Werewolfs in Scandinavia: The Soul’s Journey and The Self-Shifter

The Wolf-Belt Rite: Turning a Farmhand into a Beast

This is chapter 3 in my soon to be published book on werewolfs in Scandinavia.

They said the pasture at midsummer smelled of crushed clover and iron. In the half-light between sunset and dawn a teenage farm-hand would kneel, wriggle a foal-skin belt over his shoulders, and crawl three times—head-first—through the loop. On the third pass he was no longer Karl or Nils but something gray-pelted and four-footed, doomed to roam until the cock first crowed.

Every district from Hälsingland, in the middle to Småland in the south of Sweden kept its own variant of the rite, yet the bones of the spell were identical: a newborn animal’s hide, a triple motion, and the deliberate blurring of front and back, man and beast. Where our previous chapter tracked the real wolves’ decline under royal bounties and poison guns, this one follows the folklore that persisted after the animals had almost vanished—an improvised, sometimes desperate magic for people who still needed wolves even when the forests fell silent.

What follows is not a tidy anthropological summary; it is a braid of field notes, courtroom depositions, and campfire recollections. You will meet:

Ella Odstedt¹, notebook in hand in 1943, coaxing the last surviving witness to demonstrate the crawl on the parsonage lawn.

By the end of the text you will know the exact measurements of the belt, the secret words whispered on the second pass, and why the third pass—always the third—opened a door the crawler could not easily close again.

Step softly. The pasture dew is cold, the moon is late, and the belt lies waiting.

A full moon’s light draped the pines in silver as Nils slipped out of the croft and into the frosty air. Deep in the Swedish hinterland, miles from the nearest village, he moved with a purpose both furtive and determined. In his calloused hands he carried an old leather strap—his trollbälte, a “witch’s belt” of ancient design. He had kept this secret talisman hidden under a loose floorboard since summer. Now winter’s hunger pressed on him, and he was ready to use it. With a steady breath, Nils unbuttoned his woolen shirt and let the cold bite his skin. He bit down on a sliver of silver blade held between his teeth – an aid to focus the dark spell – and dropped to all fours. Looping the leather belt into a circle, he crawled headfirst through the enchanted hoop once… twice… three times. On the third pass, a prickling heat raced across his skin. He gasped as his back spasmed and bristling gray fur erupted over his flesh. His fingers twisted, sharpening into claws; his face elongated into a snout tipped with wet black nose and fangs. In moments, where Nils had knelt now stood a hulking wolfish creature. A low growl rumbled in its throat – his throat. Nils shook himself, wolfsbane and moonlight mingling in his nostrils, and sprang off into the night on four fleet feet.

Thus did the self-shifter commence his secret journey. Through thickets and across frozen streams he ran, reveling in the preternatural strength and senses the wolf-form lent him. He caught the scent of elk on the wind and gave playful chase, darting between snow-laden spruces. This freedom was intoxicating – a gift known only to those few who had mastered the art of varulv, the werewolf transformation, by their own will. Tonight, Nils was no cursed victim but a voluntary shape-changer, a man-wolf by choice. Yet the crisp air carried other, less welcome scents as well. The stench of smoke and iron wafted from a distant homestead; the farmers were keeping watch. Nils recalled the warnings of the old Sami witch who had taught him this craft: avoid forged iron and silver, for a blade to the heart could kill both wolf and man. His pointed ears flattened at the thought. This power he wielded was a perilous one, a secret skill carried with great risk. With hunger gnawing, the wolf-man circled toward a pasture where a lone mare stood. He hesitated – just a few bites to sate the wolf within, he assured himself. In a blur of fangs and fury, he fell upon the unfortunate horse. By dawn, Nils would return to human shape, slipping back into his hut with blood on his lips and a heavy conscience. The ancient northern woods kept his secret – for now.

