Skogen: I folktro, sägner och sagor

Skogen: I folktro, sägner och sagor, Tora Wall, Bokförlaget Stolpe, 2024.

In the folklorist Tora Wall’s book Skogen: I folktro, sägner och sagor, the reader is led into the magical forest where trolls, elves, and forest spirits dwell. Wall is pursuing a PhD in Nordic Folkloristics at Åbo Akademi and is working on a dissertation about Trolska skogen in Hälsingland. The forest is thus a familiar area of interest for Wall.

The forest’s significance for humans is multifaceted, and Wall examines its role in Swedish folklore through several selected examples. As a place, the forest evokes many different emotions. Wall distinguishes between the physical forest and the imaginary one, the one we carry within ourselves. In folklore, there are frightening stories about ambiguous forest spirits and thieving trolls, but humans have always been, and still are, dependent on the forest.

It is a book that can be read from cover to cover, or you can choose to focus on the individual chapters. Wall writes with clarity that makes Skogen suitable for anyone with an interest in folklore and history. It is visually stunning, rich in art that ties into the text’s content. The forest is depicted from several different angles with classics such as John Bauer’s fairytale motifs and Bruno Liljefors’ well-known nature romanticism. The illustrations highlight the versatile role the forest plays in culture.

The August Prize-nominated Skogen dives into a range of topics such as the healing plant world, wild animals, and the many different creatures of the forest. Folk tales are woven together with real-world wonder and fears as Wall explores the deep and longstanding relationship humans have with the forest.