The Werewolf in Swedish Folklore published by Malört Förlag (photo: Per Faxneld)
Malört Förlag (“Wormwood Publishing”) is a unique and delightful little Swedish publishing house “specializing in texts about the fantastic, the numinous and the aberrant”. Being in the trade of craft books, their editions are made to last for generations – and as if that does not already mark their releases from most books published these days, each new release also come with its own soundtrack. Thus you can read the first Swedish translation of Jacques Cazotte’s 1772 occult novel Le Diable Amoureux (The Devil in Love) while listening to tracks such as “I’m in Love With the Devil” (Tiger Lillies), “Mistress of Deceit” (Jarboe), and “Love in the Devil’s Tongue” (Stone Breath). While Malört has so far been focusing on publications in Swedish, they do plan to expand to the English speaking market soon.
That is, if they are able to continue.
A soundtrack to the Devil in Love
One nice way to make sure that this little publishing house is able to keep doing what it does so well, and possibly expand to English works in the future, is to order their newly released book on werewolves in Swedish folklore. Varulven i svensk folktradition by Ella Odstedt is a classic resource for beliefs and stories about werewolves in Sweden, that was first published in 1943. This new edition comes with a number of appendixes, including original reviews of the first edition, and essays by contemporary experts. It also features atmospheric original illustrations by the Swedish-Finish artist Timo Ketola. As always with Malört Förlag’s books, there is a soundtrack, entitled “Werewolf Songs”, that can be purchased separately or together with the book itself.
A book like this should, of course, have been bound in werewolf skin, with the hole of the silver bullet still visible. But werewolves are endangered species, as we all know, and I have been guaranteed that no lycanthropes were hurt in the production of these books.
Heterodoxology 
I would love to… but they had problems shipping it abroad.
Do not despair, dear Mullah, we can now offer shipping to other countries as well. For CD’s, there’s an international ordering option on the site already, and for the book you can just use the Swedish order button.
Wooohooo! Mullah heartily approves!
[…] In Swedish Folklore) by Swedish folklorist Ella Odstedt (1892 – 1967) and features original illustrations by Swedish-Finnish artist Timo Ketola. This track is quite haunting, and in English- give it a […]