MovieChat Forums > Vargtimmen (1968) Discussion > How does 'Vargtimmen' translate to 'Hour...

How does 'Vargtimmen' translate to 'Hour of the Wolf'?


Can anyone who understand Swedish explain how "Vargtimmen" translates to "Hour of the Wolf"? Do the Swedes have a single word for this concept?

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The straight translation would be Wolf Hour or Wolf Moment, but I believe that in order to make it sound more dramatic they've changed it into the form Hour of the Wolf. The same thing could be said in Swedish as Den Timme av Vargen. The reason for Vargtimmen being a single word, is that Swedish language has more compound words than English.

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Thanks you very much for the explanation! I assumed it was some kind of abbreviated combination of "wolf" and "hour."

As it turns out, I've justed watched "Saraband," Bergman's last film, and I heard Erland Josephson say the word "vargtimmen" before the subtitles came on, so I knew what was ahead. (His character is near death in the film.)

Thanks again for the Swedish lesson!

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glad you came back and pointed that out. haven't seen saraband, but i will remember this until i do!

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I hope you like "Saraband." I was pleasantly surprised. It was Bergman's last film, and I didn't expect much, but it has much of the flavor of his previous work. I expected it to be a sequel of sorts to "Scenes From a Marriage," which I loved, but it's so much more than that.

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wow. your post is nearly verbatim what my good friend who introduced me to bergman said of saraband... makes me wonder if i've stumbled across him online.

you don't live in north carolina, do you? lol.

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[deleted]

Vargtimmen is an old Swedish word, the Vikings used the word to the describe the hour between night and dawn. (03:00-05:00)

This is the time when the human body is at it's weakest. We are meant to be asleep and both the body temperature and the blood pressure reaches their lowest points at this time.

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Thanks for the details on "vargtimmen." it certainly fits this film!

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That sounds a lot like the Devil/Demon/Witching hour.

The witching hour, according to Roman Catholic tradition, occurs at 3:00 a.m. when evil forces mock the Holy Trinity. It also says that it is the opposite of 3:00 p.m., the hour when Jesus Christ said "Father, Into Thy Hands, I Commend My Spirit" and died.


The term witching hour refers to the time of day when creatures such as witches, demons, and ghosts are thought to appear and to be at their most powerful and black magic to be most effective.


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Here's some Swedish for you to learn:

Varg - Wolf
Vargen - The Wolf
Timme - Hour
Timmen - The Hour

Vargtimmen - The Wolf Hour
Vargtimme - Wolf Hour

So as you can see, in Swedish when you have noun, the word "The" corresponds to adding "en" at the end of the word (for some nouns it's "et" instead though).

I'm guessing "Hour of the Wolf" sounds better in English than "Wolf Hour", but it would have been more correct if it would have been called "The Hour of the Wolf", as it's VargtimmEN in Swedish, the "en" corresponding to the "The".

Hope this helps.

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Thank you very much! That is extremely helpful: Having "en" at the end of a Swedish word translates in English to "The" before the word. "Hour of the Wolf" indeed sounds better in English than "Wolf Hour" or "The Wolf Hour."

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"wolf time"

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