Danish Folklore Creatures

The four that matter are the nisse, a household spirit; the kirkegrim, the revenant of an animal buried in a church foundation; the gravso or grave-sow, a spectral pig taken as an omen of death; and the lygtemand, a small male figure seen at night in bogs and damp meadows. These are folk beliefs, collected and written down from 1817 onwards, not sightings.

Household spiritNisse

Church guardianKirkegrim

Omen of deathGravso, the grave-sow

Bog lightLygtemand

Collected from1817, by Just Mathias Thiele

PublishedDanske Folkesagn, 1819–1823

Where the record comes from

Danish folklore was collected systematically from 1817 by Just Mathias Thiele, working at the Royal Library in Copenhagen, and published as Danske Folkesagn between 1819 and 1823. Svend Grundtvig and Evald Tang Kristensen carried it on. For the church grim specifically, Benjamin Thorpe's Northern Mythology of 1851 is the standard historical source in English. That is why this site can be precise about what people believed: somebody wrote it down while they still believed it.

The four

The nisse lives in the loft or the stable, is no taller than a ten-year-old boy, wears grey with a pointed red cap, and is helpful if you feed him porridge with butter and destructive if you do not. The kirkegrim is the protective revenant of an animal buried alive in a church's foundation, a lamb in the Nordic tradition, standing for Christ as the cornerstone. The gravso is a spectral pig and an omen of death. The lygtemand appears at night in bogs, damp meadows, by burial mounds and on forest floors, and H.C. Andersen used the figure in his writing.

One thing to be careful about

You will hear that a living person was walled into the foundations of some named Copenhagen building. The attested Scandinavian practice is animal foundation burial — the kirkegrim — and human immurement is an unlocalised folklore motif rather than an event with an address. Anyone who gives you the building is telling you a story. Each creature has its own page: the nisse, the kirkegrim and the lygtemand.

The Danish-language folk legends walk covers this material in ninety minutes from the University steps: the folk legends walk.

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Frequently asked questions

What creatures are in Danish folklore?

The nisse, a household spirit; the kirkegrim, an animal revenant guarding a church; the gravso or grave-sow, an omen of death; and the lygtemand, seen at night in bogs.

Who collected Danish folklore?

Just Mathias Thiele, from 1817 at the Royal Library in Copenhagen, published as Danske Folkesagn in 1819–1823. Svend Grundtvig and Evald Tang Kristensen followed.

Was anyone really buried in a building's foundations?

The attested Nordic practice is animal burial, the kirkegrim. Human immurement is an unlocalised motif. See the kirkegrim page.