Salve. En medeltidssaga

About a week ago the twitter account Svensk Historia tweeted about the Nordic king Erik of Pomerania. I retweeted it saying it always makes me think about the Swedish children's show Salve from 1997. This was read by a host at the Swedish radio music show Klassisk morgon and we started talking about the show and its music. Later that day I was contacted by the producer and they wanted me on the show, so this morning I made my radio debute. It can be heard here but since it is in Swedish and since I have much more to say than I had time for on the show, I thought I would make a blog post about it as well. One of the characters, Katarina Örnfot, has her own post in my My Heroine series. It can be found here and I will try not to repeat myself too much.

I was 12 years old when Salve was first broadcasted and already a history nerd with a massive interest in knights. So this was really the perfect show for me and I started recording it on tape every morning already from the start. A year later, the show was cut down to an eleven episode long TV series which was then made into two VCRs and later on also to a DVD. (And of course I have both and yes, I do still watch the DVD from time to time.)

The plot revolves around Nils Svensson who normally is from 1997. He travels to the Swedish town Kalmar to celebrate the 600 jubliee of the union between all the Nordic countries set up by Danish queen Margaret that normally goes by the name The Kalmar Unionen. He tries to call his mother with his mobile phone, but the display just says 1397. He tries it anyway and gets transported to Kalmar 1397. There he befriends Katarina who is the daughter of a knight and works in the bathing house helping the elderly women Rodwy. Later on he becomes a squire to the rather clumsy knight Rosenstråle. The new 15 year old king, Erik (of Pomerania) is bored in the castle and runs away, out into town and becomes a friend of Nils and Katarina as well. At the end he is officially crowned king.

I cannot over-estimate how much this show has meant to me! It really is historical fiction at its best. It has an overarching frame that is the happenings in Kalmar in 1397 and there also seems to be a structure of what and how they wanted to convey facts. This makes the show take the facts seriously, but is not too serious in how they teach the children making it fun to learn. They had question times where children wrote in questions about the Middle Ages to the show, but most of it was told through the fictive plot. The fact was more showed (or played) into the viewers than taught into them.

Nils is the character through whom the viewers learn and just like me during the time I watched Salve, goes from a rather stereotypical image about knights, to learning a great deal about the period itself. What I find to be one of the best aspects about his character is the fact that he is never seen as stupid like is so often the case with characters the viewers are supposed to learn through in TV shows in general and children's shows in particular. Nils just does not know so much about the Middle Ages when he gets to 1397 because he is from 1997 (The scene before he time travels in the beginning of the first episode also has him imagining a rather stereotypical picture about how he, as a knight, saves a princess from a dragon.).

I have already talked about Katarina, but I cannot stress enough how great she is as a female character. She is not reduced to a steretypical medieval woman or a tomboy who gets to play knight. Neither is she overshadowed by the boys. She is independent, complex and colourful and certainly no damsel in distress.

Based on how popular the show was, I was sad to not see it getting more of a follow up than a shortened version in the autumn the year after. I think it would have been so perfect to make a winter holiday show (or a julkalender) so we could see how the people during the Middle Ages celebrated christmas and handled the colder climate of the season.

I rewatch the show from time to time and even though it is a bit childish from time to time and there are some plotholes, I can overlook its flaws because it is aimed at children and it shows how much fun you can have with real facts. It does still hold up extremely well, 20 years and a master's degree in archaeology later. It had me interested in the Middle Ages as a time period and I am still building on that knowledge in my work as an archaeologist today.

August Strindberg - Hemsöborna (Stockholms stadsteater)

Han kom som ett yrväder en aprilafton och hade ett Höganäskrus i en svångrem om halsen. (He arrived like a whirlwind an evening in April and had a Höganäs jug in a belt around his neck.)

~ August Strindberg, Hemsöborna

The quote above is probably one of the most famous of all introductory sentences in Swedish literature. It is taken from August Strindbergs book Hemsöborna which was first published as a novel in 1887. Strindberg spent a couple of summers at Kymmendö in the Stockholm archipelago. The inhabitants on that island took the novel personally and fobid Strindberg to return there because of it. I went to see a theatre version of the novel, directed by Stefan Metz at Stockholms stadsteater yesterday

The cast of Hemsöborna. Photo: Sören Vilks

The plot revolves around the inhabitant at a farm at the island Hemsö in the archipelago outside of Stockholm. The farm is run by the widow Flod (often called madam or moster [aunt]). Her son Gusten prefers to be out on the sea hunting and the farm decays, so she sends out for help and Carlsson is hired as a farmhand to help and he is the one arriving as a whirlwind an evening in April. 

Ann Petrén as Madam Flod.
Photo: Sören Vilks

Carlsson knows a lot about farming, but nothing about the sea, but with his help the farm prosper and everyone seems to like him quite well (in the case of Madam Flod a little too well...), but Gusten remains sceptical. Carlsson rents out one of the houses to summer guests. They have a maid he falls in love with, but after hearing Madam Flod proclaiming her love for him and realising he would get his own farm, he marries her.

The marriage, however, changes Carlsson and he goes from energetic farm to greedy entrepreneur. This theme is something it has in common with Chekhov's The Chery Orchard which I saw in Göteborg last week. Hemsöborna treats it far better though! The Cherry Orchard tried too hard to place the plot into a modern setting, it did not work because it felt too much like it was forcing political standpoints down in your throat and a classical play was added sort of like an afterthought. Hemsöborna, however, sticks quite well to the original plot and because it does, it manages to portray how power and money can corrupt a man.

The book

All the actors (even the often dancing extras) were very good. I am a big fan of Ann Petrén who played Madam Flod since long before this and she was really amazing here as well, but Claes Malmberg worked very well as Carlsson as well.

In The Cherry Orchard I was very confused by the scenery. With the actors coming out of boxes and trees in the background that was not even cherry trees and nothing about it really added up to what the characters were saying.

