Looks like the cold weather scared som cranes to move south, usually they don’t do that until mid or late September.
Another cold night so I’m glad I covered the more sensitive plants. Yesterday we had several thunderstorms passing by and we had hail falling in at least three of them, there was even some hail left when we went out in to the garden when we had woken up.
The rest of the day has been really nice though. It was so cold on our morning walk that not a fly or anything but migrating cranes were moving in the air. Well a couple of Jays flew around screaming, most likely warning about us walking down the gravel road. The sun shone almost the entire walk and has continued to do so with the exception of a few clouds passing by. The clouds weren’t big but manage to pass the sun in a place so the sunshine couldn’t reach us. It has actually been enough warm to have the kitchen door open almost all day.
When there are like two or several individual mist clouds we’re saying that the Elves are dancing. Normally we see this in fields and usually in a ring formation. One doesn’t want to interfere in it because it usually means the end of life is here. These two however let us pass without being punished 🙂 🙂
It should have been open all the time if it hadn’t been because of Alma, she is now in heat. Malkolm is still chemically castrated so no such problems but he still behaves like a bewitched teenager 🙂 🙂 🙂 Almost all female dogs that have been living with me has done that every six months, not Alma though she does it every fifth month 🙂 which is at the time rather good because I was unsure for how much longer the chemicals would work on Malkolm.
Most spiderwebs had been destroyed by the heavy showers of rain and hail.Some had however managed to build new ones.
I’ve planted most of the sown coneflowers (Echinacea) today. I really like them but for some reason I have never had one, bought or sown, surviving the winter here and that’s not because they aren’t hardy enough and the sand in the ground here should be perfect for them. The only one that I actually had for several years was the pinnate prairie coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) but those were slowly pushed away by some wild roses I used to have 🙂 🙂
This is a rather nice tasting mushroom and it grows in my garden.
My bigger citrus trees, smaller this year due to frost and my four Pawpaw seedlings. Two from last year badly damaged by mice and two from this year.
The coming three days will be much like today they’re guessing but after that we’ll get clouds and rain but at least not as cold as it washes last days. The tea is waiting and perhaps I’ll have a sandwich or two 🙂
Malkolm looking slightly ashamed all the time now 🙂 🙂
Sand cherries, so tasty but it’s hard to get any because of the birds 🙂
So yesterday was midsummers eve and that’s a big day here, treated like a holiday even though it’s midsummers day that is the holiday. Still very few work on midsummers eve and most of us is payed as if it was a holiday. Also the last holiday here until Christmas.
Mock orange.
The potatoes grow well now.Eastern redbud. Doesn’t like it here at all.
Back in the days everyone danced around the midsummer pole and many still do but mostly because of the children. We dance around it while singing almost the same songs we do when dancing around the Christmas tree, like the little frogs, the priests little crow and Anders Persons house is on fire (he has actually existed and is said to have been a truly nasty person and no one was sad seeing his house burning down). The history of the midsummer pole is and has been under debate a very long time but I think it used to be a German tradition.
If You want something that spreads happily, smells rather strange and will flower until frost comes the Nepeta sibirica should be You choice 🙂 🙂
After dancing around people went home to have the traditional lunch/dinner. We swedes aren’t that uneventful when it comes to the food so it is more or less the same as what we eat all other holidays 🙂 🙂 You can’t celebrate midsummer without freshly boiled new potatoes and they should be boiled together with lots and lots of dill. Five gazillions of different pickled herring and either pickled or smoked salmon. For us that can’t stand the herring (and we are really few people) there’s always meatballs, a couple of different sausages, oven omelet with mushroom stew and perhaps some chicken as well. Naturally we also have different kinds of hard bread and normal bread plus different kinds of cheese, both the regular one and blue cheese and brie/ camembert. What never is missing is the cream-layer cake with Swedish strawberries. If You would happen to have strawberries from another country (mostly because the Swedish ones are nasty expensive) You will be seen as a person with little or no value to mankind 🙂 🙂 🙂
When the evening comes the old folklore comes to live. So if You are young and not married yet You can actually learn to whom You one day will be married to. This must be done while being totally quiet of course. You’ll have to take a walk in nature and, depending on from where You come, either climb over seven or nine walls/ fences and at each fence You need to pick a flower and of course it needs to be different flowers all the time. When the walk is done You’ll have to go to bed, putting the flowers under Your pillow and go to sleep so it is best to be one of those that actually remember Your dreams 🙂 🙂
My citrus trees was damaged pretty bad during the last frost but now they show new growth again.
