The Lindworms of Småland
In the 19th century, a Swedish scholar collected sworn accounts from farmers who said they had seen giant serpents with heads like horses.
What was reported
The lindworm is a dragon of Scandinavian and Germanic legend: a great serpent, sometimes with two front legs, sometimes none. In Sweden, stories of lindworms living in forests and marshes were told well into the 1800s.
In 1884, the scholar Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius published a study of lindworms in the region of Värend, in Småland, with accounts from dozens of people who said they had seen them: black serpents several metres long, with manes and large eyes, that hissed and reared up. He offered a reward for one, dead or alive.
Explanations offered
No lindworm was ever caught. The sightings may have been large grass snakes, or adders seen in fear and remembered bigger, shaped by old legends. The study is a rare record of how a monster belief lived on in the countryside.
- When
- Reported into the 1800s
- Where
- Värend, Småland, Sweden
- Witnesses
- Swedish farmers, as collected in 1884
- 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.
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