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The Swedish Swan Lady: Reaction to an Apparent Animal Hoarding Case

Article  in  Society and Animals · February 2016

DOI: 10.1163/15685306-12341388

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The Swedish Swan Lady

Reaction to an Apparent Animal Hoarding Case

Ingvar Svanberg
Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University,
Uppsala, Sweden
ingvar.svanberg@ucrs.uu.se

Arnold Arluke
Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA
a.arluke@neu.edu

Abstract

This study describes media and judicial reaction to the first publicly acknowledged
case of animal hoarding in Sweden—a 60-year-old Swedish woman who purportedly
“rescued” 150 swans over several years by bringing many back to her one-room apart-
ment. Reports in the press and social media reflected curiosity if not admiration for
this woman, who was dubbed the “Swan Lady.” Although some condemned her deeds
and saw her as guilty of animal cruelty, most commentators were more fascinated by
her ability to capture the aggressive and large birds, and bring them to her home. While
judicial reaction framed this case as one of animal cruelty, the response was sympa-
thetic and people failed to consider the Swan Lady’s mental health when examining
her behavior.

Keywords

animal rescue – swans – hoarding – cruelty to animals

Outside a growing body of academic studies in North America (reviewed in

Arluke & Patronek, 2013), there are few scholarly reports about animal hoard-
ing outside North America that detail the characteristics of hoarders and
their animals. For example, in the Czech Republic, Ondráček and Žák (2014)

©  koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/15685306-12341388

64 Svanberg and Arluke

reported the case of a hoarder with 80 dogs, one cow, two pigs, one rabbit,
and some poultry in unsatisfactory conditions, without any veterinary care.
Findings from studies of the characteristics of hoarders and the condition of
their animals in Spain, New South Wales, and Serbia (Calvo et al., 2014; Joffe
et al., 2014; Vučinić et al., 2014) are similar to what have been reported in the
United States. By contrast, Ockenden et al.’s (2014) study of animal hoarders in
Australia only showed demographic similarities with hoarders in the United
States, but not the physical condition of their animals, which were in better
condition than their American counterparts. To provide insight into the devel-
opment of animal hoarding, Ramos et al. (2013) examined Brazilians who own
large numbers of animals adequately cared for in normally functioning homes.
Most of these studies compare animal hoarding to prior reports of this
behavior in the United States, showing how similar or not it is. However, mak-
ing this comparison assumes that animal hoarding, as such, is an acknowl-
edged psychological and/or criminal problem. By making this assumption, a
more fundamental question is not asked; namely, to what extent, if at all, will
domestically keeping large numbers of animals in inhumane ways be viewed
as hoarding in other countries? After all, hoarding has only been embraced
by public health, medical, psychiatric, and criminal justice authorities in the
United States since the mid-1990s, if not later. And if they are not viewed as
hoarding, then how will these cases be viewed elsewhere?
What is needed, then, are detailed case studies of multiple animals being
kept without adequate shelter, food, and care outside North America to exam-
ine the extent to which, if at all, they are viewed and managed as incidents of
animal hoarding.
One such episode that attracted widespread media interest was a recent
case of potential swan hoarding in Stockholm, Sweden, although it was not
described as such for the most part. There also has not been any scholarly
report of animal hoarding in Sweden. Indeed, no fitting term for hoarding
exists in the Swedish language (cf. Svanberg, 2011; Holmberg, 2014), but it is
likely that many Swedish residents have heard of the term by viewing American
media and popular culture programs like Animal Planet, Animal Rescue, and
the like, or by watching YouTube, which offers innumerable clips about hoard-
ers—often with an unpleasant freak-show undertone. The concept also figures
in the animated sitcom “The Simpsons” that features Eleanor “Crazy Cat Lady”
Abernathy—a character displaying all of the stereotypical traits of an animal
hoarder—who puts in an appearance every now and then (Schwalm, 2009).
While Swedish law and psychiatric guidelines do not use the label of hoard-
ing, animal protection laws are strict and there are county administrative
boards that regulate hobby aviculturists, dog kennels, farmers, and others