The beings are also very active that night so never go close to a flowing water if You hear someone play the violin because that could be Näcken. They say he’s longing for company but ig he catch You he will drown You so I’m not so sure about the company part 🙂 🙂 He can also show up as a horse (Näckahästen), usually pure white, and trick mostly children to climb up on him. Once they are he’ll run strait out into the river and drown the poor kids. They do say that no one can play the violin like he so I’ve learned that one actually can ask him if he want to teach how to do it, there’s always a price to pay though.
Can’t be seen much but this basket is starting to fill up with nasturtium and peas.The English walnut is growing slowly but steadily.
This is also the time to think of the coming winter and ones health. It is important to collect as much morning dew as possible this night because that can help You survive the long and hard winter. I’ve come to understand that dragging a sheet over the wet vegetation is the best way to collect as much as possible. When that is done one must save the dew in sealed glass jars and when winter comes and one feel a bit poorly just either add some dew to the bath water or perhaps mix it with lemonade/ tea/ coffee and that will make You better. I’ve never tried that but perhaps I should considering everything 🙂 🙂 🙂
One of the few Greater sea-kale that germinated and now I better protect it so the bugs don’t eat it.
This year the Rapunzel looks great. A bellflower where there once were several varieties for food. I think they taste like radishes.The first potatoes are ready to be picked 🙂
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day, I feel I’m slowly coming back to normal after a week with evening work. Tired as h… but I think by tomorrow I’ll feel fine.
We don’t say christmas present over here, we say julklapp, more or less Yule knock. That’s because when giving presents here in the beginning it was meant to be (I’ve heard) either a prank or an anonymous present. On christmas eve they didn’t lock the door and put new straw behind the door and when someone came with a present they knocked on the door and tossed in a present that then landed on the new and soft straw. So they named it a Yule knock 🙂
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Later on when present giving became more common it was the Yule buck that delivered the presents. The goat has always been important back in the days so for people living back then it wasn’t an odd thing to come with the presents. There are different explanations to whom this buck was, most seems to think he was supposed to be one of the Norse god Thor’s goats, the ones he flew up in the sky in his chariot and created thunder but when I was young a by that time really old lady told me that it was the devils duty to do good one day every year.
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Well Sinterklaas and Santa Claus started to turn up down in Europe so I think they wanted to be up to date here in Sweden as well so suddenly the Yule Gnome came to life 🙂 My guess is that since the gnome was a well known being here since way back in history and was known to help the farms they were living in, perhaps not happily or joyfully to be honest, so why not combine him and these other present givers. Not totally though, our gnome was still very short, mostly dressed in grey or green, except for the caps, they were almost always red (old christmas card) click on the red text and You’ll see what it could look like. . I doubt it was supposed to be someone one actually met because to be honest how many small people could quickly and swiftly move around to each place during one day.
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However if one look at really old christmas cards this is how they were depicted. Also he never flew around with reindeers up in the sky, he either came walking with a goat (the same one apparently as the one previous delivering the presents himself) that pulled a small sled filled with packages or with a horse also pulling a sled filled with presents. It didn’t take long though until he grew taller and I guess that’s when he started to visit homes and hand out the presents himself. I have no idea to why but he always came on Christmas eve instead of Christmas day. Also for Your information, The Yule Gnome lives far north in Swedish Lappland, not Finnish Lappland as the Finns believe 🙂 🙂 🙂 even though they have been far better in spreading that nonsense around the world 🙂 🙂 🙂 So now the kids can visit the Gnome both in Sweden and Finland and I must admit from what I know about the Finnish one it’s far superior towards our place.