The scenography of Hemsöborna was very simple but extremely effective. It was all made up of corrugated fiberboards covering the entire stage, screen which showed what I think was Strindberg's own paintings and with sticks being used as waves, tree branches and fishing-rods. However the scenography also turned out to be extremely effective. The last scene is about Gusten and Carlsson together with the farmhands Rundqvist and Norman being out on the ice in a snow storm and the ice starts to break up into ice floes. The rest of the cast tore off those pieces of corrugated fiberboard pretty much piece by piece and it worked very well.

So to sum it all up: while the Göteborg theatre production of The Cherry Orchard (which was the one production I was looking forward to) was one of my probably worst theatre experiences ever, Hemsöborna (which was an unexpected christmas gift) turned out to be one of my best theatre experiences ever (Not the best. That is still Othello at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London.) and it restored my faith in the theatre that got torn a bit last weekend.





The photos, besides the first and the last ones, was borrowed from here. Photographer: Sören Vilks

Historical Women - Elsa Andersson

Today is the birthday of Elsa Andersson, the first Swedish aviatrix, so I thought I should talk about her in my series about Historical Women.

Elsa Teresia Andersson was born in Strövelstorp outside of Ängelholm in Skåne, the southernmost province of Sweden on 27 April 1897. She was the daughter of a farmer and her mother Alma died giving birth to her little sister Stina in 1903. Her elder brother Sture later emigrated to America and her other brother Harald became an electrician.

Not far from her home was Ljungbyhed where the military had been practicing since the 17th century (Skåne belonged to Denmark up until 1658 and I have no idea if the place was used before that and that the Swedish army just took over or if it started afterward.). Among other things practiced there was flying which might have woken Elsa's interest in flying. At Ljungbyhed was also Thulins flygarskola (Thulin's flying school) where Elsa was accepted. She graduated in 1920.

After graduation, she wanted to learn how to use a parachute, but the only teacher and expert in Sweden, Raoul Thörnblad, refused to teach her. Because of this, Elsa moved to Berlin in 1921.

Unfortunately, she died in january 1922 at the age of 25 when she had problems releasing her parachute during a jump at Askersund in Sweden. In 1926, Svenska aeroklubben (the Swedish Aero Club) erected a monument to her honour at the site where she died. She was buried at the cementery in Ströveltorp.

In 1996, Swedish writer Jacques Werup wrote the book Den ofullbordade himlen about her life and life was also depicted in the Swedish film Så vit som snö in 2001.





Pictures  were borrowed here and here.

Andreas Bruce

From time to time as you study history, you stumble upon pretty cool people and Andreas Bruce is definitely one of them.

I watched an episode of a Swedish TV show called Nationen (the Nation) recently. The series is all about telling Swedish history from new perspectives. It uses different hosts for every episode to tell stories about issues which concern them. I do not intend to discuss the show or the episode in itself, but Andreas's tale is just so amazing that it needs to be told. There is a book about him and I intend to read it, but have not been able to do so. Therefore this entry is based on facts from the TV show, Wikipedia and from interviews from Sveriges radio P4 Gotland.

28th December 1808 the noble valet de chambre Adam Bruce and his wife Fredrica Charlotta Wijnblad had a child who was named Christina Therese Isabelle Jeanette Louise Bruce. However, little Therese grew up envying her brothers feeling like one of them (among other things she wants to wear trousers) and she was called "Lilla fröken herrn" (Little Miss Mister) by the family.

At first the family does not seem to found of the idea of treating Therese as a boy (especially not her father) and at the age of 16, she runs away from home dressed as a man. The family was devastated and thought Therese had killed herself, but one of her brothers found her after a couple of days to everyone's great relief.

After this, Adam Bruce took his daughter to doctor Hagströmer who classified Therese as a hermaphrodite and from this day she came to live the rest of her life as a man. The family, even the father, also seems to have accepted the fact that they now had another son and Adam gives him the family name Andreas and Therese renames herself as Ferdinand Andreas Edvard. As the sex resassignment became known it however caused a scandal and a conflict with the family as a result of it. Because of this, Andreas moved to Gotland to live a more secret life in 1829.

On Gotland, he got a position at the ship builder and merchant Jacob Dubbe at Rosendal in Follingbo. There he seems to have lived quite a normal life with Jacob being the only person to know that he is what we today would call a transsexual. However he encountered an inspector named Lars Nyström who got to know about his secret. What happens next is hard to know and Andreas is quite vague on the subject in the autobiography he wrote during the 1870's. The result of his encounter with Lars Nyström was quite evident though. Andreas became pregnant and considered suicide.

In July 1838 the daughter Carolina was born and was first left to a foster family, but Andreas quit his job and moved, together with his lover Maria Lindblad and her daughter to Öja. The church refused to marry them and when it was revealed that he was Carolina's biological mother, he was also expelled fom church for ten years. He died in 1885.

I find Andreas's story very interesting and it is amazing that he could live his life as a man and at least at times was accepted for the one he was. His story can also work as a witness for showing that transsexuality is not a "modern trend". Transexuals (just like other types of LGBTQ+) have always been there and it is about thime that we acknowlegde this.

Andreas's autobiography was published with the title Therese Andreas Bruce - en sällsam historia från 1800-talet by Inger Littberger Caissou-Rousseau in 2013 and the play Jag vet vem jag är which was played on the regional theatre on Gotland last year, directed by Swedish comedian Babben Larsson is based on his life as is the play I am not a girl played in Umeå in 2014.






Photo of Andreas was borrowed hereand of the book here.

Selma Lagerlöf - Dödskallen

Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf died 16 March 1940 and therefore I thought it fitting to read one of her short stories today. She wrote quite a few of those, but I chose the one Dödskallen (The skull) just because it fit well for someone's death day.

The short story was originally published under the title En underlig julgäst (A strange christmas guest) in the anthology Julstämning in 1914 and it was also part of the anthology Troll och människor II from 1921 in which Lagerlöf emanated from traditional Swedish folklore.

I love Selma! She is definitely up there among my favourites and I absolutely adore the cover Novellix has chosen for Dödskallen. It is amazing!