Society & Animals 24 (2016) 63-77

The Swedish Swan Lady 65

with large numbers of animals. There are rules for how many dogs can be kept
without permission, how large cages must be for various species of birds, how
much area companion animals must have at their disposal, and how to kill
aquarium fishes (Jordbruksverket, 2014b). Furthermore, citizens need a special
permit to keep a kennel—a permit that can be revoked if the animals are not
furnished with proper care (Jordbruksverket, 2008, 2014b).
Swedish citizens can also be forbidden to have or take care of animals, if they
have shown themselves incapable of doing so properly. Since 2009, Sweden has
had a national register of persons who are forbidden to have or take care of
animals; as of December 2013, 1,017 people in Sweden have been subjected to
this prohibition, most of whom are farmers (Jordbruksverket, 2013).
According to the Swedish law, wild animals of European origin cannot
be transported or kept in captivity, without special permission (Decree on
Protection of Species, 2007). This also applies to injured wild animals who
have been captured, although they can be kept for 48 hours. Otherwise, they
must be euthanized, released, or handed over to a licensed rehabilitation
center. A permit from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Sw.
Naturvårdsverket) and the County Administrative Board (Sw. länsstyrelsen)
are required to care and rehabilitate injured wildlife.
In order to investigate the public and professional response to this alleged
case of swan hoarding in Sweden, data were collected from press reports
between 2007 and 2011. These data included those in the major Swedish
newspapers: Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, and Svenska Dagbladet;
and those in local papers from Stockholm: Metro, Stockholm City, and Vårt
Kungsholmen. Data were also collected from court documents (e.g., Stockholm
District Court, April 2008, No. B 176-08), police summaries relating to the
case from 2007, photo documentation by the County Police of Stockholm
(Polismyndigheten i Stockholms län: City 1/N: PL21/2007), veterinary testi-
mony from the National Veterinary Institute (SVA: Veterinary report, Utlåtande
2007-11-22, Dnr 0210-K28281-07), a statement from the Swedish Animal Welfare
Agency (Djurskyddsmyndigheten, Yttrande 2007-11-22 dnr 0201-K28282-07),
and several online discussion sites (e.g., www.flashback.org).

Animal-Hoarding Cases in Sweden

While scholars have documented the nature and existence of animal hoarding
in the United States in some detail, the behavior is believed to exist in other
countries as well (e.g., Gross, 2009; Reinisch, 2009). Although the term animal
hoarding is rarely used in the Swedish press, media reports and court verdicts

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66 Svanberg and Arluke

suggest Sweden has its share of animal hoarding without it being labeled as
such, even if it appears to be less common there (or, at least, the number of
cases reported in the Swedish media is relatively small). On the whole, then,
attention to animal hoarders in Swedish mass media has been very limited
despite several odd cases in recent years.
When there are reports of the amassing of neglected animals, many involve
domestic ones, cats in particular, consistent with scholarly reports in North
America showing that the most commonly hoarded animals are cats or dogs
(or sometimes other companion animals), followed by farm animals. Of 133
American cases studied in 2001 to 2002 (Berry et al., 2005), almost half involved
dogs (46.4%); cats were the predominant animal in 33.9% of the cases; and
the others involved birds (5.4%), farm animals (5.4%), rabbits (3.6%), horses
(3.6%), and exotic companion animals (1.8%).
Occasional reports crop up in the Swedish media about “cat ladies” (i.e.,
women hoarding cats) as well as (somewhat less frequently) about people
who collect dogs. These cat ladies are portrayed either as tragic loners for
whom things have fallen apart or as harmless people who love their cats. In
general, however, personal sketches and background reporting are scarcely to
be found. As early as 1950, the Swedish author Jan Fridegård published a short
story about a cat-hoarding woman in conflict with local authorities (Fridegård,
1950). More recently, in 2006, 29 dead cats and 20 neglected living ones were
found in a woman’s rundown apartment in Norrtälje (Behdjou, 2006) and in
2010, a news item appeared about a Swedish 60-year-old woman with 191 cats
in her apartment, 173 of which had to be euthanized because they were in such
bad condition (Grahn Walter, 2010; Stockholm Administrative Court of Appeal
2011, No. 34709-10). Despite the exceptional number of cats, the coverage in
question was scanty (in all likelihood because of the human tragedy involved).
Somewhat less frequent are media reports about people who collect dogs.
For example, there was a report of a woman who legally fought for her right to
keep a large number of dogs and moved a number of times between munici-
palities in order to continue collecting dogs each time she was prohibited from
doing so (Löfgren, 2007). In another case, a woman in Norway, infamous for
mistreating and keeping too many dogs, moved to Sweden after she was pro-
hibited from keeping animals in her own country (Olofsson, 2012). Another
dog case attracted considerable attention when a woman in Stockholm kept
146 Yorkshire Terriers in her home (Keller, 2006; Sturestig, 2006). And in 2009,
a relatively well-known “animal trainer”—who had been forbidden to own or
keep animals, and who was also under pressure from animal-rights activists—
committed suicide; approximately 150 animals were found in her home after
her death, including forty dogs (Julander, 2009).