By Belt, Hide, or Spell: The Magic of Metamorphosis

In Swedish folk tradition, those who became wolves by choice did so through arcane tools and rituals rather than curses or infectious bites. In much of this lore, the werewolf (in Swedish, varulv) is a magician, not a monster inflicted by fate. The mechanisms of voluntary transformation were well known in legend and varied from the physical to the magical. A few of the most common methods included:

Donning a enchanted wolf-skin or hide

By wearing a wolf’s pelt, or sometimes a bear’s, over one’s body, a person could assume the animal’s form. In many tales the entire hide was not available – instead, a strip of wolfhide formed into a belt served as the transformational tool. Putting on such a belt (often nothing else, as one typically stripped naked) was enough to turn man into wolf. One 16th-century account by Olaus Magnus even claimed would-be werewolves drank a special beer and sang incantations as part of the ritual, but Swedish legends more commonly speak of belts and skins than brews. In northern Sweden, it was said Sámi sorcerers crafted particularly potent wolf-belts from the skin of a hanged man’s corpse, cut from around the dead man’s waist. Such a trollbälte made of human hide was a prized and feared object, enabling its wearer to become a wolf at will – a gift only Laplanders (Sámi) knew how to obtain, according to rumor.

Crawling through a magic loop or arch

Rather than wearing the belt conventionally, many stories describe spreading a belt or strap on the ground and crawling through the loop to effect the change. This act had to be done in a very specific manner – usually three times headfirst – to complete the metamorphosis. In some variants the “loop” could be a naturally occurring arch or hoop. A bent tree trunk, a hole in a fence, or the yoke of a harness could serve if prepared with the proper spell. For example, folklore from Jämtland speaks of a witch pointing out a particular gap in a turf fence; anyone crawling through that charmed opening would emerge in wolf shape on the other side. Similarly, a Skolt Sámi legend says a person should sleep beside a bent tree and then crawl under its arched trunk to turn into a wolf – an enchanted tree could serve as the gateway between human and animal form. The triple crawling was most often noted in the northern interior: accounts from Jämtland (Ström, Hammerdal, Frostviken, etc.), Ångermanland (Ramsele, Junsele) and Härjedalen (Hede, Storsjö) all insist the would-be werewolf crawl back and forth three times through the belt’s loop.

Reciting special incantations or prayers

Some tales imply that words of power were needed. A person might mutter an ancient formula under their breath while putting on the belt or crawling through the hoop. We saw an echo of this in Nils’s story – his whispered spell and focused breathing. Historical sources support this detail: Olaus Magnus wrote that Livonian werewolves (in the Baltic, a region culturally linked to Sweden’s north) were initiated by repeating a set formula as they drank their magical beer. A 19th-century folklorist recorded an example of such a trollformel: “Hail, hail, hail, great Wolf Spirit, hail! A boon I ask thee…” – a rhyming plea to “make me a werewolf strong and bold”. While that particular verse comes in an English rendering, it illustrates the kind of chant a Swedish farmhand might have murmured in dialect to invoke the wolf shape. In many cases, the Lord’s Prayer read backwards or blasphemous twists on Christian rites were also said to do the trick, reflecting the belief that turning into a werewolf was against the natural (and divine) order.

Smearing a magic salve or drinking from a wolf-print

Borrowing from pan-European witchcraft lore, some Swedish legends mention a witch’s salve rubbed over one’s body to effect the change. This idea mirrors broader folklore where ointments provided by the Devil turned witches into cats or allowed them to fly. In the werewolf’s case, the salve might contain hallucinogenic herbs to trick the senses into taking on a beast’s mindset – or so later scholars have theorized. Another recurring notion was that if one drank water from a wolf’s paw print in the ground, especially under the light of a full moon, one would become a wolf. This method straddles the line between voluntary and curse – was the person deliberately performing a charm, or stumbling into a doom? In Swedish “people’s faith” (folktron), intent mattered: locals believed only a person who truly believed in such magic could successfully become a werewolf. In other words, these transformations did not happen to skeptics. One had to invite the power in.

