Whispers in the Church

On the eve of All Souls Day, I stood, enveloped by mist, on a tiny spit of land jutting into the mirror-like Ljusnan River. That’s pronounced yoos-nan and it means luminous, shimmering. It’s in the province of Hälsingland in Sweden. Toward the west lie the low mountains separating northern Sweden from Norway. The Ljusnan River rises near the border and runs for about 260 miles across Sweden to the Bothnian Gulf. That’s part of the Baltic Sea. Large prosperous farms line the slopes of the valley. Here and there are big log houses grouped in communitiess, such as Bondarv. Most of the houses are two stories high, substantial and solid. Beyond the river and its valley are forests and rolling hills, like Järvsöklack.

I have come in search of Karlsgården because it’s an old ancestral estate. I can see the impressive old farmstead complex crowning a slope. The eight farmhouses in Bondarv cluster together on the slight hill.

Karlsgården is on the southeast side of the river. Järvsö is the name of the parish. Local people call it Yerr’se. It is made up of another thirty-odd communitiess up and down the valley, on both sides of the river. These groups of homes have names like Bondarv, Hamre and Kramsta. The parish has been a dwelling place for more than a thousand years. The runestone and the church have been there that long and longer.

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Märit lived at Bondarv with her husband, Karl, as had Märit’s father, Hans Andersson, and his people before him. Their colorful history is recorded in Järvsö for some actions they initiated and for others over which they had little control. The 17th Century, the time in which they lived, was turbulent, filled with war and religious change. Märit was accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death, twice, for things she could not have done. Karl was sentenced to death twice for things he might have done.

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Had I understood the language of Ljusnan’s flowing stream, I might have heard it say, ”Between Ljusdal and Bollnäs lies your home. The 17th Century or the 21st, what does it matter in the journey of the spirit? It’s part of the flow.”

The tall leafless birches mirrored in the river blend air and water. Past, present and future are as one as I stand and wonder if that’s where Märit trysted with Karl. And, in my imagination, they stroll along the road towards me. I hesitate at first, then dare to ask: “Are you Karl and Märit from Karlsgården?”

”Yes,” Karl said and then, he asked, ”Who are you?”

”I’m your eighth-great-granddaughter and this is four centuries in the future.”

They smile and exclaim in unison, ”Do you say!” In Swedish, it would sound like ”Say’r du day!”

I glance along the well-used road that they had traveled so often those centuries ago. I see it in the summer when the sick, the penitents, and the supplicants are trudging to the grave of Saint Olaf seeking healing and absolution. It’s part of the old pilgrim route through Hälsingland following the River Ljusnan upstream.

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A road still winds between the farmstead and the river. In a roundabout way, the route leads across Sweden from Uppsala to St. Olaf’s shrine at Trondheim.

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I wondered if Märit might have looked toward the hill beyond the church in the Autumn of 1672 and thought about her impending trial.

The whispers had started in 1668. Rumors had come from Dalarna about the evil of Blåkulla, translated as “Blue Mountain.” It was a far-away imaginary place, but people were being burned at the stake for having taken children there. All that was necessary was for a child to accuse someone because children, it was believed, told the truth. The children tried to outdo each other, it seemed. As their stories spread from church-to-church, community-to-community, the tales took on ever more elaborate twists. In English, the Blåkulla episode has been called “The Big Noise.”

Thousands of accused witches had been burned at the stake in other countries in the preceding centuries. Europeans of that time believed in witches, because it had been heresy not to believe in them. According to Sprenger and Kraemer who composed the witch-hunter’s manual, Malleus Maleficarum, in 1486, witches did physical and spiritual harm to others and the evil had to be rooted out. Luther also preached that.

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The charge of traveling to Blåkulla was not about sorcery or casting spells. It was about flying through the air and feasting with the Devil. Children excitedly claimed that they flew on the back of a cow, on a horse or occasionally, on a person. This happened at any time of day or night and sometimes, many times. They did impossible things like zipping through tiny holes in the walls and chimneys. They even lifted off from church pews during services without being missed. There was talk about horns and witch salves.

At Blåkulla, people celebrated like they did at a farmer’s wedding. They ate and drank at great tables overflowing with food. Butter was always being churned. It was the special food eaten during the feasts.

Adults and children wore fine clothes, danced and had sex. All the while the Devil lay under the table and laughed so hard the room shook. And the fire of Hell flamed up through a hole in the floor where suffering souls could be seen. The children had children themselves, but since everything there was opposite, conceiving of these offspring happened back to back.