Mårbacka – Selma Lagerlöf's home

Sunne, Värmland · Sweden · Historic farmstead

Mårbacka – Selma Lagerlöf's home — Sunne, Värmland · Sweden · Historic farmstead

At Mårbacka, Selma Lagerlöf grew up surrounded by oral storytelling. The Nobel Prize winner later wrote The Phantom Carriage, a famous ghost story.

Selma Lagerlöf was born at Mårbacka in Östra Ämtervik, Värmland, on 20 November 1858. The estate had belonged to her family since the seventeenth century, and it was here that she grew up with the oral storytelling of the household. Those early encounters with oral storytelling would become an important part of her work as a writer.

The Stories of Her Childhood

Lagerlöf was born with a hip condition that prevented her from moving around as freely as her siblings. She spent much of her childhood indoors, reading books and listening to the stories told at Mårbacka. The family's tradition of storytelling gave her material that would continue to influence her fiction.

Her father, Erik Gustaf Lagerlöf, struggled to manage the estate and began drinking. In 1888, Mårbacka went bankrupt and was sold, ending centuries of family ownership. Selma would later buy back the home where she had grown up.

The Return to Mårbacka

In 1907, Lagerlöf bought back Mårbacka, a few months before completing the second volume of The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. Two years later, in 1909, she became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. The prize money allowed her to purchase the entire estate.

Mårbacka once again became her home.

A Death Legend from Brittany

By August 1912, Lagerlöf already had the story of The Phantom Carriage in her head. She began writing around the beginning of September, completed the final lines on 16 November, and saw the book published in December. In a letter to her friend Sophie Elkan, she described it as a Christmas story in the tradition of Charles Dickens.

The novel follows David Holm and a legend about the last person to die on New Year's Eve. According to the tale, that person must drive Death's carriage for the following year.

Although the book is Swedish, the central legend was not. It came from Brittany in France and had been recorded by Anatole Le Braz in 1893. Lagerlöf encountered it through André Bellessort, although accounts differ on whether she borrowed the book or heard the legend from him during a visit to Mårbacka.

Lagerlöf had also been approached about writing on tuberculosis. Her sister Anna had died from the disease, and she had signed an appeal for the Swedish campaign against tuberculosis. Rather than the educational text the association had probably hoped for, she wrote a ghost story.

From Mårbacka to the Cinema

When director Victor Sjöström adapted The Phantom Carriage for the screen, he wrote the screenplay in just one week. He then travelled to Mårbacka and read it aloud to Lagerlöf.

The film premiered at Röda Kvarn in Stockholm on New Year's Day 1921, with Sjöström himself playing David Holm. Cinematographer Julius Jaenzon used elaborate double exposures to depict the spirit world, creating effects without equal anywhere at the time.

The film became especially important to Ingmar Bergman. He first saw it at fifteen and later said he watched it at least once every summer. Its influence can also be seen in his 1957 film Wild Strawberries, which stars Sjöström and includes imagery drawn from The Phantom Carriage.

Selma Lagerlöf died at Mårbacka on 16 March 1940. In her will, she requested that the estate be preserved as a memorial, keeping the home of the writer who brought an old Breton death legend into Swedish literature.

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FAQ

Where is Mårbacka – Selma Lagerlöf's home located?

Mårbacka – Selma Lagerlöf's home is in Sunne, Värmland, Sweden.

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Accounts are drawn from local folklore and visitor reports.

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