Monsters.

These are creatures that has fascinated humanity for millennias.

They're part of our culture and even our identity in some cases.

And I want to look at a specific monster in this video.

And we will look at this monster from a historical perspective and its connection to archaeological artifact.

But we will also look at this monster as a source of historical belonging to a region and a place both in history, but also as an identity that you can connect with, but also have these pseudo scientific ideas and creatures.

And even archaeology can, well cost taxpayers a bit of money.

And this video won't really be if, well, creatures that swims in the primordial waters exist or not, because, well, they don't.

And there are many great sea monsters out there, but none can really compare to the monster residing in a lake in the northern of Sweden, but still at the middle of this country.

It's living in a lake called Sturchen, or translated to English, the Big Lake.

So it's called Sturgeon or the big lake monster.

And while Nessie up in Loch Ness might be more famous, and Lazario from Lago de Como, near Milan might have a better fashion sense, both of these creatures lack something that Sturza Ujurat really have, and it is a runestone.

And this runestone plays an integral part of the legend regarding this beast in the swedish lake Sturchan.

The first time we hear about this beast is from a danish priest named Morgens Pierre de Ressen, and he write about this monster in 1635.

And why is a danish priest up in the north of Sweden?

Well, back then, this area of Sweden wasn't swedish.

It was belonging to Norway.

And during this time, Norway and Denmark were, well, basically the same country.

So Mugens Petersen was traveling around, documenting different things that he saw on his travel and reporting back to the diocese.

And this story begins with two trolls who are standing on the beach to Stojan.

And the trolls names are Jota and Kata.

And they're having each one a pot that they're boiling hot water.

And understanding that they're boiling, they're boiling, and they adding more water from the lake.

They spending weeks and weeks turns into month, month turns into year.

And suddenly the water in the kettles, they start to boil, they start to smoke, hiss.

And suddenly this creature just roars out from these giant pots.

Standing on the beach down into the lake, this beast goes.

And immediately it starts to make troubles for the people living around the area.

So to solve this, they bring in a magician.

And in this particular version, the magician is named Ketil, runs and he figure out a plan.

He will bind this creature.

He will bind it using magic runes.

So he goes to the island called Freyrsen and he starts carving these runes on a runestone that will bind the head of the serpent at the island of Freyrsen.

And according to this legend, the tail is about 4 beach on the other side of the lake.

And according to this legend, the monster will be bound here until someone can either decipher the runes or smashing the runestone.

And this is a bit of a strange look for a giant sea creature, I'd say, because while the language spoken in the 17th century Washington widely different than the language spoken in the Viking Age, when this stone was originally carved, people could still read runes during this period.

People could read runes in Sweden and commonly used it until basically the 20th century.

We have rune carvings that was used for daily use basically up until 1911.

We have some carvings actually dated to and to explain why there was this serpent on this runestone.

Well, it was basically in this version a warning to people so they would know that, well, there's danger here and they shouldn't play around with this.

And that's also why we have christian symbology on the stone.

And this legend has become an integral part of both the identity and, well, the acceptance towards this legend in the local area.

It's so integral to the society to a point that we have a story that there's this convict that's escaped the law and he's trying to flee, and he crossing the lake over to Freusen, and he goes there to smash the runestone.

Why?

Well, he hoped that the sea monster would help him escape his pursuer, help him escape the lobby.

But they show how integral this legend is in the local society.

And if we look at the runestone, it becomes even more interesting in a sense.

Now, I have to come clean here.

The runestones make no mention whatsoever of a sea monster, but it has other interesting aspects to it.

First of all, it is the most northern runestone we have in Sweden.

And it's really similar to other runestones we find across Sweden, especially the runestones we find in around upland or, well, modern Uppsala and Stockholm.

It's in this area we actually find 40% of the world's runestones, and they have this formula written on them.

Now, we have to remember that most runestones in Sweden are memorials.

They're dedicated to someone who is deceased by either the relatives or friends to kind of set the boundaries and show how important and rich the family is.