Society & Animals 24 (2016) 63-77

The Swedish Swan Lady 67

Men are seldom mentioned in these reports. A 67-years old man in the
village Östra Vemmenhög near Skurup in southern Sweden lived in a small
apartment of 77 square meters with his much younger partner, a 4-years old
daughter, a grown-up son, three dogs, three cats, and a pony. The living room
was used as a stable and the entire apartment was soaked with feces and urine.
The tragedy was discovered when the landlord evicted the tenant for not pay-
ing rent (Ullmin, 2007).
Least common are press reports of what appear to be cases of farm and
wild animal hoarding, as is true in North America where the amassing of
farm and wild animals is less common but does occur including the hoard-
ing of raccoons, skunks, and, in one case, the hoarding of twenty beavers in a
Connecticut woman’s basement (Boodman, 2000). In southern Sweden, five
dead sheep were found on a farm, along with 33 dead rabbits and seven dead
chickens (Mannheimer, 2011). All publicly reported cases of apparent wild ani-
mal hoarding in Sweden have involved birds.
Between 2005 and 2010, a man captured no fewer than 13,989 wild birds
(among them cranes, owls, and wild geese) and then kept them in an outly-
ing building on his property. When authorities finally intervened, they found
about 100 living birds; however, the man also kept careful records of all the
birds he captured over the years. He was charged with cruelty to animals, and
with violating hunting regulations and animal-protection laws (Svanberg,
2011). Coverage of the case was minimal and no mention was made of animal
hoarding, although the prosecutor proposed that the man be subjected to a
psychiatric examination (Bergfeldt, 2011; Söderhamn’s District Court, October
2011).
Another case suggesting the hoarding of wild birds in Sweden involved a
rich older woman who occupied an attractive attic apartment in an historic
building in central Uppsala. She kept her windows open throughout the year
for pigeons and jackdaws (Corvus monedula) in the city, who flew into the
apartment, built their nests there and—with their droppings and their nests—
destroyed it. When the police arrived, the entire apartment was in need of
extensive cleaning and the woman was given psychiatric care (Olle Thulin,
personal communication, January 11, 2011).

The Swan Lady

On January 31, 2007, in Stockholm, a telephone-company employee made a

strange discovery. No one answered when he rang the doorbell, and an unpleas-
ant smell was emanating from the apartment. The man became concerned,