Dödskallen is about grave digger and church guard Anders Öster who walks around trying to invite people to his home for christmas dinner. No one accepts the invitation however and as he walks past the churchyard he jokes a bit to himself that he should invite the ghosts instead. He then finds a human skull which he suppose he has disturbed from its grave while he dug another one (Something that probably has been pretty common.) and he decides to invite it for christmas.

As he comes home to his wife Bolla, he is miserable and angry and takes it all out on his wife. He even go so far that he tries shooting her just because she refuses to let him eat in the big hall in the parish house where the parish counsel had its meetings. He justifies this with saying that now he had humbled her and she would know her place. He, however, feels somewhat lonely, so he walks out and brings home the skull he had found before to keep him company.

In the mean time Bolla flees to their neighbours who try comforting her and she sits down to have christmas dinner with them, thinking she can never go back to her husband and while he thinks he has just shown her who is the boss, she thinks that he must hate her. Suddenly Anders arrives looking all scared and Bolla decides to go back with him. It turns out the skull belonged to someone who has been shot making him realise what he has actually tried doing to his wife.

To be honest this sort of twist to the story was rather surprising. I felt sure it was going to turn out that he had really invited the dead to his christmas party and that he would end up scared because the skull came to life.  It was short and rather easy to read and gave you a feeling of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. This twist made it feel refreshing and the fact that Anders realises he is the one who have misbehaved towards his wife is making the ending much more hopeful.

Dead People's Society - "Helge"

The stern of Vasa

Sunday 10th August 1628 did the brand new Swedish warship Vasa set sail for its first journey. Swedish king Gustav II Adolf (nephew of Cecilia Vasa) had had it built. It did not end well. The ship sank barely having left the harbour in Stockholm, but was salvaged in 1961 and can today be seen at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. (I really recommend that museum if you go to Stockholm. It is one of my absolute favourites. Not just in said town.)

On board and around Vasa were the remains of at least 16 individuals found and I thought I should talk about one of those. Since we do not know any names of the individuals found on Vasa, they have got name based on the Swedish spelling alphabet (with the exception of the two women Beata and Ylva). This particular man has been called Helge, so that is what I will call him in this entry.

Helge's skeleton is very fragmentary, around 2 770 fragments were found together on the port side of lower gun deck. This is quite a lot considering a "normal" body of an adult human being contains 206 bones. A lot of the fragments (c. 2 100) are however too small to estimate which particular bone they have been a part of, but 671 of them could be pieced together.

Vasa

When Vasa keeled over, Helge had the unfortunate faith of being crushed underneath one of the gun carriages and when osteologist Nils-Gustaf Gejvall did the first study of the skeletons from Vasa in 1963, he said that the skeleton was in very bad condition. It was affected by the iron parts of the gun carriage. The skeletons found at Vasa were reburied in 1963, but taken up again in 1989 for a more thorough analysis and can today be seen at the Vasa museum. The years in the ground has further increased the decay and Helge's bones have mildewed.

Together with the skeletons given the names Filip and Gustav, Helge has the most complete skeleton out of all the Vasa skeletons. He however, misses parts of his hands and feet and the skull was broken into pieces. His sex is estimated as "typical male" based on features from remaining skull fragments and his age 33+3 years based on age markers on the femur, humerus and skull seams. Chemical analysis show that he ate a lot of meat.

Besides the bones, the archaeologists also found preserved hair, nails and brain tissue.

Sources
During, Ebba 1994. De dog på Vasa. Skelettfynden och vad de berättar, Vasastudier 16

Historical Women - Princess Cecilia Vasa of Sweden

Today is the international women's day and in what better way can I acknowledge this than by writing an entry about my favourite historical woman: Cecilia Vasa.

She was born as a Swedish princess, the daughter of  Swedish king Gustav Eriksson (Vasa) (Traditionally called Gustav Vasa) and his second wife Margareta Eriksdotter (Leijonhufvud) on 6th November 1540. She had two elder brothers, Erik (who was the son of Gustav and his first wife, Katarina av Sachsen-Lauenburg) and Johan and an older sister named Katarina. She was given the name Cecilia after her paternal grandmother Cecilia Månsdotter (Eka). After Cecilia was born, the family expanded with the daughters Anna, Sofia and Elisabet and the sons Magnus and Karl. Two of her brothers (Sten and Karl) also died within a year after their birth. She is also great niece pf Kristina Nilsdotter Gyllenstierna who was the first Historical Woman I wrote about on this blog.

Swedish history books tend to focus on the fact that Gustav Vasa had three sons (Magnus died early) who would win the Swedish throne. The five daughters are in general overlooked. If they are mentioned at all, their roles have been downplayed. Cecilia is the most famous among the daughters, not least because of the so called Vadstenabullret (the Vadstena noice), but more about that later.

Like her brothers, Cecilia and her sisters actually got a pretty good education. Because Sweden was so heavily influenced by Germany at the time, the royal children probably was taught German. When she got older, probably as a result of her oldest brother Erik's wish to marry queen Elizabeth I of England, Cecilia also learnt English.

Cecilia on a contemporary medal

On contrary to, for example the Tudors in England, Gustav Vasa seems to have kept his family close. They moved around between different castles, but most of the time, they did it together. Considering the fact that he seems to have been a harsh, cold-hearted tyrant towards his subjects, it is interesting (I will not go so far to say sweet.) to see how much he seems to have been worried when any of the children were sick. For example when he and queen Margareta were in Norrköping without the children and Erik sent him a letter saying Cecilia had got sick. When Margareta died 26th August 1551, Cecilia was just about to turn 11. At first their ageing great aunt Kristina Gyllenstierna was the one to take care of the royal children, but they soon proved to be too much for her, so the responsibility went to the childrens's aunts Brita and Märta instead. About a year later, their father remarried Brita's daughter Katarina Gustavsdotter (Stenbock) who was only 16 years old at the time (i.e. younger than her oldest stepson). Gustav was 55.

