Tradition: Swedish Mythology
Alternative Names: Gluffsoen, Glosoen, Glopsuggan, Luffesoen, Ghost Pig, Razorback Sow
Category: Pig
The Myth
Gloson is a terrifying supernatural sow known primarily from southern Sweden, where hundreds of accounts describe ghostly pigs and other pig-shaped beings. She is usually depicted as a large, pale pig with glowing red eyes and a back as sharp as a sawblade. Some stories describe her body as covered in a hundred eyes shining like sinister flames, while others portray her with several piglets accompanying her. In rarer accounts, Gloson has a human-like body with a pig’s head and long, sharp tusks. She is especially associated with årsgång, or the “year walk,” a dangerous folk divination ritual traditionally performed around Christmas or New Year to gain knowledge of the coming year and the hidden supernatural world.
During the year walk, Gloson appears as a supernatural obstacle attempting to prevent the participant from completing the ritual. She often charges directly at the walker, trying to pass between their legs and split them in two with her razor-sharp back. In other accounts, she carries her victim away on her back for a journey lasting anywhere from seven weeks to three years, leaving the rider confused, insane, exhausted, or dead. Even a slight touch could bring serious illness or death. Some stories describe Gloson carrying a rune stick, scroll, or book in her mouth. A successful year walker who managed to seize this object could supposedly use it to learn sorcery.
Various methods of protection were believed to work against Gloson. A person could cross their legs as a reminder of the holy cross, offer the sow specially prepared objects such as magical nuts that were seven years old, throw a fishing net over her, or use knowledge of the black arts. The encounter usually occurred near a church at a significant time of the year, often around midnight or before dawn, after the walker had performed specific ritual movements, sometimes in a counterclockwise direction. Gloson was one of several supernatural threats that tested the year walker’s resolve and sensitivity to the unseen world.
One early account connected with the year-walk tradition appears in Petter Rudebeck’s Antiquities from Småland, published between 1697 and 1700. Rudebeck describes a supernatural old man on horseback, surrounded by flames and carrying a rune-inscribed stick in his mouth, who appeared to someone who had performed the year walk annually for seven years. Later accounts more explicitly describe a ghostly sow carrying similar objects and challenging the ritual participant. Although some interpretations connect Gloson with the boar Gullinbursti of Norse mythology or with pre-Christian fertility rituals, these connections remain theories. The legends portray Gloson as a dangerous and unpredictable force that embodied the risks of seeking forbidden knowledge and glimpsing the future.
Sources
“Gloson: The Swedish Ghost Pig That Will Cleave You in Half.” Folklore Thursday. https://folklorethursday.com/folktales/gloson-the-swedish-ghost-pig-that-will-cleave-you-in-half/?utm_source=chatgpt.com