Norwegian Woods (OT)

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Messages 1 - 954 of total 954 in this topic
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 30, 2012 - 04:33pm PT
Finnskogen in autumn
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 30, 2012 - 04:38pm PT
Yes Ron, there are. Open woods, mostly pine trees, moss, ling, cow- and blueberry..
Cosmic: from Finnskogen? Point taken... Lol...
BLUEBLOCR

Social climber
joshua tree
Sep 30, 2012 - 06:49pm PT
Pretty Rocks!

Kinda small tho.

Jus Teas'in
BB
zBrown

Ice climber
chingadero de chula vista
Sep 30, 2012 - 06:53pm PT
Well those are some nice photos, and cccSman, my mind is coming back - I got it right away.



If only we all knew so much.
Prod

Trad climber
Sep 30, 2012 - 07:35pm PT

?
Prod.
turd

climber
Sep 30, 2012 - 08:00pm PT

zBrown

Ice climber
chingadero de chula vista
Sep 30, 2012 - 11:45pm PT
Didn't somebody start to laugh?

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2012 - 03:31pm PT
Finnskogen
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 5, 2012 - 03:36pm PT
Hvor ær multebærene?
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 5, 2012 - 04:55pm PT
Marlow, tusen takk! So this sweet young thang in Bergen tried to seduce me
with her hellig bible. When it became apparent that wasn't having the desired
effect she brought out her multe jam and my gås was cooked!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2012 - 05:42pm PT
Lolli,

Hehe.. yes some are.. Cosmic is excused. Sitting in the wheelchair with only one hand available, he is pre-occupied with his Norwegian wood. I'm not so sure. I think it's an American. Elg er moose og elk er hjort og hjortron er multe. De'ække greitt... lol...

Thanks for the story Reilly. Klatrer, gammal gubbe, globetrotter og glad i matglade damer... Lol...

Ron: Thanks! The last photos are not my own, but they are telling a lot about Finnskogen and it's story.
Mighty Hiker

climber
Vancouver, B.C.
Oct 6, 2012 - 12:30am PT
Read and appreciated while nibbling lakerol (salt licorice) donated by Lolli. Thanks!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 7, 2012 - 12:50pm PT
Some relatives of Marlow
Wade Icey

Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
Dec 7, 2012 - 12:57pm PT
Beautiful stuff Marlow- Any chance of removing the dead bear so I can show this thread to my wife? She's always dreamed of visiting Norway.
Brandon-

climber
The Granite State.
Dec 7, 2012 - 01:01pm PT
No offense meant Wade, but hunting shouldn't be censored. It's far more respectful than the factory farms most folks get their food from.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 7, 2012 - 01:05pm PT
Wade

If it matters to your wife: Tell her that the bear was killed after killing several sheep inside a high electric fence that was built to safely keep it out and safe from being shot. It's the truth.
Wade Icey

Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
Dec 7, 2012 - 02:37pm PT
Selfish request. I have no desire to censor. but she'll go all PETA on me, if she sees that.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 11, 2012 - 05:47pm PT
nita

Social climber
chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.
Dec 11, 2012 - 06:52pm PT

Marlow , cool pictures...I like the hay drying system.....and

Thanks!.... for turning me on to...Roy Lønhøiden.........Beautiful country...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGfM9eYtD5Q
MikeL

climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
Dec 11, 2012 - 07:52pm PT
Romantic images, Marlow. Partially reminds me of my grandparents and their histories (polish).
jogill

climber
Colorado
Dec 11, 2012 - 08:29pm PT
Nice thread, Marlow. I was in Trondheim at a math meeting in the summer of 1997 and the woods and fiords were beautiful. The olympic team gave us a demonstration of ski jumping that was thrilling to watch. The color was so magnificent that when I flew to Ireland after the meeting was over, the emerald isle seemed a little pale by comparison.


;>)
Fossil climber

Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
Dec 11, 2012 - 10:52pm PT
Marlow - love your Norsk input. I've always thought - and more so recently - that Norway is the best country on earth in so many ways. Especially politically.

Environmentally it is quite similar to where I live in extreme northern BC.
Maybe I gravitated here because of spending a summer in Norway in '49, just out of high school. Loved it to pieces.

Anyway, keep sharing please. Mange takk.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 12, 2012 - 03:12pm PT
Nita
The hay drying system worked very well... Lol...

MikeL
Romantic images, yes.

jogill
Ski-jumping is a thrill to watch if you see the jumps well. And I'm glad you like the color, there is color even in the b/w photos. Though in my view nothing really compares to Ireland.

Fossil climber
People living in Norway right now are lucky. It's a very good place to live. By the way: picture number 3 above is taken 1949/1950.

For Nita - some other aspects of the hay drying system
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 12, 2012 - 03:25pm PT
HighTraverse

Trad climber
Bay Area
Dec 13, 2012 - 10:45am PT
Great stuff Marlow. Keep it coming. Even though I don't speak Norge (is that the way to spell it?)
I spent a month in Norway and Svaalbard in summer '85. Have always wanted to return.
le_bruce

climber
Oakland, CA
Dec 13, 2012 - 12:46pm PT
Great thread, Marlow.

The woods that most blew me away in Norway were of a particular kind of tree out west, often lining the fjords, like these:



Not sure what type of tree, but in copses they seemed to glow. Walking through them was amazing - bright with filtered light, open to wandering, never impenetrable or dour, interesting vertical spaces, full of bird song. Strolling for 15 minutes could easily turn into a few hours. Felt like something from a storybook.


We saw so many awesome things in Norway. Next time I go back I hope to tour by bike - just one of those countries that begs to be taken slowly, and without engines. Will need good rain gear.


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 13, 2012 - 01:31pm PT
le_bruce

Great photos from a mountainous part of Norway. The trees: It's not easy to see from the photos, but I think it's mainly birch trees. http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rkeslekten It is not montane birch since this is in the lowlands, but when you get higher you will find the montane birch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Montane_Birch_forest_and_grasslands

Birch is also the tree the "raw material" on the photo above is taken from, and it's only the outer layer that is taken, so the tree lives on very well.


HighTraverse

When you live in the country "Norge" you speak the language "norsk".
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 16, 2012 - 02:02pm PT

A couple of tunes often played in the area:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Dancing
[Click to View YouTube Video]
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Dec 17, 2012 - 01:25am PT
Hoo's it hungeeng, Merloo? Bork Bork Bork!--the Chef, MrE's pal

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skotoh/812105909/

The first two photos are from NG, July, 1930, two articles:
Norway--A Land of Stern Reality & Fjords ahd Fjells of Viking Land.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 20, 2012 - 04:42pm PT
Mouse: Great Norwegian pictures.

How work was done in the year 1915 (excellent film, no sound). Filmed in Sweden I think.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 26, 2012 - 03:55pm PT
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 26, 2012 - 04:01pm PT
I'm glad to hear Ron!

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 26, 2012 - 04:15pm PT
There's still people working with a horse, but it's unusual.

What's usual today:

In earlier times the best Norwegian skiers were working in the woods. The two persons to the left in the photo below were world champions - Gjermund Eggen and Harald Grønningen.

A picture from the old days
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 26, 2012 - 04:41pm PT
The work had to be done and it was not without danger. Doing what had to be done and doing it also under danger - that's what it was to be a man. At a later time also a few women participated.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 10, 2013 - 04:35pm PT
Svedjebruk Karelen 1920
[Click to View YouTube Video]
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Edited: Cosmic. That's the prayer I prayed every night as a child. I learned it from my mother. Your Norwegian is excellent.
otisdog

Big Wall climber
Sierra Madre & McGee Creek, Ca.
Jan 10, 2013 - 05:20pm PT
Marlow - What kind of big (dead) bird is that?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 10, 2013 - 05:36pm PT
Otisdog - The big dead bird in an earlier post is capercailzie - "tiur" in Norwegian.
donini

Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
Jan 10, 2013 - 05:40pm PT
Idyllic!
"Ten thousand Swedes, running through the trees, chased by one Norwegian."
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 10, 2013 - 05:52pm PT
Donini,

Is there a story?

The border didn't exist at Finnskogen - Finnskogen is large woods and many lakes at the "border" between the "two countries".

"These woods are my woods, though I do not own them."

The Swedes are in reality nice people. They gave us this country, but kept Jämtland and Härjedalen. Some Norwegians think we should do our best to buy J & H back with the oil money.

A painting giving us a not so romantic impression of "svedjebruk"
Mighty Hiker

climber
Vancouver, B.C.
Jan 11, 2013 - 04:22pm PT
A somewhat relevant article, about the return of wolves to the forests of Norway. Leading to the usual "debate" about it, which we don't need to repeat here. http://www.newsinenglish.no/2013/01/11/wolf-pair-marking-territory-in-oslo/

Marlow's photos are very similar to displays in the Skogsbruksmuseet in Elverum, and also in books of historical photos from Rendalen, where my father's family is from. In Hedmark, in fact, not far from the border with Sweden, which is where most of the wolves (and bears) live.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 11, 2013 - 04:43pm PT
Mighty Hiker

Most of the pictures are from Grue and Finnskogen and some are from Trysil. Grue and Finnskogen are about 230 km from Rendalen and Trysil is closer.

This drawing shows where Hedmark is in Norway.