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The Yule Gnome has evolved to something closer to Santa now days, he has fatten up some, says ho ho ho and it looks like he’s always wearing an all red clothing and he never comes down the chimney even though most kids now days do believe he comes by reindeer 🙂 instead hi visits the children in their homes. I have seen one comming by horse but either he comes walking or in a car 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now days even Mrs Gnome visits the children, turns out that Mr Gnome was a bit too happy to have a schnapps at every place he went to so by the time he finally reached the last homes he was pretty drunk, no one understood him and the children refused to see him 🙂 🙂 🙂 Mrs Gnome isn’t that keen on schnapps thankfully 🙂 🙂 🙂
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So never mix up the Yule Gnome with our old gnome, All he requires is a bowl with rice porridge at Yule eve night. They are rare now days though but if You do have a stable or barn place the bowl in there so the risk of him burning down You place is lower 🙂
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This photo was taken three years ago. I thought we at least should have one wintery photo 🙂
Time just flew away yesterday and I blame that on the only sport I watch on tv, Biathlon. For those of You who don’t know what that is it is cross country skiing combined with shooting with a rifle on targets. To be honest it is strange that I am so fascinated in this sport because I’m a Conscientious objector and really dislikes cross country skiing 🙂 🙂 🙂 I never sleep as well as I do in front of cross country ski competition 🙂 🙂 🙂
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They normally have these competitions in the mornings but for some reason they had them in in the afternoon this time, so I forgot to check the clock and when I finally did it was too late to start writing anything. Well nothing much had happened anyway and it was much the same today. The weather isn’t anything but fun. So dark and gloomy today that I had to use ISO 5000 to be able to take any descent photos. If You don’t know what ISO one usually use it’s normally around 200 on a bright day.
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My hardy Rosemary. So far it has managed to survive down to almost -13 C (8,6 F).
It took some time before we could have our morning walk today, it rained around the time the sun is supposed to show itself and the clouds were so thick that very little light managed to reach us here on the ground. They did thin out some thankfully, otherwise I would have stayed at home 🙂
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I saw a picture of a Werewolf earlier today and came to think of how our folklore describes them. I can’t find anything that if someone was bitten by a werewolf they too became one. There were some other ways that I’ll describe later on but mostly it was because someone had cursed a person to become one or if one knew ones way with magic one could transform to one by oneself. Usually they did that if they by looking like an animal would kill an enemy but it wasn’t only a wolf they could transform too, a bear was also something they could become. When someone had become a werewolf or (were) bear they usually had a lighter color than normal bears or wolves.
We walked in on one of all the small side roads to the gravel road down to the creek and found this small piece of bog.  Â
There were a few different ways to get free from this and the easiest one would be if someone saw You and thought they knew this wolf they just screamed out his name three times. One could also be killed by a silver bullet or the worst one they had to kill a pregnant woman and eat the child, must have been a nasty way for someone who had been cursed to become a werewolf. Life wasn’t easier back in the days 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I hope Your First of Advent was a good day and now we’re looking forward to the second 🙂
A storm passed by today and today it was noticeable even here in my garden, the strong ghusts shuffled the leaves in the trees pretty bad 🙂 The more steady wind was as always more or less unnoticeable here. They had guessed that we at least would have some sunshine in the early morning so I waited for quite some time before I gave up and we had our morning walk.
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A good thing with the winds are that almost no flies are out and about irritating us 🙂 and if any mosquito had been desperate enough they still would have blown away really fast 🙂 Also pretty chilly for being a day in July, only 15C (59F) as warmest and that’s now in the early evening. I’ve noticed something, the dogs don’t like to be outside in the garden windy days like this, I think it is the roar from the wind blowing through the forest and perhaps they smell things from far away that they don’t like and believes what ever it is can be nearby.
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I’ve been thinking about having a pond again but this time make sure no vole can chew through the rubber.
