A few years ago me and my best friend found our new big interest; nature and history. We could often combine the two since a lot of historical places where we live here in Scandinavia are close to nature. We bought books, we googled places, we started following similar people on social media and during 4 years now we’ve explored the depths of Scandinavian history together. The fun thing about history is how it never ends and how there’s SO much for us to learn. So we’ve been to a pretty weird places searching for ONE special rock that’s been standing there for thousands of years etc. Being in the deep forests looking for fun things to photograph and learn about I’ve never really felt scared of anything. We don’t really have any dangerous animals here to encounter and we have good connection on our phones no matter how deep in we venture. But a few months back we found something that… actually scared the living hell out of me.
It started with us wanting to take some pictures for our instagrams in a nature reservation with deep woods and crystal clear lakes. It was in the middle of summer and the good old climate change had the temperature up to 32 degress celsius and gashing sun. But we could find shade in the trees. To get to where we wanted we had to walk a bit. Our goal was to find a tree that would fit with us standing behind, beside and in front of it to make a good picture. We went out on a late afternoon and the sun wouldn’t set for several hours. After a few hours of walking deeper and deeper into the forest we found a place to take our photographs. Our phones were already on low battery but we managed to take some really cool pictures of us looking like forest elves, nymphs or whatever you want to call it. It wasn’t until we wanted to get back to the car that the scary part begins. Our phones died so we decided to head back. After one hour we admitted to ourselves that we were lost… And with our phones this wouldn’t be a problem but we had nothing. We were so sure we could find our way back.
As soon as it turned into late evening, no sun setting just yet, we started feeling tired and sat down to rest on some fallen trees we found. We had some water, some snacks and a cigarette for me. During the whole time I could feel like a shiver down my spine… it’s like when you know you’re being watched but it wasn’t exactly anyone here that could be watching us. It was just like something wasn’t feeling right. But I couldn’t figure out if it was just me being tired from walking and being outside all day or if there’s actually something here I should be scared of. I asked my friend “is it just me or is it kind of getting colder and a little bit.. scary here?”. She looked around and said “hey I thought it was just me.” Like I said this was during the biggest heatwave Scandinavia ever had so it was impossible for us to feel cold no matter what time of day or night it was. I suddenly started feeling dizzy and dropped my cigarette on the ground to put it out with my shoe. When I looked down I saw something half buried in front of me. It was a shape formed with something whiteish-grey. At first I thought it was some rocks just laying there but when I looked closer I saw that… it was bones. Now. Finding bones in the middle of the woods is nothing scary or out of the ordinary. Animals live and die there and sometimes we even harvest the bones and make crafts out of them. But these bones looked like they were placed there, placed into a particular shape or pattern. I showed my friend and we started brushing off the dirt and moss that covered half of it. “What the hell is that?” I said when we were done. “It’s… a rune…” my friend said. I can’t read or decipher runes but I’m not unfamiliar with it because we’ve seen so many runestones during our trip. So this rune on the ground in the middle of nowhere… shaped with bones… I had no idea what that could mean. My friend started pacing back and forward trying to figure out what rune it was and after a while she said “aha! It’s the Odal rune!” And when she said it I knew it too. The Odal rune is also called Othala. It’s hard to describe what it looks like but what I can tell you is that it means “property, heritage, inherited estate” basically. As soon as we brushed off the last dirt and moss from the rune everything suddenly went quiet around us. The forest is a naturally kind of quiet place but there’s always SOMETHING you can hear like the wind in the trees, birds etc… but we seriously couldn’t hear ANYTHING other that our own breaths. We both froze and looked at each other. What the fuck did we just do? Did we ruin something? I could see that my friend was getting really scared. This rune isn’t exactly something to be afraid of and from my knowing it isn’t used in witchcraft or anything “scary”… it’s just a letter. A letter from a foreign alphabet. But something just didn’t feel right. We stood up and started looking around for something, I don’t know what… but I’ve never in my life felt more than a hunted animal before. It was like I knew something was coming for us, looking at us from afar, just waiting for us to run so they could run after us. And so… we did. We ran.
After running for only a minutes but it felt like hours we stumbled over a rock formation. 9 rocks being formed into a ring. These types of rings are usually from the Bronze Age and later on and we’re very familiar with them because of our interest. The only thing is that… this ring wasn’t documented in any book or on any map we’ve seen. If there was a “domarring”, as we call it, in this area we would CERTAINLY know about it. The rings were probably used as a sort of court-related thing where they settled things in the old days. We don’t know much about it and can only guess but ashes have been found in them before. They’ve found ashes from human remains and they’ve found ashes without human remains and they’ve found rings without any ashes in them at all. So they might have been used for ritualistic things or as graves but some evidence says they could have… and some say they couldn’t. Okay back to us. Me and my friend were now laying in the ring panting and moaning from tumbling over the rocks. We got up as soon as we could and we could still feel that cold shiver, that had nothing to do with the air or temperature. And the woods that used to be so quiet suddenly… started making noise. We heard something that sounded like drums but they were so slow… slow drums… To hear drums in the middle of the forest is a feeling of absolute terror I just can’t forget. My friend started crying. I tried to take her hand but we were both shaking so much. Everything was just so IMPOSSIBLE at this time. There are NO documented houses in this area, NO documented historical places or rings or anything like that. There shouldn’t be people here but the drums said otherwise. And then… we started hearing some form of chant. I’m trembling just writing this down right now.
Our frozen state finally let go and we looked at each other for one second and then we just started running. We left our backpacks and just RAN the fastest we could. It felt like we ran for so long and after a while the heat finally came back into our bodies and we could see something in the distance… a road! I was so dizzy and panting so much but I just had to follow the road and NOT go back into the forest. So we just ran and after following it for a while we actually found the car! We were both so focused on running that we didn’t notice when the drums and chantings stopped behind us. We immediately plugged in our phones and rang her parents that came and picked us up. We both cried uncontrollably and her parents took us home to their house. We were in full blown panic attacks at this moment and her parents got towels sprayed with ice cold water wrapped around us immediately. I don’t remember much from coming to the car and coming home to her parents. It’s like I blacked it all out.
They took us to the emergency room and the doctors said we both had a heathstroke from being outside for so long. We spent the night cooling down with ice and lots of fluids and drip at the hospital. The day after we told everyone what had happened. They looked at us… with concern in their eyes. They started talking to each other in another room and me and my friend just looked at each other. “They don’t believe us” I said. When they came back they sat down next to us and said that what could have happened was a shared psychosis due to the heatstroke. It’s not uncommon for people with heatstrokes to suffer from confusion and in worst case delusions. And there has been cases of shared psychosis between two people before.
Okay listen… I don’t know what happened that day… and sure, maybe the doctors were right but… we both FELT it. We both HEARD it. We weren’t confused or hot until we started running so much. And the rune on the ground? Did we both, before suffering from heatstroke, invent that delusion together? No I don’t buy it. Let’s just say neither of us go into the woods that far ever again.
What do you think? Did we encounter something in the woods or was it shared psychosis?
Oh and the pictures we took before this all happened? I still have them. Let me know if you want to see them.