After a lot of delays, Cecilia's older sister Katarina married Count Edzard II of East Frisia in early December 1559. (Edzards mother Anna, just like queen Margareta and Katarina Stenbock, is a very interesting lady who I will probably have reason to make an entry for in the future.) When he travelled to Sweden for the wedding, his younger brother Johan came along. Gustav let Cecilia follow her sister on her way to East Frisia, but not for too long. He also wrote a letter to her when the wedding party had reached Vadstena castle a little before christmas reminding her that she must return to Stockholm. Cecilia ignored the letter completely, forcing Gustav to contact his cousin (son of Kristina Gyllenstierna and uncle to Gustav's children) Svante Sture encouraging him to make Cecilia return. The letter arrived too late however.

Following her sister, Cecilia seems to have been attracted to Edzard's brother Johan. The guards at Vadstena castle soon saw the man sneeking in to her bedroom through the window at night. They allerted Erik who seems to have caught Johan with his trousers down in his sister's bedroom. This episode and what followed is what has been called Vadstenabullret. Of course this turned into a huge scandal and it did not exactly help that Erik handled it in an extremely public way. Gustav was furious not only with Cecilia, but with Erik as well. He sent off his servants to the castle in Västerås to do an inventory of Cecilia's belongings so he could take them away from her. Katarina, however, stepped up for her sister, preventing the servants to take anything away. She and her husband were placed in house arrest in Västerås and where not allowed to travel to East Frisia until 1561, one year after Gustav had died.

Erik became king Erik XIV after their father's death in 1560. He started created instructions for how the royal women should behave, probably as a result of Vadstenabullret. He was especially hard on Cecilia, but she would have none of it and, to put it bluntly, told him multiple times to fuck off.

Even though her brother's wish to marry the English queen was never fulfilled, Cecilia seems to have become good friends with Elizabeth I. In a letter dated January 1563, she is happy that an engagement to a Polish count has been broken due to her brother Johan's marriage to the Polish princess Katarina Jagellonica. Cecilia seems to have been more interested in getting herself an English husband and the Earl of Arundel seems to have gained an interest in the Swedish princess. Erik, however, still wanted her to marry the Polish count. Elizabeth did not give Erik an answer to his proposal, but she did write multiple letters to the Swedish king, asking him to let Cecilia come visit her in England. Cecilia was finally married to Christoph II, margrave of Baden-Rodemachern in 1564 and they got six sons. Cecilia also gave birth to a daughter after she had become a widow in 1575.

The information surrounding Cecilia's marriage is contradictive, but interesting. How come she settled for such a lowly husband? The marriage deal also seems to have been made in haste and a lot of revision were made over the course of the engagement. The Nordic 7 years war was raging the country and because of this Cecilia's dowry would be paid in three partial sums, giving Erik a hold on his sister who he believed to have taken Johan's side in the conflict the brothers had.

After her wedding, she visited Katarina in East Frisia and while there she was invited to Elizabeth I and went to England in september 1565. Many people in the court were curious about the Swedish princess who they had heard so much about already. While in England, she gave birth to her first son, who she called Edvard Fortunatus and Elizabeth became the boy's godmother.

Besides having wanted to make the trip for quite some time, Cecilia was in England to renew the negotiation of a marriage between her brother and Elizabeth, but also there to collect a crew which could fight enemy ships in the Baltic Sea. While in England, Cecilia spent a lot more money on partying than what she earned and it did not take long for the English court to take offence against her.

After her visit to England, Cecilia and her husband's economy was in a terrible state and they went home to Baden-Rodemachern. After Erik was removed from the throne and Johan became king, the couple travelled to Sweden where Cecilia was given forest fiefs in Skinnskatteberg, Fellingsbro and Arboga gaining her the title "Countess of Arboga". She also got a kungsgård (royal farm) and iron fiefs in Lindesberg, Noraskog and Guldsmedshyttan. Other incomst sources were piracy in the Baltic Sea and a brothel in Brussels.

There is a lot more that Cecilia did, but this became a rather long post, so I think I need to end it here. When Cecilia died 27th January 1627 as the last surviving of Gustav Vasa's children, a new little princess had been born into the Vasa family just over a month earlier. Her name was Christina and she would grow up to be queen of Sweden and just as free spirited as her great aunt.

Sources:
Harrison, Dick & Eriksson, Bo 2012. Norstedts Sveriges historia 1350-1600. 
Larsson, Lars-Olof 2002. Gustav Vasa - Landsfader eller tyrann?
Larsson, Lars-Olof 2005. Arvet efter Gustav Vasa. En berättelse om fyra kungar och ett rike 
Tegenborg-Falkdalen, Karin 2010. Vasadöttrarna
Tegenborg-Falkdalen, Karin 2015. Vasadrottningen. En biografi över Katarina Stenbock 1535-1621  
Pictures of what is believed to be Cecilia was borrowed here.

Karin Boye - Kallocain

I have understood that recent events in the world has made George Orwell's dystopian book 1984 popular again. I definitely see the reason to compare it to the world of today, but I want to tell you about a Swedish book that is not so famous, even though it has been translated to other languages than Swedish. It is called Kallocain and was the last book written by Karin Boye who commited suicide only months after it was published in 1940.

The book is about the chemist Leo Kall who tells the story of his life. He invented a truth serum called kallocain for the totalitarian Världstaten (World State) which controls everything in its citizens lives. The kallocain gives the state a way to control people's inner thoughts as well. However, listening to them has a side effect on Leo himself. He starts to question the teaching and the propaganda of Världstaten.

Considering it was published in 1940, it is easy to see that Boye mainly got her inspiration from the situation in contemporary Germany and Russia where the state required everything from the individual. The citizens should be submissive and obey every whim from the regime. Just like the regimes in Germany and Russia, Världsstaten also stalks, tortures and kills disobediant citizens. Feelings (especially of the more empathetic nature), humanism and free thoughts needs to be supressed totally and everyone needs to make huge sacrifices in the name of the state (such as giving up your own children to the state!) without blinking. The book also uses a lot of military terms, so you from the very beginning realise that the regime is into warfare. Everyone wears uniforms (special ones for every occasion) and the children are taught to play war from a very young age (They even uses explosives and has their own guns!). I also cannot help thinking Karin Boye wanted to criticise the view of science at the time. I do believe that science is good and things need to be scientific, but during that time, it was from time to time misused to devastating purposes.

