Bonnet & Moss

Theodore Kittelsen

Photographer: Oliver Dreßler

-breathe-

Kostir ro betri heldr en at klökkva sé, hveim er fúss er fara; einu dægri mér var aldr of skapaðr of allt líf of lagit.

'There is always a better choise than cowardice, if you have an issue to handle; one day, long ago, my life was already shaped, and my fate was fixed.'

-- Skírnismál, st. 13

Glen Coe, Ballachulish

Sinitta Leunen

Annie Stegg Gerard (@anniestegg)

In reading direct anecdotes from people who believed in vættir, back in the 1800s, there is this sense that the vættir were already endangered before these people were born, and that the vættir are all but gone now. They speak of their grandparents' experiences, of things they saw in their childhood and stories that everyone knew about, but which took place a generation or more ago. They talk about how vættir "used to" live in that hill over there, or how the old house down the road "had" a vættr in the attic before it was torn down. It feels post-apocalyptic. Like they lived through an extinction event and are left to tell the tales of mammoths and aurochsen. The great enlightenment lit up the dark woods and farms and hills of rural communities and killed off the vættir en masse, forcing the last ones to retreat to the attics of madmen and storytellers.

Nude Vampire With Gloves by Tanja Jeremić

forest scenes