Midsummer’s eve.
Troll butter.
Today we celebrate Midsummer’s eve here in Sweden, a holiday as big as Christmas over here. The traditions go way back and the christian church did of course do what it could to make it a truly christian holiday and one could say they failed miserably 🙂 They made tomorrow John the Baptist day since it is 6 months before Christmas day so that sort of fits rather well. If You ask anyone today when John the Baptist’s day is I’m pretty very few would be able to say the right day. For some reason we Swedes always celebrate the eve, never the actual day 🙂 Tomorrow will be a day to cure hangovers for many people and in nine months lots of kids will be born 🙂
It rained almost all day yesterday. The dogs loved to finally get out on a walk this morning, I was exhausted when we came back 🙂
The Midsummer pole, some also call it the may pole but in this case the swedish word for may doesn’t mean the month but to dress, is dressed with leafy twigs and flowers. Some say that tradition is very old others that it came from Germany in the early middle ages, what we do know however is that back in the days they had huge bonfires but to be honest, it is not so wise to have if the summer is dry, who knows how well that fire will spread with some help from the wind 🙂 Anyway, the midsummer pole is dressed and risen early in the day and later in the day people will start dancing around it. My favorite song is the little frogs and it is quite fun to see grown up jump like little frogs around the pole 🙂 Another favorite is of course the priest’s little crow who drove a car by himself and we all know that is a pretty difficult task for a crow so he slides here and there until he ends up in the ditch and of course that’s what all dancing will do too 🙂
Photo comes from: http://www.grottanfredriksdal.se/?page_id=332
- The bog ladies had had fires during the night.
It doesn’t take a lot of dirty imagination to see what the midsummer pole really is 🙂 and lots of magic is connected to it. The pole is usually made as a big cross and at the end of each side of the cross hang wreaths, those wreaths were important to save because when winter arrived it was important to put in the bath, that would keep You healthy for the rest of the winter and that was very important since they didn’t have any antibiotics. Even though the night is very short here at this time of year it still was important to keep ones eyes open just in case any of the beings we have here would come too close. They were especially active this coming night. A common troll was no big problem, it seems they usually were good friends with humans (and no our trolls don’t burst if the sun hits them or become stone. They also look very much like us with the exception of the long fury tail). A mountain troll however is a nasty piece of work and they would most likely kidnap any human getting to close. They are however easy to see because of their size and they are also rather ugly).
This is how normal trolls look like here. The painter was John Bauer and this painting comes from the boom series Amongst gnomes and trolls. This is about a changeling, the troll mother (to the left) wanted of course the best for her daughter so she swapped babies with a queen. Her daughter was anything but nice though 🙂
This however is a Mountain troll, shrewd but not too intelligent. This is also a John Bauer painting.
Young girls had their best chance of knowing who they would marry this night. They had to, totally quiet until they fell asleep, pass seven (or nine depending on where one lived) fences and pick seven (or nine) flowers to put under their pillow. If they managed to do that they would dream of their husband to be. One way to make sure one would be healthy all year long was to roll around in the midsummer’s morning dew, naked of course. The dew had lots of magical powers so people collected it too in empty jars just in case someone got seriously ill. This was of course the night it was important to collect as much healing herbs as possible, preferable with lots of dew on them. In some places they drank spring. They had beforehand cleaned out a spring in the forest or where ever it might be and during the night they went to the spring and drank the water, that would also secure good health they thought. Naturally that could be a problem because of the spring nymph. If they didn’t sacrifice to the nymph the effect would be quite the opposite.
I woke up at 2 am last night while almost successfully trying to cough up my lungs over the bed. My throat had been so swollen for a few das that if affected my ears but suddenly I could feel the swelling get smaller, I got my hearing back again 🙂 and my fever vanished and has stayed away all day! I still have that nasty coughing and I’m pretty sure it will stay for at least a few days more. I would feel alive again if it not had been for the rather high temperature outside together with over 95% humidity. It feels like I’m walking in a steam bath 🙂 🙂 An hour ago they predicted rain and thunderstorms but now they say mostly sunny and no thunder at all 🙂 I don’t care because I’ll most likely just sit on my sofa doing nothing. The beekeepers wanted me to come over but I don’t have any energy to do anything 🙂
The four last ones, for this time, taken with the Kiev4.
It is time to make a pot of tea I think and perhaps I’ll repot some plants with too small pots but I doubt it 🙂
Have a nice midsummer’s eve!
The fairies were dancing.
Fairies dancing above the water or they could just be mist rising when the sun is heating up the cold water 🙂
It is a cold but sunny morning here and we were out walking as soon as the sun started to rise above the horizon. The frost cover wasn’t as thick that I had thought, the below freezing degrees started already yesterday evening. The absence of wind made it much nicer that it was to be honest.
Here are a few more photos from our walk yesterday.
I do like the old outhouse attached to the shed 🙂
The rain they had predicted for today is now moved to Sunday, that means I’ll have to mow the lawn no matter if I want to or not 🙂 If I wait another week the grass will be so long that my mower won’t manage to cut it and who knows if we’ll have sunshine next week, they are wobbly enough to predict the weather just a day ahead so just imagine how bad it is when they try to do it for a week 🙂
I shouldn’t have slept that long yesterday even if I most likely needed it. I had problems falling asleep and I woke up just after 4 am too but I did feel relaxed so it was a good sleep the little I got. I can’t say we have daylight already at that time now but it sure shows that the day is close. Today the sun went up at 5:32 am and soon we won’t have much night at all here and further north they won’t have it at all since the sun will stay above the horizon 24/7.
This hare came suddenly jumping towards us and it could look like she was a bit insane risking her life like that but it was really a smart move. We were probably standing very close to her young ones and she would know that she could lure us away from them and then run away from us.
Lots of birds are singing and we heard a deer warn about something with is odd barking but we didn’t see any other animals today. We walked to the clean creek but it was even too cold for Sune to take a bath today, I even saw some ice at the edges of the water. Mist “pillars” were rising by the little lake and according to folklore that’s fairies dancing before the day starts. Fairies are actually quite nasty beings, they love to give children diseases and they might even kill them if they want to.
The wind has started to blow some so I guess the grass soon will have dried up enough for me to mow it. I better check all the electric cords so they still work, I had problems with one of them last summer if memory serves me right. I think I’ll have time for a pot of tea before mowing though 🙂
This and the rest of the photos comes from this mornings walk.
Have a great day!
It has been quite pleasant.
The day started out slightly foggy and drizzly, the fog gave up but the drizzle kept on until early afternoon. It has been warm though and the wind has been rather weak so it has been pleasant to take walks anyway. I had planned on doing some repotting of plants but instead a took a nap, an hour and a half long nap and the only reason I woke up was because of a telemarketer. I was actually quite happy she called so I finally woke up but not so happy that I bought anything from her 🙂
I have tried to find any folklore about the beings and their activities at Easter but have found almost nothing, only the witches seems to have been active this holiday. I guess however they are out and about like always though even if humans were more concentrated on scaring witches. I did however find a lot of sites about the old Norse believes and can dig in to that if You wish to know more. The Norse beliefs (or Asa tron as we call it) is a growing religion here though even if few say it out loud yet. Almost all swedish names for the days in the week comes from the Norse gods. Monday and Saturday sort of linked to it too since Monday is the Moon’s day (it was pulled across the sky by the horse Rimfaxe) and the sun was pulled across the sky by the horse Skinfaxe).
Tuesday (Tisdag in Swedish) is Tyr’s day, he was the son Of Oden. Wednesday (Onsdag in Swedish) is Oden’s day. Thursday (Torsdag in Swedish) is Thor’s day (His name in swedish is Tor) and Friday is Freya’s day (She’s called Freja in Swedish), Saturday however has nothing to do with any beliefs, it is the day for baths 🙂 Saturday is called Lördag in Swedish and to löga is to take a bath in old Swedish 🙂
I had high hopes of seeing cranes by the little lake today but there wasn’t a single bird of any kind there 🙂
It is time to shave off all the hair on my head again, it doesn’t matter how much I wash my hair, I can still find powder paint if I scratch on my skull 🙂
Instead I found the cranes just a few hundred meters (much the same in yards) away from my cottage. Unfortunately my camera prefered to focus on the trees 🙂
Have a great day!
Tonight they fly to the big party.
