Of all the creatures of the forest, the bear holds a place most dear in the hearts of ancient Scandinavians. New animist thinking and perspectives on how our forebears related to the world around them as well as the concept that personhood and culture is the baseline of existence for all life, ignited a spark in Olle Möllervärn's mind during his Religious studies. His fascinating master thesis on "Bear Culture“ is the springboard for this podcast episode where we delve into folklore and tradition with both the bear and the human as our guide, and the fascinating borderland that emerges between them. Olle Möllervärn's Bear Culture – A New Approach to Bear-Human Relations in Scandinavian Folklore MA thesis https://miun.academia.edu/OlleM%C3%B6llerv%C3%A4rn Thanks to Björn Ola Lind for letting us use bear recordings from the Finnish-Russian border in the intro and outro. CONNECT WITH US https://www.intheborderlands.com/ SUPPORT US https://www.patreon.com/IntheBorderlands https://www.brittle.one/ https://smarturl.it/inanna REFERENCES Sámi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1mi Animism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism Nordic Animism https://nordicanimism.com/ Book: Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/animism-2/ Article: Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro https://www.academia.edu/49762942/Cosmological_Deixis_and_Amerindian_Perspectivism Brothers Grimm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Grimm Story: Bearskin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearskin_(German_fairy_tale) Ursa Major https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Major Saxo Grammaticus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxo_Grammaticus Lieaibolmmai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieaibolmmai Skogsrå https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skogsr%C3%A5 Mary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_mother_of_Jesus Noaidi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noaidi