Boye's language is very austere, but the pace of the story is rather hectic. It is easy to read, but you still need to stay with it all the time. It is a very thought-provoking book that unfortunately is still relevant today. While Orwell's future is in the past (1984), Kallocain is set in today's present (the 21st century), something that, to me, makes it a bit scary based on the current political situation we see througout the world.

Fröken Frimans krig

Fröken Frimans krig (The War of Miss Friman) is a Swedish TV series written by Pernilla Oljelund and it has been sort of a christmas tradition. It tells the story of Dagmar Friman at the beginning of the 20th century. Together with her friends Kinna, Alma, Emmy and her sister-in-law Lottie she starts up the female cooperation Svenska hem (Swedish homes) selling groceries. They want to teach women about food and in the long run propagate for their right to vote.The third season has just been broadcasted and dwells a into the problem of prostitution and that prostituted women got to take all the blame for the spreading of sexually transmitted diseases.

Vad är det som är så skrämmande med tanken på att en kvinna kan ha ett värde och rättigheter precis som en man? (What is so scary about the thought of a woman having value and rights just like a man?)

~ Lottie

The plot is a fictional version of the real suffragette movement in Sweden and Svenska hem was a real all-female cooperation founded in 1905 and connected to this. Dagmar is a fictive version of one of its founder Anna Whitlock and among the stock owners was famous Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf. A lot of wholesalers during this period cheated, selling bad meat, milk and such to a better price which led to diseases being spread among the people in town.

This year, there was also a documentary made about the real Swedish suffragette women. Signe Bergman, Karolina Widerström, Ann Margret Holmgren, Frigga Carlberg and of course Anna Whitlock and broadcasted in connection to the show. All these women deserve blog entries in their own right, because they have such interesting stories and were all so very important. Therefore I cannot not recommend anyone understanding Swedish not to see it (The same goes for the TV series too.). However, how the production team have treated the scholars is appaling! They have not been mentioned at all and the production team does not really seem to understand the big problem with this. There is a Swedish proverb saying äras den som äras bör (honour the one who should be honoured) that seems fitting due to the situation.

Swedish land-owning women did actually have the right to vote between 1718 and 1772, but then we had to wait longer than any of our Nordic neighbours. The decision was made in the parliament on the 24th of May 1919. The first election where they could vote was therefore the one in 1921. So we might have been the last Nordic country to give women the right to vote, but we were the first one to get a professorial chair in Women's history and the first one to get it was fittingly enough Gunhild Kyle, the mother of the actress Sissela Kyle who plays Dagmar Friman.




Pictures were borrowed from here.

Julkalender 1996 - Mysteriet på Greveholm

Mysteriet på Greveholm (The Mystery at Greveholm) from 1996 is probably the most beloved of SVT's julkalendrar. It is also the only one who has got a sequel (Grevens återkomst from 2012). In my personal opinion, that one is as bad as the original one was good, so this entry will only be about that.

"Är det redan vinter? Det var ju sommar nyss! Vart har hösten tagit vägen? Tänk, snart är det vår!" ("Is it winter already? It was summer just the other day! Where have the autumn gone? Soon it is spring!")

 ~ Leif

I have come to realise that describe the plots to my favourite julkalendrar might make them seem pretty strange. Sunes Jul seems probably pretty uncomplicated with Sune and his family celebrating christmas, but the rest. Tomtemaskinen tells the story about an old man building a mechanical Santa Claus to his cat and Jul i Kapernaum is about a star trapped by a king underneath a town and two children going down to free it.

Mysteriet på Greveholm is no exception to this. It is about the Olsson family with a father who is a scientist and who has managed to move a satellite so no one can watch TV. They move into a castle called Greveholm to celebrate christmas. In the castle live the two ghosts Jean and Staffan. An evil skeleton of Greven von Dy (the earl von Dy - usually called Greven) has captured a princess from outer space called Dioda in the tower and the children (Lillan, Ivar and Melitta) has to save her. Dioda also has a robot called Sprak who Lillan plays with. There is also two thieves who want to steal the treasures of the castle, a news paper delivery boy called Måns who Melitta falls in love with and Santa Claus and his elves.

I love this julkalender very much, but I still cannot help thinking it to be somewhat overrated. There are rather lot of plot holes and the acting is not always very good. In fact the acting (mostly by the children) is better in both Sunes Jul and Jul i Kapernaum than in Mysteriet på Greveholm. What is redeeming is the interesting world it creates and the loveable characters that you can relate to. This is actually what makes this julkalender work and not its sequel.



Pictures borrowed from here.

Lucia

So, today is known as the Lucia day in Sweden. Of course I could tell you how we celebrate it, but that is much better explained in this video

Every year on social media, this tradition is said to be under threat. From what is often quite unclear, but it has been a decline in interest for public Lucia competitions and I have a theory as to why. But first I feel a need to talk about the history of the tradition.

"Sankta Lucia. Ljusklara hägring. Sprid i vår vinternatt, glans av din fägring " (Saint Lucia, Bright mirage. Spread in our winter's night, gloss of your beauty.)

~ Sankta Lucia

Lucia is a variation of the Latin word Lux which means light and in the Julian calendar, 13th of December was the winter solstice and therefore the night was the longest one of the year. According to folklore, a lot of bad spirits were roaming around during this night and legend tells of a demon-like woman called Lussi or Lussekärringen (in the province Västergötland the legend instead speaks of  man called Lussegubben though) who came riding together with her followers called lussiferda. It was also a night when the animals started to talk. 

Everyone can be a lucia!

Lucia is a Sicilian saint in the Roman-Catholic church who lived in Syracuse during the 4th century AD. However, the Swedish Lucia celebration (which today has spread to the Finno-Swedish population of Finland, Norway and Denmark) has little to do with her. The celebration is actually a mix of both Christian and Pagan traditions. Lucia marked the beginning of the christmas celebrations and in the past it was thought that the preparations needed to be finished by then. Swedes celebrated this by eating and drinking a little extra. The 13th of December was also the day when Swedes slaughtered the so called christmas pig to make the ham which is one of the major dishes in the Swedish christmas dinner. The christmas pig is thought of as to symbolise the pig Särimner from Norse mythology. Särimner is the pig who gets slaughtered every evening in Odin's hall Valhalla, but resurrects every morning just to get slaughtered (and eaten) again by the dead warriors.

