The Haunted Village of Röjden

Normally I write about places that are hundreds or even thousands of years old. I do it to tell the story of the people that lived in a certain place and time that whose voice would otherwise be silent.

I live in the swedish province of Värmland and during the 16th century the Swedish kings saw that some areas in our part of the country was more or less desolate. The only thing that existed there was deep forests.

At this point in history Finland was the eastern half of the kingdom of Sweden. So to solve the problem with desolate areas in Värmland and elsewhere in the kingdom the Swedish king granted finish speaking people from Savolax the opportunity to move to the western part of the kingdom.

These heavily forested areas were a perfect fit for these people that in Sweden goes under the name Skogsfinnar (forest Finns).

These people had a certain type of lifestyle as they practiced slash and burn agriculture. They would cut forests down and then burn it to create land fertile for agriculture. The land was only usable for a few years before they had to move on and repeat.

This lifestyle had led to problems in their home as they had been moving across the border with the now more aggressive Russia. So a move to Sweden was at this time perfect for both crown and people.

The area that was settled in Sweden and into Norway are known as Finnskogen (Finn forest). The area has a lot of well preserved farms and the special style of smoke saunas that are open for visitors. The main houses are heated with a special type of oven without a chimney that would fill the home with hot smoke and thereby heating the space effectively. The smoke would then be released.

Their lifestyle and them being different made the local Swedes in the area see them as practitioners of magic, especially magic tied to the fire. Something that had some truth to it.

This summer I decided to visit the village of Röjden. This is a Forrest Finn village with quite the reputation for supernatural phenomena.

The village is most famous for the crucifix. This is however not a normal cross in the village church, but in the soil on the ground.

The cross is visible on the ground and on it no vegetation will grow in it creating a depression in the ground.

The cross has been known for 150 years and measures around 2 meters. There’s a fence to protect it from visitors walking on it.

The cross is a quaint little sight for the visitor. But the main attraction in this village is the farm known as Velgunaho.

This place was the site of some spectacular hauntings around year 1900. In the newly built house lived three elderly people, a couple and woman.

During spring mysterious things started to happen. First someone released their cows so that they would go to their pastures on their own. This happened numerous times even if they were firmly locked in.

It didn’t end there, as things in the house started to move around and pots would fly through the air. Furniture was thrown out, porcelain was destroyed and food became spoiled.

The people that lived there had a split log as a sofa in their kitchen. It was bolted to the wall. This didn’t stop it from being thrown through the room to be crushed against the sealing.

One of the elderly women that lived in the house was blind. She was said to have the ability to know when things were to happen again.

She would say “nu kommer de små grå” (Now comes the small grey.) Many descriptions of the hauntings here will call it poltergeist activity. But it sounds much more like the folklore beings known as Vettar.

The elderly people had enough of the activity in their home and they would move their entire house a few hundreds of meters away leaving only the foundation in place.

This fact has been put forward for it all to be true. Because no dirt poor people would move a house one hundred meters just for attention or the fun of it.

It is told in the village about a visitor from my home town of Karlstad that visited in the 1960s. He walked around kicking the rocks, but he was warned by the locals not to disturb the small grey, something he ignored. His house was apparently hit by lightning.

During my visit I played it safe and after tips from a locals I left a small offering before I left. I didn’t want anything to unintentionally follow me home.