And this map shows Grue and Finnskogen in the south, Trysil in the middle and Rendalen in the north of Hedmark.
When I was a kid fishing and football were my favourite activites. We lived close to a river, Flisa. We also went to the Rendalen area a couple of times to fish in Sølensjøen.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 11, 2013 - 04:59pm PT
Svullrya - at the heart of Finnskogen

Old pictures from Handelsforeningen, the shop at Svullrya
Mighty Hiker

climber
Vancouver, B.C.
Jan 11, 2013 - 07:26pm PT
Thanks, Marlow! Various cousins have hytter in Sølensjøen, and I've been there and of course Rendalen. Lovely spot.

I've never been to Jamtland, just across the border, where there are more distant relatives. It must be quite similar to Rendalen and area.
justthemaid

climber
Jim Henson's Basement
Jan 11, 2013 - 08:56pm PT
When I saw the title of this thread I kinda thought what Prod did...

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 12, 2013 - 02:57pm PT
Östmark on the "Swedish side" of Finnskogen

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 27, 2013 - 05:22am PT
Resting while picking cloudberries at Fjørhanaberget in Sweden

The self-made cow-berry-sorting machine in use
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 31, 2013 - 02:27pm PT
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Ack Värmeland du sköna - Jussi Björling
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 22, 2013 - 03:03pm PT
Modern times: jumping and freerunning
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 18, 2013 - 02:08pm PT
Rally Finnskog 2012
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 28, 2013 - 02:40pm PT
Rikesten, a man from Finnskogen, known for his shamanic abilities. He lived the last years of his life in the house of my great-grandparents on my mother's side.

Rikesten means someone living on land owned by someone else.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 30, 2013 - 02:54pm PT
Forest Finns in Scandinavia
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 15, 2013 - 01:57pm PT
Motorcycles at Finnskogen long ago. I don't know what kind of motorcycles. Maybe one of them is an Indian?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 8, 2013 - 11:46am PT
Ack Värmeland, du sköna (Värmlandsvisan) - with explanation in English - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2792-go7i8&feature=player_detailpage

Jussi Björling
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Esther & Abi Ofarim (video with pictures from all over Sweden)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Mauno Kuusisto (1959) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7ctzhy7r-FI

Göteborgs Symfoniker - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzMLnreaUrg&feature=player_detailpage

Jan Johansson - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s30lq3fseB0&feature=player_detailpage

Stan Getz - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0ycw7CAzwSY

Chet Baker & Stan Getz
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Sommarkören 2012 Kulturskolan Lund - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DBbonX_knYM

In Flames - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anKqpTBQLuQ&feature=player_detailpage

Victor Kastelein and Yr Kettelhake
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 13, 2013 - 02:49pm PT
Alf Hågedal Trio - Flickan från Finnskogarna (Carl Jularbo)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 16, 2013 - 12:14pm PT
Finnskogen this weekend.

Ed: Thanks Ron. I appreciate your feedback very much.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2013 - 12:40pm PT
Kaisa Vilhuinen (1855-1941)
Kaisa Vilhuinen knew many poems similar to Kalevala, the result of an old oral storytelling tradition carried by rune songs. The tradition of the forest Finns was rooted in shamanism. Kaisa was at her time the best source researchers had at Finnskogen. She was from Röjdåfors in Sweden and is seen as one of the last tietäjä (the one who knows) at Finnskogen. She was known to be able to influence the forces/powers of nature and protect and cure both people and animals. Her teacher had been Puru Juhoin, a man with great shamanic powers. He said: "Never put a sword in the hand of a fool and never teach a person older than yourself. Through your powers you will be able to do both good and bad. Teach someone younger than yourself and do it secretly, if not, the power of the runes will be lost."
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2013 - 12:40pm PT
Kalevala

Poems 1-2
Ilmatar (the Virgin of the Air) descends to the waters. A pochard lays its eggs on her knee. The eggs break and the world is formed from their pieces. The mother of the water then gives birth to Väinämöinen. Sampsa Pellervoinen sows the forest trees. One of the trees, an oak, grows so large that it blots out both the sun and the moon. A tiny man rises from the sea and fells the giant oak. The sun and moon can shine once again.
Poems 3-4
Joukahainen challenges Väinämöinen to a contest of wisdom and is defeated. With his singing, Väinämöinen causes Joukahainen to sink into a swamp. In order to save himself, Joukahainen promises his sister' s hand in marriage to Väinämöinen. Upon learning of the bargain, the sister Aino mourns her fate and finally drowns herself.
Poems 5-7
Väinämöinen searches the sea for Aino and catches her (she has been transformed into a fish) on his fishing hook. However, he loses her again and sets out to woo the maiden of Pohjola, the daughter of the North Farm. Meanwhile, eager for revenge, Joukahainen watches out for Väinämöinen on the way to Pohjola and shoots Väinämöinen's horse from underneath him as he rides across a river. Väinämöinen falls into the water and floats out to sea. There an eagle rescues him and carries him to Pohjola's shores. The mistress of Pohjola, Louhi, tends Väinämöinen until he recovers. In order to be able to return home, Väinämöinen promises that Ilmarinen the smith will forge a Sampo for Pohjola. The maiden of Pohjola, Louhi's daughter, is promised to the smith in return for the Sampo.

Poems 8-9
On his way home, Väinämöinen meets the maiden of Pohjola and asks her to marry him. She agrees on the condition that Väinämöinen carry out certain impossible tasks. While Väinämöinen carves a wooden boat, his axe slips and he receives a deep wound in his knee. He searchers for an expert blood-stauncher and finally finds an old man who stops the flow of blood by using magic incantations.

Poem 10
Using magic means, Väinämöinen sends the unwilling Ilmarinen to Pohjola. Ilmarinen forges the Sampo. Louhi shuts it inside a hill of rock. Ilmarinen is forced to return home without his promised bride.
Poems 11-12
Lemminkäinen sets off to woo Kyllikki, a maiden of Saari Island. He makes merry with the other maidens and abducts Kyllikki. He later abandons her and leaves to woo the maiden of Pohjola. With his singing he bewitches the people of Pohjola to leave the farmhouse at North Farm. Only one person, a cowherd, does not fall under his spell.
Poems 13-15
Lemminkäinen asks Louhi for her daughter, but Louhi demands that he first hunt and kill the Demon's moose, then the Demon's fire-breathing gelding, and finally the swan in Tuonela River, which is the boundary between this world and the next. There the vengeful cowherd kills Lemminkäinen and throws his body into the river. Lemminkäinen's mother receives a sign of her son's death and goes out in search of him. She rakes the pieces of her son's body out of Tuonela River, puts them back together and brings her son back to life.
Poems 16-17
Väinämöinen begins to build a boat and visits Tuonela in order to ask for the magic spells need to finish it. He does not find them. He then seeks the missing spells from the stomach of the ancient wise man, Antero Vipunen, who has long been dead. He finds them and finishes his boat.
Poems 18-19
Väinämöinen sets off in his boat to woo the daughter of Pohjola, but she chooses instead Ilmarinen, the forger of the Sampo. Ilmarinen successfully performs the three impossible tasks set before him: he plows a field full of vipers, hunts down the bear of Tuonela and the wolf of Manala and finally fishes the Great Pike out of the Tuonela River. Louhi promises her daughter to Ilmarinen.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2013 - 12:40pm PT
Poems 20-25
In Pohjola, preparations are made for the wedding and invitations are sent to all except Lemminkäinen. The groom and his folk arrive in Pohjola, and there is great feasting. Väinämöinen entertains the wedding guests with his singing. The bride and groom are given advice concerning marriage, and the bride bids farewell to her people and departs with Ilmarinen for Kalevala. There a banquet is also ready for the guests. Väinämöinen sings the praises of the wedding guests.
Poems 26-27
Lemminkäinen shows up at the banquet in Pohjola uninvited, and demands food and drink. He is offered a tankard of beer filled with vipers. Lemminkäinen engages the master of Pohjola in a singing contest and a swordfight and kills him.

Poems 28-30
Lemminkäinen flees the people of Pohjola who are rising up in arms against him and hides on Saari Island, living among the maidens of the island until he is forced to flee once again, this time from the island's jealous menfolk. Lemminkäinen finds his home in ashes and his mother hiding in a cottage in the forest. Lemminkäinen sets out to seek revenge on Pohjola, but is forced to return home because a cold spell cast by the mistress of Pohjola has frozen his ships in the sea.
Poems 31-34
Brothers Untamo and Kalervo quarrel violently, Kalervo's troop is slain, and of his kin only his son Kullervo remains. Because of his superhuman powers, Kullervo fails in every task he is given. Untamo sells the boy to Ilmarinen as a serf. The wife of Ilmarinen send Kullervo out to be a cowherd and out of spite bakes a stone into the bread which is his only provisions. Kullervo breaks his knife on the stone while trying to cut the bread, and in revenge drives the cows into the swamp and brings home a pack of wild animals instead. The mistress, intending to milk the cows, is mauled to death. Kullervo flees. He finds his family in the forest, but hears that his sister has disappeared.
Poems 35-36
Kullervo's father sends him to pay the taxes. On his return trip, Kullervo unwittingly seduces his sister, who then drowns herself in the rapids upon discovering the truth. Kullervo sets out to seek revenge from Untamo. Having killed Untamo and his family, Kullervo returns home to find is own family dead. Kullervo commits suicide.