Not everyone could really afford putting up a runestone.

But those who could obviously did.

And we can actually date the runestones.

We can use the type of language written on the runestone and we can also look at.

At the style.

So if we look closely at the head of this dragon we see on this stone, we notice that it has a very distinct layout.

And this distinct layout is repeated across several other runestones.

It's just like fashion or architecture.

And this particular style is referred to as pr four, meaning that we can date this to being carved somewhere between 1050 and 1080 CE.

And the text on the runestone goes like Ostman, son of Gutfast, had a stone made and also constructed this bridge.

He also christianized Jemtland.

Warspjrn made the bridge.

Truyn and Steynore carved these runes.

So this is a rather classic formula that we find on several other runestones.

We have who it was made for and who made it.

In this case, it's erstman who dedicated the stone to himself.

It's not uncommon that the runestones actually are a bit of bragging material.

We have, for example, one very influential family living in modern upland who actually, well, we know that the family itself made about 20 runestones.

Five of these are made by a man called Jorda banque.

And he dedicated all these five stones, well, to himself while he still were alive.

Just to brag a bit about his influence and his, well, finances.

Basically, we can see the runestones as the Viking Age Instagram, in a sense.

But what's interesting with Oostmann here is that he says that his father is gudfast, or God steady, and that he let christianize Jemtland.

We also learned that he built a bridge or he wasn't a builder, but he mostly financed it.

Usually see this in memorial roofstones.

And that is kind of connection not just to show that you're rich, but also a connection between the pagan world and the christian world.

So in early Christianity, bridges was usually associated, especially in Sweden, with crossing to the next world.

Now, this wasn't really a pagan idea, it was a pure Christian.

But we see this coexistence of these pagan and christian world here.

But again, the serpent in this case is art style living in still very much alive in the Viking Age society, even if it started move towards a more christian aspect.

And as I said, the stone is very important, both from a regional identity, but also from a historical perspective.

And if you go to Estuson, the largest city in the area, you will notice that the lake monster is basically everywhere.

It can be found on garbescan.

It's found on the tourism board logo.

It's throughout the city.

There's statues, there's.

There's everything.

It's even part of, well, waste managed education for children.

It's part of.

It's used for especially discussing regional identity and history with children in public schools in the area.

So in a sense, it shows how this monster can be used to discuss very important topics with young children and make them engaged.

But there is a darker side to all of this.

While the monster, if we, well, use it as it should be used as a plot device merely.

I mean, it isn't real, but it can still be useful to discuss important matter and create sense of belonging that's not directly tied to nationality or regional politics.

Everybody Nastasund loved the monster and everybody has a story basically that, well, they know someone who knows someone who have seen it and all that.

So it can create something that's bigger than just regional identity and can let everybody participate in this identity.

But there is a darker side to all of this and, well, it can also waste a lot of taxpayer money.

You see, state funding has gone to both promote its existence and, well, trying to catch it.

And it's been going on for a very long time.

The first time we actually see real money going from the state to, well, trying to catch the monster at least, was when the swedish kingdom, Oscar II, together with Estesund township, created a company to try to catch the creature.

And with the money they got, they well designed these traps.

And this trap in particular, they sed baited with a pig and they had his hooks and they, well tried to look for the creature, but this trap never sprung.

And nothing really came from this since.

It's not real again.

But this has continued to our day.

Well, EU funding has gone to set up locations to, well, monitor the lake to see if we can catch the sea monster or lake monster on video.

While these places work very well as picnic spots, that wasn't the initial, well, initial intention of it.

But what's maybe worse is that the sea creature was actually a protected species.

Well, it was until 2002.

And that whole process started with a request from the local tourism board to the county board asking them to, well, declare this serpent as a protected species.

Within swedish regulations.

Species can only be protected if it's well documented to exist.

It's blatantly clear in the law that it must be real to be protected to start with.

But in 1986, the local county board looked at this and thought, well, we know that it's real.

So we can therefore protect it.

