Strange New Year Traditions

Christina here. A new year has begun and many people make New Year’s resolutions that often only last a few weeks. As I could never stick to them, I’ve given up even trying. I think for me it’s better to just have goals and strive towards them, rather than promising I’m going to do something I know I won’t adhere to.

Recently Wench Anne sent me an interesting article from AtlasObscura.com describing a different approach to the new year. Apparently in Sweden (and possibly parts of Finland) there is/was a tradition called ”årsgång”. Translated literally it means “year walk” and that’s more or less exactly what it is. It involves a complicated divination ritual (probably pagan in origin) whereby you could find out what the next year would bring. The tradition goes back at least as far as the 17^th century, but is probably much older. I went on to read other articles about it, and here’s what I found out. (If you want to read the full Atlas Obscura article it’s here)

Årsgång is not for the fainthearted. The ritual was fraught with danger and the person performing it could expect some terrifying sights and experiences. It was therefore wise to bring protection in the form of for example sulphur, steel, garlic and rowan branches. Sagobygden’s blog says that “a person who wishes to go årsgång … must be clear that a great deal of courage and endurance will be needed.”

The aim of årsgång is to find out what will be happening during the coming year, not just for yourself, but for your entire community. If you succeeded, you could learn about things like harvests, deaths, marriages, war and pestilence. The tradition is connected with certain times of the year when it was believed that supernatural forces and beings were around and could help you with prophecies. The border between the world of the living and that of the spirits was blurred. This could be during the Winter Solstice (21^st December), Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, St Stephen’s Day or Twelfth Night.

The årsgång ritual can be done by anyone – men or women – and the person undertaking it usually goes out alone. (You can walk with others, but if so you mustn’t speak to them at all.) Here’s what you have to do:-

Close to midnight, you leave your home with the goal of reaching your destination at exactly twelve. Before doing this you must have followed certain rules – you have to have fasted all day; from the previous day onwards you must not have looked into any bright light or fire; you cannot mention the walk to anyone else and you should not have spoken to anyone all day, nor can you greet anyone you meet, you have to stay completely silent throughout the walk; you can not look back, and you must not be scared, laugh or even smile.

Most sources say your walk should take you to at least three local churches, although others mention walking alone in a forest or heading to a crossroads. You should circle the churches (or other place) counter-clockwise at least three times but up to nine is allowed. You should then be receptive to the supernatural forces, which will show themselves through visions or sounds and reveal to you what the future holds.

As the ritual is presumably pagan, some instructions include blowing into the church’s keyhole each time you pass the door. This is apparently a way of temporarily renouncing your Christian faith. Other ways of doing this was to tie a Bible or hymnbook under your foot, or to recite the Lord’s Prayer backwards.

Once this is done, signs of what is to come should start to appear. For example, if you saw many graves opening in the churchyard it meant pestilence was on its way; if armed men rode past, war was coming; if little men (like the Swedish equivalent of leprechauns) were spotted in the fields carrying large sheaves of wheat there would be a good harvest; but if you instead heard scythes scraping against stone there would be famine, etc. Some said you should look into the windows of people’s houses on your way home. You would then see for example who was going to die – they would appear headless to you. Pretty gruesome!

If a person had completed the årsgång ritual every year for seven years, they should meet a rider the final time. He would have something called a “runkavle” in his mouth – I’m not entirely sure what this was but if I translate it literally it means a baton covered in runes, so some kind of prophetic object? Anyway, the årsgång person had to be brave and strong enough to grab it and they would then become “wise”, ie they gained knowledge of what was to come without having to perform the ritual again.

As I said, it wasn’t easy and was considered dangerous. Supernatural forces would continuously try to hinder the person from completing the ritual properly. This could be in the form of terrifying creatures, or it could be ridiculous ones trying to make you laugh, which was forbidden. The horrible beings included something called the gloson, a sort of ghostly wild boar whose back was razor sharp like a saw. This boar would charge at you intending to get between your legs and cut you in half, or alternatively carry you off on a crazy ride to kill you or make you go mad. If you met the gloson it was best to keep your legs shut or crossed and you could bring some kind of treat to divert them with.

Other scary supernatural creatures were the huldra, a woman who was beautiful on her front side but rotten or hollow in the back, and who lured men to their deaths; the bäckahäst (literally “brook-horse”), who would invite you to ride on its back and then jump into water and drown you to steal your soul; and Näcken, a naked man who sits by a river or waterfall playing his fiddle so beautifully he lures you to your death.

Årsgång appears to have been practised mainly in southern Sweden, and especially Småland, the county I come from, but I have to admit I’d never heard of it. This is surprising as my grandmother was forever telling me about folk tales and local traditions, but I think the practice had died out by the time she was born at the beginning of the 1900s. Some of the creatures mentioned – like the huldra and Näcken – featured in many of her stories. Either way, I would never have gone into the forest by myself at night because to me, those creatures were lurking behind every tree trunk or boulder. I wouldn’t go to a churchyard at midnight either!

How about you – would you dare to go for a midnight walk all alone on a night when the supernatural is said to be near? Or have you ever heard of any similar rituals or other strange New Year traditions?