Poem 37
Ilmarinen mourns the death of his wife and decides to forge a woman of gold. The golden maiden remains, however, lifeless and cold. Väinämöinen warns the young people against worshipping gold.

Poem 38
Ilmarinen is rejected by the youngest daughter of Pohjola and carries her off in his sleigh. The girl reviles Ilmarinen and so offends him that he finally turns her into a seagull with his singing. Ilmarinen tells Väinämöinen of the wealth and prosperity that the Sampo has brought the people of Pohjola.

Poems 39-41
Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen set out to steal the Sampo from Pohjola. In the course of the journey, their boat runs aground on the shoulders of a giant pike. Väinämöinen kills the pike and fashions a kantele from its jawbone. No one else is able to play the instrument, but Väinämöinen holds all living things spellbound with his playing.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2013 - 12:40pm PT
Poems 42-43
Väinämöinen puts the people of Pohjola to sleep with his kantele playing and the Sampo is taken to the travellers' boat and rowed away. The people of Pohjola awaken and Louhi, the mistress of Pohjola, sends obstacles in the path of the raiders to hinder their escape. The seafarers survive, but the kantele falls into the sea. Louhi sets off in pursuit and transforms herself into a giant bird of prey. In the ensuing battle the Sampo is smashed and falls into the sea. Some of the fragments remain in the sea, but others wash ashore and bring Finland good fortune and prosperity. Louhi is left with only the worthless lid of the Sampo and an impoverished land.
Poem 44
In vain, Väinämöinen seeks the kantele which fell into the sea. He makes a new kantele from birchwood and his playing once again delights the whole of creation.
Poem 45-46
Louhi sends diseases to destroy the people of Kalevala, but Väinämöinen cures the sick. Louhi sends a bear to attack the Kalevala cattle, but Väinämöinen slays the bear. The people of Kalevala organize a bear-killing feast.

Poems 47-48
The mistress of Pohjola hides the sun and the moon inside a hill and steals the fire as well. Ukko, the supreme god, makes a new sun and moon by striking fire, but the fire falls to earth, into the belly of a giant fish. Väinämöinen asks Ilmarinen to go fishing with him. They catch the fish and place the fire in the service of humankind.

Poem 49
Ilmarinen forges a new sun and moon, but they do not shine. After battling the people of Pohjola, Väinämöinen returns to ask Ilmarinen to fashion a set of keys with which to release the sun and moon from Pohjola's mountain. While Ilmarinen is forging, Louhi sets the sun and moon free to return to their places in the sky.
Poem 50
Marjatta conceives a child from a whortleberry. Her baby boy is born in the forest, but soon disappears, to be found finally in a swamp. Väinämöinen condemns the fatherless child to death, but the child speaks out against the sentence and is christened King of Karelia. Väinämöinen departs in a copper boat with the prediction that he will be needed again someday to make a new Sampo for the people, to bring new light and play new songs.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 21, 2013 - 01:03pm PT
In the forest.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Music by Gåte.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 22, 2013 - 03:35am PT
Fishing trout
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 1, 2013 - 01:32pm PT
Celebrating Finnskogen: Finnskogdagene - http://www.finnskogdagene.no/
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2013 - 01:19pm PT

Nitahå-Jussi is said to have been the last wanderer at Finnskogen. He knew the woods well and took a job where he found it, when he needed it. He lived and worked for a while in the US, but returned to Sweden to take over the farm after his father's death. Someone had illegally taken the farm and years of juridical trouble started. In the film "Finnskog and trollskap" we are following Jussi. The film made him "famous", as did the book that was written about him. The book carried his own name. He was still active as an old man - as you see from the picture. I think he's in his 80's. The film "Finnskog and trollskap" has finally reached dvd and is now to be bought. In that film I can also see my great grandfather on my father's side - Laurits - a man worth his own film.

Some of the quotes living after Jussi:
"These woods are my woods, though I do not own them."
"I'm following the bird-paths."
"There's a trick to solve everything." (Det er et knep ved alt)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2013 - 02:06pm PT
Roy Lønhøiden - Finnskogens dronning (Queen of Finnskogen)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 14, 2013 - 10:52am PT
Finnskogen this weekend
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 14, 2013 - 11:13am PT
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 14, 2013 - 11:21am PT
A couple of tractors at Finnskogen
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 14, 2013 - 12:59pm PT
Finnskogdagene 2013 Gottlundmarsjen 1
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 14, 2013 - 12:59pm PT
Finnskogdagene 2013 Gottlundmarsjen 2
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 14, 2013 - 01:55pm PT
Roy, tusen takk for alt this! I really enjoyed the Forest Finns video and the music vids.
I never knew anything about Finnskogen. What a hard life. Did you grow up in Hedmark?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 14, 2013 - 02:00pm PT
Reilly

Yes, I grew up in Hedmark. Mostly Sønsterud close to Flisa, but also Gjesåsen, Løten and Kongsvinger (if you know the local geography).
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 19, 2013 - 03:01pm PT
The history of timber floating in Rotna - written 1983 by Jakob Ryen, an uncle of my mother. The floating in Rotna ended in 1965.


Ed: MH2 - That's sweet - it's the first time I'm exposed to the Canadian log driving bit. lol...
MH2

climber
Jul 19, 2013 - 03:12pm PT
Ha, Ha! Mighty fine.


A possibly relevant albeit over-exposed Canadian log-driving bit:


[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 22, 2013 - 02:25pm PT
Roy Lønhøiden plays "Gjennom Livet" ("Through Life") from his record "Sanger fra skogen" ("Songs from the forest")
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 25, 2013 - 12:19pm PT
A poem by Dan Andersson, a poet from the forest, translated in the original metres by C.D. Locock (1929):

Song

My love was born in the sweet of the year,
By the banks of a rippling, hurrying river;
Wild nectar I quaffed in my youth-days there,
In dew-drenced meads where the moonbeams quiver.

My love was born where the salmon leap
In Paiso's river of waters dancing;
And it grew to a melody sung in sleep,
A wild man's revel, a tale entrancing.

It seethed in my blood like a draught divine,
Born anew with each Springs returning,
When the world goes reeling, as drunk with wine,
And Earth and Heaven are burning.

But never more have I loved as then
In the moon of roses by Paiso's river;
My love grows grey, nor findeth again
Sweet nectar in meads where the moonbeams quiver.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 25, 2013 - 01:33pm PT
Finnskogen and mountains - a great fantasy. In Norway the closest you get to this painting, this dream, is in Trysil.

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 25, 2013 - 06:01pm PT
Jeg aer i Finnskogen av Nord Amerika - the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. You would feel right at home here, Marlow. I'm visiting the old family farm, now owned by others :-(
They have let it go so maybe I can get it back cheaply.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 26, 2013 - 03:34am PT
Reilly

My best wishes for you and the old family farm. Do you have any photos from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan? Be free to post them on this thread.


Edit.: Here's a picures I found on the web showing a lot of similarities between the two landscapes:


Some differences: The Michigan peninsula has a great "coastal" line that you do not find at Finnskogen, where you have smaller lakes. And I think Finnskogen is generally more dominated by pine and spruce than the Michigan peninsula. The peninsula is as I can see extremely colour-rich in the autumn when the leaves change their ways - as seen from this picture:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 28, 2013 - 12:03pm PT
Dan Andersson - Heldagskväll i timmerkojan
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Dan Andersson's first book (1914) - Kolarhistorier. Cost: Swedish kroner 1,-

Joakim Thåström singing his song "Om Black Jim" - a song about Dan Andersson who died 32 years old from cyanid poisoning in a bed at room 11 at Hotel Hellman in Stockholm. Choose your hotel room with care when you get to Stockholm...

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 28, 2013 - 12:39pm PT
Marlow, fotos to come when I reach a computer. Saw wolf tracks a few days ago, big ones.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 28, 2013 - 12:45pm PT
Reilly.

That's much appreciated!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 29, 2013 - 04:43pm PT
Sorrow 1894 - A forest Finn and his wife

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Aug 1, 2013 - 01:32am PT
See, Marlow, I told you I would have pics...

Beaver lodge
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2013 - 11:27am PT
Reilly.

Norwegian Woods.com. Hehe... that's cool. The similarity between Finnskogen and the picture you posted is striking - it could be anywhere at Finnskogen.

Some lichens from this week:
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2013 - 11:27am PT
Some other parts of the nature
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2013 - 11:29am PT
And memorablia
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2013 - 03:18pm PT
"In his youth Dan Andersson led a wandering life. He worked as woodsman, temperance lecturer, factory worker, and travelling salesman." At the age of 14, Andersson was by his father sent to the United States to explore possibilities for immigration. He worked there at his aunt and uncle's farm, but after eight months, his father asked him to return to Skattlösberg, Sweden.

Dan wrote a book about America - "Chi-Mo-Ka-Ma. Stories from Northern America." (Bonniers 1920).

This is how the book starts:
"I was still young the first time I met Charlie Day, alias Red Shadow, an Indian who had been given this name by the people from Rice Lake, a place near the center of the railway triangel Brainerd - Duluth - Beminji, just like in a big box, with the clear blue sky of Northern Minnesota as roof."
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2013 - 03:22pm PT
My mother ready to go skiing (in front on the right side) and her mother, my grandmother, with equipment for carrying water on the left.
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Aug 2, 2013 - 03:40pm PT
Dette er en fantastisk tråd, Marlow, og du har et godt øye.