Old photos again today. I have a few new ones in the camera but I just didn’t have the energy to get them in to my computer 🙂
Tonight is the night when the witches flies to Blåkulla to have a party with the devil, at least according to old folklore. We actually call them påskkärringar which directly translated is Easter hags but the word kärring actually means my loved one in Swedish so it is hard to translate it good 🙂 Anyhow, tonight is the night. Blåkulla is most likely an island by the east coast of Sweden and its real name is Blå Jungfrun (The Blue Maiden). Naturally most of You think that witches fly by broom but not all do, many actually fly on an upside-down cow 🙂 Rather practical if one gets thirsty on the way 🙂
Three from the Zeiss camera.
Anything could actually work to fly to Blåkulla so to make sure nothing one owned would be used by the nearest witch they put away anything they thought could be used in sheds or barns and then they painted white crosses on the doors. But it isn’t only women flying there to be honest, there are also men and quite a lot of children too. One way to at least make life difficult for the witches was to, on Easter eve when they were flying back home again, start huge bonfires and use fire works. Today most of us think of the animals and the environment since there usually are lots of bad thing in the fireworks like led so we don’t use that much of it, there’s even talk about forbidding it totally and I won’t mind if that happens even if I think it is beautiful.
Three from the Kiev.
One could say that this is the Swedish (and Finnish) Halloween because today in the eastern parts of Sweden kids dress up like witches or wizards and goes from house to house to get candy, we in the western parts do it on Easter eve instead. I doubt it will happen here though because the kids here are either too young or too shy 🙂 I don’t have any candy at home anyway so I do hope no one comes here 🙂 I will however look up in the sky to see if any witches fly over my cottage, I won’t start a bonfire or use fireworks but I will wave to them and wish them a happy easter 🙂
and three from the Retinette.
It is time to make something to eat. I’m not sure if I’ll just make a few sandwiches or if I should have a piece of the Småländska cheesecake (slightly different from the American one) I bought yesterday 🙂
and three from the folder “For a rainy day”.
Have a great day!
I got one chanse and I took it :-)
We started early this morning and were out before 6:30. We didn’t have any fog as I had hoped but the sky was almost totally clear so we would get sunshine. A bit cold so I wore a sweater beneath the jacket, I thought it is better to be a bit warm than to freeze. How stupid I was, it is better to freeze a bit because one will get warm just by moving around and wearing an extra sweater and at the same time being fried by the sun is like walking in hell 🙂 and that does not help with the temper when two leashed dog do what they can to tangle us all in to a lot of small trees and bushes 🙂
They were of course only leashed in the nature reserve, none of them have much of hunting instinct but a nature reserve with almost no smell of humans but loads of smells from animals can start hidden talents and that is something I really don’t want 🙂 We reached bridge three without and just as I walked across if one of the boards broke, thankfully it was close to the bank so it never fell down into the creek. I walked slowly backwards to land again and was thinking of going back home but then I figured that since it held enough when I stood at the middle of it I really should be safe walking across it. The creek isn’t deep but it is muddy and the water is a bit too chilly for my taste 🙂
Already here we could hear the Black Grouse roosters trying to impress the hens. There are very many out there now, it isn’t that long ago they were almost extinct in this area.
The sun warmed up the ground a bit too fast so long parts were more or less swampy, even where the path led us right. It was even worse when we reached the lake. It was impossible to go where we had been last week and that was quite annoying since I could hear cranes just nearby. I looked between all the trees towards the lake and suddenly there one was, a crane. There were too many trees to use the autofocus and I knew I wouldn’t have especially much time to get a photo. I focus between the trees as good as I could and suddenly the crane showed again. As soon as I got the photo the crane was gone again. We did try to walk around the southern part of the lake because I could see a small boat on the other side.
This lake is known as what we call poor lake. It isn’t very nutritious so either all the fish in the lake is tiny (we call those fish for thousand brothers, there are loads of them but all are tiny) or there are a few but rather big fishes in the lake. I did however find some folklore about it. It is said to have a powerful being living in it, something we call Sjörå (a kind of lake nymph), she’s also called the Lake Lady. She is unlike many of our beings not one to kill humans just out of blood thirst, unless one make her angry of course by for instance we killing or destroying the animals and surroundings. You will understand that it is her You see because she usually sits on stone in the water, combing her beautiful but green hair.
Here You can see how one of the boards are much lower than the other. I have to admit I got really scared when I heard the cracking sound 🙂
The ground was pretty good until we came out to the more open spaces in the bog.
She has a somewhat strange herd of cattle, they are striped and the cattle usually grace around the lake. If one should come too close to them the cattle then will run straight into the lake and vanish. If one would fish in that lake and happens to catch a big pike it is best to put it out in the water again because it could actually be one of those striped cows. She will help anyone who will sacrifice anything to her, like a few coins or silver. She will then make sure one will get a good catch if fishing in the lake or warn if bad weather is approaching. Make her angry though and she will most likely drown the one doing that. She also dislikes the being living in rivers and creeks which we call Näcken (and also the Creek Horse which also lives close to rivers and creeks(Bäckahästen), so it can be a good idea to be a good friend to her. Näcken and Bäckahästen will kill You just for fun.
We never managed to get closer to the lake than this. There is one path leading to the lake from another direction and I think I’ll try that one later this year.
I got one chance to get a photo of a crane and I took it 🙂
I tried to reach the boat but the surroundings were just too swampy today.
I won’t go there tomorrow because it was just too wet now (unless the night gets seriously cold so the ground freeze again) so this was the last time this spring I could go there because from Monday until the early summer this will be a bird sanctuary and no one is allowed to be there. The bird sanctuary actually starts here in the village so unless one is going straight home to someone one knows here one can’t wander around as one wish. We who live here are of course allowed to walk around but not out on the bog. We were out for over three hours and as soon as I started to relax all my muscles got cramps 🙂 It didn’t matter what I did it just refused to let go for a very long time 🙂
It is time to take another cup of tea, then some laundry because I had no clean t-shirts left and after that a nap I think.
Have a great day!
One photo taken with the Retinette.
It is another world out there.
I really need one of those maps orienteers use so I better know where I am while walking on the bog. Not that I was lost but I did try to find where the lake is and I know I was close today but I should most likely have walked a hundred meters or two (much the same in yards) by the creek before I walked out on the bog. I have watched maps here on the net but they don’t show the creeks especially well and then it’s impossible to know where one really is.
We didn’t get any fog as they had predicted and the sun shoved up much later than predicted too but there was no wind so it was quite nice anyway. Nova thought it would be a good idea to get down to the badgers den, twice but I managed to stop her in time :-)Badgers are nice animals but I doubt even they would like a dog visit while they were sleeping through the winter 🙂
I have no idea what scent those two dogs smelled when we went out on the bog but they started behaving crazy so I had to leash them. Not that it helped much because both still tried to follow the track after what ever it was that had passed 🙂 As soon as we had passed bridge number three to the other side again they started to behave normal again and chased each other all the way home again. The sun broke finally through the clouds when we were on our way home and it has kept on shining all day long.
We call these huge rocks for giant throws. Old folklore says it was giants who threw them when they heard the church bells sound, they really don’t like that sound. So far they’ve always missed all churches 🙂
Later we went out to the bog again but to where we usually walk. To be honest, I didn’t think the ice would carry me but it did, lots more trees here that shadows the ground and much less grass that weakens the ice. It is so nice out there, no sounds from the outside world reach us, it is a totally different world out there. Today I heard how the male Jay sounds when he wants to impress his female and I have to say it sounded very exotic. I didn’t understand what bird it was until I saw it. I thought they only screamed like they always do 🙂 The Swedish name for the Jay is Nut screamer 🙂
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
I’ve done the laundry and it is now hanging outside to dry, doubt it will though since I hung it on the north side of the cottage and there’s no wind at all. Doesn’t matter as long as it get that smell before I bring it in to dry instead 🙂 It is time to give the dogs and cats their food and after that I might get something myself 🙂 By the way! I only have twenty percent space left here so I’ll soon move again to a new blog with much the same name. I’ll tell You several times before I leave this place and I’ll give You the address several times before I do too.
Have a great day!
Only a half day more.
The day started sunny and nice but now the rain pours down and the wind roars over the trees. For once these low pressures comes when it is dark and no one is outside anyway 🙂 I feel like going to bed really early just so tomorrow ill come faster and the yule vacation too 🙂 I need to write a list today so I can buy the last things I need for my yule dinner, or yulebord as we call it. I’ll start with the ham tomorrow so I can grill it on yule eve morning with eggs, mustard and bread crumbs.
