Swedish Folktales: Uppland

Mr. Melchior of Veckholm

In Veckholm, east of Svingarnsviken, there lived a priest in the 1500’s named Melchior or Melker, who was widely renowned as a pious and god-fearing man. He never let a day pass without reading his Bible, and in the evening when everyone else had gone to bed, he went up to the church to say his evening prayers by the altar.

His wife, who minded only her earthly business and didn’t approve of the late outings to church, decided to put an end to them, and so one evening said to her servant: “My dear Lasse, if you would take and put a white sheet over yourself and stand by the road, and scare my old man when he comes home from church, I’ll give you a full tankard of beer.”

The man had nothing whatsoever against that! With the lady’s help he wrapped himself in a sheet and stood in the dark along the footpath between the church and the parsonage.

After a while the priest came walking down from church. When he noticed the ghost, he recited a prayer and prayed that the eerie figure would sink down into the abyss.

The servant sunk down into the soil up to his knees, but ignored it, continuing to act like a ghost. Then the priest said another prayer, and this time the servant sunk into the earth up to his waist.

Then he cried in terror, “it’s just me, dear sir! It’s only me!”

“Oh, but it’s too late now!” said the priest with sorrow in his voice, and in that moment the man sunk, still living, all the way down into the earth.

In memory of this sorry event a wooden cross was set up along the footpath, and it is always replaced with a new one when the old one begins to rot.

Lagga-Gubben

Near the church in Lagga over in Långhundra township there is a curiously shaped mountain. On one side of this mountain, the one that faces the church, there is an opening from which two paths are said to run into the earth: one to the south to a stream by the so-called Meadowwatch cottage, and the other to the north out to Kashögen, near Kasby estate.

In the mountain there lived a giant, Lagga-gubben, who, when he was last seen, was at least 500 years old, and his hair was “as white as a dove’s feather.”

Early one morning a farmer, Jacob, was walking in Lagga village past the mountain, when the giant came out and greeted him: “Good morning, Joppe! Do you want to come in and have some drinks with me?”

“No, thank you!” said Jacob, who had no desire to be drinking buddies with the giant. “If you have more than you can drink, then just put it away for tomorrow, then you’ve got something to drink then too.”

“Good advice!” said Lagga-gubben, “if I had thought of that before, I would be a richer man today.”

“Well, it’s not too late to start saving for later,” said Jacob.

“Yes it is, at least for me,” growled the giant. “I’m leaving tomorrow because of those awful bells,” and he shook his fist at the church’s belltower.

“Oh, you’ll come back,” said Jacob to comfort the giant.

“Yeah, I’ll come back when they grow crops where the river now runs and Östuna Lake is a meadow,” sighed the giant and disappeared back into the mountain.