As well as a refined sense of place. My pleasure to visit.

I climbed in YV in the eighties with a fellow from Eben Junction, MI. His family, the Laaksos, were Finns. He himself, Kelly, was just as small as a guy gets and looked dwarfed by his rack on El Cap. But he was a strong climber, just not wall-savvy.

"See ya to da U.P., eh?" was the sticker on his bumper. I met him in the C4 parking lot, you can BELIEVE IT OR NOT!

MFM
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2013 - 03:46pm PT
Thanks Mouse. Your Norwegian was perfect. Har du hatt hjelp? Can't just be Google?
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Aug 2, 2013 - 06:04pm PT
Har du hatt hjelp?

Jeg tror saa men kanskje Musen aer ett Rattus norvegicus?


Who says Devil's Lake is the only climbing in Wisconsin?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2013 - 06:26pm PT
From the woods: This is for Bats only...


Mouse - Mus eller Rotte - as a matter of translation:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 3, 2013 - 11:37am PT
Wolf tracks

Bear tracks

Guns made by the smith at Bortomaaa farm, Orsa Finnmark, Sweden

Bortomaaa farm: Nine different keys needed to open the door

Grue Finnskog: "Den skal tidlig krøkes som god krok skal bli"

Shooting bear, Dalarna, Sweden, January 1877
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 3, 2013 - 11:50am PT
"Neverkont"

Collecting the raw material "never" from birch

Working with "never"

"Neverkont" in use (my grandmother to the right)

"Nerverkont" - still made today, but never in work-related use
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Aug 3, 2013 - 12:01pm PT
Ekte Finnskog, ikke sant?

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 3, 2013 - 12:03pm PT
Reilly

Yes, looks exactly like. Is the picture from Finnskogen in Norway, Sweden or Finland?
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Aug 3, 2013 - 12:16pm PT
Hahaha, nej, Wisconsin!

Den gammel kahytt...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 3, 2013 - 12:21pm PT
Great place. Is it the family farm?

And what has happened to the photo? (there's a round spot full of colours on the right side, lower part of the photo)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 4, 2013 - 04:10am PT
The settlement of forest Finns in the central part of Sweden

The settlement of forest Finns in the south-eastern part of Norway

Words: före = before, efter = after
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 4, 2013 - 04:14am PT
Haukugle - Northern Hawk-Owl (Surnia ulula)


Ash and Glow:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 7, 2013 - 04:08pm PT
"The spruce is blooming well this year", people from the forest say.
They stop where their paths cross in the forest
and are there for each other
with a silent glow of joy in their eyes."

Freely after Hans Børli

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 7, 2013 - 04:18pm PT


I'm standing by the river. It's late at night. I've been walking along the river, fishing, for many hours. The last hour I haven't caught a fish. Darkness is approaching. Colours are fading around me. Mist is starting to spread down the river. I can feel a cold breeze softly touching my cheek. The humming sound from the river is growing deeper. I'm standing in some kind of enthrallment. I'm filled with energy, connected, yet calm. I can sense, I can feel, all of this, and still not, since there is no sense of a separate I. The river flows and the river flows in me. I am the river.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 8, 2013 - 04:12pm PT


It is the ephemeral things
that you carry with you:
the shadow of a bird’s wing
crossing the path in front of your foot
the smell of ice and frozen fruit of mountain-ash
an early autumn morning long ago, a word
spoken in the mist and wind
by an open fire
deep inside the moose-fields

It is the ephemeral things
that live inside you
and firmly hold a picture of yourself
and life - shimmering
like beaches reflected
in a flowing river

Freely after Hans Børli

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 16, 2013 - 01:38pm PT
The Forest Finns brought with them many customs from Finland. Sauna, "svedjebruk" (slash-and-burn agriculture), a special kind of rye, the use of "never" from birch as material and so on.

The sauna was often the first building the forest Finns built and the sauna served as a multi purpose house.


The beginning of Urho Kekkonen's book describing the story ot the "Sauna":

"In the beginning was only a heap of rocks. They were heated, they were worshiped. Perhaps they were propitiated, perhaps they were appeased by having water cast upon them.

Rituals have always been an inherent part of the sauna. Once it had become an everyday bathing place, ceremonial uses remained: the bride was bathed in the sauna before the wedding.

The very earliest Finnish woodsmen used the sauna as a multiple purpose building, it was both dwelling and sauna. It could also be used for drying grain.

The first saunas were probably earthen saunas: a pit was dug in the ground and the rocks to be heated were heaped at the bottom. The sides of the pit were reinforced with tree trunks and eventually the entire construction began to rise out of the ground, with walls made of logs.

The functions of the sauna kept increasing: of course the sauna was for washing and bathing and laundring; but it was also a dispensary, where the old cupping women would draw the "evil blood" from the veins with their cupping horns, where painful muscles were massaged, where the children were born and the deceased laid out to be washed. Flax was dried in the sauna, hams and mutton were cured, and malt was dried. The sauna was the source of indispensable hot water. The water was warmed on the hot rocks, or in the hot-water cauldron.

The old saunas were often very large, 25 square meters up to 40 square meters. The door was at the gable end of the sauna and led directly into the sauna-room with it's earthen floor."...


The Helsinki Yacht Club and Bar - Finntown/Butte - Montana - where the annual naming of St. Urho takes place... And: Yes, there are saunas in there :-) Posted by Mojede on the Finland thread.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 21, 2013 - 03:13pm PT

Look - the lake's shining with scarlet
from the land of the sunsetting sky.
And bright as a piece of old silver
is the diver's red-throated cry.

Hans Børli


Smaalom (Gavia Stellata - Red-throated Loon )
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Filmed by Gunnar Fernqvist, Sweden.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2013 - 04:12pm PT
The Forests' Song

It sounds so sad on the moor at night:
the forests' song.
Its lyrics are written in gold twilight
where the weary sun sinks out of sight
over the desolate highlands.

I stop and listen. - I hear a note:
the forests' song.
A trembling cry from the wild bird's throat,
a murmuring brook where the fall winds float
over the desolate highlands.

How blessed those notes of its music are,
the forests' song.
They rise in the light of both sun and star
where tree-shaking winds blow near and far
over the desolate highlands.

The moose hears a dusky melody play:
the forests' song.
He rests in the moss through the lulling day
till twilight calls him out on his way
over the desolate highlands.

And the hunter hears the old tune run:
the forests' song.
He polishes up his shot-blackened gun
as smoke coils up when the day is done
up in the desolate highlands.

And the song flows on in each slumbering glen,
the forests' song.
They stop and they listen again,
the lonely beasts and the lonely men
up on the desolate highlands.


Hans Børli (translated by Louis Muinzer)


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2013 - 04:21pm PT
Have You Listened to the Rivers in the Night?

Have you listened to the rivers in the night?
They speak of other things.

They send no laughter trickling over their sand bars,
hum no song about
girls' brown bodies
that glide outward at the bathing place
or wide meadows with their curlew-cries
or the ferryman who looks at the clouds
as he rows.

They speak of other things.
Things that are homeless in the day,
things that are Never and without words.

If you listen long to the rivers in the night,
listen long,
it is at last as if your soul
is mysteriously remembering its future.


Hans Børli (translated by Louis Muinzer)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2013 - 04:49pm PT
For a Young Girl

So slim and supple in your eighteen years!
Your being is a wind-bent straw
where your smile's shy grass-butterfly
sits tipping its wings slantwise
and shining for nobody
and everyone.


Hans Børli (translated by Louis Muinzer)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2013 - 05:16pm PT
The Moose Heart

He cut the heart out from
the hot and steaming cavity
and threw it in the heather.

Gentle snowflakes
came slanting through the grey air
and settled silently, melted
against the reeking redness.

But before we'd cut the carcass up,
the heart was snow-covered.
just a little hump in the whiteness.

And when we set off homewards
with big wet sacks
that scratched against green branches,
we forgot the moose heart...


Hans Børli


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 24, 2013 - 03:28pm PT

The Little Flute

You mend your instrument.
give it more and better strings,
a deeper ring -

but the little flute...

The little bone flute
waits
till the bows are lowered
waits
till the trumpets are silent
and the light goes out on the podium
then
it makes lonely music in the darkness
by the backdoor.

A naked tone
white
as a bird-bone
in the bog wind.

There is No One playing.
The little bone flute.


Hans Børli



Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 25, 2013 - 04:32am PT

Kvarntorp and Ritamäki, old Forest Finn farms in Värmland, Sweden.

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 1, 2013 - 10:51am PT

Otto Tyskeberget's great grandfather, Daniel Tyskeberget (1778-1856), was a legendary bear hunter at Finnskogen. He is known to have killed close to 100 bears. Daniel had a deep passion for bear hunting. Other words than passion could of course be used. Once a serious disease had reached Tyskeberget. But a bear had been seen in the area and Daniel wanted to hunt it down. His wife asked him to stay, but he couldn't. He left with his gun and didn't return until some weeks later. Two of his children had died. As the story goes - that was the only time Daniel was seen crying.


A bear claw left by Daniel

Daniel's gun - rebuilt from flintlock to percussion cap during his life-time.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 1, 2013 - 10:54am PT

"Jag väntar" ("I'm waiting"), a tune by Gunnar Turesson (1906-2001) with lyrics by his brother-in-law, Dan Andersson. Gunnar Turesson was only 16 years old when he composed the tune.