I’ll buy the food in the grocery store in the village where I work, I want to wish all the employees a good yule. After that I’ll drive to Falköping to buy fire logs, they say we’ll get a few days with arctic winds after yule and I don’t want ton drive anywhere during my vacation if I don’t have to. I might bring a camera with me and take a few photos while I’m there, if I remember it tomorrow morning 🙂
All gnomes aren’t land bound, they have a relative that lives on ships. I assume they only live on tree ships but I guess that any ship with wood in them somewhere can have one. These gnomes Skepsnissar (ship gnomes, well I don’t know how to translate nisse so gnome it is 🙂 ) seems to follow the trees that have been cut down to build the ship. This can become a problem because sometimes more than one skeppsnisse comes with the timber. Gnomes aren’t very social to be honest so they would start fighting as soon as they found out that they weren’t the only one.
These fights could sometimes become so violent that the entire ship sank but one skipper once stopped such a fight by asking why they behaved like they did. The gnomes answered that they fought about who would remain as the ships guard. One of the gnomes said that he had guarded the timber they had used to make the keelson from so he therefore thought he would be the guard of the ship too. The skipper then said that he could be the guard of this ship but the other gnome would be the guard of the next ship would build and so the fight stopped. My thought on this is, what if another gnome followed the timber to the next ship? 🙂 🙂
It is time to make something to eat and this windy and rainy evening sort of demands me to have some hot cocoa too 🙂
Have a great day!
There’s always something showing what they are.
Only one and a half day left before the yule vacation starts 🙂 I will work on Monday the 28th but otherwise I won’t start working until Monday the 4th of January. This is the shortest yule vacation I’ve had in years, normally I wouldn’t have started to work until the 11th but we just have too much to do this winter and that is of course a good thing even if I’d rather be at home 🙂
If I look at the weather predictions on the net it says a cloudy but rain free yule even but if I look at the prediction on tv they say a sunny yule eve and it is the same company that makes the predictions 🙂 🙂 🙂 I guess that’s one way to at least get one prediction right 🙂
There are actually a few different kinds of gnomes here in Scandinavia. The one we think of firstly is of course the house gnome (or farm gnome) but there are at least two other kinds here, one who stays on ships Wooden ships of course, not metal ones) and then we have the Mill Man or the Stream Man. Scandinavia has lots of streams and they have often been used as a power source, especially for mills where they grinded flour.
Naturally a place like that has to have a gnome too and they live down at the wheel housing close to the water wheel. Like their relatives the house gnomes they help the miller to keep the order at the mill and make sure that the miller does his work at the right time. If for instance the miller gets the idea in his head that he should grind at night, the Mill Man stops the wheel from spinning because he is like the house gnome extremely strong.
The reasons to why he does this can vary naturally, he likes to have it quiet around him in the evenings because he is like the water sprite “Näcken” very good in playing the violin. Other times he might stop the wheel just because he is in a nasty mood. But one can make him happy again by either give him a sliver coin or some snuff (we call it snus) which is a tobacco product he really likes a lot. But it can also be because he feels lonely and want to have company, that is something the house gnome never would do, the house gnome accepts humans but really don’t like them.
Like house gnomes they are rather small and look like grumpy old men (they are only male, never female) but one can always recognise a Mill Man because there’s always something that shows he’s magic, like having an extremely long nose or perhaps only one eye in the forehead 🙂
It is time for some food and cocoa I think.
Have a great day!
Those eggs are hard to find.
I don’t know why the sky turned out this blue in the photo because it was definitely dark grey.
The day has been rather dark and gloomy and the promised fog did arrive, on the other side of the valley. I think I can say valley because on one side it’s the big mountain and I live on the other side and the ground is slightly lower down in between. Still, the mountain peak is 200 meters (219 yards) higher up than this village is. So here I could see the fog clearly but we got as best some thick haze on this side.
We’ve almost reached 10C (50F) today, so it was a bit too warm to wear a winter jacket but still a bit to chilly to only wear a sweater, it could have been sweater weather if it hadn’t been for the wind. I can’t feel much of here around the cottage but as soon as I walk up the slope I live at the bottom of the wind hits and it gets a bit chilly. No such problem in the forest though so I should just have left the jacket at home.
One of the beings we have in our folklore and one I don’t think many know about is the Spiritus, I know I didn’t know anything about it when I grew up. The Spiritus (also called Spertus) came from hell and could bring wealth and success to its owner. So if a person knew a lot of black magic he could “easily” get one. One way was to tie a human leg on a hook, go to a creek and fish there for three nights in a row and on the third night the ugly little creature, much looking like an insect most of the times would follow the leg up out of the water.
Another way was to brood a roosters egg in the arm pit, according to legends here roosters lay one egg every year. Personally I doubt that though 🙂 Anyway, when the egg hatched it would be a Spiritus that crawled out of it. The Spiritus lived in a beautiful carved box and the only thing the owner had to do was to feed it with a big spit each morning but it had to be a spit on an empty stomach (the owner could not even drink any water). If he forgot to do it while having an empty stomach the Spiritus would go back to hell and punish the former owner severely.
The owner would have a good life with lots of money as long as the spiritus lived and it was best not to be too greedy and keep it for too long, because if the Spiritus died the owner would follow it to hell. It could however be sold two times and it was important to know that because the third owner would have no chance to avoid hell since he couldn’t sell the being. So when the third owner was about to die the Spiritus would leave its box and place itself on the chest of the owner and in that way claim him as his own and to hell. The two previous owners however would still have a chance to get in to heaven.
I think I’ll continue to try the lottery instead 🙂 🙂 and to be honest how do one recognise if the egg comes from a hen or a rooster and human legs can’t be found that easily now days 🙂
Have a great day!
We don’t see them much any more.
Two nights with very low temperatures and high humidity made the ice on the car windows extra hardened and absolutely impossible to scrape of 🙂 I managed to get bits and pieces of the windows ice-free and had to stop before I left the village to scrape the rest when the car had become warmer 🙂 But the night was absolutely wind free so it didn’t feel that cold to be honest.
It has already started to turn towards warmer again, tomorrow and Wednesday will stay around 0C (32F) and after that it will get rather warm again and windy too. The long-term prognosis says a rainy Christmas. I don’t mind, I grew up by the coast where rainy Christmases were rather common. But I have to admit that it would be nice if it did get a bit chilly instead so the ground froze and killed lots of ticks and it easier to keep my home clean when the mud is frozen solid 🙂
Home sweet home.
We don’t see many giants here any more, they were common back in the days before christianity came to the Scandinavian countries. In the old Norse gods time they were the sworn enemies to the Norse gods and were constantly fighting the old gods. There were at least three kinds of giants back then, the Frost giants who lived in the kingdom Nifelheim, the giants in Utgård who were skilled in magic and the Fire giants who lived in the red-hot Muspelheim. The world was actually created from the first giant Ymer who was killed by Odin and his two brothers Vile and Ve. This is their Scandinavian names and they differ some from what they are called in English.
But christianity arrived and since they can’t stand the sound of church bells, it is like knives cutting in their ears, they moved to the northern wilderness here in Scandinavia. We have lots of very big stones lying here anf´d there in our countries and they were thrown by giants towards churches so the clocks would stop making any sounds. They must aim poorly though because it seems none ever hit any church 🙂 Giants are as their name says huge, they are also very strong and a bit stupid to be honest and very clumsy.
The Swedish name for a giant is Jätte and that words original meaning is big eater and that has made their relationship with us humans a bit strained since they ate all the food that could be found, including humans :-)So if You ever would meet a giant, keep the distance if it is one of those that eat humans 🙂 Some have however managed to stay away from human flesh and want us no evil even if they by mistake might step on one of us 🙂
It is time for something to eat and today I’ll have cocoa, after all I could still see some frost outside when I opened the door for Sune 🙂
Have a great day!
You better have slaughtered Your pig today.
Today is a big day here in Sweden because today we celebrate the catholic saint Lucia, a rather odd tradition since we have been a strictly Lutheran protestant nation since the middle of the 1500’s. The tradition became popular amongst the common people around 1920 but it had been celebrated more or less the same way aristocratic families since the 1700’s. So all over this country they’ve had Lucia processions where they sing yule songs and we usually have coffee, tea or julmust and eat gingerbread and a bun we call Lussekatt. Lussekatt is a wheat bun usually spiced with cardamom, saffron and sometimes raisins. Here’s a link to different videos of our Luciatåg.
