Shadows of the Longest Nights - Paperback

by Rittin Books (Author), Edwin Corvinstone (Author)

What came out after dark at Christmas?

In the old North, Yuletide was not only a season of feasting, candles, and celebration. It was also a time when the dead walked, trolls came down from the mountains, strange riders crossed the winter sky, and long-hidden things drew near the firelight.

Shadows of the Longest Nights brings together seventeen dark Nordic folktales of Christmas and Yuletide, retold from folklore collections, sagas, archives, and oral tradition.

Within these pages:

• The dead gather for Christmas mass.
• A drowned deacon returns for the woman he loves.
• Trolls overrun a Faroese village.
• A restless child cries through the winter darkness.
• Sea-draugs rise from the shore.
• A seal woman returns to pronounce a terrible curse.
• Stallo descends in the shape of the moon.
• And the dreadful Åsgardrei rides through the night.

Drawn from Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Lapland, and Svalbard, these stories reveal a harsher and more unsettling side of Nordic winter tradition-one shaped by darkness, isolation, faith, superstition, and the constant nearness of the unseen.

Some tales are famous. Others survive only in obscure collections, remote local tradition, or fragmentary sources. All belong to the long northern storytelling season, when the nights were longest, and the old stories were told beside the fire.

Perfect for readers of folklore, ghost stories, dark Christmas traditions, Nordic mythology, and supernatural history.

Light the candles, close the door, and enter the longest nights.

Story overview:

1. The Mass of the Dead - Norway
2. The Deacon of Myrká - Iceland
3. The Visitors on Christmas Night - Iceland
4. The Devil at Cards - Denmark
5. The Child Beneath the Step - Sweden
6. Until the Church Falls - Denmark
7. The Troll Dance of Tr llanes - The Faroe Islands
8. The Child Without a Name - Norway
9. A Winter Wedding in Hattarvík - The Faroe Islands
10. The Cave That Was Not There - Iceland
11. Stallo's Moon - Lapland
12. The Draugs of Sea and Land - Norway
13. The Seal Woman of Mikladalur - The Faroe Islands
14. The Scurvy Sister - Svalbard
15. Lojsta Hed - Sweden
16. The Åsgardrei - Norway
17. Glámur - Iceland