Great Famine of 1695–1697

The areas worst affected were the Swedish province of Finland and Norrland in Sweden proper.

Desperate famine victims from the countryside left for the cities in search for food, especially to the capital of Stockholm, where in the spring of 1697 the streets were reportedly strewn with corpses and people dying of starvation.

[2] Israel Kolmodin wrote the psalm Den blomstertid nu kommer in 1695 in connection to the famine, intended as a prayer to God that the next summer would bring food.

[6] This reduced the elevation at which crops could be grown and shortened the growing season by up to two months in extreme years, as it did in the 1690s.

[7] The massive eruptions of volcanoes at Hekla in Iceland (1693) and Serua (1693) and Aboina (1694) in Indonesia may also have polluted the atmosphere and filtered out significant amounts of sunlight.