But we’ve had a tradition to celebrate this day since way in to the middle ages. Back then December 13th was when we had the winter solstice so that was when the night was as longest and all the beings were as strongest. It was the start of the Yule and it was best for everyone if all chores for yule had been done by then, like the slaughter of the pig for example. If one hadn’t done all chores there was a risk that Lussi, a female demon being (well here in southern Sweden it was a male one instead), would pay a visit to the home. She would punish the family who wasn’t ready to celebrate yule properly.
Lots of Trumpet swans were flying around between the lakes this morning.
She would also come down the chimney and take children who hadn’t behaved good and those children would never be seen again. But all beings were extra powerful this long night, so people would stay at home and very few would sleep at all that night, one never knew if a troll would try to get in to the home. Trolls could swap their children to a human one ( I guess it was because they thought humans had better homes and wanted the best for their children) and that could be a big problem since troll kids never could behave properly 🙂 One could think that humans would be able to see a difference in their own children and troll children but unless it is a mountain troll trolls look very much like us humans and actually behaves much like us too but there’s one big difference and that is that trolls have tails. I think that at least I would have seen that tail pretty early 🙂
If one should notice that the child was swapped one way to get ones own child back is to threaten the troll child with spanking. No one loves its own child more than a troll mother and she would know as soon as the threat came and quickly swap the children again. A troll is never cruel to its children and no matter how nice that home was they would never allow anything bad to happen to them. But more about troll in a later post.
Surprise! I rarely show humans here 🙂
Today has been quite wonderful but rather cold. I woke up to a world covered in frost and we went out before the sun even was close to rising above the horizon. I wanted to be sure to see the sunrise so we started by walking in to the village this morning too, only because I knew there would be no hunters in the forest today. I had brought the old Edixa with me too but half way home it was so co,d that the old camera froze and wouldn’t work 🙂 So we went home, left that one and brought the analog Nikon instead and that one worked perfectly. So off to the forest and creek we went. Unfortunately the ground wasn’t that deep frozen as I had wished for so we couldn’t walk up-stream as I had hoped, perhaps it will be by next weekend even if it will be warmer by then again.
We walked out to the bog on our afternoon walk and to the small creek we usually follow when we’re there. It was a bit difficult to reach it though since all the debris after the tree chopping still is there. Tomorrow’s work again because I didn’t win the lottery this time either 🙂 The fire is burning in the stove and the radiator is on in the dog house, tonight will be rather chilly.
Have a great Saint Lucia’s day!
You know it rains a lot when You can se waves on the road.
Yes it did rain a lot on my way home after work and the wind was pretty strong too. I have to say that I got a bit surprised when I saw waves in the puddles on the road 🙂 not huge ones naturally but big enough to show in the light from the cars. It is calm here around my cottage since the winds comes from west south-west. The roar from the wind did wake me up during the night though.
So what to do if You suddenly meet a being? They can just ignore You but it is always best to be safe than sorry and have some protection or bribes in the pockets. As I wrote before, steel is something they can’t stand, they lose their power and if they touch it they’ll get burned. scissors made from steel is a great thing to put on the chest of a dead person in the coffin, that prevents him or her from becoming for instance a ghost. Silver is another thing that can be deadly for some beings.
Here in southern Sweden they used to make amulets, with a cross on it, from silver. These should be forged during three Thursday nights and the silver should be begged from nine different locations (they sure didn’t make things easy, did they 🙂 ). These amulets, called Ellakors, protected the owner from fairies who loved to give us humans diseases. Silver is also the only thing that can kill a Bjära. A bjära was an animal used by a witch to steal milk from a neighbors cows and they were rather difficult to create. Here in southern Sweden it usually was a hare.
But silver could also help You in other ways, like if a mountain troll tried to kidnap You and bring You inside its home in the mountain silver could be paid as a ransom and it would let You go (until next time of course 🙂 ). If You threw some silver in a lake or river before fishing the water nymph who lived in that water then most likely would help You to get lots of fish or at least not try to drown You 🙂
It is time to get something to eat and then some tv before bed.
Have a great day!
What is their origin?
I always take one test photo when we’re going on a walk and usually in this direction, so I know how to adjust the camera. This morning, long after sunrise, I had to use ISO 4000 and I still had to brighten up all photos.
The wind has calmed down, I would lie if I said otherwise but not especially much. It still roars out there and it still comes from west so I don’t notice it especially much besides the sound of it. It rains slightly too but if one can find a place where the wind doesn’t reach while walking it’s fairly nice out there because it is warm.
I picked up my book about the Nordic beings I have and it says that there are many explanations about these beings origin. Some say they are old gods who prevailed over mountains and lakes but as time went by the were forgotten and christianity took over. They never disappeared though, they just live a languishing life in the shadows and because of that they really don’t like us that much.
Others says they are the children of Adam’s first wife, Lilith and her husband Alför (can’t find any info about him though). Lilith was a very independent woman, to independent for Adam, so god banished her and created Eve instead. He did like Lilith though and all her offspring are now those we call beings, like trolls, wights and fairies as a few examples. Another story says that one day when Eve was bathing her children god passed by. She felt a bit ashamed about the children she yet hadn’t bathed so she hid them behind her back. God who isn’t always a fair god said that “what humans tries to hide from god should also be hidden from humans. So the clean ones stayed as humans while the dirty ones became our beings.
The gusts are still so hard that it is difficult to not get fuzzy photos.
A fourth story say that Lucifer and other angels were jealous of how god loved humans and started a war with god. He got tired of them and sent those angels to hell where they became the devil and his minions. But in the commotion many other angels, who wasn’t a part of the rebellion fell to earth from the sky. They didn’t belong in hell but couldn’t go back to the paradise since god had closed the gates, so they spread all over the world becoming guardians of nature.
It has rained a lot now, this ditch is very full 🙂 Normally it’s hard to see at all.
I wonder if they still use that satellite dish? This was all I photographed this morning.
In the Norse mythology they are simply explained as Black elves and Light elves. The Light elves belonged to Freyr and were beautiful and the Black elves were ugly dwarfs who lived in Svartalfheim, were fantastic blacksmiths and made lots of magic objects for the gods like Thor’s hammer. What ever they are they are usually not fond of us humans. It is always best not to get any help from either of them because the price is usually quite high but if one can help any of them the reward is usually very good too. The absolutely best way to protect oneself from them is edged steel.
Some from the folder “For a rainy day”.
Steel burns like fire in them and the best is actually a pair of siccors, since when it is opened up becomes a cross and the beings don’t like anything resembling christianity. That’s why they don’t like the sound of church bells either. The beings were ones told that since they don’t have any soul they won’t goto heaven when they die and that’s why they don’t like christianity. But who would I be to say they don’t have a soul? They say dogs don’t have it either and I’m absolutely sure dogs have one, I’m more sure of that than that humans actually have one 🙂
Lets start with a nasty one today, the Askefroa (The Ash tree Lady or Ash Tree Wife). She lives as the name says in an Ash tree and if one doesn’t behave as she thinks one should she would make that person very sick and if one in any way hurt the tree it would be deadly. In some places people didn’t dare go near an Ash tree after dark. One can of course appease her by every Ash Wednesday, before sunrise, sacrifice some water over the tree roots and at the same time say I sacrifice to You, So now You won’t hurt us and this should be done by the village elder.
And four from an old Minolta.
It is time to go outside into the storm again, the dogs are a bit restless again.
Have a great day!
Soon Yule starts.
No new photos again until tomorrow.
I’ve ordered the yule cards and I like the photo but I sort of would have liked something more colorful. Well I could have saved some that I like from earlier this year so I really have no right to be annoyed about that 🙂
The warmer weather they promised us in the earlier is now gone, as I said the other day. Now the temperature drops after every new prediction they make 🙂 So far they still are above 0C (32F) but there’s time to change that too 🙂 and it looks like we’ll get a storm after the weekend with very strong gusts, thankfully it will come from west so I will most likely not notice much of it here in my cottage, my neighbors on the other hand will most likely get the full force from it.
The first of Advent is this Sunday and that’s a sort of big thing here, it is the beginning of Christmas or Jul (Yule) as we say here. I will of course buy lots of Julmust and gingerbread, a must at advent first 🙂 I think it is time for me to dig deep in to our folk-lore too, I usually do that this time of year. Now begins the time when the beings are out walking around a lot since it is dark so much of the day and this is also a time when they are as most powerful.
