this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
194 points (97.5% liked)

Asklemmy

43945 readers
1063 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Every culture/region has stories and myths about the things existing there. What are the ones you find the most spooky and/or interesting?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ekky43@lemmy.dbzer0.com 49 points 1 year ago

Nisser, the Danish, or rather Scandinavian, small and cute gods of protection. As far as I know, the nisse can form when an old farmer dies and is buried on their farm. The nisse will then henceforth protect the farm and it's inhabitants.

Now, while considered fun and cute in modern times, the gårdsnisser (contrary to the more feral and much more dangerous skovnisser/forest nisser) are very gullable with a strong sense of guilt, and they are hotheaded and intractable/stubborn to an unreasonable degree. They will protect you and give good luck if treated well, but will be intolerable if they feel inconvenienced or not properly cared for, to the point where they might directly or indirectly kill everyone on the farm out of spite.

Sometimes they cause atrocities because of misunderstandings, and when finding out that it was a misunderstanding on their part will cause harm to others to make up to their own farm, such as stealing cattle from neighboring farms to make up for the cows they killed earlier.

Now, the possibly worst thing you can do is to try and force a nisse to show itself to you. The small creatures accept indirect gifts, but don't like direct contact and have a cursing bite, and will most definitely bite if cornered, such as by a nosy and persistent child. This curse makes one fall sick, loosing health and strenght until one perishes in a matter of months/years. As far as I'm aware, there is no cure for the curse, and regarding the nissers tendency to be fooled or act before thinking, well....

Having a nisse on your farm can be a great blessing, but one is also constantly in danger of having their whole family killed over a minor misunderstanding or mood swing. So it is heavily recommended not to acquire any farms where a nisse might reside.