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68 Svanberg and Arluke

perhaps suspecting that the odor was due to a dead human occupant. Hoping
to see something, he peered through the mail slot in the door and saw a pair
of swan feet (Näslund, 2007). He immediately phoned the police, who checked
with the registrar of persons and determined that the woman registered at the
address had no relatives. They also called the city’s hospitals, but the woman
in question was not there. A police patrol soon arrived. They tried in vain to
contact the occupant, as well as her neighbors, but neither she nor they were at
home. They decided, after consulting with higher-ups, to enter the apartment
with the help of a locksmith. There was no corpse waiting for them inside.
Instead, they encountered a large number of swans plodding about in their
own droppings, which smelled extremely badly.
The police, who were a bit shaken by what they saw, soon established that the
occupant of the small apartment in central Stockholm, a 68-year-old woman
living alone, had no less than eleven badly soiled swans in her apartment. The
floor was lined with newspapers covered with swan feces, and several of the
birds were clearly in bad condition, including some who were undernourished.
The apartment, on the eighth floor of a building in central Stockholm, was no
larger than 25 square meters. The woman claimed subsequently, under inter-
rogation, that she had only taken in swans who were injured, and had planned
to pass them on to an authorized center for the rehabilitation of wild birds.
It is striking that in the middle of crowded central Stockholm, the woman
brought home a large number of swans to an apartment building without any-
one intervening or (apparently) even noticing. Evidently, the neighbors saw
nothing. At the very least, no one reacted and tried to talk with the woman or
contact authorities to report the behavior. Of course, the woman’s success in
taking so many swans home without being noticed (or at least without anyone
reacting) may reflect modern urban norms to ignore unusual behavior and do
nothing to stop it (Daun, 1996). Yet swans are large, heavy, and often aggressive
when confronted with people.
It also bears mentioning that many people in Sweden make reports to
the police when they suspect that someone has captured a wild animal
(Jordbruksverket, 2014a). Bird welfare has a long tradition among the urban
population in Sweden (Dirke, 2014), and the laws protecting birds are strong
(Danell & Bergström, 2014). For example, taking in an injured nestling and
keeping the bird is widely seen as a wrongful act in Sweden (Abrahamsson,
2013), so it is hard to believe that no one would have reacted if the woman’s
acts were observed. Despite this, reports from the media and the court hear-
ing never mention the woman’s neighbors, except for the fact that the woman
was, according to newspaper reports, known as the “Bird-Lady” among her
neighbors.

Society & Animals 24 (2016) 63-77

The Swedish Swan Lady 69

The woman’s apartment was small: just 25 square meters, consisting of a

hall, a living room, a locked bathroom, and a locked kitchen, furnished with a
bed, a bookshelf, an easy chair, a table, and some stools. According to the police
and other witnesses, the apartment was in a state of great disorder. There was
dust everywhere, and the place was generally a mess. However, there were
fresh items in the refrigerator.
The swans, who were fully-grown, appeared apathetic and showed no signs
of aggressiveness. Several of them had mud on their feathers. Three were in the
hall; the remaining eight were in the living room. A couple of the birds were
separated from the others by a small railing that formed two stalls. The floors
of the hall and room were plastered with newspapers covered with bird drop-
pings (Stockholm Police investigation report 2007-12-03 Dnr 0201-K28281-07).
The impounded birds were taken to a center for the rehabilitation of wild
animals. However, two of the swans were in such bad shape that they had to
be euthanized immediately. One had a wing that had long been broken, with
festering inflammation; indeed it was only the skin, according to the veterinar-
ian, that prevented the wing from falling off. The other was badly emaciated,
and a subsequent autopsy revealed that the bird’s internal organs had been rot-
ting (Stockholm District Court, April 2008, No. B 176-08; SVA: Veterinary report.
Utlåtande 2007-11-22 Dnr 0210-K2881-07). An additional two swans were eutha-
nized as well; the remaining seven, however, were in good enough condition to
be set free eventually (Bynert, 2007).

