Norway's Slagmaur have unveiled a lyric video for "Hexen Herjer" ("Witch Raid") as the next advance single from their forthcoming full-length Hulders Ritual, chalked up for release on 27 February via Prophecy Productions.

Slagmaur's General Gribbsphiiser comments: "The 'Eagle Abduction of Leka' is one of Norway's most famous folk legends. According to the story, in 1932, a small child on the island of Leka was snatched by a white-tailed eagle and carried high into the mountains. After an intense search, the girl was found alive on a cliff ledge. Although the details remain disputed, this event has become a lasting part of Norwegian folklore and local history".

He continues: "The event locally known as Ørnerovet ("Eagle Raid") took place on the Island of Leka in 1932. Three-and-a-half-year-old Svanhild Hartvigsen had disappeared while playing. After an extensive search, she was found several hours later on an inaccessible mountain ledge on Hagafjellet. Since that time, the local community has maintained that a large sea eagle carried her there and set her down on the ledge – an account that quickly gained national attention and has been retold in newspapers and local histories ever since.

Physical traces of the incident remain preserved at the local museum. Svanhild's dress and shawl are kept and exhibited. These objects have often been cited as evidence that supports the story. Marks found in the woollen shawl are locally interpreted as impressions from the eagle's talons, which has served to reinforce the narrative's hold on the community's collective memory.

On the contrary, scientific communities and natural historians have long expressed deep scepticism. Ornithologists point out that a human child weighs far more than what a sea eagle can realistically lift in flight. Several expert voices describe the story as highly unlikely, and they place it closer to folklore than natural science. Furthermore, there are no contemporary eyewitness accounts of an eagle flying off with the child. What remains are later narratives, newspaper reports, and oral tradition.

Still, the belief in an eagle carrying young Svanhild onto the mountain has proven remarkably resilient. In local imagination, the incident endures as a threshold moment in which the raw force of nature, human vulnerability, and the unexplainable converge. Later retellings through film, radio, and reportage have both amplified the details and introduced alternative explanations: For example, that Svanhild may have climbed there herself and that the event represents a collective misinterpretation. This division persists. Some are left with an unease – did it really happen? – while others continue to refer to the place as Ørnerova, a name that renders the myth tangible.

Within Slagmaur's universe, and within the context of Hulders Ritual, Ørnerovet on Leka fits perfectly. Hulders Ritual revolves around the theme of being taken – vanishing from familiar ground and being transported elsewhere, whether by forces of nature or by beings beyond human control. The story of Svanhild – the child who disappears and is later found on a mountain ledge, surrounded by rock, silence, and traces – is the very substance from which folklore grows. It unites documentary restraint with the stark, metaphorical power of being taken into the mountain.

In the context of the single "Hexen Herjer", Ørnerovet functions both as a concrete historical event and as a symbol: here is the one who is taken, here is the mountain as a gateway, here is the carrying creature – and the question that never loosens its grip: who took her, and where was she truly brought?"

The album's name refers to a female spirit or fay being that is common in Nordic folklore. Mostly associated with the forest, the relationship of these seductive creatures with humans differs in local tradition and ranges from beneficial to outright evil: abducting and murdering men or replacing human children with their own misshapen offspring.

Hulders Ritual reflects these themes. When Gribbsphiiser and Snorre Ruch staged their much-debated disappearance before the announcement of the album, this action was far from a simple media stunt but was directly tied to the stories of abduction and disappearance caused by supernatural beings on Hulders Ritual. It also served as a reminder that the mechanics by which the orally transmitted folk tales, children's rhymes, and local stories of old that inspire Slagmaur still work in the digital age, with the marked difference that the circulation happens radically faster and globally.

Hulders Ritual is for those who are seeking musical darkness, magic, and the relentless breaking of limitations from black metal. Slagmaur push forward among the select few that are leading the way to the future of the genre. Link