The Tragedy Of The Bramble Curse – Olle’s Battle Against A Monstrous World

Tonight is officially Halloween! The one time of year when the MONSTERS come out to play. So light your jack-o-lanterns, grab yourself a glass of apple cider, and get ready for a spoOoOoky blog where I discuss the Nordic Bramble: The Mountain King and the cross-cultural nature of its monsters with Celtic folklore!

“Spooky scary skeletons send shivers down your spine…” Andrew Gold’s song has been haunting my mind all week. All across the world, children and adults alike are dressing up for All-Hallows-Eve. More often than not, their costumes take the shape of a monster. Vampires, ghosts, zombies and more. Most of these monsters have an origin in childhood stories that parents told to warn and scare their children into obeying them. Even if you don’t celebrate Halloween, you’ll know what I’m talking about. But sometimes the stories aren’t simply stories. And Olle from Bramble: The Mountain King is about to find out that the monsters from the stories he grew up with are actually VERY REAL.

On his quest to save his dear sister, Olle meets a variety of creatures in the woods. But seeing as this is a scary Halloween post, the kind creatures Olle comes across, like the small gnomes and Lemus the Stone Giant, have no place in this blog. Nope, we’re talking big scary monsters! 

Whilst playing the game, I realised the Nordic monsters from the game actually have a lot of (Insular) Celtic counterparts. This isn’t very strange considering the proximity of the two cultures, but it made me curious about how folklore often transcends borders. So, let me take you on a journey through the dark Nordic forest, and explore just how deep the transcultural nature of children’s stories (and their monsters) runs.

Trolls In Every Shape and Size

The first evil creatures Olle comes across are the Trolls. The Trolls are relatively easy boss fights and shouldn’t give the player all that much trouble, but it is a perfect introduction to the brutality of the game. The game might focus on children’s tales, but don’t make the mistake of thinking this is a children’s game. It is a real folklore-horror game, and Dimfrost did an amazing job of making you feel like a kid again in a dark, scary, unknown world.

Over on the Orkney and Shetland islands, we have the trows. Their appearances differ depending on the one telling the tale, with some saying they are monstrously large like giants, and others saying they are quite small and short. But dark, matted hair is a common feature across the different versions. Similar to the trolls from Scandinavian folklore, trows are not fond of light and only come out from their mounds after dark. The reason why trolls and trows are so much alike is that the origin of these creatures likely traces back to the Scandinavian invasions of these islands. Some scholars and historians even suggest the idea that trows are the original inhabitants of the islands, the Picts. In this theory, the invaders forced the Picts into hiding, eventually turning them into mythological creatures over time. That’s certainly one way to explain this culture’s disappearance!

Music Can Take Hold Of Your Body

But there is another monster from the game that connects to the trows as well. The Näcken is a (shapeshifting) male water spirit who lures people (in folklore, it is specifically women and children) to drown in the water he inhabits with his music. Olle comes across the Näcken and only barely escapes. This creature’s intro is probably the scariest one of the game, as you only see the monster if you’re paying special attention to the background area, before he eventually reveals himself. The dark, long hair, crazed eyes, and sharp teeth let you know that this thing is no longer human but something else entirely. Some of the Näckens features can be found in the various trow descriptions, but it is actually his alluring violin music that connects him to the Celtic trows.

The similarities between the trolls, näcken and Celtic trows beautifully highlights the transition, adaptation, and blending of cultures as the Scandinavians invaded the Northern parts of Great Britain.

This Is Not Your Average Wizard Of Oz Scarecrow

Poor Olle encounters the third boss at the edge of a swamp. The creature is tied to a post and looks eerily similar to a scarecrow, unmoving. When the player comes across this creature, it appears as if it is an inanimate object, but as they get closer, they can see that the monster is still alive. Dressed in a midwife’s uniform, Olle can see the woman’s own fleshy eyes are aware of his presence underneath the animal skull that is on her head. Oh yes, people. We are dealing with a swamp witch here!

As far as it seems, the studio created the Kärrhäxan as an original character. But there are well-known witches in a couple of neighbouring cultures, think of the Slavic Baba-Yaga and the Irish Cailleach or the Hag of Beara (a.k.a. Beira, Queen of Winter, in Scotland). As this monster does not have a true base in Nordic folklore (besides it just being a swamp witch), there is, unfortunately, not much I can say about the creature and its potential cross-cultural counterpart.