One being that I think exists all over the world is the Lantern man, When the day becomes night and one looks in to a forest or a bog one sometimes might see a flickering light, sometimes moving fast and sometimes really slow and if one is lucky one might even see the being carrying the light which is a small manlike being usually dressed in grey. It is the lantern man and quite often he tries to lure the human that see him out into the forest so they become lost. Sometimes however he lures them out into bogs or swamps to try and drown them. They will do the latter if they think one has been impolite or rude. However they can also save children being lost if one has been polite to them and also perhaps given them a coin or two (I guess that since silver always work with all other beings he would accept that too 🙂 )
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They guess that he’s an evil spirit that, when he lived tricked others so that he made his property bigger at his neighbors cost, therefore he will never get peace after dying. He continues this behavior after death by moving property markings at nights, always saying this is wrong and that is right. The only way he can get peace is if someone follows him at nights moving back all the property markings he has moved. The thing is would one really follow someone that willingly would try and kill You just for fun? 🙂 🙂
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It is time for a cup of tea I think and then see what’s on tv.
I slept late, for me this morning. I didn’t wake up until after five am. The weather was just as grey as they had guessed and it was actually pretty chilly when we finally came out for our walk. So instead of wearing my mosquito hat I just wore a hoodie and it was enough to keep the flies away from my face. Also I did spray the entire hoodie with that anti tick, horsefly and mosquito spray that works for both animals and humans and that could have helped more that I thought it would. So today both my dogs and I smell like an old lady in the sixties that didn’t understand when to stop spraying her perfume 🙂
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We have actually had much more sunshine than they guessed that we would so the kitchen door has been open most of the day but I really need to buy a new mosquito net for that door, I’ve taped it together in some places 🙂 🙂 Dogs never walk though slow and carefully, they run through ripping of the magnets keeping it together but every time I’m out on the internet I tend to forget to order any. From now on they’re guessing that we’ll have sunshine and hot weather for the rest of the week so I didn’t mow the lawn today as I had planed because the grass is still very wet since it has grown so high. I’ll start doing it tomorrow after work and just take small areas each day until it is done. So I won’t write anything here tomorrow.
No unusually big toads or frogs here so I guess there isn’t any KällrÃ¥ living here.Lots of Lingonberries this year, I might even go out and pick some myself this year.
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Two more weeks until the vacation starts 🙂 Those two weeks will feel like years because when it is hot outside it’s even hotter in the factory. The one standing at the paint ox it can quite often reach 44 C (111,2 F) and no matter how much waster one drinks it’s not enough. Hopefully the painter working there will work every day, otherwise it might be me they think should do that job and after 16 years of it I truly hate it. So cross Your fingers and hold Your thumbs for good luck so he’s healthy both weeks 🙂 🙂
I can’t remember that I’ve seen as many flowers on the Japanese climbing rose as I have this summer. These are above my head now making a roof together with the apple tree and a grape elder.I think the flowers are quite beautiful and these have no thorns 🙂The self sown Red leafed rose has been planted and grows really fast now.
Today I’ll write about a slightly more nasty being, the Mara. She’s the one that gives us nightmares But also from how I interpret it anxiety attacks at night. She crawls up on a humans chest at night and squeeze out all air and will to live. If she has been visiting You Yo’ll know it since You will wake up cold sweating and have the feeling of being suffocated. She cab squeeze through any crack she can find so it is more or less impossible to keep her out of any place. Thankfully the Mara suffers from obsessive thoughts so it is fairly easy to occupied until it is morning. One can for instance put a bible with lots of hair in between the pages because she must count them all before she can do anything else. Another way is to spread lots of tiny seeds around the beds because she must count them as well. I guess that not cleaning the floors if one has dogs could help a lot as well because of course she would have to clean before doing anything else. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t been around my place for ages because my floors are just as dirty as they were the night before 🙂 🙂
She’s hanging on the old lady 🙂
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No one really knows where the Mara comes from but it is usually a female and some think it is the soul of dead unmarried women who tries to get the warmth from the living. It could also be as simple as a curse is put upon her because their mothers, trying to not have as much pain giving birth and therefore used black magic by crawling through amniotic membrane from a new born foal. If the woman would give birth to a boy that boy would later on become a werewolf. Now our werewolfs are slightly different than the ones we have seen on films or read about but more on that another day 🙂 🙂
I asked Malkolm what he was doing and then he covered the hole and looked so innocent 🙂
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This is a favorite beetle of mine.
