oa From monster to endangered animal: Three bear stories by Selma Lagerlöf

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By the end of the 19th century, the bear was on the verge of extinction in Sweden. A growing opposition to the state’s bounty for bears emerged, and several authors wrote stories about bears. Selma Lagerlöf’s three bear stories cover the whole range of ways they were perceived by humans - from the bear as a mythical, dangerous animal, to the bear as man’s neighbour in the Christian sense, to the bear as an endangered species. Up until the Middle Ages, the bear played a role in various cults throughout the whole of Europe. In the Nordic region, these cults continued for much longer. When Lagerlöf opens up the mythical as well as the religious and moral domain of the bear, it resonates with the long, ancient relationship humans have had with the bear.