Tue, 21 Jun 2011

The Girl Who Cast a Viking Spell

I'm not a fan of Larsson's fiction, and I've got no interest in his personal life. But I do have an interest in this:

She talked forthrightly about the oddest passage in her book, a description of an elaborate Viking curse she delivered on New Year’s Eve 2004 against all her and Larsson’s enemies: the false friends, the cowards “who let Stieg fight your battles while you raked in the salaries of your cushy jobs,” the wearers of “suits, ties and wingtips,” the evil ones “who plotted, spied and stirred up prejudice.”

Traditionally, such curses were accompanied by the sacrifice of a live horse, but instead Ms. Gabrielsson broke a ceramic horse sculpture in two and tossed it into Lake Malaren in Stockholm. Nevertheless, it worked, she insisted.

She's describing a nidstang, also known as a "nithing pole". Potent stuff, indeed. And not something us modern heathens do frequently or without much forethought.

There's no indication Ms. Gabrielsson is a heathen. So she (or they, if Larsson was in on it) must've done this "on the wing", as it were. Which says a lot about the revival of folk traditions, or even their survival.

Eva Gabrielsson, who found herself pursued by fame and controversy as the longtime companion of Stieg Larsson, the posthumously best-selling author of the Millennium trilogy of Swedish crime thrillers, has published a book of her own.

(link) [New York Times]

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