Swan Lady as Animal Lover

The case of the Swan Lady in 2007 assumed wholly different perspectives in
the press and various social media (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), portraying
her as either a rescuer or a criminal, but not as a hoarder.
The Swan Lady was a retiree living on the statutory minimum pension,
but had earlier worked in a laboratory at a hospital. According to the woman,
she was greatly concerned with the welfare of swans in central Stockholm,
of which there are several hundred during the winter (Staav, 1980), and saw
herself as a “rescuer” of those in danger. Since 2001, she devoted her time to
helping swans, including having some banded by the authorized Bird Ringing
Centre at the Natural History Museum. Over the years, she took in 150 injured
birds, with the help of a somewhat younger woman who supplied a car for
transporting the birds.
She also maintained contact with a prominent bander who kept track of
the swans in central Stockholm. Indeed, this person (actually a professional

Society & Animals 24 (2016) 63-77

70 Svanberg and Arluke

ornithologist) banded swans at her apartment on at least one occasion. Every

day, she searched along the banks of Stockholms Ström for sick and injured
swans, using a net to catch swans who apparently needed help. Purportedly,
she developed a certain skill at catching and transporting the birds (Sohlander,
2007).
On several occasions, her efforts to rescue swans attracted the attention of
the media (Andersson, 2002; “Sträng kyla hindrar inte Marie i hennes kamp
för fåglarna,” Vårt Kungsholmen, 2003; Sven-Åke, 2003; Falk, 2005; Björnstam,
2007), including reports of eyewitnesses. Witnesses attested to her strong con-
cern for the swans: for example, she would sit outside at the waterfront for
the entire night on New Year’s Eve to ensure that if any swans were injured by
fireworks, she would take them in.
In the process of rescuing swans, she learned a lot about the birds. In many
cases, she recognized them individually, which is a challenge because the pure
white color of the birds deprives them of distinctive individual features. For
her, the swans were individuals, each with a different name (in a seized note-
book she named some of the recently captured swans Flamenko, Sven-Millis,
Ravelli, Bissan, Simone, Mikael, Lotus, and Sköna Helena). However, there is no
evidence in any media report that she regarded the swans as companion ani-
mals or family members, nor is there any evidence that she attributed human
traits to them or placed them in human roles (Serpell, 2003; Svanberg, 2010).
Accordingly, ornithological experts sought her assistance for charting swans
in Stockholm (Stockholm District Court, April 2008, No. B 176-08. Supplement:
Expert witness report; Lindström, 2008).
For several years, she took the injured swans to two rescue centers; however,
they closed in the autumn of 2006 (some few months before her arrest). As a
result, she could no longer take injured birds for rehabilitation, so she started
bringing the birds to her home instead. Her notebook shows that from October
2006, beside the eleven swans seized at the police operation on January 31,
2007, she kept an additional 13 swans, one mallard, and one woodcock, all of
whom were released after a few days to one week. She also claimed to never
have had more than four swans in her home at one time. However, in January
2007, the weather worsened for the swans in Stockholms Ström, so she felt
compelled to take in more birds than usual. There were eleven in toto when,
on January 31, 2007, the authorities intervened.
She had no permit to capture swans, to transport them, or to bring them
home. In addition, she kept the swans for longer than the permitted 48
hours—that is, the time during which a layperson can take care of an injured
bird before turning the bird over to the authorities or an authorized organiza-
tion (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency [SEPA], 2002). Yet the woman
denied that she provided the birds with improper care; on the contrary, she

Society & Animals 24 (2016) 63-77

The Swedish Swan Lady 71

claimed to have cleaned up after them regularly. When the police entered her
apartment, the swans had been alone for only four hours according to the
woman, who also said she had been away to attend to more swans. However,
expert witnesses testified that the swans must have been in the apartment for
a long period and did not receive proper care.
No one defended her actions directly, yet she inspired a kind of admiration
all the same. Eleven swans in a small apartment and the name of “Swan Lady”
went far in piquing media interest in her. Some people collected everything
ever written about her as a kind of idol-worship of the absurd. In the spring of
2008, at Sweden’s National Museum of Art, Malin Rosenqvist showed her film
“Swan Lady,” a fictional animated documentary directly inspired by the real
event. In May 31, 2011, the word svankvinnan (“Swan Lady” in Swedish) gener-
ated 1,540 results on Google (still 1,010 results in November 2014). In the end,
the “Swan Lady” became a fiction of the media, although a couple of newspa-
pers did in fact interview the real woman (e.g., Sohlander, 2007).