Whatever the method, an important detail in these traditions is that the werewolf could return to human form afterwards – and usually by relatively simple means. Unlike modern movie werewolves who are trapped in beast form until the moon wanes or they are killed, the Swedish self-shifter often had an escape clause. To become human again, one only needed to remove the enchanted item (take off the belt or wolfskin) or reverse the original ritual (crawl back out of the loop, often backwards). Nils, in our story, knew to slip off his belt and creep back through it the opposite way before dawn. If done correctly, the fur would fall away, the claws shrink back, and the man would straighten up on two legs once more. However, if something interrupted the process, strange side-effects could occur. A famous folk legend from Östergötland tells of a farmer’s son who was a werewolf for many years and was finally caught by his devout mother.

As the wolf crept back into the storage shed for the bait she’d left, the old woman slammed the door and called out his Christian name. Instantly, the wolfskin fell off her son – but in the premature rush of the moment, the tail of the wolf remained stuck on him! He lived out his life as “Tail-Pelle,” a man with a hairy wolf’s tail poking from under his coat. In another tale, a hunter’s wife managed to throw a piece of blessed clothing over him during the change, partially breaking the spell – he reverted to a man but kept a single wolf paw for a hand until the end of his days. These stories warned that improper reversal of the magic could leave a lasting mark. Generally, though, the self-chosen werewolf had the means to return to normal at will, making the condition more like a secret costume than a curse.

The Body Asleep and the Soul Abroad

Not all werewolves in Swedish lore physically put on skins or crept through hoops. A more mystical version of the belief held that a person’s soul could depart their body and roam as a wolf, while their human body lay insensible at home. This idea – essentially a form of astral projection or hamn (shape) shifting – has deep roots in Nordic tradition. In these cases, the outward shape of a wolf might be thought of as a kind of spirit-double rather than the person’s actual flesh and bone transformed. The human being would enter a trance or profound sleep, and their hama (soul-self) would slip out, taking on the form of a wolf (or in some stories, a bear).

Odstedt notes that this belief in “the free soul” was especially prevalent in the far north of Sweden, likely influenced by Sámi shamanistic concepts. In Sámi spiritual practice, a noaidi (shaman) would fall into a deep trance, during which his soul traveled to distant places or into other forms, while his body remained motionless. Typically, the shaman’s body was guarded by helpers – often women – who would watch over him and aid his soul in returning safely. Swedish werewolf legends echo this pattern uncannily. One story from Härjedalen tells of a man named Klemet who was fated to “run as a bear” for a month each year. When the bear-spirit took him, his human body would collapse as if dead. One winter, Klemet’s sister tracked him to a remote cabin in the mountains and found him lying unconscious on the floor, his left hand already transformed into a bear’s paw while the rest of his body was human. Realizing his soul was out roaming as a great bear, she kept a vigil by the body for the entire month. On the last night, she saw the body stir – the soul was returning. But at that very moment, a distant gunshot rang out in the woods. Klemet’s body screamed, and a wound tore open on his temple, killing him instantly. Later she learned that a massive bear had been shot at sunrise not far away. The implication was clear: Klemet’s soul-form had been slain, and thus the tether to his body was severed.

Such tales illustrate the perceived vulnerability of the soul-traveler. As long as the wolf-form was safe, the person would eventually wake with no harm (perhaps just tired and “dåsig,” groggy, as some werewolf tales mention). But if the wolf was injured or killed during the night’s adventures, the human either suffered the corresponding wound or never woke up at all. People spoke of finding a known villager dead in his bed come morning, a hunters’ bullet in his heart – a bullet that the night before had felled a mysterious wolf. In one account, a girl who suspected her fiancé of such nocturnal wandering sat by his slumbering body and marked one of his hands with soot or dye. The next day, the man returned from an alleged “hunting trip” with the same mark on the paw of the wolfskin he was hiding, proving that his soul had indeed been out in lupine guise.

The connection between body and roaming soul was considered so tangible that folk tradition offered precautions. It was said that if you encountered a wolf that might be a transformed person, you should not attack it with iron or steel directly – some legends hold that only silver or inherited steel (like an old family knife) could truly harm a werewolf, which ties into broader European werewolf lore. Conversely, if you suspected a loved one was “out in wolf-form,” you must not move their body or wake them suddenly. Turning the body face-down or disrupting the sleep could trap the soul outside. Communities that believed in these spirit-werewolves might station a family member to quietly guard the sleeper, much as the Sámi did for their shamans. This guardian could also help with the re-integration: sometimes by performing a small ritual, like drawing a circle of protection around the bed or softly humming a melody to guide the soul home.