So in 1985, they start this inquest, taking opinions and thoughts from, well, what they deem to be important player in a matter like this.

Like your local sailing club, because why not?

It's water related, I guess.

But they also get opinions from the historical museum that seems to be a bit ambiguous regarding if it's real or not.

They look at the historical sources and kind of come to, well, it could be, it could be not.

It's real in a sense that we have historical descriptions of it from the 16 hundreds at least.

But they don't speak to any biologist, something we usually see in pseudo history and archaeology.

The promoters of these ideas rarely speak with the experts in the matters at hand.

Or if they speak with experts, they often speak with the wrong kind of expert.

It's like talking to a physicist regarding archaeological remains.

It can be useful in some very slim cases, but for the general matter, they are not really experts in the field.

The only kind of expert to talk with is the local fishing intendant, who.

He's not playing along with this.

He basically states that, come on, guys, it's fake monsters, doesn't exist.

And I mean, we could spend a lot of time just going through this material because it's really interesting and it's fun to see those who play along in this nearly game.

It's like a children's game, but with politicians and real money going into this instead.

But most of them playing along.

The phishing Internet does not play along.

And they even look outside of Sweden for advice.

They even write the british embassy asking how the UK managed to get Nazi a protective species.

And it takes a while.

And they later hear back, not from the embassy, but the scottish development department kind of says that, come on, guys, monsters aren't real and Nessie is not a protected species.

But they have also my favorite comment in all of this.

They're writing that if the local county board want to really see the Loch Ness monster, there's ample accommodation in the highlands and plentiful supplies of the local national beverage, which will help them to see her in the dark.

As I said, the monster was a protected species from 1986 until 2002.

Why the protection ended was.

Well, there was this aspiring sea serpent farmer who wanted an exception from the prohibition to collect sea monster eggs.

Since it's a protected species, you were not allowed to pick its egg, of course, but he want an exception for this.

So he goes to the local county board, he put in all the paperwork needed and he got a rejection on it.

His application was rejected, but he was very set on becoming this monster farmer.

So he go to court system.

He wants this decision overruled.

The court just look at this and says, we can't make legal decision based on crypto zoological beings.

So they just reject it due to, well, they can't make a decision since it's not really following the law or really applicable in, in the sense of the court.

Now, this gets the attention from other parts of the swedish legal system and further investigations are started and, well, they come to the same conclusion.

This ordinance that this monster is a protected species does not comply with swedish law and the local counterpart have to, well, upheav it.

So now you can go and pick as many sea serpent eggs as you like if you want to start your own farm.

But this shows how legends that surrounds archaeological artifacts or historical places can be used for good.

It can be used to create a sense of belonging and discuss rather difficult matters with children, for example, it's a great tool for this.

I mean, children love sea monsters, and who doesn't love a good sea monsters?

They are fascinating, interesting, and we can look at this from several different aspects.

We can look at the archaeological remains we find surrounding the runestone.

We can look at the runestone itself.

We can make a connection with people living thousands of years ago through stories and legends.

But if not utilized properly, it can also create a lot of waste.

There's a lot of money, salaries and things that went into making this beast protective species that could have been used for better things.

And here's the danger with pseudoscience in general, it wasting resources that could have been utilized a while important and nice tool to have.

If used properly, it's still a danger to it.

And as I often say in this, there isn't any benign pseudoscience.

There's always something that will come and bite us in the end.

And it's important that we discuss these topics and realize how we can utilize them in a good way and how we can combat the bad things that follows with it.

And it's important to be aware of this.

Thank you for listening and feel free to support the show any way you can.

I have a Patreon that you're more than welcome to sign up for and make sure to catch the regular podcast where most of this content is presented.

I don't always talk about monster.

Sometimes I do like the Montag monsters in a previous episode.

And before I will let you go, make sure to catch all the other great videos that's been being published under real archaeology this weekend.

A lot of great stuff coming up here.

And while maybe not being about monsters, I think you will be able to learn and appreciate archaeology and history in a different sense.

Hope to see you another time.

Please take care of yourself.