Tradition / Region: Danish Mythology and Norwegian Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Spirit
The Myth
Pesta is the personification of plague and pestilence, appearing as an old woman dressed in a black robe who travels from village to village.
She wanders across the land during times of disease, bringing illness wherever she goes. Her arrival is a sign that plague has reached a place, and her presence determines the fate of its people.
It is said that she carries either a rake or a broom. If she arrives holding a rake, some people will survive the plague. If she comes with a broom, all will die, as she “sweeps” the entire population away.
Pesta moves silently but inevitably, and no one can stop her path. Villages struck by her presence are left to suffer according to what she carries.
She represents the unavoidable spread of disease:
a figure who decides survival or total destruction, depending on the tool in her hands.
Sources
Bestiary contributors. (n.d.). Pesta. In Bestiary, from https://www.bestiary.us/pesta