write-up of the murder made it onto the big evening paper’s newsbill, plus the front page and pages six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and the center spread.
The first page was almost coal-black with ink: a dark, pixelated photograph that depicted the shaky chalk marks at the bottom of the mine shaft. To be on the safe side, the quote in the picture had also been written out in plain text, both in Old Norse and in translation:
UM RAGNARÖKKR
Sal veit ek standa sólu fjarri
Náströndu á, Norðr horfa dyrr
Falla eitrdropar inn of ljóra
Sá er undinn salr orma hryggjum
Skulu þar vaða þunga strauma
Menn meinsvara ok morðvargar
ON RAGNARÖK
I know a hall that stands far from the sun
On the shore of the dead. The doors face north.
Drops of venom fall in through the smoke-hole.
This hall is braided with the backs of snakes.
Perjurers and outlawed murderers
Must wade through heavy streams there.
The headline on page six:
WELCOME TO HELL
Page seven:
NIFLHEIM—THE KINGDOM OF HEL
Page eight:
SACRIFICED IN A PAGAN RITUAL?
Nine:
NÁSTRÖNDU—THE HALL OF MURDERERS
And so on, and then a big lead-in to the introductory article:
FALUN —His life ended on the shore of the dead.
The wound between his eyes must have been made with brutal force and precision. Three fingers on the right hand have been cut off.
On the north wall of the crypt, in white chalk, the murderer has drawn the door to Niflheim—the kingdom of Hel, the Nordic goddess of death. Hel’s Kingdom. Hell. The underworld.
The mystery that the police must now solve: Was it a human sacrifice?
Read an exclusive interview with diver Erik Hall, 38, who reveals the truth about the ÆSIR MURDER .
The other evening paper was reasonably quick to respond and actually managed to produce a whole new thirty-six page supplement for the next morning.
RITUAL MURDER IN MINE
The bloody religion—the victims and rites of the Æsir faith
The most hard-hitting subject matter featured a survey of pagan churches around the country and their potential links to extreme-right and neo-Nazi groups.
That same morning, the TV4 sofa went nuts over the mythological angle, while the state channel’s morning program let two New Age ladies explain that the Æsir faith involved sacrificing only fruit, flowers, and bread nowadays, and anyway, they said, the correct name was
Forn Sed.
Then a professor of criminology came on and gave a warning about jumping to conclusions, making the point that most murders were committed by people close to the victim. Then came the weather.
At
Dalakuriren,
the mood had become rather subdued. They’d been the lead, but now they were spinning their wheels. Æsir murder? Was there even such an expression? Who knew anyone of the Æsir faith in Falun, or for that matter in Grycksbo or Bengtsheden?
The intern from Stockholm and the other reporters had called every contact they had at the Falun police to find out more about the investigation. But at the police station over on Kristinegatan Street they just pressed their lips together in anger over the unfortunate publication of that crazy verse and the words Niflheim and Náströndu.
The next morning, the state channel dropped its skeptical stance and joined the ranks of the tabloids. They had somehow managed to shake the diver Erik Hall out of that cottage, and they’d flown him down to Stockholm for a studio interview.
At Hall’s side on the red cushions of the morning show sofa sat a grayish academic named Don something … Titelman? The intern had to rewind the clip on his computer to be able to read the name displayed. Yes, Don Titelman, associate professor of history, Lund University.
But there didn’t seem to be anything new when Erik Hall once again told the story of his remarkable dive down into the mine, so the intern fast-forwarded through Titelman’s long-winded exposé, in which he seemed to want to
The first page was almost coal-black with ink: a dark, pixelated photograph that depicted the shaky chalk marks at the bottom of the mine shaft. To be on the safe side, the quote in the picture had also been written out in plain text, both in Old Norse and in translation:
UM RAGNARÖKKR
Sal veit ek standa sólu fjarri
Náströndu á, Norðr horfa dyrr
Falla eitrdropar inn of ljóra
Sá er undinn salr orma hryggjum
Skulu þar vaða þunga strauma
Menn meinsvara ok morðvargar
ON RAGNARÖK
I know a hall that stands far from the sun
On the shore of the dead. The doors face north.
Drops of venom fall in through the smoke-hole.
This hall is braided with the backs of snakes.
Perjurers and outlawed murderers
Must wade through heavy streams there.
The headline on page six:
WELCOME TO HELL
Page seven:
NIFLHEIM—THE KINGDOM OF HEL
Page eight:
SACRIFICED IN A PAGAN RITUAL?
Nine:
NÁSTRÖNDU—THE HALL OF MURDERERS
And so on, and then a big lead-in to the introductory article:
FALUN —His life ended on the shore of the dead.
The wound between his eyes must have been made with brutal force and precision. Three fingers on the right hand have been cut off.
On the north wall of the crypt, in white chalk, the murderer has drawn the door to Niflheim—the kingdom of Hel, the Nordic goddess of death. Hel’s Kingdom. Hell. The underworld.
The mystery that the police must now solve: Was it a human sacrifice?
Read an exclusive interview with diver Erik Hall, 38, who reveals the truth about the ÆSIR MURDER .
The other evening paper was reasonably quick to respond and actually managed to produce a whole new thirty-six page supplement for the next morning.
RITUAL MURDER IN MINE
The bloody religion—the victims and rites of the Æsir faith
The most hard-hitting subject matter featured a survey of pagan churches around the country and their potential links to extreme-right and neo-Nazi groups.
That same morning, the TV4 sofa went nuts over the mythological angle, while the state channel’s morning program let two New Age ladies explain that the Æsir faith involved sacrificing only fruit, flowers, and bread nowadays, and anyway, they said, the correct name was
Forn Sed.
Then a professor of criminology came on and gave a warning about jumping to conclusions, making the point that most murders were committed by people close to the victim. Then came the weather.
At
Dalakuriren,
the mood had become rather subdued. They’d been the lead, but now they were spinning their wheels. Æsir murder? Was there even such an expression? Who knew anyone of the Æsir faith in Falun, or for that matter in Grycksbo or Bengtsheden?
The intern from Stockholm and the other reporters had called every contact they had at the Falun police to find out more about the investigation. But at the police station over on Kristinegatan Street they just pressed their lips together in anger over the unfortunate publication of that crazy verse and the words Niflheim and Náströndu.
The next morning, the state channel dropped its skeptical stance and joined the ranks of the tabloids. They had somehow managed to shake the diver Erik Hall out of that cottage, and they’d flown him down to Stockholm for a studio interview.
At Hall’s side on the red cushions of the morning show sofa sat a grayish academic named Don something … Titelman? The intern had to rewind the clip on his computer to be able to read the name displayed. Yes, Don Titelman, associate professor of history, Lund University.
But there didn’t seem to be anything new when Erik Hall once again told the story of his remarkable dive down into the mine, so the intern fast-forwarded through Titelman’s long-winded exposé, in which he seemed to want to
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