Hede

Hede grew beside a bend in the Ljusnan, on the route between Sveg and Tännäs. Its parish church became a focus for a scattered farming population, but border warfare repeatedly disrupted that role. In the early seventeenth century the church and village were burned, and inhabitants fled to Norway. Contributions from other parishes helped them rebuild after their return.

Härjedalen passed to Sweden in 1645. When Charles XI visited Hede's church in 1686, he promised support for an assistant priest and gave his portrait. Eighteenth-century craftsmen transformed the building into a centre of local religious art. Jöns Halvarsson-Hedin supplied a carved baptismal angel in 1735; Anders Kjellberg built the onion-domed bell tower in 1751. Enlargement in 1770–1775 was followed by Jöns Ljungberg's rococo furnishings and Pehr Sundin's painting, giving this inland parish a rich artistic inheritance before the nineteenth century.