Louise Hagberg (1868–1944)

Louise Hagberg was born in Uppsala, Sweden, to an aristocrat, Baroness Louise Jakobina von Schwerin, and her husband Jakob Theodor Hagberg, a professor of European linguistics and modern literature. Two of her siblings also became writers and translators. In 1891, Louise first became involved with the Nordiska museet (Nordic Museum), where she worked for the next 40 years. Her main interest lay in folklore and the ancient oral traditions of the Swedish countryside. During the 1910s and 1920s, she crisscrossed Sweden in 38 field trips to interview older women and men and make recordings of their conversations for the museum's archives, becoming one of the preeminent folklorists of the interwar period. She published a total of 50 articles on her work in Swedish and foreign journals, as well as in the museum's own journal, Fataburen. She also wrote articles for the daily newspapers.

Her first book, Påskhögtiden (The Easter Holiday), was published in 1920 and described the development of Easter customs over the centuries. She also wrote extensively about Swedish folklore on witches and witchcraft. Her monumental 1937 book När döden gästar (When Death Visits) remains the standard work on Swedish beliefs and customs related to death and burial.

Louise received several awards for her work, including the royal Swedish Litteris et Artibus medal. She was also a board member of Stockholm's Föreningen för Kvinnans Politiska Rösträtt or FKPR (Association for Women’s Suffrage).