The Gallery

Born in Sweden as Olaf Månsson, Olaus Magnus was a cartographer, historian, and archbishop. In 1524, he was sent to Rome on a diplomatic mission on behalf of Gustav Vasa (1496-1560), the first king of independent Sweden. He would never return from this mission as his connection to the Catholic church earned him a banishment after the success of the Reformation in Sweden in 1527.

He is best known not for his clerical or diplomatic work, but for his writing and cartography. Specifically noteworthy are the Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (A Description of the Northern Peoples), a historiography of the Scandinavian countries, and the Carta Marina, a map of the Scandinavian countries. Rather than dealing in pure fact, both of these works rely heavily on local beliefs and customs. Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus details a lot of Scandinavian folklore, while the Carta Marina depicts Scandinavia as an area populated by trolls, demons, and other mythological creatures. For this reason, Magnus’ works are recognized even today as an important source on folklore and customs in the 16th Century.

*No visual portrayal of Olaus Magnus himself is preserved. A single portrait of his brother, archbishop Johannes Magnus, remains.

John Bauer was a Swedish painter and illustrator whose works focused on Scandinavian landscapes and mythology. He is best known for his illustrations in the first edition of the book Among Gnomes and Trolls (Swedish: Bland tomtar och troll), an anthology of Swedish folklore and fairy tales. Bauer´s style is largely influenced by the National Romantic period, although he was also greatly inspired by both the Italian Renaissance and the Sami culture of Northern Sweden after a journey to Lappland in 1904. His work was diverse in both subject and medium: he focused on Swedish folklore, fairy tales, and landscape, but was no stranger to portraits, and he preferred to work in watercolor and muted prints, but produced a number of oil paintings and frescoes as well.

Bauer started drawing and painting from a young age. As an art student, he met and fell in love with fellow student Ester Ellqvist. They married in 1906 and welcomed a son in 1915. For the majority of their marriage, they lived off of Bauer’s earnings as an illustrator and the financial support of Bauer’s parents. In 1918, they decided to move to Stockholm. Unfortunately, the steamer they were on sank on the way there across Lake Vättern, and Bauer, then 36, Ester, and their three-year-old son drowned along with the remaining 21 passengers. The cause of the accident was unsafe cargo storing practices, but the Swedish public, unduly fascinated by the tragedy, spun stories about underwater nymphs dragging the famous artist to the depths.

Serina Regine Normann was born in Bø in Vesterålen, but spent a part of her childhood in Harstad after her father’s death. Already at age 17, she married the 38-year-old sexton Peder Johnsen. The marriage was unhappy, and Regine started to write (against her husband’s wishes) as a way of dealing with it. She hid her manuscripts in a cave, which is today known as Sinahula in Vesterålen.

Ten years later, she left her husband and moved to Oslo, where she studied to become a teacher. Here she also met the author Tryggve Andersen, whom she married in 1906. As a part of the Oslo literary circle, Regine published 18 books, most of which take place in Nordland. At the end of her writing career, she focused on writing fairy tales and fantasy, inspired by Northern Norwegian folklore. She published a total of four collections of fairy tales: Eventyr (Fairy Tales) came out in 1925, Nye Eventyr (New Fairy Tales) the year after; in 1927, she published Nordlandsnatt (Night in Nordland) and in 1930, Det gråner mot høst (It’s Greying Toward Fall). Her last book, Usynlig selskap (Invisible Company), came out in 1934. The complete collection of Regine’s fairy tales was published in 1967 under the title Ringelihorn.

Ole Tobias Olsen was a Northern Norwegian engineer, priest, and collector of cultural heritage from Dunderlandsdalen in Rana municipality. Along with the politician and theologian Elias Blix (1836-1902), he was an ardent spokesperson for Northern Norway and developed the idea of a Northern Norwegian railway to Røsvik. For his work with the development of the Nordland Railway, he posthumously became known as “the father of Nordland Railway”.

Ole Tobias Olsen received a stipend in 1870 to collect fairy tales, legends, and folk poems from Rana, especially his hometown, Dunderlandsdalen. The collection resulted in two works: Folketoner frå Nordland (Folk Tones from Nordland), first published in 1982, and Norske Folkeeventyr og Sagn: Samlet i Nordland (Norwegian Folk Fairy Tales and Legends: Collected in Nordland), published in 1912. The fairy tales he collected have an unmistakable Northern Norwegian feel; he collected especially many stories about the draug, a common character in specifically Northern Norwegian folklore.

For his work on the Nordland Railway and collection of Northern Norwegian folklore, Ole Tobias Olsen was named Knight of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav 1st Class in 1919.