Swan Lady as Criminal

Until the police broke into her apartment, the Swan Lady was seen as a res-
cuer of injured swans, but once she was tried in court, another public image
emerged. The woman acknowledged the broad accuracy of the factual claims
made by the prosecution, but denied any wrongdoing. In the spring of 2008,
she was found guilty of cruelty to animals and of capturing and transport-
ing a large number of living swans between October 1, 2006, and January 31,
2007, including keeping them in her apartment. The court found that, through
neglect and in other ways, she had subjected the birds to suffering by confining
them in her apartment under unsatisfactory conditions, washing them in the
wrong manner, providing them with the wrong feed, and failing to take injured
and sick ones to a veterinarian, among other things.
However, in the court proceedings and in its verdict there was no discussion
of animal hoarding. Evidently, no such connection was made by the defense,
the prosecutor, or the members of the court. An experienced journalist cover-
ing the case wrote that he “had never been at a trial where everyone was so
agreed that the accused meant well.” The witnesses, the defense, and even the
prosecutor were all convinced of the woman’s good intent (Lindström, 2008),
failing to view this apparent “good intent” as a characteristic of animal hoarders.
The case was seen purely as relating to animal protection and the violation of
hunting violations.
On the other hand, one of the evening papers made such a connection and
described some “other friends of animals for whom things went wrong” (see

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72 Svanberg and Arluke

Lindström, 2008). While the press described the case in considerable detail,
this was the first time this behavior—which was not wholly unknown—was
given a label in the Swedish press. According to the report, the woman in
question—who became known as the “Swan Lady” (Swedish: svankvinnan)—
was consumed by a pathological longing to keep a large number of animals
and could not grasp that she furnished the birds with inadequate nutrition,
shelter, sanitation, and veterinary care (Berry et al., 2005; Reinisch, 2008).
Four of the swans had to be euthanized, while the others were given care
before being released and “restored to their natural habitat” (Bondesson,
2007; Bynert, 2007; Olwan, 2007). The court stated in its verdict that cruelty
to animals was a serious crime, and that the circumstances were such that
the woman ought to be sentenced to prison, but would not be because of her
age, lack of any previous record, and her “orderly conditions” of life. The judge
wrote in his decision that the woman’s “intentions have been of the best, even
if it went wrong somewhere.” She received a suspended sentence and a fine
(Stockholm District Court, April 2008, No. B 176-08; Elfström, 2008).
The woman did not, in the view of the court, require any special surveil-
lance, nor did the court consider whether she had any psychological issues
calling for special mental health measures. It did request a special evaluation
of whether the woman merited probation, but she did not show up despite
being summoned twice, explaining that she did not wish to take part in any
such evaluation. Accordingly, there was no basis for judging whether proba-
tion was called for.

Discussion

Although the judge noted, “something went wrong” in the Swan Lady’s
failed efforts to care for the birds, the Swedish court and judicial system did
not approach this as an animal hoarding case. The failure to do so may have
stemmed, in part, from the lack of judicial precedent and advocacy by men-
tal health professionals in Sweden for diagnosing such behaviors as hoarding,
whether incipient or full-fledged.
Media characterizations of the Swan Lady are consistent with scholarly
reports of hoarders. As animal hoarders do, the Swan Lady, too, considered
herself to be an animal lover, believed she took good care of her charges, and
denied strenuously that she harmed or intended to harm them (e.g., Arluke
& Killeen, 2009). She also displayed many stereotypical characteristics of ani-
mal hoarders, including being an older woman who lived alone and who was
socially isolated, with her life appearing to have revolved around the swans