Sofia Karlsson singing "Jag väntar"

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 2, 2013 - 02:26pm PT

The Lady Wanderer

It is as if your face has listened somewhere
near the springs. - Sister, it is
as if you brought dawn's stillness with you
from the heights with sacred trees.

Many a time you filled my loneliness
in days when my heart was lost:
I sensed your nearness in the roe dear's leap
and in the kestrel's wings of fire.

Now I stand with my hands heavy from their loss,
so poor, so coarse-made and grey.
You are like an image, a shining name
of something I shall never reach.

You have gone on slanting rays of sunlight
towards the highland deep inside you.
Your listening, averted being has gained
a scent of snow in autumn mountains.

I look at you. The way a lost man
in the darkness may stand and see
a star above an unknown country
where the paths are snowbound.

Hans Børli
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2013 - 04:01pm PT

Halling after the "Limping boy" Ola Porkkala Lehmoinen, Grue Finnskog.

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2013 - 04:04pm PT

Cemetery in natural forest (Finland)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2013 - 05:03pm PT
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Inscription

Your life. Your dream:
The warmth beneath the foot of a bird
that's dozing in the autumn dawn...

H.B.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2013 - 01:28pm PT
At dawn this weekend
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2013 - 01:33pm PT
Some tools for shoes and leather
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2013 - 01:42pm PT
Some old tools for timber and wood
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 16, 2013 - 11:22am PT
Backpacks

A well used "neverkont"

Bergans Original, Made in Oslo, Norway
KlimbIn

climber
Sep 16, 2013 - 12:22pm PT

He explained, “One thing that really divides Norway is bark.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/world/europe/in-norway-tv-program-on-firewood-elicits-passions.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 16, 2013 - 12:39pm PT
KlimbIn

I haven't read the book, but the article was great. TFPU!

When I grow old, climbing and firewood will be a part of my life. My mother calling out "Boys, now it's dinner..." from the house and the sound and rythm of my grandfather sawing and chopping firewood behind the barn is still part of my idea of everything being well, something stable and reliable in life. My grandfather died 35 years ago, but I'm still carrying the sound...

This is the saw that made the sound in the hands of my grandfather:
KlimbIn

climber
Sep 16, 2013 - 10:00pm PT
Marlow, thank you for these pictures.

Cutting, chopping and stacking firewood was the only way for me to keep warm for several years. The toil is natural, and beneficial for the mind. As I think of my dream home for my later years, a fireplace and a wood chopping block are essential.
hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
Sep 16, 2013 - 11:40pm PT
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 17, 2013 - 11:42am PT
For hay:

At the other end - the name of my grandfather (my father's father):

using this tool:

The last name comes in many varieties: Faldås - Faldaas - Fallaas - Fallås

The first part of the last name, "Fall", is connected to forest Finns and falling trees. "The fall" was the name of chopped-down-trees to be burned next spring.

Trees were chopped down one year. Next spring they were burned. The ash nurtured the soil. Rye was sown and so on...

Before my mother's mother married, she had Ryen as her last name. Ryen from rye.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 20, 2013 - 12:58pm PT

Old tool used by grindermen - slipestein

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 20, 2013 - 05:49pm PT

Sofia Karlsson - Till min syster/To My Sister (Dan Andersson)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2013 - 05:52am PT
A Musician's Last Journey (Dan Andersson)

Thorstein Bergman - the whole poem/song
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Malin Foxdal - the first half of the poem/song
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Ere the rosy morning brightens over Himmelmora's Crest,
See a dead man faring forth from Berga By:
And silent o'er the hillside they bear him to his rest,
Beneath the dawning grey, the chilly sky.
And their boots go heavy-heeled through the rose-bespattered
field,
And heavy heads are bowed as tho' in prayer.
From the desert spaces' Need comes a Dreamer who is dead,
Through dewy meads that shine with flowers fair.

"He was strange and he was lonely," say the four dark
bearing men,
"And often lacked he resting-place and bread,"-
"Lo, a King!" say the roses - and are trodden down again -
"Lo, a King and a Dreamer that is dead!"-
"We are slow," say the bearers, "and mile on mile it seems,
Ever sultrier brows the day this morning tide." -
"Walk ye warily, speak softly," sigh the willows by the
streams,
"Maybe it is some flow'ret that has died."

But when thro' green Spring woodlands the pitch-black
coffin swings,
Runs a silence through the morn-awakened fields,
And the West Wind stays to listen who it is such escort
brings,
Mid the roses, with such footsteps heavy-heeled.
"Tis but Olle, the musician," sigh the whispering forest
trees,
"For ended is his homeless day." -
"Oh, would I were a hurricane," replies the gentle breeze,
"I would pipe him on his journey all the way!"

Over ling and yellow marshes sway the dead man's stiffening
bones,
Sway wearily the sun's pale rays beneath:
But when evening's lovely coolness falls on bilberries and
stones
Sounds the tramp again on Himmelmora Heath:
Tramp of four tired men, who in grief march home again,
With their heads bowed low as if in prayer.
But deep upon their track see the roses trampled back,
Through the dewy meads that shine with flowers fair.

"He is gone," say the bearers, "and his mother bides forlorn
In Torberga behind the poorhouse bars. -
"We are trampled 'neath your footsteps, with your heavy
shoes are torn,"
Cry the rose-buds, pointing to their scars.
"It is Death that has gone dancing over Himmelmora
Heath,"
Each tistle by the clover pasture moans:
"He has ground you all to garbage his clumsy boots beneath,
While he danced with the Dreamer's bones."

O'er the grass and the grey roof-tops like a whisper comes
the night,
With her few pale stars' wretched fire:
And East across the moorland to the tarn goes down a light,
Goes a song through the lily-sprinkled mire.
Far and wide the black storm thunders, and round the islet
there
Chant the waves of the desert spaces' Need:
O'er the dark and angry waters, lo, the night sounds call to
prayer,
For a Dreamer, a Musician, lies dead.

Translation: C. D. Locock
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 24, 2013 - 04:04pm PT

Tapio

It still exists old photos of Norwegian Forest Finns standing on their knees praying to the forest god Tapio before a hunt. They prayed and asked for permission to hunt - bearers of an old pagan natur-religion as they were.

"Tapio is a forest spirit or god, who figured prominently in the Kalevala. His wife is the goddess of the forest, Mielikki. He was the father of Annikki, Tellervo, Nyyrikki (the god of hunting), and Tuulikki. Tapio is imagined to have a beard of lichen and eyebrows of moss.

He lends his name in the form of Tapiola to:
(a) one of the major urban centres within the city of Espoo, outside of Helsinki; and
(b) an unincorporated community in the USA state of Michigan.

Jean Sibelius's tone-poem Tapiola (1926) is a depiction of the forest Tapio inhabits."


Tapiola (Sibelius) - Neeme Järvi

[Click to View YouTube Video]
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Sep 24, 2013 - 04:31pm PT
Carlow Marlow, is there such a toy as a Norwegian woodie?

FOR SURFING, NOT BANGING!

I looked for one but couldn't find one. This is the best I could do.

http://www.arcticsurfblog.com/2012/09/norwegian-nuggets//

I envision a poodle (Tami-certified and tested) on a board, sacrificing his existence for the greater good by checking for undertow, equipped with transmitters to record currents, temps, etc., the gang gathered to watch the data on the computer set up on the tailgate...

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 24, 2013 - 04:36pm PT
The history of Otter Lake or Tapiola, Michigan

By the Pupils of the Askel School under the direction of Elina Collected and Written Heikkinen School year 1927-1928

Introduction

"Askel, as the eastern shore of Otter Lake is called, is strictly a Finnish settlement. It has a population of only 219 people divided among 34 families, but its history is a remarkable story of wilderness in America. It is this story of How the wild woods were changed into a promising farming community and how the foreign element was Americanized in the short period of 38 years. The Story is here set forth as put together by the Eighth grade civics class of Askel school in 1928.

The First Settlers

The first settlers who lived at Otter Lake were the French and the Indians. There is no accurate information of their existence here as they left before any of the present settlers came. There were however, ruins of log cabins and old pine stumps to show that the Finnish people were not the first to penetrate into this wilderness. With the cutting of the soft wood trees the French left, having no intentions of making their homes here, and settled elsewhere. Later, the Finnish people met some of them occasionally and were told how they had lived in log cabins at Otter Lake when there were yet Indians there. There is said to be in Chassell, a very old French women who claims to have been born at Otter Lake. At the northeastern end of Otter Lake, there is a large beech supposed to have been planted by a women now living in Houghton.