Not All Is As It Seems, Little Olle

After all his hardship, Olle can finally see his sister. Did she escape from her kidnapper? He runs after her, trying to catch up, but before too long, his big sister turns into probably the most beautiful monster in the entire game, the Skogsrå.

This shapeshifting woodland nymph who lures men to their deaths with her beauty is a direct representation of the skogsrå from Sweden or huldra from Norway. Folklore describes the creature as having a cow- or fox-like tail and a back that is split open like a hollowed-out tree. This is something we also see in the game. Additionally, her horns/antlers and pointy ears reinforce her woodland appearance.

Further examples, like the Dearg Dur from Ireland, strengthen the similarities between the Swedish skogsrå and vampire-like beings. The Jewish-Christian succubus also fits this motif. Both these female entities target men and use their bodies to sustain themselves.

In The Cold Face Of Death

Next, Olle enters the territory of an old hag dressed in black with a face as pale as ash. Her character comes from Norwegian folklore, where she is the embodiment of death, specifically the Black Plague. If she visited your town in the 14th century with a broom, everyone would die, but if she visited your town with a rake in her hands, it meant your town would survive the plague. Well…some of the townsfolk would. The game perfectly portrays these characteristics as the dark-cloaked witch attacks Olle with her army of rats and her rake.

Although there are various beings from Celtic folklore that represent death in different ways, like the Banshee, there is no exact one-on-one example for Pesta. It seems this hag is specific to Nordic folklore.

Maddening Love And The Brambles That Bind Them

We’ve arrived at the final boss fight. The Mountain King, King Nils, was once a normal man who, after having lost his wife and son, ate a magic flower and became insane. He destroyed his kingdom and grew to the size of a giant. The witch who gave him the flower saw the destruction he had wrought and placed a mountain over the remainder of his kingdom to keep the giant trapped. The magical brambles, which were part of the magical abilities he gained from the flower, became his doom and prison. And here the king stayed for many years while the world forgot him, and trolls fed him all manner of creatures, including children.

King Nils is not based on a figure from Nordic folklore, but he seems to be a combination of different folkloric elements. Men turning into trolls or giants is not a common motif in Nordic stories, but we do have an example from a play written in 1876, where the troll king offers to turn a man into one of them, titled Peer Gynt. The brambles or “Sleep Thorns” (Svefnthorn) are also a recurring element across multiple Germanic and Scandinavian stories. But perhaps the most important component of his character is that of the “king asleep under a mountain.” A famous example from a Nordic culture is Holger Danske from Denmark.

I think one of the most recurring themes in European folklore is the image of kings who remain asleep until their countries need them again. They pop up everywhere, and Great Britain and Ireland are no different. Of course, we have the famous King Arthur, but we also have the Welsh Brân the Blessed and the Irish Fionn mac Cumhaill, among many other examples. King Nils could even be connected to the Irish Formorians: the giant, monstrous beings whom legends say come from the sea or from under the earth. The stories link these beings to the destructive powers of nature, and the brambles from King Nils possibly represent a similar thing.

However, since the game character does not have a direct match in Nordic folklore, it is difficult to do a real transcultural analysis. Everything I discussed above is, therefore, mere speculation and based on personal interest.

And Everyone Lived Happily Ever After! Or Did They?

Dimfrost Studio wanted to create a game based on the stories they grew up with, and they did so masterfully. Bramble is an exciting game with the perfect blend of folklore and horror. The developers worked out all the monsters in incredible detail, keeping the player on the edge of their seat the entire time they play the game.

Modern media constantly repackages and re-imagines the creatures and monsters from mythology and folklore, and it is interesting to see, based on the examples I’ve given here, that these beings (or the ideas behind them) transcend borders. It creates a beautiful cultural blend where everyone can imagine their own childhood versions of these monsters to take the place of the monsters in the game.

If you are interested in Scandinavian or Nordic folklore, I highly suggest you play this game or take a look at the game’s lore. There is so much I had to leave out for the sake of the blog getting too long, but the monsters’ origin stories add their own level of creepiness and almost deserve their own blog, thanks to how fascinating they are.

If you’d like to join us for some more Halloween-themed entertainment, hop on over to our Twitch channel tonight at 19.00 (CET) to see our team play the Slavic witchy game REKA!

And from everyone here at the Interactive Pasts Team, have a great Halloween!