The Arsgång depicted in a hunter's book.
Årsgång, or Year Walk as it is more commonly known, is an ancient Swedish form of divination. Its purpose was to see what would happen the following year. The folklore surrounding the phenomena varies widely regionally. Typically a year walk had to be done on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve, during the night.
Almost all variations involve having to spend a full day inside a dark room. One was not allowed to talk to anyone or have anything to eat or drink. At the stroke of midnight one should head for church. This was not an easy task as strange and dangerous creatures roamed the night. These creatures would of course include a lot of the mythical creatures from the Scandinavian folk lore.
Participating in the ritual known as årsgång, or “year walk,”, promised information about the future—if a walker followed the rules and reached the local church or graveyard. Årsgång is far from the only form of supernatural divination in Swedish folklore, but it is one of the more extensive. While rituals like circling the house three times counterclockwise with a porridge scepter before eating Christmas dinner were supposed to provide a limited glimpse of things to come, the year walker had the potential to learn not only his own fate but that of the entire village. With greater reward, however, came greater risk.
The walk took place on New Year’s Eve or another winter holiday, when Europeans believed dark forces and supernatural beings were active and the dead mingled with the living. This let the walker tap into the prophetic power of the season, but it also meant opening oneself up to frightening encounters. Cemeteries were particularly active. Walkers reported songs coming from open graves, dead spirits walking about, and fresh graves that did not exist before.
Once they were at the church, they would have to walk around it in a certain pattern to unlock the key to seeing the future, which brings out the Church Grim, believed to be the spirit of the goat that was ceremoniously buried under churches during their making back then. It is also said that if you were to touch the Church Grim's heart, you would see into the eye of creation itself. Once proceeding into the vision of the future, you would witness what would happen the next year.