It was early in 1890 that a number of woodcutters at Bootjack near Torch Lake, who had recently come from Finland, heard of a fresh water lake rich in fish somewhere up the Sturgeon, not very far from Chassell. At once, two of these, named Peter Tauriainen and Enock Pyykkonen lured by the tale of fish, set out to investigate. They rowed up Portage lake to Chassell end then up the Sturgeon River. After some time they came to the forks of the Otter and the Sturgeon, and not knowing which branch to take they decided to camp at the fork overnight. They spent a rather lonely night by a bonfire. There was a dark deep forest on all sides and they heard the howling of wolves. In the morning they rowed up the Sturgeon and not finding a lake, they came back and went Otter. Soon they came to the lake they were looking for. It was all they had expected and more. Lying in a deep valley with dense forest around it and high hills and deep ravines on either side they found a very beautiful lake a bout 3 miles long and a mile wide. So pleased were they with its beauty, its abundance of fish, and its resemblance to the lake of Finland that they set back determined to get possession of the land near by. After some time they were pleased to find that the government was giving the land away as free homesteads to those who would make their homes there."

http://www.migenweb.org/baraga/history/otterlake.html



Mouse

Norway has never been a car producing country, but we tried with the car Troll. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(automobile)


When I was a kid my grandfather made wooden cars for me and my brothers. We used to pull them around with a certain pride because they were large, well built and had wood-wheels that rolled quite well.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2013 - 12:54pm PT

Carl Axel Gottlund (February 24, 1796, Ruotsinpyhtää – April 20, 1875, Helsinki) was a Finnish explorer, collector of folklore, historian, cultural politician, linguist, philologist, translator, writer, publisher and lecturer of Finnish language at the University of Helsinki. He was a colorful cultural personality and one of the central Finnish national awakeners and - later - one of the leading dissidents at the same time.

Gottlund pursued the creation on an autonomous Finnish territory from the Finn Forests on both sides of the Swedish-Norwegian border, with great economic and political independence.

Gottlund is commonly attributed with saving the folklore of the Forest Finns.



Finn Forests' autonomy in Central Scandinavia

"In 1817, Gottlund made an exploration trip to the Finnish-inhabited Dalarna area of Central Sweden, to collect Finnish folklore and other ethnographic data as well as genealogical information, the latter partly because he wanted to improve the social circumstances of the Forest Finns and to prevent Sweden from taking ownership of their land. He recorded total of about 50 Finnish language poems, songs and spells during this expedition.

In the summer of 1821, Gotlund launched another expedition to a Finnish-inhabited part of Sweden, this time covering the south-central Swedish area of Värmland. The expedition lasted until January 1822, after which Gottlund began acting as a political advocate on behalf of the Finnish population of Sweden. Among his accomplishments, Gotlund founded three congregations for the Forest Finns.

Furthermore, in 1821 starting Gottlund began pursuing the creation of an autonomous Finnish county called Fennia from the Finn Forests on both sides of the Swedish-Norwegian border, north and northeast from the modern-day Norwegian area of Oslo, with great economic and political independence. The tax border would have been removed and land ownership by Swedes and Norwegians would have been restricted. The Swedish-Norwegian border had not been properly established before 1751.

In attempts to have the Finnish population of Sweden Proper "Swedified" and assimilated into the mainstream Swedish society, the use of the Finnish language had become strictly prohibited in Sweden Proper in the mid-17th-century. However, Gottlund estimated that in the beginning of the 19th century the Central Scandinavian Finn Forests' areas which he had visited alone were still home to approximately 40'000 Finnish-speaking Finns, of whom about 14'000 lived in Värmland - this in addition to other Finns such as the Tornedalians and Kvens and their descendants and the Forest Finns in other parts of Sweden an Norway. It is estimated that "one of each five Swedes has their roots amongst the Forest Finns".

Eventually - however -, due to his political activism, Gottlund nearly became expelled from Sweden. He was banned from operating in Stockholm, and - amidst his lobbying and campaigning - he was finally exiled from Stockholm to Uppsala. In spite of this total political failure in the creation of the Central Scandinavian autonomous Finnish area, Gottlund had positive cultural influence on the Forest Finns and became a legendary, heroic character in the Finn Forests.

While still living in Uppsala and while attending the Uppsala University part-time, Gottlund began preparing an ambitious publication, Otava, aimed to become a Finnish literary monument. Otava was published in three parts between 1828 and 1832. It consisted of articles pertaining to linguistics, history, ethics, religion, folklore and poetry.

However, in Finland, Otava was not met with the type of enthusiasm which Gottlund had hoped for. The work was considered to favor too much the Savonian dialects of Finnish language, and it's mainly enlightenment-spirited contents were overshadowed by the current of romanticism which now had encaptured Finland, producing epics such as The Kalevala in 1835 and The Tales of Ensign Stål in 1848.

In 1831, Gottlund married Charlotta Augusta Brink. Over time, the two gave birth to total of 10 children together.

Some of the folklore poetry collected by Gottlund in the early 19th century was considered sexually too explicit to be published during his lifetime, and even until quite recently. Some poems collected by him stayed archived until 1997, when they became included in the book Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot ("Old Poems of the Finnish People")."
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2013 - 04:51pm PT

Sofia Karlsson - Du liv...(Dan Andersson)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 26, 2013 - 02:24pm PT

Dan Andersson

"Daniel "Dan" Andersson was born April 6, 1888, in the school house in Skattlösberg, Grangärdesgatan parish (in current Ludvika), Dalarna, and died September 16, 1920, in Stockholm by cyanide poisoning. He was a Swedish author and poet. In 1893, five years old, he learned to read. 1896, at the age of eight, he got a violin, and learned to play by himself. He had three brothers. A sister Anna was born in 1892 but died six months later. Next sister who was born in 1899 was also named Anna, and was dedicated the poem "To My Sister" on his 18th birthday. Andersson set to music some of his own poems, including "To My Sister", "Jungman Jansson" and "Per Ols Per Erik." He was married June 19 1918 to småskollärarinnan Olga Turesson, sister of the troubadour Gunnar Turesson. Dan Andersson is in part seen as a proletarian writer, but his poetry is not limited to this genre. He sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Black Jim."

"Dan Andersson's poetry enjoys a broad popularity among the Swedish people because of its naturalist mysticism. In 2005, Sofia Karlsson recorded a new interpretation of Andersson's songs, which received a Grammy award in both Sweden and Denmark, but before this his poems had been sung by a number of artists, including the Hootenanny Singers, Love Explosion and Fred Åkerström. In 1988, at the centenary of Andersson's birth, Posten, the Swedish postal service, published two stamps in his honour. In Ludvika, a Dan Andersson week is celebrated the first week of every August. In Ludvika there is also a Dan Andersson museum, and a statue of him. A bust is also to be found at Järntorget in Gothenburg."

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 27, 2013 - 05:05pm PT

Deep Into The Woods (Langt Innpå Skoga) - Hans Børli

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 28, 2013 - 02:25pm PT

Flisa at the border of Finnskogen - today


Map: Finnskogen with Flisa in the upper left corner (Norway red, Sweden green)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 28, 2013 - 03:39pm PT

From log driving history - Log driving director Johs Johannesen, river - Glomma, writes (around 1870):

"Yes, the log drivers are an elite corps, chosen through many hundred years of natural selection. Only the most quick-witted and resilient are attracted to be log drivers, while other men have gone in other directions. Only the most vigorous have wanted this work, because only they have the ability - and this has been the case also with their sons. This way it has been for many generations and because of that we now have log drivers that in fastness, resilience and quick-wittedness are the best ones you can ever hope to find." (Source: Ragnvald Bødtker. Norwegian log driving history. 1860 to 1943)

To repeat the great Canadian video posted by MH2 earlier:

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2013 - 03:51pm PT

The river Rottnan (Swedish)/Rotna (Norwegian)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Rotna is a 110 km long river that flows through Finnskogen from two small lakes at Hof Finnskog (in Aasnes kommune, Norway) to the lake Mellanfryken close to Rottneros (in Sweden). The video shows places down the river: one of the lakes at Hof Finnskog (Norway), Svullrya (Norway), Lekvattnet (Sweden), Gräsmark (Sweden) and Fryksdalen close to Rottneros where the river ends in Mellanfryken.

Most of the pictures are from Sweden.

Music: Mando Diao - Strövtåg i Hembygden (poem/lyrics by Gustaf Fröding)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2013 - 01:56pm PT
Thorstein Bergman - Omkring tiggaren från Luossa ('Round the begger from Luossa...) - Poem/lyrics: Dan Andersson

[Click to View YouTube Video]

'Round The Begger From Luossa

From Luossa came a beggar singing to the village folk.
Round the watch fire they lingered while he sang
Songs of pilgrims and of beggars, song of wondrous, wondrous things
And of his yearning did he sing the whole night long


"There is something beyond mountains, beyond stars and all the blossoms,
Something, too, behind my song, behind this burning heart of mine
Listen — something goes and whispers, goes and lures me and beseeches
Come to us, for earth below is not the kingdom that is thine!"


I have listened to the lapping of waves upon the shore,
I have dreamed that the wildest seas were calm and still.
And in spirit I have hurried to that contourless land,
Where the dearest we have known we´ll know no more.


To a wild, eternal longing were we born of ash-pale mothers,
And from travail, anxious, painful, rose our first, our wailing cry
Were we tossed on plain and hillside, just to tumble round and frolic,
Then we played at elk and lion, beggar, God and butterfly.


Did I sit beside her, silent, she whose heart was as my own,
Did she tend our home with soft and gentle hands,
Loudly was my own heart shouting, "What you own there is not yours!"
And my spirit drove me onward to find peace.


What I love is lying yonder, lies concealed in dusky distance,
And my rightful way leads high to wonders there.
In this clamor I am tempted to beseech Him, "Lord, O Master,
Take all earth away, for own I will what no one, no one has


Join me, brother, beyond mountains with their still and cooling rivers,
Where the sea is slow to slumber in its peak-encircled bed.
Somewhere far beyond the heavens lies my home, have I my mother
In a gold-besprinkled vapor, in rose-tinted mantle clad.