Beings here are usually not especially nice and lots of the fairy tales that have become Disney films have very different endings over here. The little Mermaid for instance dies a horrible death, Sleeping Beauty is in the original story actually raped while sleeping, by a king, and wakes up after giving birth to two sons (the queen didn’t like that at all 🙂 ), that’s not a story one tells children at bedtime 🙂 Cinderella’s step sisters are actually trying to make the glass shoe fit by cutting of parts of their feet 🙂 One cuts of her big toe and the other her heel. That was actually a story I red myself as very young 🙂
Fairies loves to give little children diseases and tends to kill them as well, gnomes can help but also burn down our homes and the list of bad thing those beings can do is endless 🙂 Our trolls however isn’t especially bad (unless they are mountain trolls, they are always bad). Most trolls look just like us, the thing that separates us is their tail, normally they hide it well though 🙂
And here are three Minolta x-300 photos.
and one from the analog Nikon.
It is time for something to eat and then some dog belly scratching before I go to bed.
Have a great day!
The laziest thunder ever.
I often find Bertil and Orvar sleeping close together.
I went to the doctor again today with my aching shoulder and he took a look at it and fetched that nasty long syringe. It looked like it would go through my entire arm 🙂 Now my shoulder really hurts, a lot! The other doctor gave me another shot first that numbed the shoulder, this doctor must not have known one could do such a thing 🙂
The clouds were so dark they almost became dark blue.
Finally they’ll build a bridge down by the creek (where I fell down that sink hole 🙂 ).
He did manage to go in to the joint and hit a few nerves on the way, I could feel it down to my thumb and he sounded surprised when I told him how much it ached 🙂 Before I could find a sort of pain-free way to hold my arm, now that seems impossible. I really can’t work having this pain so I went home for the rest of the day, I do hope this will be over by tomorrow.
I drove to the garage on my way home to pay the bill, it wasn’t that bad to be honest. Yes I would rather have had that money for something else but it could have been worse. It costed 1600 Swedish kronor and that would be something like $ 178 US. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been much worse so this was sort of a good bill :-)’
The White Rose of Finland.
Mock orange.
Clematis integrifolia.
My tomatoes need sunshine and lots of it!
I went out with the dogs as soon as I came home and half way to the bog I heard the thunder. It isn’t nice to be outside in a forest when thunder arrives so we walked home rather quickly. It turns out it was the only time, so far, the thunder could be heard and that’s over an hour ago 🙂 It is raining though so I’m glad we went home anyway.
The rest of todays photos are from yesterday.
The mist is said to be fairies dansing.
We had thunder here yesterday too and it must have been the laziest thunder we’ve ever had here. I looked at the same spot in the sky for almost half an hour and the cloud almost didn’t move at all during that time. It almost didn’t manage to send any flashes either, one every twenty minutes or so but the closest one was just outside the village.
Lots of them dansing around yesterday.
It is time for something to eat, I haven’t had anything since 5 am and now it’s 1:36 pm. I’ll call the physiotherapist tomorrow, the doctor said that it would be my best chance to get rid of the pain in my shoulder for good since I can’t take any pills. It’s just to call and then we’ll agree on a day I can go there. It’s nice when it’s easy for once.
Have a great day!
Midsummer.
This photo I’ve borrowed from Nordiska museet (The Nordic Museum).
I’ve never understood why we now days celebrate midsummer, why are we celebrating that we no turn towards darker and colder days again, especially since our summers are as short and usually chilly as they are. But old traditions die hard as we say here 🙂 Back in the days this was a time to celebrate fertility for livestock, fields and humans. Today it’s mostly a time to have fun, eat a lot of food, usually get nasty drunk and there will be a lot of kids born in nine months from now 🙂
It was foggy up on the mountain this morning.
This morning lots of people will go outside, no matter what kind of weather we’re having, to collect lots of flowers and birch twigs. Those will later on be used to dress the Midsummer pole. Some of it will also be used to make wreaths to wear on our heads. Around 1 pm people then will start to dance around the pole to songs like “The little frogs”, The priests little crow and other traditional songs sung both now and at Christmas when they all dance around the Yule Spruce. After the dancing most people will return home to start eating.
It looks like it will be a good cherry year.
We Swedes don’t have that much variation when it comes to holiday food. You will always find pickled herring at any holiday table here (we tend to have a smorgasbord on holidays), You’ll also find meatballs, prince sausages, salmon in many variations and a few different salads. Then of course there’s always one seasonal thing too, like ham at Christmas and lots of eggs at Easter 🙂 If You could get a look at our tables You would very quickly see that Swedes eat anything that is pickled, we must have over hundred variations of pickled herring for instance. personally I just can’t eat it so I have prince sausages and meatballs instead 🙂
Sometimes I’m surprised that the Roe deer isn’t extinct 🙂 I had to shout out loud to get this ones attention 🙂 I didn’t want to scare it by just walking by but I’m not even sure it would have noticed us if we had passed it on the road 🙂
Can You see what flowers are most dominant now 🙂
Tonight however is one of the most magical nights there is and lots of the beings are out and about. I don’t think our trolls become stone or burst when being hit by sunlight, that would be rather difficult since we actually have sunlight here from time to time and the sun now is up for over 18 hours and our trolls are much like us humans with farms of their own and really can’t cope by just being up while the sun is away during summer. The mountain trolls however is different, big, shrewd and a bit evil as well but they live far from here 🙂
So I wouldn’t be worried if I met a troll while being out walking tonight, I’m not even sure if I would recognise one since they usually keep their tails hidden but I could of course try to see their ears, which are slightly pointy. I would however stay away from many others like fairies, nasty little things that loves to spread diseases and death to especially children. The Lantern Man would have problems luring me out on the bog since it is so bright outside all day now 🙂 For the ones having an Ash tree on their property it might be a good thing to sacrifice something for the tree, like water if the summer is dry or fertilizers now when summer is wet. That’s a good way to keep the Ash tree lady away from the home, she isn’t nice to have around otherwise.
This is the last photo from this morning, the rest will be a mix of older ones.
If You are unmarried and wants to know who Your future spouse will be You can get to know that this night. Just go out and pick seven or nine flowers (depending on which tradition one follows) and climb seven or nine fences and (be quiet all the time untill you fall asleep) put those flowers under Your pillow during the night and You will dream about the coming one. While You are out and about at night You might as well collect as much dew as You possibly can since it has healing powers that You might need during our long and dark winters.
One way to collect a lot of dew is to take the wreath You made earlier today, drag it in the wet grass, drie the wreath and save it for that Christmas bath. Put the wreath in the bathtub and then join it for a long nice bath, that will help You staying healthy through the rest of the winter. The midsummer dew could also help when baking or brewing beer 🙂 this was also the night to collect as much medicinal plants as one could, they would be extra potent if picked this coming night.
These are from the Edixa. I was trying the “new” tele-photo lens and it was a bit tricky to use because I had to wait adjusting the aperture until I was happy with the photo. As son as I adjusted the aperture it was very hard to see through the lens at all 🙂
I would dare to say that today also would be a very good day to plant a Care Tree. A Care Tree is tightly connected to the well-being and fortune to the property one lives at. Different beings can take a home in that tree ( like our gnomes, grumpy old long bearded but very small beings, or Wight’s or guardian spirits) and as long as one doesn’t disturb it, like taking even a single leaf or injure it in any way no harm will come to the home on that property. If, however, one would injure that tree in any way the property and family living there is doomed. I have two Care Trees in my garden, two different Rowans 🙂
I really get a feeling of old times when watching these Edixa photos. I guess both the old camera and to use a film instead of a digital camera brings out that old-time look in the photos.
The Church did try to make this a Christian holiday, that was what they did. They used an old pagan tradition and made it Christian. Here however they failed miserably 🙂 I doubt that anyone who isn’t Christian actually knows that our midsummer also is John the Baptist’s day, to be honest I don’t think many christians know that either 🙂
It is easier to get better photos with the old Hasselblad camera though. Using old cameras is both impractical and expensive but so much more fun 🙂
I didn’t use a tripod for any of these photos and many of them shows the world in a slightly odd angle 🙂
It is time for a short walk again, it doesn’t look like it will rain for a while now so we better get out there while we can 🙂
Have a great Midsummer’s eve!
Yesterday they flew to Blåkulla.
Frost covering everything.
The morning is cold, sunny and wind free so it is quite nice to walk around outside. The cranes makes a wall of sound down by the lake and the Black Grouse’s a much quieter out on the bog. I wanted to take a long walk now when the weather is so nice but I turned back after watching Orvar.