It’s worth noting that this dual existence – man lying at home while wolf prowls the night – links the werewolf belief to the wider complex of Nordic hamnskiftare (shape-shifters) and even the mara (nightmare spirit). In fact, some southern Swedish legends claimed that mara and varulv were just the female and male versions of the same phenomenon: a witchy soul that left by night, with men usually taking wolf form and women taking the form of the mara (a pressuring spirit). In older folklore, these powers might have been attributed to trolls or nature spirits casting a glamour. But by the 19th century, rural people often suspected human practitioners – local cunning-folk or outsiders like the Sámi – of sending out their souls in animal guise. The human-soul werewolf was thus not a damned victim but a kind of witch or sorcerer, operating in secret. It was an esoteric skill, one that required knowledge, nerve, and a dash of recklessness.

Northern Werewolves and Sámi Sorcery

Ella Odstedt’s research revealed a striking geographic pattern to these self-induced werewolf traditions. The self-transformation motif – voluntary shape-shifting – was primarily a phenomenon of Northern Sweden. In the provinces of Norrland – such as Jämtland, Härjedalen, Ångermanland, and Hälsingland – folklore about men or women choosing to become wolves or bears was widespread. These are regions of deep forests, isolated farms, and long dark winters, where such uncanny tales easily took root. Villagers in these areas told and retold accounts of the secret werewolf, often with a mix of fear and awe. By contrast, in central Sweden one more often heard of witches bewitching someone into a wolf against their will, and in the south the common belief was in werewolves by birth or curse (for instance, a seventh son doomed to be a werewolf). But up north, the werewolf was usually a deliberate shape-shifter, a person tapping into wild magic.

This northern flavor of the legend likely intertwines with Sámi influence. The Sámi (formerly called Lapplanders) were the indigenous people of Lapland and inland Norrland, the North of Sweden, and Swedish settlers historically viewed them with a mixture of fascination and suspicion.

The Sámi were renowned for their shamanic traditions – drum rituals, trance journeys, and nature magic – and many Swedes believed the Sámi had literal shape-shifting powers. As one 18th-century writer in Småland, in the south of Sweden, recorded, “the common folk believe werewolves come from Lappmarken (Lapland)”. In other words, if a wolf-like monster troubled the village, they imagined its origin in the far north where Sámi sorcerers prowled. Folklore from Hälsingland insisted that only a Lapp knew how to make a proper wolf-belt out of human skin, and stories from Jämtland tell of “Lappgubben” – the wise Sámi man – being consulted for remedies to lycanthropy or for means to become a werewolf. In our opening story, Nils’s knowledge clearly had a Sámi source; this reflects the legend trope that a Swede could gain the power second-hand, by learning from a Laplander shaman or receiving a belt from one.

Sámi lore itself contains rich shape-shifting legends that parallel the Swedish ones. We’ve already seen how pragmatic the Sámi were-bear stories were – young reindeer herders turning into wolves for fun and speed, older hunters turning into bears to sleep through winter and find easy food. These tales lack the moral condemnation found in many farming communities’ stories; among the Sámi, becoming an animal could be a neutral or even useful ability, not inherently evil. A Sámi shaman might undertake a wolf-shape to go hunt game or to protect the reindeer herds from real wolves. Swedish legends absorbed some of this practicality. One account from Härjedalen (a northern mountainous district) tells of a settler who became a wolf during a famine “simply for lack of food,” suggesting empathy – he did it so he could hunt like a wolf and feed his family. But when these stories were retold in Swedish farming communities where hunger was less understood, the motives often shifted to malice or bloodlust. A werewolf in those versions might slaughter sheep or cattle not out of need but out of a cruel thrill, or even attack pregnant women to devour unborn children (a particularly horrific motif that appears in some southern legends). This contrast underscores how the same phenomenon – human becoming beast – could be seen either as a shaman’s expedient or as a devil’s atrocity, depending on cultural context.