May the black and brackish waters cool our cheeks with fever reddened,
May we be from life far distant where the morning is awake
Never was I one with this world, and unending tribulation
Suffered, restless, unbelieving, suffered from my burning heart.


On a seashore sown with cockles stands a gate with roses laden,
There in slumber, vagrants perish and all weary souls find peace.
Song is never heard resounding, viols never echo, ringing
Under arches where forever cherubs of salvation dwell.


Translated by Caroline Schleef
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 6, 2013 - 03:36am PT

Gräsmark - Varmland - in the Swedish part of Finnskogen


Map: Finnskogen with Grasmark in the lower right corner (Norway red, Sweden green)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 6, 2013 - 03:50am PT

Grasmark in our time

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 6, 2013 - 04:08am PT

Once upon a time in Grasmark

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 6, 2013 - 04:18am PT

Volvo PV 444/544 history

[Click to View YouTube Video]
In 1955 the first Volvo PV was exported to USA - on post order.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 6, 2013 - 01:25pm PT

Lekvattnet (in the Swedish part of Finnskogen - you find it just below the middle on the map):

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 6, 2013 - 01:46pm PT

Old Forest Finns' farms in the Lekvattnet area

Karmenkynna

Ritamaki

Kvarntorp
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 13, 2013 - 04:43am PT

Mid-summer in Varmland - Sweden...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Song: Små grodorna (The little frogs)


Edited:
Thanks for the information Mouse. If you could see them, they're slightly intoxicated, but they've got rythm and style...

Here's another example of the little frog dance (Falun, Sweden):
[Click to View YouTube Video]
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Oct 13, 2013 - 07:02am PT
That video is blocked in this US of A.

Content issues and so for the love of god, tell us what we are missing.

Is this another Monty Python Morris Men thing?*

*Well, that wasn't far, now, was it? The Flames got Morris. He's being held hostage.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 18, 2013 - 02:29pm PT

Finnskogen June 2012
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 18, 2013 - 04:42pm PT

Joakim Thåström - A Musician's Last Journey (Dan Andersson)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 19, 2013 - 11:56am PT

Sofia Karlsson - Broder Joachim (lyrics: Dan Andersson)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 20, 2013 - 12:43pm PT
This weekend

On the road

Sønsterud
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 21, 2013 - 02:19pm PT

Once upon a time when ironing really was iron-ing: 100 years old tool.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 21, 2013 - 04:09pm PT

Sofia Karlsson - Le Vin des Amants - Charles Baudelaire (translated by Dan Andersson)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 3, 2013 - 12:37pm PT
Finnskogen this weekend
Autumn
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 3, 2013 - 01:12pm PT
Kaare Tveter
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 7, 2013 - 02:17pm PT
Cranes at Finnskogen
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Ron

It's not my own video. There's so many excellent bird photographers at the bird thread posting their own photos...

I find cranes to be deeply fascinating birds... their cries as from another world, another time... as a kid I loved to see them fly, hearing them cry... it was an experience that left me completely lost for a while...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 19, 2013 - 12:48pm PT
An old man from Finnskogen was saved by a snuff box (Swedish Ettan)after falling into a bog hole where he was left alone for two days. It all started when he wanted to shoot a jay and was tempted to go deeper and deeper into the forest by the mocking birds. "Solung" is spoken here:

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 22, 2013 - 04:10pm PT

Livet i Finnskogarna
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 8, 2013 - 03:48pm PT

BMW GS meeting Finnskogen, Norway, September 2013 - Black tour
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 20, 2013 - 02:39pm PT

Ural motorcycle at Finnskogen
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Lollie

Social climber
I'm Lolli.
Jan 3, 2014 - 12:52pm PT
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Fröding Det var dans bort i vägen, performed by Sven-Ingvars

There was dance on the road on a Saturday night,
over the vicin'ty the sound
of the game and the laughter was heard,
it was tjoh! there was jump! it was hey!
Nils Utterman, the fool and fiddlerman,
he played by the roadside,
for dudeli ! dudeli ! dey!

There was Bolla, the proud Takenegirlie,
she's beautiful, nice, but has nothing in her pocket,
she is eluding and fun and grand.
There was Kersti, the defiant, wand'ring & wild,
there was Finnbacka Britta and Kajsa and Tilda
and the stuck-up Marja in Brooks.

There was Petter from Toppsta
and Gusten from Hill,
they are boys with strength in their arms
who can lift a maiden high in the sky.
There was Flaxman at Croft
and Niklas in Svängen
and recruitee Pistol and Högvalta farmhand
and Cold-Johan from Skräddarebyn.

And they had like burning tow in their bodies,
as grasshoppers they jumped the Rejlandssteps,
and against stones they clicked their heels.
And coattails flapped, and aprons flew,
braids they jumped and the skirts swung around ,
and the music squealed and mewed.

In the thickets of birch trees
and alders and hazels
was whispering talk, it was tittle-tattle
among the darkening shadows there,
it was play, it was game among logs and rocks ,
it was cooing and cuddling under the shady branches
 If you want me, well, you have me here!

Over the countryside laid the twinkling starbeuty night,
gleaming light shone over the rippling water
in the deciduostree-garlanded lake
there was a smell from clover in the flowering fields
and from resinous cones on spruce and pine,
which shaded the crests of the hills.

And a fox there joined in their frolicing song,
and a owl shouted uhu! from Brynbärsbråten,
and they didn't notice, they heard it not.
But uhu! the echo in Getberget brayed,
and in response to Nils Utterman's dudelidia !
came the dudeli! dudeli dey!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 3, 2014 - 04:37pm PT
Cool Lollie. At Finnskogen Sven-Ingvars was even more famous than Abba later became...

To stay in Värmland: Sven Ingvars - Fröken Fräken (1964)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Lollie

Social climber
I'm Lolli.
Jan 3, 2014 - 05:01pm PT
I grew up with them. The local band. :-)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 22, 2014 - 04:57pm PT

A couple of other tunes based on lyrics by the Finnskogen poet Dan Andersson

Hootenanny Singers (Abba-Björn singing)- Omkring tiggarn' från Luossa
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Jailbird Singers - Där björkarna susa
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 8, 2014 - 05:41pm PT

On a wet day, on the road, in and out of focus, at the border of Finnskogen, last weekend...
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Mar 17, 2014 - 05:39pm PT
[Click to View YouTube Video]


[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 19, 2014 - 12:49pm PT

Mouse: Thanks for posting! Grieg, Munthe and fjords - Norway at it's best...

Sønsterud this weekend:
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 19, 2014 - 12:58pm PT

Where the water from Bråtebekken flows into the Flisa river:

The land of fallen trees where the wind blows and beavers rule...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Apr 19, 2014 - 02:01pm PT
Morn morn, Marlow! I've been waiting to say that. ;-)

Finnskogen del Sur...


The Beaver was introduced to Tierra del Fuego in the 1950's in the misguided
belief that the fecund beasts would provide a new source of livelihood for
the natives. Sadly, Peronism and the dole were more attractive. Thanks
to the lack of predators the furry devils' population exploded much to the
detriment of the environment.
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Apr 19, 2014 - 02:16pm PT
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 19, 2014 - 02:19pm PT

Reilly: "Öppna landskap" of great beauty. TFPU!
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Introducing animals to ecosystems where they don't belong is an experiment to be avoided.

In Norway the situation is horrible concerning wild salmon. Wild salmon is dying and disappearing... Fishing is now an industry... and fish a product ("oppdrettslaks")...

TGT

Is Norwegian Wood the name of the crack/route? Do you know what's behind the choice of name. The Beatles?
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Apr 19, 2014 - 02:35pm PT
No Beatles involved.

FA, Dag Kolsrud, Trond Ornhei & Hank Levine, December 1978

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/norwegian-wood/105723646

Nice route and in the shade all day.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 19, 2014 - 02:38pm PT

TGT

Dag is still climbing strong and barefooted. Trond died last year.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Apr 19, 2014 - 07:46pm PT
Finnskogen del Sur hytte. I bet you'd feel right at home here, Marlow.
Even the decorations could be norsk, ikke sant? This is only about 15 km
from the sea, hence the nautical bent.

The name says "Akeaata". Hell, for all I know that is Sami!

We got up out of the bog...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 20, 2014 - 03:55am PT

Reilly

The "hytte" (cabin) is as taken from a Norwegian fairytale. Don't ask me which... a generic fairytale...

Curious as I am, I googled "akeaata". The closest I came was "akata", which is surely not the same word, but had a cool meaning:

"a cat that is not at home"

Do you know the origin of the word "akeaata"?

As you see from the following picture there's also something African about the two teeth by the left cabin at Akeaata, unless they're from a mammut...
Quite a place Akeaata...

Here's something Norwegian - an "akematte"
Lollie

Social climber
I'm Lolli.
Apr 20, 2014 - 06:01am PT
Jag älskar Öppna Landskap, Marlow. Omkring tiggaren vid Loussa kommer inte långt efter.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Apr 20, 2014 - 01:09pm PT
Here's the other 'hytte' with the 'teeth' in front. ;-)
I didn't notice the Akeaata sign when I was there or I would have asked about it.
I suspect it has its origins with the original inhabitants...