The modern Lucia celebration is thought to have its origin in Western Sweden (in the regions aroung the lake Vänern, that is the provinces Dalsland, Bohuslän, Västergötland and Värmland). From there, male students (since there were no female ones at that time) spread it to Uppsala and Lund where they went to university in the late 18th and early 19th century. There they held Lucia performances for their professors. Yes, traditionally it has been common with a male Lucia!

Lussekatter

Saffron buns called lussekatter (translated directly it is "lusse cats") are served during Lucia. This is a German tradition dating back to the 17th century where a legend said that the devil (sometimes refered to as Lucifer) went around as a cat spanking children. At the same time, Jesus went around offering buns to the children. They were stuffed with saffron to ward off the devil from the light colour.

"Staffan var en stalledräng. Vi tackom nu så gärna. Han vattna' sina fålar fem. Allt för den ljusa stjärna. Ingen dager synes än. Stjärnorna på himmelen de blänka." (Staffan was a stable boy. We gladly thank how now. He watered his five horses. Everything for the bright star. No day can yet be seen. The stars in the sky they glitter.)

~ Staffan var en stalledräng

Stjärngossar

Except for Lucia, there are a, traditionally male, character in the Lucia celebration called stjärngosse (star boy). The tradition with this character is actually related to dramatized versions of the birth of Jesus during Twelth Night when the Three Wise Men reach the stable where Jesus is supposed to have been born. Since Twelth Night has lost its importance in Sweden, we have somehow chosen to put stjärngossarna into the Lucia celebration instead.

Unfortunatelly, I have not been able to find any answer to the question why this change occured or why they sing the Medieval ballad about king Herod's stable boy Stefanus: Staffan var en stalledräng, but I guess it is just one of those things that happened when traditions adapts to a new reality.

I think it is very important that we actually study from where traditions like the Lucia celebrations come and even more to see how it has changed over time. I have talked about my view on culture as always ongoing negotiatons of sociability before in my entries about the Samish hat adorned with Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and chess. Considering all the memes and discussion there is every christmas about the "threatened" Lucia tradition I think Lucia is actually a great illustration for this. The Lucia celebration will change with time. That thing is clear! Every tradition does and it is totally natural. The celebration still has social value though. It is still extremely popular in schools and work places and such all over Sweden. There has been a decline in "official" Lucia competitions however, but I would not say that this has anything to do with Lucia celebration itself. Instead I think it has to do with the similarities between Lucia competitions and beauty pageants. The latter seems to have lost its social value in Sweden in later years which I think actually is something that we should be happy about.

Lucia celebration, the cat version

Picture of the lussekatter was borrowed from here.

Julkalender 1995 - Jul i Kapernaum

Jul i Kapernaum (Christmas in Kapernaum) was SVT:s julkalender 1995 and twice as long as the rest of them. The second half of it is devoted to puppet sketches. We get to visit Magister Munter at the school (who teaches the children that the English sentence I buy pink sheets is funny to a Swede), see short films at the cinema at Bio Rio and hear about when Fru Dito time travelled in her shower. (I might get back to those in later entries to this blog, but for this one, I want to focus on the main plot.)

Legend has it that a star came to rest on the place where the town Kapernaum later was built. Many thousands of years later, the evil king Sirius in his hunt for treasure, found it and trapped it underground. He killed everone, but a young man managed to flee and tell everyone. Sirius was locked up and the man left Kapernaum, only to return when it was time to release the star.
  

När tiden är inne,                         When time has come,
för lugn i sinne.                             For peace in mind
När staden skälver                        When the town is shaking
och jorden gnäller.                        And the ground whines
För julefrid,                                   For christmas peace,
öppna porten i tid.                         Open the gate in time.
Den som ingen sakna,                   The one no one misses,
hämta stjärna som vakna           Collects the wakening star

~ Jul i Kapernaum

1000 years later, the 10 years old orphan girl Amanda lives in an abandoned circus wagon in the middle of Tittutgränd in Kapernaum. She is sometimes lonely, but often plays around with the mayor Klopstock and Krampus. Besides them, Krampus has an aunt named Innocentia and there is also a lady who owns the café called Rosa. In Kapernaum also lives Assar Skoog who owns a pawnshop.

Skoog in many aspects resembles Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dicken's book A Christmas Carol. His brother died and Assar drove away his wife and newborn baby. Assar is extremely greedy and loves to make people pawn their most valuable things. He also mutters "Humbug!" from time to time.

Viktor, is the heir of the young man who fled king Sirius and he suddenly shows up in Kapernaum, scaring the life out of Skoog (like the three ghosts of christmas do to Scrooge). Amanda finds the gate to the underground and Viktor sets after her. They free the star and ride off for new adventures at the end. The battle against king Sirius and his troll guard is a little forced and lame, but the actors (even the children) are all good and the characters loveable.

Jul i Kapernaum belongs in the fantasy genre, but it is also a musical of sort. I have always been pretty sad that they never released the music on a cd because there were some pretty good ones in this. It felt even stranger when SVT chose to release the soundtrack of Mysteriet på Greveholm the following year even though it only contained instrumental music. (Snälla SVT, kan ni inte åtminstone lägga upp sångerna på Spotify nu?!) I remember having to rewind the VHS over and over because I wanted to listen to the music.To this day, I still remember Amanda's song (and no, it is not mainly due to her and I sharing first name!)

