Mother Svea or ''Mother Swea'' (

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

: ''Moder Svea'') is the female

personification Personification is the representation of a thing or abstraction as a person, often as an embodiment or incarnation. In the arts, many things are commonly personified, including: places, especially cities, National personification, countries, an ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and a patriotic emblem of the Swedish nation.

Background

Mother Svea is normally depicted as a powerful female warrior,

valkyrie In Norse mythology, a valkyrie ( or ; from ) is one of a host of female figures who guide souls of the dead to the god Odin's hall Valhalla. There, the deceased warriors become ('single fighters' or 'once fighters').Orchard (1997:36) and Li ...

shieldmaiden A shield-maiden ( ) was a female warrior from Scandinavian folklore and mythology. The term most often shows up in fornaldarsögur such as '' Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks''. However, female warriors are also mentioned in the Latin work ''Gesta Da ...

, frequently holding a shield and standing beside a lion. Svea is a Swedish female

personal name A personal name, full name or prosoponym (from Ancient Greek ''prósōpon'' – person, and ''onoma'' –name) is the set of names by which an individual person or animal is known. When taken together as a word-group, they all relate to that on ...

which derives from ''svea'', an old plural genitive form meaning "of the

Swedes Swedes (), or Swedish people, are an ethnic group native to Sweden, who share a common ancestry, Culture of Sweden, culture, History of Sweden, history, and Swedish language, language. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, ...

" or the ''Swea''. It appears in ''Svea rike'', a translation of the old Swedish word ''Sverige'', the Swedish name for Sweden. The popular image is considered to have been created by Swedish writer, (1649–1725) when first introduced in his poem ''Svea Lycksaligheets Triumph'' (1672). As a patriotic symbol, Moder Svea gained widespread popularity in ''Kunga Skald'' (1697), written by Swedish poet Gunno Eurelius (1661–1709) in honor of King

Charles XI of Sweden Charles XI or Carl (; ) was List of Swedish monarchs, King of Sweden from 1660 until his death, in a period of History of Sweden, Swedish history known as the Swedish Empire (1611–1721). He was the only son of King Charles X Gustav of Sweden ...

. Eurelius was later ennobled with the name of Dahlstjerna. Mother Svea appeared frequently as a national symbol in 19th-century Swedish literature and culture. She appeared on various Swedish banknotes for over seventy years, such as both the 5-kronor banknote printed between 1890 and 1952 and the 5-kronor banknote printed between 1954 and 1963. Swedish singer

Lena Philipsson Maria Magdalena Filipsson (born 19 January 1966), known by her stage name Lena Philipsson (), is a Swedish singer, songwriter and media personality. She represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 2004, Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contes ...

and composer

Torgny Söderberg Sten Torgny Söderberg (26 November 1944 – 5 August 2022) was a Swedish songwriter. He was mainly known for working with Lena Philipsson and wrote schlager songs such as " 100%", "Kärleken är evig" and " Diggi-loo diggi-ley".

wrote a song entitled ''Moder Swea'' which was introduced in the 1995 album ''

''.

References

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External links

Moder Sea displayed in the Tumba Bruk printing plant in Tumba, Sweden
{{National personifications Culture of Sweden National personifications National symbols of Sweden Fictional Swedish people

Background

See also

References

Sources

External links