The Hulder
In Scandinavian forests, a beautiful woman might appear to lonely herders, until she turned and you saw her cow's tail.
What was reported
The hulder, or huldra, is a forest spirit of Norwegian and Swedish folklore: a beautiful woman with long hair, often met near summer pastures in the mountains, who lures young men with her singing. Her secret is a cow's tail, or a back hollow like a rotten tree, which she tries to hide.
In some tales a man who married a hulder in church would see her tail fall away and she would become human; in others, those she led off were never quite the same.
Explanations offered
Folklorists see the hulder as one of the 'hidden people' of Scandinavian belief, whose stories warned about the forest and about strangers. She's still a familiar figure: dancers dressed as a hulder appear at the Kjosfossen waterfall for passengers on the Flåm Railway.
- When
- Told for centuries
- Where
- Mountain pastures of Norway
- Witnesses
- Norwegian and Swedish country people
- Status
- Legend
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.