His back legs are very wobbly now and I’ve seen this in his mother and grand mother. Both suffered from lumbar paralysis at the end of their time and now it’s closing in on Orvar. He already get the medicine that could help him with this so I’m afraid the time is closing in now. This can come and go for a while and I hope he’ll get better fast. Orvar himself doesn’t seem to mind that his legs wobbles around though 🙂
Yesterday evening, if we had been watching up in the sky we would have seen a lot of flying objects we normally don’t see. It was all te witches (and warlocks) that started their journey to Blåkulla where they’ll have a party with the devil until they fly home again on Easter eve evening. There are lots of places called Blåkulla here but the “official” place is an island by the east coast called Blå Jungfrun, The Blue Maid. Normally they go by broom and they almost always bring a copper coffee pot and a cat on the broom. Some however travel by a flying cow or a goat 🙂 Here on the west coast we then start huge bonfires on easter eve and have fireworks to scare them from coming home again. Both are now days dying out because people don’t like it when we burn hedgehogs alive and fireworks scare our pets to death.
From yesterday and to easter eve we might also get visits from children dressed like witches (or warlocks now days, thank You Harry Potter. Even boys dressed as witches when I was a kid). Back in the days we draw easter cards ad gave them away for candy and I think they still do that today. What doesn’t kids do for candy 🙂 We have no kids in the village so I didn’t get any candy, I would only have eaten it all myself 🙂
For once I actually caught the sparkling of the frost 🙂 Can You see all the colorful dots towards the bottom of the photo 🙂
It is time for something to eat, I’ve been up four hours and still haven’t had breakfast 🙂 I’ll tell You more about our easter tomorrow.
Have a great day!
Kodak No. 2 Folding Autographic Brownie.
They aren’t too bad after some editing. After all the camera around 96 years old 🙂 I can’t see any light leak in this photo though.
We went out to the bog again today when I came home after work. Sune took a bath in the small creek and the Black birds were singing from the top of the spruces. I stood there for quite some time just listening and smelling the scents and thought that I wouldn’t miss humanity at all if I came home to find I was the only one still around 🙂 I really had no wish to go back home but it was getting cold and even if I love it out there I still don’t want to freeze to death 🙂
Here we have a double exposure 🙂
I forgot to check what distance the camera was set on when I took this photo. So the next photo is almost identical but with the right distance 🙂 That light leak might prehaps be a Bog Lady 🙂
We were in no hurry on our way back and the dogs could take the time they wanted to follow every track they could find. Suddenly four cranes flew above our heads and they started trumpeting as soon as they crossed the fields behind the forest. The dogs were hungry though so they started to hurry homewards and when we passed my neighbor I heard the sounds from a contrabass, she is a musician and practice a lot. Today it was no music from what I could hear but more lots of sounds, sounded rather nice anyway.
The chimney sweeper was here today and finally I can have a fire burning in my stove, I couldn’t yesterday just because he was coming and naturally that was one of our coldest nights this winter 🙂 Tonight will be much the same they say so I’ll have the fire burning for as long as I’m awake today.
Two of the three film rolls I mailed on Tuesday are now developed and I could get the photos on the internet. One of them is the one I took with the old Kodak. They were all over exposed and I have a light leak somewhere in the camera. You can all see it to the bottom right in the photo and I wonder if the light leak then is on the upper left in the camera? The photo gets upside down inside the camera if I remember right but I’m not sure 🙂 I also got one of the Hasselblad film rolls, the one with ISO 800. They turned out pretty good but I’ll start showing them tomorrow. The last film will probably come on the net tomorrow.
It is time to put more fire logs in the stove and them give me something to eat. I think I’ll have cocoa today.
Have a great day!
I wish You all a Good Yule!
This is one of the presents I gor from Joyce! It is so beautiful!
I’m writing this on the evening before Christmas eve, or Julafton as we say in Swedish. I have the tv on and they have a so-called uppesittarkväll on the two biggest networks (not together of course 🙂 ). There’s no good translation for uppesittarkväll but it means they will send a show from the same studios all evening in to the night. I have the PBS channel (TV 1) on and that is actually the most popular network here in Sweden. They cook christmas food from different parts of the world but I think they cook some Swedish ones too. Artists sing popular Christmas songs. There are a few really good artists but some are what I call b-artists, from Sweden Idol and similar shows. They try hard but are sort of out of tune most of the time 🙂 The host is jolly and laughs a lot, all the time actually 🙂 There’s also a man showing fun ways to for instance dry a mobile phone that fell in to water and other odd ideas and tricks 🙂
I had to take several photos to be able to show what was packed in that big package 🙂 Cookies and candy, life is good 🙂
I must admit that I’ve already tried the Bog Frogs 🙂 I mean, that name sort of demands to be tested first since I live just beside this huge bog. They are delicious by the way 🙂 New tea varieties too, can never have to much of that.
I’ll have lost of nice evenings with hot chocolate.
Christmas eve is the big day here in Sweden but I’ve never understood why we have it on Christmas even when almost all others have Christmas day as the big one. There are a few traditions that is a bit more important than others this day, at 3pm Sweden stops because we’re all watching Donald Duck and his friends celebrates Christmas. We have seen the almost exactly same program for over 55 years now. They show short films or snippets from big films and few have anything to do with Christmas to be honest 🙂 When ever they try to show a new film or snippet and removes one of the old ones all hell break loose here. One year they decided to remove Ferdinand the Bull and suddenly someone threatened to put a bomb in the house of Swedish Television 🙂
Is there anything better than a bowl of hot soup when the cold weather sets in, which it will already tomorrow they say.
The dogs love their present! I haven’t given the cats their yet, they are out hunting in the sunshine (which will be gone shortly, don’t need to see any predictions to understand that 🙂
I also got this Hex Sign. This one is the Tree of life and it looks just like old traditional kurbits art here in Sweden and I do like kurbits art! Thank You Joyce!
Most people eat after Disney and we have the same food on our tables no matter what holiday it might be 🙂 but the ham at Christmas is changed to something with eggs at Easter and we have neither on Midsummer which is almost as big as Christmas is here. We tend to have a Christmas smorgasbord, called Julbord, where we place all the food and everyone can pick as much or as little on so desire. The ham is the most important thing but no Julbord without zillion different kinds of pickled herring. I can’t for my life understand how anyone actually can eat it and say it’s delicious because it’s just nasty. Then we have salmon, usually pickled or cold smoked and I eat neither but I do eat warm smoked if they have it. Meatballs, prince sausages, beetroot salad and red cabbage usually stand beside each other making lots of people confused since they don’t always like both 🙂 then we have the regional dishes like here where they often have baked brown beans. For dessert there’s usually risalamande or as we call it ris à la Malta. It’s rice pudding mixed with lots of whipped cream, vanilla sugar and berries and lately I have seen apple pie too with either custard or ice cream.
I also got a package from Dianna in Canada! With Canadian coffee and Canadian tea and also some history behind them. It’ll be very interesting to try both 🙂 I also got a favorite cookie package of mine, Maple Leaf cookies 🙂 They are a bit dangerous because they just taste better the more one eat 🙂 🙂 The card beside show two puppies but the flash stopped You from seeing that :-)Thank You Dianna!
A calf was born on Christmas Eve. This one was not even an hour old when I took this photo and it was born just outside my cottage.
We don’t have Santa Claus here, we have the Jultomte, Yule Gnome. He looks very much like Santa now days but it was different in the beginning. Before the Yule Gnome however we had the Yule Goat or Yule Buck as we say in Swedish. This goat has its origin way back, most likely from our old pagan past. It is supposed to be one of Thor’s immortal goats that pulled his carriage when he flew up in the sky. A man dressed up like a goat, usually a head made from straw and a goat skin over his shoulders and was the one bringing the presents, we call them julklappar (Yule knocks) because in the beginning it was meant that the giver should stay unknown so they just knocked on the door, opened it up and tossed in the present and then ran away. Good thing they didn’t have good locks back then 🙂 Later on the gnome took over that job but the goat still continued to stay close to the presents because he was the one pulling the carriage or sled with the packages. The poor goat was once again degraded when the horse too his place but we still have him in our homes as straw goats. They also build the worlds biggest straw goat in the city Gävle and almost every year someone burns it down 🙂 🙂 🙂 Some say it’s a shame but to be honest, no one would know it ever existed if they didn’t burn it down, not even here in Sweden 🙂
My neighbor got two light nets.
and I a new light chain.