This calendar is sadly forgotten, but the Swedes voted for it to be part of the julkalender classics that SVT puts on their Öppet Arkiv site every christmas. Rewatching this now, made me think that it is actually even more relevant today. The awakening star creates havoc with the climate, making the town hot and everyone wonder what has happened to the weather. It is also worth mentioning Klopstock's line from the last episode: "Igår var Kapernaum nära sin undergång. Minnet av det som skett den här julen får aldrig blekna. Om historien hålls vid liv finns det möjlighet att inte upprepa misstagen (Yesterday, Kapernaum was close to its destruction. The memory of what has occured this christmas must never fade. If history is kept alive, there is a possibility to not recreate the misstakes.)" Definitely something to think about...


Picture was borrowed from here.

Julkalender 1991 - Sunes Jul

Every year Swedish Television (SVT) makes a christmas calendar (julkalender) for TV which tells a story of some children celebrating christmas. They broadcast one episode à day between the 1st and 24th of December (when Swedes celebrate christmas) which are about 15 minutes long. The exception to this was Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter from 1977, which had 28 episodes, starting the first Sunday in Advent and Jul i Kapernaum from 1995, which had a running time of 30 minutes per episode. This year's calendar, Selmas saga (Selma's fairy tale) looks promising, but I will wait with a more thorough review until it is finished.

I have already talked about my issues with the one from last year (2015), 1000 år till julafton (1000 years until christmas) here and one of my favourites Tomtemaskinen from 1993 here, but thought I would present the other three I have every Sunday in December up until Christmas. I have a hard time choosing an order to my four favourites, so the posts will be published chronologically. (Except for Tomtemaskinen, which I have already talked about.)

First out is Sunes Jul (Sune's christmas) from 1991 which was released at about the same time as the book with the same title. The plot is extremely simple: Sune and his family celebrate Christmas. We get to follow them as they prepare for the holidays. The calendar was followed up by a film, Sunes sommar (Sune's summer) in 1993. This film was a success and has become somewhat of a Swedish classic. The three films about Sune that were made in recent years (with the entire cast exchanged) have not been as well recieved. 

If you are in Sweden, the calendar is available on SVT:s Öppet Arkiv webplayer.

Pictures were borrowed here, here and here.

Johanne Hildebrandt - Estrid, Sagan om Valhalla

The fifth installment in the Sagan om Valhalla series is Estrid. I had the great honour of reading it in advance thanks to the author Johanne Hildebrandt.

Estrid is the daughter of Sigrid and Svend (Tveskæg) although everyone except for Sigrid think she is the daughter of Erik (Segersäll). She is also twin sister of Olof (Skötkonung) who will be king of the Swedes. Estrid gets kidnapped, and struggles to get back to her mother.

In the beginning of the book, Estrid belongs to the death goddess Hel (just like Freja eventually did in the first trilogy). I have sort of thought about having death as a theme for one of these entries about the series, because it is an over-arching, ever-present theme throughout all of the books. However, again there is a theme I thought more about as I was reading Estrid, so I will have to postpone it again. It seems fitting also, since Estrid is said to choose life over death as she converts to Christianity.

I somehow find Johanne Hildebrandt's depiction of the convertion in line with all the other supernatural things in the world she builds up and it certainly is quite imaginative. For real, however I think faith had extremely little to do with why people in Scandinavia became Christian. My MA thesis in Archaeology was about how the Christianisation can be shown in burials from the time ca AD 800-1200 in the Mälaren region in easternmost Sweden. (It is in Swedish, but can be found here if someone wants to read it, because much of my thoughts that I will write bellow is further developed there.)

To me the time period had much more to do with changing power structures and identities. It is the time of the centralisation of power, of town establishment and really also the time from which we get our first power figures that can be named and at least to some extent fleshed out from written sources. Traditionally this time period is often thought of as the time of the foundation of the Swedish (and Norwegian and Danish) nation states, but I will say that it is not. That concept was not made up until the 19th century (first and foremost to get the citizens's loyalty) and historical and archaeological research about the past was an important part of the creation of the concept.

So what did really happen then at the end of the time period those same scholars named the Viking Age? There are certainly a change towards a much more centralised power. The picture of this is also coloured by the 19th century and not least by the theory of the male conqueror (which I will probably have the opportunity to get back to in some entry later), but we can say that the power changed from being more localy based to more centralised.

The other major thing that happened  during this time period that we actually can say for certain happened: the Christian (Catholic) church was established with clergy, parish organisation and everything. This is really the aspect of the period which I find so interesting. There are actually great differences in what the different types of resources tell us about the Christianisation. Everyone who has gone to school in Sweden have to have heard the name of the German monk Ansgar. He is said to have been sent to Scandinavia as a missionary and there is a biography written by another German monk called Rimbert about him. This and the history of the Hamburg-Bremen archbishopric written by Adam of Bremen has been very influential on the research perspective of the Christianisation. The archaeological material from this period does not show a cut between the older and the newer traditions as clear as the written sources want. Instead the borders are fluid and there is no clear indication as to what is Christian or Pagan. The discussion, especially in the Contract archaeological sector, tends to end up in more or less stereotypical interpretations. The problem I think is that there seldom are any stereotypes in real life. It is easy to write about them and make life black and white, but the truth is that it really is not. Everything is put in the grey area in between the extremes and that is really what the archaeological material show us. As for who was Christian or Pagan, I think it was based on the social context. If one needed to be Christian, one was, and if one needed to be Pagan, one was. Knud den store (the great) is actually a very good example of this. He ruled as a Christian among the Englishmen and as a Pagan among the Danes. Sigrid Storråda is interesting in this aspect, because she seems to have been content in her Pagan faith. I wrote about her probably having a great political mind in my entry about Sigrid and this might seem to contradict it, but maybe it says more about what power she had. Maybe her power was so well-founded in society that she did not have to turn her coat depending of who she spoke with?

Olof's coin

The historical Olof Skötkonung is mostly famous for having been baptist by the English missionary Saint Sigfrid in Husaby in Västergötland, Sweden and for being the first to mint coins in Sweden with the help of English mint masters at the end of the 10th century. It is most likely that the name Skötkonung means Skattkonung (treasure king) and derives from his minting activities.