It is time to prepare something to eat at work tomorrow, I really don’t have anything at home so I’ll just make a couple of sandwiches and bring some yogurt too.
Today is actually the real midsummer but they’ve made sure that it always is celebrated on the first Friday after summer solstice. Midsummer eve isn’t a holiday (Midsummers day is though) but most people working in factories and offices still have the day off and it’s also a payed free day. This is the last holiday we have before Christmas. I would say that it is as big or perhaps even a bigger holiday here than Christmas. The bad traffic started already today because everyone wants to be where ever they are supposed to be already today.
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A variegated Plantago is really unusual and if I had liked them I would have brought this one home. Normally they are seen as weeds but for some reason not when they look like this 🙂 🙂
I’ll write more about the celebrations and folklore the coming days. Today I’ll tell You about Vättar (Väettir). They are usually small beings dressed in grey clothes but they can easily change to something else like toads or little mice. Like all beings they can be rather grumpy but we rarely know that we have them around us since they can change what they look like. There are several different kinds of Väettir, it all depends on where they live, like lake väettir, mountain väettir and forest väettir. It isn’t unusual that they live just beneath our cottages and if there are unusually many toads hanging around in our gardens it might be because they actually are Väettirs 🙂
Bumblebee beetle. Some years there are plenty of them here and some years one is lucky to see one.
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So if one lives a calm and orderly life and don’t disturb them they might become Your friend and then help you with the animals or perhaps give you and unusual amount of good luck. They really don’t like warm water so if one would toss out some from the home one should always warn them before one does. If one would meet a Väettir that needs help and help with what ever it is they usually give you a gift. It might look like an old pine cone or a stone, always take it and thank for it because they day after it can have turned in to gold or gemstones. If you don’t help them or disturbs them in any way they then instead might give You some terrible disease.
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I woke up in the middle of the night by an awful screaming of fear (and the barking sound of an older deer), sounded like a small baby deer was attacked by something, probably a fox. I thought it must have been the young one that the doe in the cow patch was the mother too. I found the doe walking in the cow patch when I left for work and thought that she might look for her young one and felt so sorry for her.She was still in the cow patch when I returned home (almost impossible to see her here) and she was completely calm. So either it was another animal screaming or she managed to scare what ever it was away 🙂
Väettirs are guardians of the area so I wonder if they live where gnomes doesn’t. Normally gnomes lives at farms while Väettirs seems to be more adaptable and live even close to poor people. They are my favorite beings to be honest just because they more often are kind than evil. Have I mentioned that there lives an unusual amount of toads in my garden? 🙂 🙂 🙂
Malkolm woke me up at 4:08 am today with a loud but high pitched bark, he’s after all only four months old now 🙂 After that he ran as fast as he could and peed on the stairs all the way down to the kitchen 🙂 🙂 🙂 To be honest he’s really good in peeing outside almost all the time. Just before I was going to write here he once again barked, ran as fast he could down the stairs and peed all the way down again 🙂 🙂 He had been playing so much with Alma that he forgot that he needed to go outside 🙂 🙂
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We don’t have Fairies in our folklore, the closest is Alves and Elves. I really don’t know a lot about Alves but there seems to have been two kinds of them, the darkness Alves who lived underground and the Light Alves who lived in the sky and shone brighter than the sun. It also seems many think they are the male equivalent to Elves but since I’ve read that there were male Elf kings I’m not sure of that. No matter what meeting Alves, who always came in groups was no good thing. Most of our beings seems to love hurting us 🙂
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Elves however could be seen during early mornings and late evenings dancing in the fields. They were dancing in the morning mist and one can still see them when the mist comes in circles and is sort of uneven on its upper part, like small tops all around the circle, those tops are the heads of the Elves. So I can say that I see them fairly often here 🙂 Elves might be beautiful but their main purpose is to make humans sick, especially children. Sometimes so bad that they die but they mostly do this for fun and really doesn’t want to kill anyone 🙂 🙂
