Årsgång (pronounced [ˈoːʂgɔŋ]) is an archaic form of Swedish divination.[1] It is sometimes translated as the year walk[2] or yearly round.[3]
According to Swedish researcher Tommy Kuusela,[4][2] årsgång was a complex form of divination in Swedish folk tradition, usually practiced at Christmas or New Year’s Eve. The phenomena could vary greatly regionally or even in the same district, but the general course was the same: if the practitioners ("year walkers") had managed to follow certain instructions and to solve particular challenges (such as encounters with supernatural beings), they would catch glimpses of what would happen the following year.
Petrus Gaslander's 18th-century Beskriftning om Svenska Allmogens Sinneslag och Seder… ("Character and Customs of the Peasantry") describes the årsgång, and says that it is no longer practiced. He writes that to undertake the årsgång, one must walk into a forest before first light on Christmas Eve, without looking at a fire and without food or drink, and walking so far that the crowing of a cock cannot be heard. Having done so, the "year walker" will now be able to see the events of the future, and by looking at fields and the roads approaching churches can learn of the harvests and funerals of the coming year.[2]
In popular culture
editÅrsgång was the basis for a 2013 adventure video game called Year Walk.
References
edit- ^ Society, Westermarck (1947). "Transactions": 173. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ a b c Kuusela, Tommy (2016). "'He met his own funeral procession': The Year walk-ritual in Swedish folk tradition.". In Tommy Kuusela; Giuseppe Maiello (eds.). Folk Belief and Traditions of the Supernatural. Beewolf Press. pp. 58–91.
- ^ Harper's Magazine. Harper's Magazine Company. 1871. p. 166.
- ^ Kuusela, T., 2014. Swedish year walk: from folk tradition to computer game. In: Island Dynamics Conference on Folk Belief & Traditions of the Supernatural: Experience, Place, Ritual, & Narrative. Shetland Isles, UK, 24–30 March 2014. [Online]. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/6624109/Swedish_Year_Walk._From_Folk_Tradition_to_Computer_Game [accessed 09/07/14].