Nevertheless, many northern stories retained a nuance that the werewolf power itself was not automatically nefarious – it all depended on the user. For example, one oft-told Jämtland legend involves a farmhand who uses a wolf-belt to turn into a wolf at night and sneak into his master’s herd. In one variation, he kills and eats the fattest horse; in another, he preys on a sheep or cow. The next morning, the farmhand is back in human form, sitting on the threshold picking horse-meat from his teeth, arousing the farmer’s suspicion. When the truth comes out, the farmhand is chased off or even killed. This tale type – of the werewolf herdsman who devours the livestock – has been documented not only in Sweden (in Jämtland, Ångermanland, Härjedalen) but also in Denmark and Germany, suggesting a shared Germanic legend heritage. Intriguingly, though, some versions from Sweden add that the farmhand was a foreigner – often a Finn or a Lapp – reinforcing the notion that the knowledge (and blame) of shape-shifting magic was often placed on non-Swedish others. In fact, “Finns” (which in older Swedish usage could mean any Fenno-Ugric peoples, including Sámi) were frequently accused of transforming into bears or directing bears to attack settlers’ cattle in 17th-century accounts. To the settlers, the deep wilderness to the north was a source of both physical predators and supernatural ones, sometimes indistinguishable.

It’s important to remember that these narratives existed in a time when Christianity was the official creed, yet belief in older magic still ran strong among the populace – what Swedes call “folk faith”. Clergymen often condemned shape-shifting tales as superstition or demonry. But to the people in the timber cottages and reindeer camps, the werewolf was part of their worldview, a creature that straddled the line between the tangible and the otherworldly. They did not speak of Hollywood-style wolf-men under a curse. They spoke in knowing tones about that reclusive neighbor who might have a secret pelt hidden in a chest, or the strange Sami trader who came through town and after whom wolves always seemed to appear. These werewolves were not slavering monsters but rather human beings with a dangerous talent.

A Dangerous Gift – Power, Secrecy, and Risk

In Swedish folk tradition, becoming a wolf was often not a punishment but a dark craft, a power one sought knowingly. Such power came with obvious perks: freedom of movement, supernatural strength, the fear one could instill in enemies, and the ability (in lean times) to hunt as efficiently as a wolf or bear. It was, in a sense, an esoteric skill, like knowing a secret rune or charm. A common term for those who practiced clandestine magic was trollkunnig – “troll-wise” or knowledgeable in witchcraft. A voluntary werewolf fell into this category. Some legends even imply a sort of guild or lineage: a father might pass the wolf-belt to his son as a terrible inheritance, or a person could apprentice under a witch to learn shape-shifting. The skill had to be kept secret from the uninitiated. In one story from Dalarna, a man who was a werewolf for years never told his wife; she only discovered it when she found wolf hairs and blood on his discarded belt hidden in the attic. The revelation destroyed the family, illustrating that even aside from physical dangers, the social risk of being outed as a werewolf was extreme. Such a person would be shunned, feared, perhaps lynched by their community or brought to trial as a malefactor. Thus, the werewolf’s power was a lonely one.

The physical dangers were just as severe. We’ve seen how a rifle or knife could end the shapeshifter’s life, and how any mistake in the ritual might leave one permanently marked or dead. There was also the moral or spiritual risk: many tales caution that running as a wolf too often could erode one’s humanity. A man who spends night after night in beast form might begin to think and feel like a beast, forgetting human kindness. In an explanatory interlude, Odstedt notes that in farming regions the werewolf came to epitomize evil intent – an outlet for the “rovlystnad och ondska” (predatory lust and malice) that otherwise polite society forbade. In other words, people projected their fears of uncontrolled aggression onto the idea of the werewolf. A person who willingly became a wolf might give in to bloodlust and commit horrors that their normal self would never contemplate. One folktale speaks of a werewolf who, upon returning to human form, is horrified to find blood under his fingernails and fragments of his neighbor’s livestock in his teeth. He hadn’t intended such savagery, but as a wolf he could not resist. Here the power has overpowered its wielder. The beast within was not easy to tame, no matter one’s intentions.