Because of the minting happening in my home town Sigtuna and the plot actually involving Olof, the choice for this entry's archaeological find was pretty easy. The text on the coin says OLOF REX SVEVORUM, which means Olof, king of the Swedes on the other side can be read SIDEI which has been interpreted as either a spelling variation of the name Sigtuna or an abbraviation of Situne Dei meaning God's Sigtuna.

Since I read it as a script directly from the author, the cover was borrowed from here and the picture of Olof Skötkonung's coin from here.

Anna Lihammer - Medan mörkret faller

Today is my birthday and even though I have other things I really need to do, I spent all morning reading.

I have long thought about reading the mystery books by Anna Lihammer because people say that they are good and Medan mörkret faller (While the darkness falls) was elected best mystery debute of 2014. Beside, Anna is a colleague of mine, being a Swedish archaeologist and Medan mörkret faller is set in 1934.

The time setting in the 1930's made me draw lots of parallels to the books and TV series about the Honourable Phryne Fisher. Mostly the episode The Blood of Juana the Mad, because Lihammer's book is about somewhat the same themes and is also about a gruesome murders among medical staff in a university milieu.

The story is a reaction to Lihammer gaining the knowledge about skull collections in Sweden, but also the fact that in 1934 the Swedish parliament voted for a law about compulsory sterilization of people who weren't considered fit enough for "carrying on the Swedish race". The law remained in place until 1976.

I really enjoy this book and I think it is very evident that Lihammer is an archaeologist. She dwells into the time period, making it come alive just like in the books/TV series about Phryne Fisher.
She also talks about how human bodies (both alive and dead) are treated like objects. Of course this is something archaeology deals with all the time and which I think we need to discuss more than we do.

Det var inte första gången någon reagerade på hans utseende, det hände ofta och det var inte alltid negativt. Men intresset brukade inte så tydligt göra honom till ett samlingsvärt objekt, uppmätt och liksom klart för sortering (Not for the first time, did someone react to his appearance, it happend often and not always in a negative way. But the interest seldom so obviously made him into a collectable, measured and ready to be sorted.)

~ Anna Lihammer, Medan mörkret faller

The book also reminded me of an episode of History Cold Case. It also dealt with human bodies as collectables and study objects and discovered a story about a child who probably was killed because of human bodies being coveted for the study of medicine. It is a terrible, dark side to the more recent past of Sweden and many other Western countries. Evil done in the name of science. One might wonder how people can become so cold blooded, but I do not think it is so strange somehow. It all has to do with who you define as human.

Den nya tiden. Den moderna tiden. Han undrade hur många av besökarna som skulle passa in där. Och vad som skulle hända med dem som inte gjorde det, för visioner brukade förr eller senare leda till att de som inte kunde uppfylla dem sorterades bort. Ju storslagnare visioner, desto hårdare sortering.  (The new time. The modern time. He wondered how many of the visitors would fit in there. And what would happen to the ones who did not, because visions sooner or later used to led to the ones who could not fulfill them being sorted out. Greater visions led to harder sorting)

~ Anna Lihammer, Medan mörkret faller

The Swedish law of compulsory sterilization is actually one expression of this sorting, scientific racism another and Lihammer builds up the book plot surrounding this question of who are defined as humans. It is dark and gruesome and really horrible. A dark past that is poking on the present still.

Pettson and Findus

Covers of Pannkakstårtan, Rävjakten, Stackars Pettson,
Pettson får julbesök and Kackel i Grönsakslandet.

Facebook reminded me that I met Swedish children's author Sven Nordqvist at the Göteborg Book Fair this day in 2009. Therefore I thought I would write about his books about Pettson and Findus. I absolutely love those books! Yes, I still love them as an adult. There is nothing wrong with enjoying good children's books as adult and the books about Pettson and Findus belong to the best.

"Du ska inte vara rädd för hönsen Pettson. De är inte så farliga som de ser ut." (Pettson, you don't have to be scared of the hens. They aren't as dangerous as they look.)

~ Gumman Andersson, Pettson tältar

The books (generally picture books, but there are some exceptions) tell shorter tales about Pettson. He lives alone with his cat Findus and a couple of hens. There are also some mucklor that live underneath the floor and only Findus can see, but they steal things from Pettson.

Covers of Tomtemaskinen, Pettson tältar, Tuppens minut,
När Findus var liten och försvann and Findus flyttar ut.

The books are beautifully illustrated and there are so much details in every picture that you can look at them all the time and still find new things you have never seen before. The first book Pannkakstårtan (Translated as Birthday Cake in English apparently.) was published in 1984 and the latest picture book, Findus flyttar ut (Findus moves out) in 2012. There have been some other picture books for younger children published later: Känner du Pettson och Findus? (Do you know Pettson and Findus?) from 2014 and Var är Pettson? (Where is Pettson?) from 2015. In later years, there has also been some cartoons made of the stories. This might be a little because I do not belong to the intended audience (being an adult when they were made), but I do not think they are as good. Not least since the drawings are not as detailed as the ones in the books. The only screen adaptation of any of the books I do like is the Christmas calender, Tomtemaskinen (The mechanical Santa) from 1993 made by SVT.

"Pettson, du säger så konstiga saker. Har du inte fått i dig något kaffe idag?" (Pettson, you say such weird things. Haven't you drank any coffee today?)

~ Findus, Tomtemaskinen

Ingvar Hirdwall played Pettson and Ika Nord played Findus. I thought I should save talking about my favourite Christmas calenders until December, but I might as well tell you about it now. I think it is one of the more underrated and forgotten about SVT:s christmas calenders I think. Mostly since Mysteriet på Greveholm was shown only a couple of years later (1996). That calender is generally the one people remember from "the era", but there were some other great ones made during the 1990's.

Tomtemaskinen tells the story of how Pettson promises Findus that Santa Claus will come to them this year, so he starts building a mechanical Santa in secret.

The book was published at about the same time as the christmas calender was shown on TV and is the only multi-chapter books in the series. There is no real action in it, but it is still very funny and imaginative and both Hirdwall and Nord are doing a really good job. I still think it holds up, over twenty years later.

Sven Nordqvist's signature in one of my books

Pictures were borrowed from Opal Bokförlag and from here.