Skogsrå


The skogsrå, skogsfru, skogsjungfru, skogssnua, skogssnuva, or , is a mythical female creature of the forest in Swedish folklore.

General description

The skogsrå/skogssnua/skogssnuva appears in the form of a beautiful woman with a seemingly friendly temperament. She appears like a woman from the front but seen from behind she often has a tail and a hollow, rotten back, a human foot and a horse foot, and skin like tree bark.
The men who are enticed into following her into the forest are led astray, and she laughs at the victim. A beguiled man thought he was led back home, when everything disappeared and he found himself in a swamp. The seduced man may become ruined, that is, ruin his health after repeating visits to her. Or, the man who had intercourse with the Skogsrå may turn into an introvert, as his soul had remained with her.
If the seduced man is a hunter, he may be rewarded with good luck in the hunt, but should he be unfaithful to the skogsrå, he will be punished with dire inconveniences. She is also said to bestow her affection and bounty upon the charcoal maker, or woodcutter.
Anecdotes often tell of how men are eventually able to get rid of the skogsrå, and one straightforward way is to shoot her, perhaps by a friend, or tricking her into revealing the secret to hit his mark.
The victim tricking the skogsrå to gain his freedom is a commonplace motif. This migratory motif usually involves learning a secret herbal recipe. For example, the skogsrå who seduced a man from his wife is tricked into revealing a cure of his love-craze, and there is usually inserted lines of verse naming the daphne and valerian. These two plants can be used as talisman to protect against her.
The hunter who decides to reject her right from the beginning can fire a shot at her, but after having to suffer a gloomy stormy night, his flames will be extinguished. It is said she can be killed by a silver bullet or with a gun loaded by herself. The silver bullet requirement to slay the skogsjungfrau is recorded even in Nyland, Finland, where charcoal-burning laborers and farmhands making charcoal are told to be captivated.
The hiker may also turn his coat or sweater inside-out to ward against her seduction or be advised to do so when he loses his way on her account.
It is said the skogsrå owns the beasts of the forest. Indeed the randa has dominion over all the trees and everything in the forest and grants game only to those who do not rebuff her companionship.
In some parts of Sweden, the skogsrå is considered to be one of the prey being chased by the Wild Hunt by some singular spirit or Odin's hunt, or by thunder.

Tales and legends

In one tale, a man who has fallen under the spell of the skogsrå became gaunt and tormented. His friends restrained him to prevent his visit, but as the wood sprite approached, the man turned wild and started biting. An elder friend shot at her, and the other sprites carried her away. The shooter lost his eye, which was completely gone, but did not regret the decision.
In another tale, a man tricks his skogsrå into revealing the trick to make a sureshot at an elusive mark, then affirms he will indeed use the trick to shoot her.
Another man tricked his skogsrå into revealing an herbal recipe for counteracting sexual attraction by claiming that he had an oversexed bull harassing the cows. Then he used the recipe to dispel her allure.
In one anecdote, a man encountered a skogsrå in Främmestad whose back was hollowed out like a trough for kneading bread, and she told him where to locate his horses.
The skogsrå may help the charcoal maker with his wood-fuel stack but will not reveal how it is done. She bears children with the charcoal-maker but instructs him to always knock on the pine thrice before coming home to approach her. When he forgets the routine, he sees her true form, and he is rid of her. There is another ending to the relationship, when the coal-maker casts a firebrand or ember and she screams "Sjálf burnt me", taken to mean "I burnt myself", as the coal-maker had passed off Sjálf as his name.

Related beings

Comparable beings in Swedish lore include the rånda, the vittra the landa, and huldra.
Sightings of the so-called lövjerska, practitioners of, in the woods have been grouped with encounters with skogsrå. Sydow considers lövjerska to be a "troll-woman" comparable to löviska that is connected to trees, but lacks much lore, and segregates it from the skogsrå group.
Directly borrowed from the Swedish version is the Norwegian version, or Skogs-raa, described in one tale as being like the hulder, and in the tale she helps a man by waking him up in time to catch up with the horses which had gone ahead of him.
Legend of the skogsrå also spread to Western Finland, where she is called metsänneitsyt 'Maiden of the Forest' or haapaneitsyt 'aspen maiden' in Finnish. The Finns of Northern Sweden called her metsänemäntä 'Mistress of the Forest'.

Philately

The Skogsrå has been featured on commemorative stamps of Sweden. In the Europa 1981 series, skogsrå was part of a two stamp set paired with a troll stamp, based on illustrations by. It had been taken from an earlier work illustrating a book.
Later in March 2006, the creature became part of a two-stamp commemorative set featuring "Skogens mytiska väsen ", which featured the skogsrå and the näcken.

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