And yet, the tone of many self-shifter stories is not purely damning. There is often a thread of pity or understanding – as if the storytellers acknowledge that, under certain circumstances, who wouldn’t consider becoming a wolf? In the far north, a hunter facing starvation or a herder watching his flock fall to pieces might resort to wolf-magic as a dire remedy. In these cases, the werewolf was seen almost as a folk hero or anti-hero, someone who braved the wild in a literally transformative way. A famous legend from Västerbotten in the north of Sweden, tells of a man who “went wolf” to fend off a pack of real wolves harassing the village; he succeeded in slaughtering the pack in wolf form, but thereafter a black mark lay on him for using sorcery. The villagers were grateful yet afraid, and the man lived out his life on the outskirts of the settlement, respected but avoided. This reflects the ambivalence in folk attitudes: the self-shifter was both valued and feared, admired and reviled.

By the early 20th century, these old beliefs were fading. Odstedt, writing in 1943, noted that new generations were forgetting the werewolf lore; she managed to collect only a handful of fresh tales in the 1930s. Modern education and the decline of the old folk ways meant the secret of the wolf-belt was being lost. What remains is the fascinating tapestry she documented: a time when, in snowy forest huts and Sámi tents under the aurora, people truly believed that a soul could run as a wolf. Chapter 3 has explored that voluntary, magical transformation – the werewolf not as an accursed victim, but as The Self-Shifter, a human being reaching with both hands (or paws) into the realm of animal power. It was a perilous journey of the soul, one undertaken under cover of night and in utmost secrecy. Those who walked it carried the knowledge of ancient magic in their hearts… and, often, the scars of that journey on their bodies when they returned.

In the hush of a Nordic winter’s night, one might imagine the echo of that old world: the pad of unseen paws in the snow, a distant wolf-howl that just might be something more than a wolf. The self-shifters of Swedish folk tradition remind us that our ancestors saw a thin veil between human and animal, one that a daring few could slip through with the right ritual. It was a gift of freedom and a curse of solitude, a power with grave risks, always. And as the legends warn – whether through a forgotten belt, a magic loop, or a soul-flight under the moon – den som leker med vargen (he who plays with the wolf) must never forget that the line between man and beast, once crossed, is treacherous ground.

Sources:

• Odstedt, Ella. Varulven i svensk folktradition (Uppsala: Lundequistska, 1943). Folklore examples and analysis of Swedish werewolf beliefs.

• Institutet för språk och folkminnen (Isof) – Archives of Swedish folk legends. (See especially records from Jämtland and Ångermanland on wolf-belt transformations.)

• Swedish Wikipedia, “Varulv” – Summary of Scandinavian werewolf lore (accessed 2025).

• Olaus Magnus (1555), Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus – Early account of Nordic werewolf rituals (beer and incantation).

• Qvigstad, Just. Lappiske eventyr og sagn – Sami legends of shape-shifting (Oslo, 1929).

• Hylten-Cavallius, Gunnar. Wärend och Wirdarne (1863) – Reports of varulv and transformation in Småland (e.g. three-legged werewolf tale).

• Werewolves.com – “Werewolf Lore: The Varulv” (2010) – Overview of Scandinavian werewolf differences. (Provides modern commentary on Sami and belt lore in Sweden.)

• Af Klintberg, Bengt. The Types of the Swedish Folk Legend (FF Communications No. 300, 2010) – Classification of legend types, including the werewolf-farmhand who eats the horse.

• ResearchGate – Eldar Heide, “Werewolf Legends in Scandinavia” – Discusses soul-traveling werewolves and connections to shamanism.

1. Ella Odstedt (1901 – 1964) was the librarian-turned-folklorist who criss-crossed northern Sweden in 1943 with two notebooks, a box camera, and an army-surplus bicycle. Paid by neither church nor university, she logged 312 interviews in four months, mapping each tale with a red pin on a linen ordnance chart. Where the wolves were gone, she said, “memory keeps running on four legs”—and her notes remain the last firsthand record of Sweden’s wolf-belt rite.