Creature of the Week
Myling
The Angry and Vengeful Infant Spirits of Scandinavian Folklore
http://tn3-1.deviantart.com/fs17/300...Koldkonung.jpg
In the harsh lands of Northern Europe, people often left their infants for dead if they could not take care of them or if the child was deformed in some way. They were usually abandoned shortly after birth, so were not baptized. It is said that since they were not baptized, they could not go to Heaven. They were, therefore, forced to roam the earth.
Mylings, or utburd as they are also called, are the souls of these abandoned infants. It is said that they haunt the place where they died (or sometimes the house of their murderer) waiting for someone to take them to a graveyard so they can be properly buried. However, mylings are able to grow to rather large sizes, and get heavier and heavier as they near a graveyard. This often causes the person carrying the myling to sink into the soil and be killed by the myling for being unable to carry out their “duty” to the young spirit.
As for their appearance, mylings are generally invisible. They make their presence known due to their mournful cries. However, one who is watching closely may see a snowy owl off in distant tundra or a rather tall black dog on a ridge top. And, sometimes people may even glimpse the spirit of the murdered infant underneath a nearby shrub.
To protect yourself from the mylings, water and iron are your best weapons. If you splash water on yourself or unsheathe a knife (or any other sort of iron weapon) in time, you will find yourself utterly alone. However, another person will probably find the body of the infant some days later, “its bones crushed and its flesh shredded by supernatural strength and fury."
http://tn3-2.deviantart.com/fs10/300...mponwheels.jpg
Pictures are artist renditions of what a myling spirit might look like. Credit to Koldkonung and gimponwheels, respectively.
Sources
Wikipedia
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