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If one would get sick after meeting the Elves one could be cured by blowing towards them with Bellows or perhaps drop some pieces of gold in a nearby creek as a sacrifice 🙂 Elves can sometimes invite You to dance with them and mean no harm with that but time flows much much slower in that circle so it’s best to not be in a hurry if one accepts. They will make You sick if You don’t dance with them and they will throw illness upon You and that will most likely kill You. Sort of damned if You do and damned if You don’t 🙂 🙂
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In the year 1656 a woman was put to trial when she said she had had sex with the Elf King and had seven children with him. He one day came and brought the kids with him wearing golden clothes. The verdict was that she had been that the devil had made her insane and that they all should pray for her. I’m so glad that they never have asked me to dance with them since I have two left feet and my hip replacements really aren’t made for dancing 🙂
We’ve had everything from cloudy weather to sunshine to rain and thunder today.It rained when I came home from work and after that we had so dark clouds that I though more thunder was on the way so we stayed at home and in the garden. I and my dogs once got caught in a thunderstorm where I had to chose from being the highest point in the fields or standing between the trees in the forest 🙂 🙂 It was one of those fierce storms so the lightning flew all over the sky above us but none hit the ground here in the village.
I apparently still have two grapevines in my garden 🙂 I thought I had removed this one several years ago but here it is 🙂
The poppies will soon open up, the Californian poppies however is far behind.I sowed this Mock orange well over twenty years ago. It is now huge and flowers nicely every year.
They are guessing that the weather will stabilize towards Midsummers eve and after that become warmer and more sunny but You all know by now that they aren’t too good at their work when it comes to guessing what the weather will be like here 🙂 🙂 🙂 I know that in some folklore the beings doesn’t like to be out and about in daylight but very few is like that here in our tales. Like the SkogsrÃ¥, a forest nymph. She has lots of local names and I think that when people talk about here in this area they call her Mösakäringa (would be something like the Bog hag, personally I call her the Bog Lady just in case I ever should meet her 🙂 ). Everyone knows that when the fog rolls in over the fields from the forests it’s the Bog hags that has poured water over their nightly fires.
Found another rose that I remember I brought home after a plant swapping day. It has had a tough life fighting with wild roses I now have removed.Turns out it was lying flat on the ground so I’ve now helped it up again.New shoots from the roots of the dead Persimmon hybrid. I’ve read that it is easy to make those shoots grew new roots so I’ll try that with some of them.
The Wisteria that I’ve tried to remove so many for years now but cut off a big piece of root is now growing in the Lathyrus, Golden shower. They have leafs looking very similar so if I’m lucky I’ll have both yellow and blue flowers in that tree 🙂
She’s the one that reigns over the forest /bog and all the animals and if she likes a human she will allow them to hunt in her area. In this region she’s always described as very beautiful and tries to lure men to follow her and, if she wants to, kill them or seduce them. Her backside looks different when it comes to where she lives, Here she looks like a hollow log on her back but further north she look just like a human but has a tail. In the Norse beliefs the god Odin hated her and often hunted her like an animal but she’s hard to kill, only a silver bullet could do that (and I guess that since there were no bullets back in Odins days he must have used something else made by silver. If one would meet any kind of beings when walking around in the forest it’s always a good idea to have some pieces of silver, either as an apology if one has done something stupid or a way to become friends with them Preferable that silver should be begged while walking on a pilgrimage 🙂 To be honest I don’t think they are that picky now days since so few wear pieces of silver in their pockets while walking in the forest 🙂 🙂
Nepeta sibirica.Rosa multiflora, Japanese climbing rose. It is still behaving nicely up here in Scandinavia but can spread fast and tends to push away other wild roses. Forbidden to have in many states in the US.