Category: Podcast Guides
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Bonus Vacation Podcast Guide | Sandby Borg: I Finally Stood Where the Dead Were Left
Fifteen hundred years ago, people lived inside the walls of Sandby borg on Öland. They had food. They had families. They had plans. Then, one day, they were killed. Their bodies were left where they fell. The dead were never buried. And no one ever came back to live there.
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Episode 26 Podcast Guide | The Great Northern War: How an Empire Fell
How does an empire fall? In this episode of Beyond the Swedish Postcard, we follow Charles XII and the Great Northern War, from the stunning victory at Narva to the devastating defeat at Poltava, exploring how Sweden rose to become a European superpower and how it all began to unravel.
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Episode 25 Podcast Guide: The Great Noise | The Swedish Witch Trials
What sparked Sweden’s deadliest witch trials? This companion guide to the podcast explores The Great Noise (Det stora oväsendet), beginning in Älvdalen and tracing the fear, accusations, and executions that spread across Sweden from 1668 to 1676. Discover the history behind one of Scandinavia’s most tragic events. The Swedish Witch Trials…
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Episode 24 Podcast Guide: The March Across the Ice | When the Sea Became a Road
In the brutal winter of 1658, King Karl X Gustav led a Swedish army across the frozen sea to invade Denmark in one of history’s boldest military gambles. Discover how the March Across the Ice forever changed the map of Scandinavia.
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Episode 23 Podcast Guide: Queen Christina | The Woman Who Walked Away
Queen Christina of Sweden inherited a throne at six, refused every prince Europe offered, and then did the unthinkable – she gave it all away. In 1654, she walked out of Uppsala Castle, converted to Catholicism, and spent the rest of her life in Rome. A story of identity, conscience, and courage.
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Episode 22 Podcast Guide: Why Gustavus Adolphus Matters Today: NATO, Innovation, and the Swedish Empire
Sweden had 1.2 million people. His enemies had 20 million. He won anyway. Gustavus Adolphus revolutionized warfare with mobile artillery, combined arms, and a conscript army. He made Sweden a great power. He died at Lützen. His strategic logic, small nations must innovate to survive, is still Sweden’s playbook today…
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Podcast Guide Episode 21: The Mad King Who Proposed to Elizabeth I and the Vasa Ship That Sank
What if the king of Sweden married Elizabeth I? He tried. What if the Vasa warship, the most powerful in the world, sailed on its maiden voyage? It sank before it left the harbor. This is the Vasa dynasty; a story of ambition, rejection, madness, and a ship that couldn’t stay upright. In this episode…
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Episode 20 Podcast Guide | The Dacke War: The Peasant Who Nearly Brought Down Gustav Vasa
He was a farmer with a crossbow and a burning rage. For one summer, Nils Dacke almost brought down Gustav Vasa – the most powerful king Sweden ever produced. The king blinked. Then he returned with fire and sword. Dacke lost. But his rebellion taught us something: democracy is better than crossbows.
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Bonus Episode Podcast Guide| Swedish Midsommar Explained: Pagan Fertility Rituals, Frog Dances, and the Surströmming Challenge
Midsummer is Sweden’s real national holiday. The maypole goes up. The flower crowns come out. The herring is served. The schnapps songs are sung. Somewhere, someone opens a can of surströmming – and the smell is apocalyptic. The movie got the vibes right, but real Midsommar has no bear carcasses. Just frog dances and the…
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Episode 19 Guide: The King, the Church, and the Choice – How Sweden Became Lutheran
The podcast episode “Beyond the Swedish Postcard” discusses the Swedish Reformation of 1527, where King Gustav Vasa forced the church to surrender its wealth, turning Sweden Lutheran. It explores economic motivations behind the Reformation, the impact on ordinary people, and the legacy of the Gustav Vasa Bible in shaping modern Swedish language and culture.
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Episode 18 Podcast Guide: Gustav Vasa, the Stockholm Bloodbath, and the Death of the Kalmar Union
Gustav Vasa, the Stockholm Bloodbath, and the Death of the Kalmar Union A massacre that changed everything. A fugitive who became a king. And the moment Sweden walked away from the union forever. In 1520, the Kalmar Union was already cracking. It had been limping along for over a century—through peasant revolts, noble feuds, and…
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Episode 17 Guide: The Crack in the Union; Engelbrekt and the Rebellion That Changed Sweden
In 1434, a Swedish miner named Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson led a peasant army against a king. He won. He became Captain of the Realm. Was he Sweden’s Alexander Hamilton, a self-made man who built a nation, then fell to an old ally’s axe on a rocky island? The union cracked. The questions remain.
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Episode 16 Guide: The Lady King – Margareta of Scandinavia: Murder, Poison, and the Regent Who Ruled Three Kingdoms
On a cold October night in 1412, the most powerful woman in Europe lay dying on a ship in Flensburg harbor. Margareta Valdemarsdotter united Denmark, Norway, and Sweden under the Kalmar Union. Was she a murderer who sacrificed her son? Or a victim poisoned by the heir she raised?
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Episode 15 Guide: The Battle of Visby: The Massacre at the Gates
July 27, 1361. A Tuesday. The gates of Visby stayed shut while farmers fought and died outside. The merchants watched. Then they negotiated. They paid a ransom. They survived. The stone cross at Korsbetningen still stands. Who pays when the gates stay shut? The answer is always the same.
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Episode 14 Guide: The Architect of the Swedish Soul: How Saint Birgitta Built a Nation
The podcast episode “Beyond the Swedish Postcard” delves into the life of Birgitta Birgersdotter, a remarkable figure in medieval Europe. Known as a mystic, mother of eight, and lawspeaker for God, she received divine revelations that guided her efforts in reforming the Church and founding the Bridgettine Order, reshaping Swedish literature.
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Episode 13: The Black Death In Sweden Podcast Guide
The Black Death in Sweden: a ghost ship, deserted villages, and the plague that killed half of Scandinavia. Episode 13 of Beyond the Swedish Postcard.
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Episode 12: The Sandby Borg Mystery – Sweden’s Pompeii
Sandby borg massacre: a 5th-century crime scene frozen in time on Öland, Sweden. Bodies left where they fell for 1,500 years.
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Episode 11 Podcast Guide: Svea Rike (The Birth of Sweden)
Episode 11 of the podcast “Beyond the Swedish Postcard” explores the evolution of Sweden from Viking chieftains to kings, highlighting key figures like Eric the Victorious and Birger Jarl. It details significant events such as civil wars and the rise of Stockholm, while reflecting on the ongoing question of Swedish identity.
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Episode 10 Guide: She Held the Keys (Women of the Viking Age)
The podcast episode “Beyond the Swedish Postcard” highlights the significant yet overlooked roles of women during the Viking Age. It discusses female warriors, travelers, rulers, and the vital contributions women made to society, challenging previous assumptions about gender roles through archaeological findings and new research.
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Episode 9 Podcast Guide: The Slow Death of the Old Gods
“The old gods are gone. Or they’re not. They survive in the names of days, Wednesday for Odin, Thursday for Thor, Friday for Freyr. They survive in a fountain in Linköping, where a man on a horse searches for something he will never find.” Listen to the podcast below: 🎧 Listen to the Episode 🧭…
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