In the village of Sao Harad, Norway, there's a small church.

There are a number of frescoes and murals inside.

They repainted hundreds of years ago, and by the early 20th century, one of the murals

was badly disintegrated.

And in 1940, the Norwegian government hired a well-respected conservator, Gerhard Gotasch,

and his son, Pair, to restore this specific mural.

This is Gemma Tarlek, she's the senior editor at Atlas Obscura.

So Gerhard and his son, Pair, headed off to the church, and Gerhard got to work.

And all accounts were that he was a completely normal person.

That there were no signs that he was under any kind of stress or any weirdness.

The one thing was he didn't like other people present when he was working.

So he would like kick out everyone else, lock the door, and get to work.

And he began restoring this fresco, but what he did was truly shocking.

I'm Johanna Mayer, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world.

It's a huge, incredible, and wondrous place.

Today, I talk with Gemma about why Gerhard Gotasch did what he did, and why his work would

become known as the Demon Wall after this.

If you make your way to South Harad-Norway, and you're inside this church, you'll see

the wall that Gerhard Gotasch was hired to restore.

From a distance, it just looks kind of like a big gray cloud.

But if you climb up on a ladder, and shine a flashlight, you will see tiny, tiny figures

upon figures, demons coming out of demons' mouths, hiding in other demons' beards, it is

...