In the folklore of the

Sámi The Sámi ( ; also spelled Sami or Saami) are a Finno-Ugric-speaking people inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, R ...

, a Stállo (also Staaloe, Stalo or

Northern Sami Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...

Stállu) is a large, human-like creature who likes to eat people and who therefore is usually in some form of hostilities with a human. Stallos are clumsy and stupid, and thus humans often gain the upper hand over them. The

Vindelfjällen Nature Reserve The Nature Reserve ( sv, Vindelfjällens naturreservat) is a nature reserve located in the municipalities of Sorsele and Storuman in Västerbotten County of Swedish Lapland. It is the largest natural reserve in Sweden and one of the largest pr ...

contains the remains of ancient, large building foundations, considered by the Sami to be the remains of Stallo dwellings. There is also a huge stone placed on some small pebbles on top near Lake Giengeljaure named ''stalostenen'', which literally means "the Stallo stone." Legend dictates that a Stallo would have placed a stone here to prove his strength.

Stallo sites

On account of the identification of relics of ancient buildings with the 'stallo' in the southern part of the Sámi area of Sweden, archaeologists have come to refer to such relics as '' generally, following the lead of

Ernst Manker Ernst Mauritz Manker (20 March 1893 – 1 February 1972) was a Swedish ethnographer, known for his work on Sami history and ethnography.Gösta BergErnst Mankerin Svenskt biografiskt lexikon. With a bibliographyEva Silvén, «Ernst Manker 1893 ...

's 1960 study ''Fångstgropar och stalotomter'' ('hunting pits and stallo sites'). Such buildings are actually round or oval, with a diameter of four to six metres, arranged linearly in groups of two to eight (or, more rarely, more, up to fifteen). Around sixty such sites are known, distributed along what is now the Norway-Sweden border, from Frostviken in

Jämtland county Jämtland County ( sv, Jämtlands län, ) is a county or '' län'' in the middle of Sweden consisting of the provinces of Jämtland and Härjedalen, along with minor parts of Hälsingland and Ångermanland, plus two small uninhabited strips ...

to the south, to Devddesvuopmi in

Troms Troms (; se, Romsa; fkv, Tromssa; fi, Tromssa) is a former county in northern Norway. On 1 January 2020 it was merged with the neighboring Finnmark county to create the new Troms og Finnmark county. This merger is expected to be reversed by ...

to the north. They are found above the tree line, at heights between 550 and 850 metres. They seem to have been in most extensive use around 800–1050 CE, that is, during the

Viking Age The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period The ...

. Scholars agree that these were temporary dwellings, probably for use in the warmer months, and that they reflect a change in the economic habits of their users, almost certainly associated with hunting or herding reindeer. Nevertheless, there is extensive debate over whether the inhabitants were ethnically

Norse Norse is a demonym for Norsemen, a medieval North Germanic ethnolinguistic group ancestral to modern Scandinavians, defined as speakers of Old Norse from about the 9th to the 13th centuries. Norse may also refer to: Culture and religion * Nor ...

, where their permanent habitations were located, and their purpose. As of 2014, debate was ongoing, but opinion at that time favoured the idea that the stallo sites were used by Sámi people, partly because the layout of the buildings corresponds to later Sámi dwellings.

In folklore

Stallo appears in Sámi folktales, such as ''

How the Stalos were Tricked How the Stalos were Tricked is a Saami fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranorma ...

'', ''Stalo och Kauras'', and ''The Tale of Njunje Paggas''.Conrad, JoAnn (2020). "‘The Tale of Njunje Paggas’: A ‘Lappish’ Stallo Tale from Sweden by P. A. Lindholm". In: Folklore, 131:2, pp. 204-224.

Stallo sites

In folklore

See also

References

Further reading