One of the orchids started to open up this morning.
The Yule Gnome is a mix of the folklore gnome and Santa. Looking at old paintings the first Yule Gnomes were quite small and dressed in grey with a red cap. Later on he grew a lot and suddenly he wore red clothes and had reindeer’s. Now days I’ve seen lots of Yule Gnomes with grey clothes again and I like that, sort of like kicking coca cola in the butt 🙂 The folklore gnome is anything but jolly. He, because there are no female gnomes, is always grumpy and really dislike people. He lives on farms and help with all the work, especially with the animals and the better one treat the animals the more the gnome helps. He is almost always dressed in worn grey clothes and a red cap. He always have a long beard, usually quite white or grey and it can be so long that he can wrap himself in it totally. The gnome is very strong and can if he so see fit kill a human with one blow, if for instance they mistreat their animals. It is important not to give hom new fine clothes because he can start to believe that he can’t work with too fine clothes and decide to leave the farm 🙂 If he would start to really dislike the family who lives at the farm he can burn it down.
A bit frosty this morning but it started to rain some when we were out walking.
The gnome has two close relatives that are more or less extinct now days. One is the Mill Oldster. Back in the days we had loads of mills along most creeks or rivers and the mill oldster helped keeping the place in shape. He had his moments though when he could be extra grumpy, for instance if they had to use the mill at night he just stopped the mill from working. It could be because he thought nights should be calm and quiet so he could play the fiddle and he was almost as good as the water nymph Näcken but he had no intention of drowning anyone though 🙂 or it could be just because he wanted to be nasty. There was a way to bribe him though, Mill Oldsters are big lovers of tobacco, especially snus, snuff. So if one gave him some he allowed them to start the mill anyway. There was another reason he could do things like stopping the mill, it was because he wanted some company so he was a bit more social than the gnome.
Stairway to heaven? 🙂
These coming photos are from yesterday or earlier.
The second relative was the Skeppsrå. I can’t find any good name on him in English but we can call him ship gnome. He did much the same job as the gnome but on ships instead. No one knows from where he came, some believe he sort of grew out of the tree other believe that he might be a gnome following the tree from the forest. Sometimes it happened that one grew out from the tree and one came with the tree from the forest and two gnomes can’t live on the same ship, of course :-)If they couldn’t agree on who should stay, which of course they never could, a big fight started. It could become so violent that the entire ship broke and sank to the bottom. One Captain managed to stop one of these fights by letting one stay on the ship and promised the next ship to the other one. The Ship Gnomes lived as long as the ship existed, when it sank the gnome died and since we don’t build that many ships from wood now days most of them are gone now.
He wasn’t happy yesterday when he followed us to the bog. Lots of people around (the hunting group was out grilling hot dogs)and I guess the smell of an eventual wolf didn’t help 🙂
The pig is also a very important Christmas symbol here. Most believe it’s because we eat ham every Christmas which most likely is wrong. We haven’t eaten Christmas ham for that long to be honest but it goes way back to our pagan days. It origins from when we had the Norse gods. Up in Valhalla, located in Asgard where Odin and the chaps lived they had a pig, Särimner (I think You call him Sæhrímnir in English-speaking countries and I think that might be Icelandic). He was slaughtered every day to become their dinner and as long as every single bone was saved he resurrected again early next day. Practical but perhaps not that fun for the poor pig 🙂 The pig has always been very important here because they gave a very lot of food for very little input so to speak. They could just let the pigs walk around in the forest and didn’t have to feed them at all, they found enough food just walking around eating what they found on and in the ground. They always slaughtered the pig at Saint Lucia’s day so they had time to make all the sausages and other things they would need during Yule and the rest of the year. In many of the old Christmas cards one can see the yule gnome, the yule buck and the pig and a few presents too of course 🙂
The calf was very wobbly in the legs when trying to get some food and the mother didn’t help a lot, she moved around all the time 🙂
Thank You both Joyce and Dianna!
I wish You all a Good Yule!
It wouldn’t be popular today.
Today I’ll have a few photos that I took yesterday mixed in with the ones I took today. You can easily see the difference, yesterday had frost.
We started early this morning by taking our morning walk when it still was pitch black outside., I was thinking of bringing the camera and just randomly take photos with the flash on but then I remembered that even if I took a lens with autofocus it wouldn’t focus since it was so dark it couldn’t find anything to focus on 🙂 After that I jumped in to my car and drove to Falköping, I was going to pick up a package in Gudhem on my way home and I thought it best to buy all the food I’ll have during Christmas.
My garage.
My neighbors cottage.
There were two things I really needed to get before it was too late, cat food and toilet paper, so naturally I’ll need to go to the store tomorrow to get those things 🙂 I got everything else I wanted though 🙂 The package came from Dianna in Canada and I sort of know what I’ll get 🙂 I’ll show You all on Christmas Eve when I open them and the big package from Joyce 🙂 Christmas Eve is the big day here but I can’t tell You why because I’ve never heard any reason for why we have the big day then when almost all other have it on Christmas Day. I guess the old Lutheran protestant priests didn’t like us to have fun on a day when we’re supposed to celebrate the birth of Christ, to be honest, those guys really didn’t like us to have fun at all 🙂
The Hazel is ready for an early start.
We’ve had a sunny and very warm day here today and tomorrow will be much the same they say but they are changing the predictions faster than the eye can blink. Yesterday they predicted snow and below 0C (32F) temperatures for Christmas Eve evening now it’s more like rain and those temperatures, they didn’t predict a sun for tomorrow either but they do now, I do hope they are right now. Fewer people would die in the traffic if the sun did show, today and tomorrow are two of the worst days when it comes to that. Now is also the time when homes burn down, it’s sort of a tradition I almost said 🙂 People tend to forget to put out those advent candles and since the candlesticks are decorated with moss, that at this time is rather dry and burns easily , the fire spreads rapidly.
This one was so dark I had to make it brighter, I guess that’s why they have such a blueish fur 🙂
A bridge can be dangerous, at least I think that’s what they are thinking here 🙂
I love a fire in the stove but I never have any candles burning, after all this cottage is over 100 years old and only the chimney is made from stone. It would probably not take long before the entire cottage had burned down. But then again, mice can chew through electric cables giving much the same results 🙂
Have You ever heard about the Grim? I don’t mean the one in the Harry Potter books and I don’t mean the great tv show they are making. We have the Church Grim here and while all other beings do what they can to stay away from christianity this one is a protector of it and made by humans in the most nasty way. They created the Grim by, when they were building the church, walling in a living animal in the walls. When the animal finally died it became the church grim.
The grim looked much like the animal that was walled in, usually a dog, a cat, an ox or a rooster but it looked like a dog/ cat/ ox/ rooster from hell. Glowing eyes, huge fangs, razor-sharp beaks, spiky horns like an ice pick and claws that could rip up even metal. They were so scary that not even grave robbers, church thiefs and other evil humans stayed away, even the other beings were so afraid of it that they wouldn’t come close to a church. I guess that’s the reason they tend to steal from modern churches now day, it wouldn’t be popular if they walled in a living animal in te walls now days 🙂
It’s time to check the rice porridge I’m making and the rice I’m boiling for the dogs too. Orvar has an upset stomach again and if he gets rice the other ones wants it too 🙂
Have a great day!
They have it on film!
Below 0C (32F) temperatures this morning and sunshine too. I would think that would give some nice rime on trees and bushes but to my disappointment it didn’t. Just a thin layer of frost on the grass and on a few spruces. But it was a nice morning walk and my neighbors were up and about fixing some outdoor light strings. They did put up one yesterday and they wanted to have it on blinking mode but they realise it blinked so fast it would give someone an epileptic seizure so they changed that 🙂
Too bad the photo doesn’t show the colors properly, there’s blue, red and yellow lights in this light chain (perhaps green too). They have now put up one on the cottage too with icicles.
I too fixed my light chains. I can’t have one in my apple tree, water seems to find its way in to the sockets making my fuses pop so I moved them to the garage where the sockets are placed so the roof covers them. I did place that awful light chain, You know the one that would look like it was dressed with spruce twigs but just looked really bad? 🙂 around my kitchen door on the back of the cottage and then it shows that only the first half of it has working lights!! So I had to pick it down again. The last one didn’t work at all so I’ll toss away those two and perhaps buy a new one tomorrow morning when I’m going to town.
