasy about the actual wedding. Once, he hid under a large tub by tipping it over himself. The daughter tried to tilt the tub away, but he took out a knife and cut off her fingers. However, it still didn’t help him, and they got married. The hulder’s tail fell off at her baptism, but three days thereafter, three big milking cows showed up at the farm and entered the stall unaccompanied.
The couple lived together, but not entirely peacefully, as he couldn’t forget hulder’s real background. He was a skilled blacksmith, and one day, after she had called him to dinner several times, he took a glowing iron and held it under her nose. In return, she took a horseshoe from the floor of the smithy and straightened it out. The man inquired in astonishment, “Are you that strong?” She affirmed, “So now you understand what I could have done to you if I had wanted. But I care too much about you to use force to get my way.” They got along well after that, and according to local belief, their descendants may still be found in Årdal, Ryfylke today. The cattle of their family have always fared better than those of other families.
Hulder on Elstad Farm’s
Elstad Farm in Ullensaker, Norway, is the setting of a legendary tale in “An Evening in a Proprietor’s Kitchen,” written by Asbjornsen. “If you go to Elstad, tell Deld that Dild fell into the fire,” someone shouted out to a farmhand as he was on his way home after an errand.
Someone sprinted out of the house, yelling, “Oh, that was my child!” as soon as they heard the news. A hulder had been stealing food from the farm while unseen, and the farmhand had unwittingly brought the news to her. Not only does this tale have a reputation in Ullensaker municipality, but it also has popularity in 70 other Norwegian towns and other European nations. Plutarch has the earliest version, which dates back to roughly 100 AD.
The Hulder with the Golden Items
An ancient tale tells of a hulder who had a golden apple, seven golden chickens, and a golden lantern. The king’s daughter was up for marriage to anyone who caught these golden chickens, according to the proclamation. With a fishing net and a bag of peas as his tools, a little kid embarked on an optimistic journey. The hulder was unaware that he had lured the hens with peas and ensnared them in the net.
After receiving the golden chickens, the king was happy, but he would not consent to a wedding without the hulder’s golden lantern as well. That night, the child went back to the hulder and grabbed the lantern from her as she set it down by the well to get water.
However, the monarch would not honor his word until the youngster also presented him with the golden apple. On this occasion, the lad retrieved a lengthy set of tongs, ascended to the rooftop as the hulder slumbered, and through the chimney, he planned to nip her blanket up and take the golden apple.
But he unintentionally squeezed her nose. She caught him and inquired as to his preferred method of death. He stated his preference for indulging in porridge to the point of death. With that, the hulder began to whip up a pot of porridge. Just before she delivered the porridge, the lad whipped up a big bag, fastened it to his chest, and proceeded to scoop the porridge into it without being noticed.
After stuffing himself enough, he set the spoon down and pretended he was about to explode, so she should just wrap him in the blanket and throw him out immediately. The second he stepped outdoors he tossed off the bag and bolted with the blanket. In her wrath, the hulder seized a pipe, inhaled deeply, and drew the lad back to her. Nobody heard from him again.
The Hulders on Christmas Eve
Among the many Jule or Christmas tales told about Rogaland county, the “Trond Saga” is by far the most popular. On Christmas Eve every year, the hulders would gather in large numbers at the farm Kvame in Hjelmeland and the people had to desert their houses to ensure peace.
The first to show up would be Trond, a bearded elderly guy. The remainder would then arrive, and rejoicing, dancing, and commotion ensued. They would later go down to dinner, but not before raising a glass to Trond at the head of the table. Someone remarked, “Now I toast to Trond!”
On one of the farms that hulders visited, one farmhand decided to stay and frighten the hulders. As night fell and everyone had gone, he proceeded to boil pitch in a pot. He leaped onto the ledge holding the boiling pot and sat there the second the hulders came.
As a group, they entered and adorned the table with sparkling silverware. One hulder came under the ledge and decided to rest. At this moment, the boy began pouring the boiling pitch into hulder’s mouth. After her piercing scream, everyone in the group ran away. The child yelled after her as he held the pot to his neck, asking, “Have you tasted a hotter soup?” He then descended to get what the subterranean creatures had left in the room.
The next year, the same boy asked to stay at the farm for Christmas while everyone else fled. The hulder inquired if the cat had returned this year in the evening as he peered in through the door. The kid yelled out, “Yes, he’s here and has had seven kittens, worse than himself!” No more hulders visited the farm after that hulder ran away.
The narrative has been documented in six distinct versions in Rogaland, a county in Norway. Depending on where you are, the visitors may be nicknamed trolls or hulders.