Society & Animals 24 (2016) 63-77

The Swedish Swan Lady 73

(cf. Brown, 2011; Patronek, 1999). The general deterioration of the woman’s
dwelling also suggests she is a hoarder (Nathanson, 2009).
Media and courtroom depictions of the Swan Lady are also consistent with
prior reports of hoarders who present themselves as animal “rescuers” alleg-
edly engaged in animal protection. According to Vaca-Guzman and Arluke
(2005), the rescuer or animal savior excuse is one of several common excuses
advanced by hoarders that can normalize their behavior. This excuse has also
been noted in Spain by hoarders who claimed to maintain shelters for home-
less or stray dogs (cf. Manning, 2010).
Despite such similarities, why did the legal handling of the Swan Lady case
make no mention of animal hoarding? As noted above, there were no prior
judicial and mental health precedents for handling such cases as a form of ani-
mal hoarding. But there may have been other cultural factors that deterred
use of this psychiatric label, including the Swedish public’s sympathy for and
fascination with the case.
The fact that the hoarded animals were mute swans (Cygnus olor) played
a decisive role in this regard. For example, if the case involved wild geese, it
probably would not have received the same media attention. The mute swan
is a common bird in Sweden (Fransson & Pettersson, 2001) and is very popular
with the public. Almost everyone likes these slender, graceful birds, who are
to be found in and near ponds, lakes, and other bodies of water close to areas
of human habitation. At least since the eighteenth century, mute swans have
been kept in parks, country manors, and palaces. Many towns and cities main-
tain them in public parks—a practice that has helped to spread the species in
Sweden (Curry-Lindahl, 1957; Svanberg, 2008).
Public sympathy for this woman might also have been influenced by the
strong and positive symbolic connotations of swans, especially mute swans, in
art, stories, legends, and myths, as well as in more modern literature and pop-
ular culture all over northern and western Europe (Armstrong, 1944; Young,
2008). This positive symbolic connotation is also true for Sweden and other
Scandinavian countries as well. Swan motifs are common in art, including
paintings, sculptures, porcelains, and postcards depicting the bird.
The swan as subject is also popular in poetry and literature. In addition to
Danish author H.C. Andersen’s a literary fairy tale “The Ugly Duckling” (1843)
(a story well-known to almost every Swede), a number of other authors have
written about the swan as well—including Swedes like August Strindberg
and the crime writer Henning Mankell. The swan also frequently appears in
commercials, and on the official seal of environmental approval in the Nordic
countries. It has also been adopted as the national bird of Denmark (Brusewitz,
1970; Brøndegaard, 1985; Young, 2008).

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74 Svanberg and Arluke

Given that the mute swan is so beloved among today’s Swedes, it seems odd
that more people were not upset with the Swan Lady, despite her good inten-
tions, especially since she was harming some of them. The absurdity of the
case and the fact that the media did not report (very few photos were repro-
duced from the police record) further details of the neglected captured swans
or their unsanitary situation might have contributed to the public’s sympa-
thetic stance.

Conclusion

The case of the Swan Lady fascinated the Swedish public because it made an
unusual and captivating human-interest story about the woman, focusing far
less on the welfare of the birds, as has been be the case with some hoarding
cases in the United States (Arluke et al., 2002). The case occasioned much com-
ment, but there were relatively few who described the woman as guilty of cru-
elty to animals (the crime for which she had been convicted). On the whole,
of course, the perspective of the victim figures little in Swedish reporting on
criminal cases (Pollack, 2001). All the same, it is striking how rarely her actions
were condemned, although it was unclear whether several swans had to be
euthanized due to her improper care for the birds or because of injuries they
had suffered earlier, which might have prompted her to take them in.
On the contrary, the Swan Lady became a kind of heroine, or rather anti-
heroine, at least according to some—not because she had rescued swans per
se, but because she took these birds into her apartment. Particularly in social
media, she became a kind of absurd anti-heroine. The epithet “Swan Lady”
added to the media’s spin on this case as a charming, albeit ill-informed, behav-
ior. Although the Swan Lady died in 2010, she is still remembered in a positive
light by some. According to a local Stockholm paper, she has become a martyr
for a controversial group that keeps injured birds and other small animals in
their homes (Stockholm City, March 7, 2011). And social media and press reports,
even today, still refer to her deed (e.g., Strömstedt, 2014; Massiveinvasion, 2014).

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