Sweden’s Blue Maiden “Blåkulla” Island – Mythical Place With Dark Secrets Of Witches And Wizardry

MessageToEagle.com | February 1, 2016 | Ancient Mysteries, Ancient Places, Ancient World | No Comments

MessageToEagle.com – The island of Blue Maiden or Blåkulla, a Swedish island situated in the Kalmar Strait, is a mythical place that for centuries both fascinated and discouraged.

It is located 86 meters above sea level and 130 metres above the sea floor.

As early as the 15th century, the island was imbued with magical notions of witches and wizardry. Stories of witches gathered annually to meet their master, the devil himself, goes far back in time.

From the middle of 1500s, there are stories of the female supernatural beings, to which clothes and other objects were sacrificed and thus won her protection, the early ethnographer Olaus Magnus wrote in his ‘Historia’ wrote in 1555.

Magnus pointed out the significance of the Blå Jungfrun and stated that “seafarers in the vicinity were not to call the island Blåkulla, because then a tremendous storm immediately would brew”.

Apart from being the legendary meeting place of witches, it carries several taboo and noa names and is one of the most frequented sites of sailor´s baptism in the Baltic. Olaus Magnus testifies on offerings here in 1555. A large stone labyrinth is built on its massive undulating rocks. Photo: Christer Westerdahl.

The sacred status of these sites is obvious, not only from testimonies of tradition.

In 1741 Carl von Linné (1707 – 1778) visited Blåkulla, another name given to the island even then. But the stay does not seem to have appealed to him, since he describes his visit as follows:

“If any place in the world looks horrible, this certainly is one of the most atrocious”.

The Cave Virgin chamber inside. Note the large bowl-shaped indentation on the vertical wall to the left, and the elevation of the ground below it. Photo Louis Papmehl-Dufay/Kalmar

Carl von Linné was also the first to mention the Trolleborg labyrinth on the mysterious island.

Apart from evidence of Stone Age rituals the island has long been linked with tales of witchcraft, supernatural powers and curses. The island has long been an important landmark that alsou sed to predictweather. It also has many ancient caves that have fascinated people from time immemorial.

It was believed that they could have been entrances to the dwellings of trolls and other mythical creatures.

One of the island’s caves has a massive hollow, about 2.3 feet (0.7 meters) in diameter, which was hammered into a vertical wall. A fireplace lies underneath the hollow.

Blå Jungfrun caves contain diverse bone material. Photo: Kenneth Alexandersson

“We believe the hollow is man-made and that the fireplace has been used in connection to hammering out the hollow, probably on several occasions,” according to Ludvig Papmehl-Dufay, an archaeologist from Kalmar Museum.

“In two caves, distinct ritual features were identified.”

Blue Maiden seems to be a place”at all times” associated with various kinds of taboos and mythological beliefs.

At the same time, surprisingly little is known about people’s relationship to and presence on the island in the past.

Trolleborg labyrinth – Blue Virgin – Blåkulla island. Photo: Sigge Sundström

Nobody knows how long the Trolleborg labyrinth has laid there on the rock. Or who put it there and why.

What is known is that setting up labyrinths in the archipelago was rather common in the past. Often people walked in them as a ritual – for fertility, good fishing luck or a calm sea on the way home.

During four days in late May 2014 the island was surveyed but only at selected locations, where researchers dug test pits.

The uninhabited Blue Maiden or Blåkulla island has many secrets from the past and it’s still much to investigate in granite’s cracks, caves and niches created by million-year-old boulders on the island – the ‘meeting-place of witches’.

MessageToEagle.com via AncientPages.com

source: Kalmar Läns Museum, ‘Fornlämningar på Blå Jungfrun’