Yesterday I told You about the Lindorm, today I’ll tell You about a relative to it that we still to this day have in one of our lakes. It might be a relative to the one they have in Loch Ness, the Sea Serpent. We cal the one we have in the lake Storsjön Storsjöodjuret. Most of these sea serpents live in the ocean and can be so big that they block an entire fjord if the want to. They are believed to live in caves waiting for big school of fish to pass so they can eat them but back in the days they quite often were waiting for fishermen. They would rise up in the air and then fall down on the ships and break them to pieces. After that they ate all the fishermen.
We had/ have? (haven’t been seen in ages) one here in one of our fjords (Gullmarsfjorden) . That one used to lay his huge head on the beach, used its hypnotic gaze to lure livestock and humans straight into its mouth. The one we have in Storsjön however is much calmer. According to legend it was created by two trolls that failed while making a magic potion and instead created the sea serpent with a black snake body and a cat-like head. The beast jumped out of the cauldron and in to the lake and has been there since then.
In the late 19th century even the king (Oscar 2nd) contributed with money to catch it, thankfully they failed, perhaps the sea serpent doesn’t like piglets but my guess is that it is too smart to be caught in a huge fox trap. It still shows itself every now and again and they tried to protect it, it’s nest, younglings and eventual eggs by law but the highest courts found that it is impossible to do so unless one actually know that such an animal exists. Then they put out cameras in the lake filming 24 hours a day and they actually caught something 2008. Here’s a link to a YouTube film that says showing the sea serpent in the lake. It’s from a swedish news program but they show the videos that is said to show the animal: Storsjöodjuret.
Sune doesn’t stand a chance when they are chasing each other 🙂
It’s time for another walk with the dogs and then back to start the fire in the stove. It will be warmer later on and we’ll have both rain and snow they say.
Have a great day!
We know it’s still out there.
I took a two hor nap earlier today and now I sort of can’t wake up properly even if we have been outside walking in the temporary sunshine. We never made it in to the big forest or the bog today because for once the hunters had patience and stayed until now, almost 3 pm. I think this was the last time for this year and that’s why they stayed longer than normal. It annoyed me quite a lot to be honest but now I’ll have the forest to myself for at least two or three weeks.
This year the villagers have decorated with lights, two places have lights in one bush each this year. Can’t remember ever seeing this much yule decoration ever here 🙂
I finally found a have a heart trap that didn’t cost me half my pay check to put in my pantry, I still have mice going in there every now and again. I keep everything in containers but still it is gross finding mouse poop in there. I put some peanut butter in it and hope that our mice love it 🙂 So far no luck though so I might need to change bait soon to something else, jam perhaps?
The WOW trees.
Not only did they stay in the forest for a very long time today, they also came here early.
I don’t think I’ve ever told You about the Lindorm (Lindworm in English). A Scandinavian Lindorm is a close relative to a dragon but it has no wings, only two front legs and can´t spit fire. Instead it has nasty big fangs and it can spit the same kind of poison ants use and the Lindorm aims very well. In Norway a Lindorm also can be a sea snake. It is a huge snake-like being with a mane shaped like a crown on the head. It usually lives beneath old oaks and it’s easy to find such a nest because that oak stays green all year round. If You find such a nest You’ll also find the Lindorm’s huge treasure it has collected through the years.
Not the best of photos but I didn’t have time enough to adjust the camera.
It also happens that it sets its nest beneath old churches where it eats all the corpses in the crypt. The only way to kill a Lindorm is to trick it to follow You through three big fires, it will get caught in the third one where it will be burned alive but beware, it has happened that the Lindorm just before dying has captured the hunter and dragged him into the fire to die with him. A Lindorm has a smart way of moving around a bit faster than if it should crawl on the ground, it just bite itself in the tail making a circle or wheel and rolls away.
In my neighbor’s garden.
Thankfully there’s a small forest close to the village where they never hunt. I did miss the forest walk today.
The Lindorm is a mighty being with lots of magical powers, so if one is lucky enough to kill one, one must eat its flesh because then one will get magical powers too. For instance, if You make soup of it You’ll get the power of see into the future, the power of healing and perhaps the power of talking to animals. But if one isn’t daring enough to run through three big fires it’s quite enough to just get the skin it sheds every now and again because that is enough to get some magical powers. The beliefs in the Lindorm’s existence stayed way in to the late 19th century here in some parts of Sweden but after a man would give a huge reward to anyone capturing one and no one managed to do so the beliefs in it quickly died out but we all know that they are just too difficult to catch and we all know they still are out there, don’t we 🙂
It is time for a pot of coffee, I feel I need to wake up before it is time to go to bed.
My new little Yule Spruce, a Norfolk Island Pine.
Have a great day!
I’ve bought the ham.
Not much to say today, In worked in the neighbor factory and time passed fast. On my way back to my ordinary work place I went by the grocery store to buy me a yule ham. Mo yule without a ham here in Sweden, unless one is a vegetarian of course 🙂 It weighs a bit over 3,2 kg (7 pound) and is already cooked, all I have to do is to put it in the oven again to grill it with a coating of eggs, mustard and bread crumbs.
I don’t take any break while working in the other factory so I had a fifty minutes break to take when I came back, so I jumped in the car and drove to a nearby tractor/ harvester/ anything mechanical to a farm store and bought some oil to my car. I still had over minutes left on my break when I came back. It’s warm again and it is raining but the roads were nice so who am I to complain 🙂
How about another being? The Lantern man, I think You call him Jack O’ Lantern in English. He’s a tiny man most often dressed in grey or green carrying a little lantern. Normally one only see the light from the lantern. Sometimes it moves slow, sometimes very fast and often very erratic. The Lantern man is believed to be a damned spirit who one time stole land from someone else by changing the poles that marked where the property lines were. His punishment for this is to forever walk along the wrong property lines . Often one can hear him talk to himself saying this is the right property line, this is the wrong one. Only if a human follows him and place the property poles on their right places he will get piece again.
Lots and lots of stars.
It happens quite often that he just out of spite make people get lost and quite often he make them go out on bogs and let them drown in a deep hole. But he can actually be nice too if he find lost people and if one gives him a coin after being helped all is well, if not ha can be so angry he hits You and then put a spell on You so even if You’re just a yard from Your home You won’t find it. There is one thing one can do though, turn any clothes You wear inside out and the spell goes away. Quite easy to be honest 🙂
It is time for some tea and something to eat.
Have a great day!
Slippery.
The roads were slippery on my way to work this morning and they were nasty slippery on my way home. At least it wasn’t black ice so it was easy to see that it would take some time to reach both work and my home. It’s such a scary feeling when driving and suddenly feel that the car sort of is flowing on the road and the only thing one can do is that it at least stays on the road 🙂 Luckily there isn’t much traffic when I drive to and from work so the car and I can mostly flow as we wish 🙂
Have You ever heard about the beings called Vittror? I can actually not find any English name for them so they are probably exclusive to northern Sweden and Norway. They are relatives to our Vättar (Wights) and like the wights they tend to live close to humans and in big families. They normally look like humans but perhaps not even half the size. Unlike a wight they dress in bright red clothes and look a bit more tidy to be honest. They can however take the form of an animal, like striped worms and if one by accident would walk on one of those worms the foot usually starts aching or if one is unlucky one get seriously ill.
Vittror have their own livestock and besides being much smaller and extremely more beautiful than ours they also always are bright white. Their cows and goats give much more milk too than ours do.They wear tiny silver bells that sounds very mysterious and melodic. If one should see one of their cows the important thing was to quickly throw a steel knife over it. If one so do one is allowed to keep the cow but the owner would pay a visit later that day with some demands. The cow could stay as long as one don’t milk it too much and if it would get a calf that calf would belong to Vittrorna.
Vittror always move their livestock on the same paths and if one would build a home on one of them the owner will never get any peace in that house. One can either sleep with all doors open so vittrorna can pass as they please or simply move the house to another place 🙂 🙂 It does happen that vittror, like trolls can kidnap a child but they will usually return the child after three days, I guess even our small children just eat too much 🙂 Some vittror own lakes and if one toss in a silver coin before fishing one will get plenty of fish, unless it is one of their pikes, called troll pike, because they are impossible to get out of the lake.
It isn’t easy to live with all these beings 🙂 I think that I would have moved the house, open doors in summer with all the mosquitoes we have is no nice thing to experience 🙂
This is how the writer and artist Johan Egerkrans see vittror.
The cottage by the Crane Lake, life goes on. 
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