This is Kongen of Akeaata...

and his subjects...


This was about 25km from Akeaata; lots of 'teeth'. :-)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 20, 2014 - 01:24pm PT
Lollie: Ulf Lundell has captured something of Northern substance in that song...

John: That's great. You've seen things in Norway, I haven't seen. What a place... ;o)

Reilly: The stuff of dreams and nightmares. Quite mouthy in a physical sense. An awesome place... and you don't mess with the King...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 20, 2014 - 02:33pm PT

Janne Schaffer and Björn J:son Lindh - Brusa högre lilla å (Sough louder little brook)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 29, 2014 - 10:19am PT

Svedjebruk (slash-and-burn agriculture) at Finnskogen. You can see the whole process in the video. There is no sound.
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Flickan från Finnskogarna
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 15, 2014 - 08:19am PT

Norwegian Wood beer
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 26, 2014 - 05:28pm PT
A cool winter video from Östmark, Sweden
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 28, 2014 - 04:31pm PT

Volvo Amazon - much loved at Finnskogen...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
The Volvo Amazon is a mid-size car manufactured by Volvo Cars from 1956 to 1970 and introduced in the USA as the 122S at the New York International Auto Show in April 1959.

The Amazon shared both the wheelbase from its predecessor, the PV, as well as its tall posture and high H-point seating — while offering three model configurations: 2-door sedan, 4-door sedan and wagon. In 1959 Volvo provided front seat belts as standard equipment on all the cars, including the export models, becoming the world's first manufacturer to take this step — later becoming the first car featuring three-point seat belts.

When introduced, the car was called the Amason (with an 's'), which derives from the fierce female warriors of Greek mythology, the Amazons. Kreidler, German manufacturer of motorcycles had already registered the name, and the two companies agreed Volvo could only use the name domestically (i.e., within Sweden), modifying the spelling to Amazon. Subsequently, Volvo began its tri-digit nomenclature and the line became known as the 120 Series.

The Amazon was originally manufactured at Volvo's Lundby plant in Gothenburg and subsequently at the company's Torslandaverken, which began operating in 1964. By the end of production, 234,653 four-door models, 359,917 two-door models and 73,220 station wagons had been produced, 60% of them for export — for a total of 667,791 vehicles.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
May 28, 2014 - 04:58pm PT
Saw a nice one just a few weeks ago. You can't swing a dead Swede without
hitting one in Seattle.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 28, 2014 - 05:29pm PT
... Which makes Seattle a lovely place on earth...

There's always a place for a couple of North Seattle Wood Ducks on the Norwegian Woods thread...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
and some wooden ducks...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
May 28, 2014 - 05:49pm PT
I suppose I would be remiss if I didn't talk about my old friend Oddvar.
He was born in a little village near Bergen. When he was about 3 his mum
was boiling the torsk water and he reached up and pulled the huge pot full
right onto his head. He had something like a dozen operations and even had
a few as an adult to relieve scar tensions. After that he was fearless.
He was a legend in Ballard and throughout the Seattle Police Dept. He had
a shop called British American Automotive. Now you may wonder, WTF? Well,
he raced Sprites so that was the start of that. Then he realized he couldn't
make a living on British cars, although any owner of a British car would
justifiably wonder why not. Anyway, he went to the Volvo factory mechanic's
course and started in on Volvos, partly because he got so sick of tracing
electrical faults in British cars. Anyway, he did quite well but he was a
a racer at heart and a thorough wildman. He loved going out late at night
and driving the Seattle PD crazy. They got him once or twice but only due
to weight of numbers. When he got his first BMW Cafe race bike they never had a chance.

One night he worked late and left to go home. His shop was on Shilshole Ave
just below Market St, the main drag in Ballard and down which the 17 Mai Parade
goes. Anyway, Shilshole takes a 45 turn just before Market and a sharp uphill.
Oddvar was fond of sitting at the shop and watching the light. When it would
turn yellow for the cross traffic he would haul ass. He would hit the uphill
at about 80 in one of his souped up Volvos, full-race mind you, and he would
get enough air to clear all four lanes of Market St. Then he would go home
and eat some torsk. This one night some drunk ran the light. The good
news is that Oddvar had enough air to clear the guy's hood and he loved to
tell how he looked down at the guy's saucer-sized eyeballs. The bad news
is there just happened to be a SPD cop car sitting at the light. Oddvar
pulled over immediately, as did the drunk. The cop let Oddvar go and wrote
the drunk up.

When Oddvar retired the Seattle Times ran a front page story about him. There
were hundreds of his faithful at the party, including a number of SPD.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 29, 2014 - 10:21am PT

Reilly

That's a reilly great story. When there's a Norwegian in your Seattle story, it's no surprise to find a "bergenser" like Oddvar. People from the Bergen area are known for their extremely high level of self-confidence...


Self-confidence was also found deep inside the woods...

Log-driving 1953
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Superb log driving video, only Norwegian spoken, no texting in English.

If the log drivers could swim or not didn't matter, they were water rats...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 15, 2014 - 10:11am PT

Photos from this weekend...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jun 15, 2014 - 11:30am PT
Wow, the log-driving video was amazing! Tusen takk! Those guys were crazy! I thought for
sure that guy was toast!

In northern Wisconsin big money is made by guys who salvage sunken logs from 100 years ago.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 15, 2014 - 12:53pm PT

Reilly

In northern Wisconsin big money is made by guys who salvage sunken logs from 100 years ago.

For what purpose do they use the sunken log in Wisconsin?
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jun 15, 2014 - 01:11pm PT
Marlow, waterlogged wood is very much more beautiful plus is old-growth and hence straight-grained
and works beautifully. I believe some of it sells for $30/ board foot (2.5 x 30 x 30 cm)!

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/24/us/with-timber-scarce-old-logs-deep-in-a-lake-become-a-sunken-treasure.html
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 15, 2014 - 01:16pm PT

Cool article, Reilly. TFPU.

The idea for the company came to Mr. Mitchen while he was exploring for shipwrecks in Lake Superior in the early 90's, after he had seen countless logs in his dives. The abundance of old logs, together with rising timber prices, convinced Mr. Mitchen that a forgotten treasure was waiting in the water.

The Water-Logged company pays Wisconsin one-third of the value of each log, based on the current market value of freshly cut timber. After a drying process that takes weeks, the old wood is cut and sold for much higher prices than new wood, sometimes 10 times as much. About a dozen kinds of trees are retrieved, including oak, maple, birch, elm, ash and pine. Birds-eye maple, with its iridescent grain, sells for as much as $80 a foot after being cut.

While most of the salvaged wood goes for furniture and craft work, some has been used to make stringed instruments, like a flat-topped acoustic guitar the company is giving to the country singer Johnny Cash.

The company's keenest hopes lie in finding wood for exquisite violins. A sample of 300-year-old maple has been analyzed by Joseph Nagyvary, a researcher and violin builder at Texas A&M University, who has compared it to the material used by Antonio Stradivari, who built the world's finest violins in the 17th and 18th centuries in Italy.

''I have not seen anything like this in modern times -- it's in the same ball park as a Stradivarius,'' said Mr. Nagyvary, whose research has indicated that Stradivari soaked his wood in water, which removed gums and resins. So it is possible that the lake water has cleansed the old wood in a similar way.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 16, 2014 - 11:10am PT

Sigurd & Bernt Ruotimaa - Vid min mila
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Sofia Karlsson : Resan till Österlandet (Travelling to the Eastern Country - Finland)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Wayno

Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
Jun 16, 2014 - 12:03pm PT
I'm a big Knut Hamsun fan, Marlow. I always liked this thread. The first Hamsun tale I read was "Growth of the Soil". It is still one of my favorites.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 16, 2014 - 12:26pm PT
Wayno

Thanks for the feedback. I've read "Markens grøde" a couple of times. It's a great read.

My favourite author the last ten years has been an American, Cormac McCarthy.

When one appreciates the earth and the vitalism of Hamsun as we both do, an awareness of the darker forces in the human psyche and human society is an excellent counter-weight... ;o)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 13, 2014 - 11:49am PT

Gottlundmarsjen 2014

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 13, 2014 - 11:53am PT

Gottlundmarsjen 2014 continues
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 13, 2014 - 11:57am PT

Gottlundmarsjen 2014 encore...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 13, 2014 - 12:31pm PT

Finnskogdagene 2014
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 13, 2014 - 12:34pm PT

Finnskogdagene 2014 continues
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 13, 2014 - 12:37pm PT

Finnskogdagene 2014 encore...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 13, 2014 - 06:04pm PT
SWEET 544!
My mechanic is restoring a PV445 which are super rare here.
I gotta say I enjoy driving my XC70 T5 with the turbocharged engine a LOT! ;-)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 14, 2014 - 09:23am PT

Reilly.

PV 445 is rare everywhere -it's quite a gem...

Here's a photo - I had to look it up. I can remember seeing the car a few times during my childhood.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 14, 2014 - 09:28am PT

Finnskogdagene 2014: The Forest-Finn museum at Svullrya (Finnetunet)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 14, 2014 - 09:30am PT

The Forest-Finn museum at Svullrya continues...

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 14, 2014 - 09:44am PT
^^^^ Det aer mega bra! Takk takk!
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 17, 2014 - 02:50pm PT
Hej, Marlow, from the Life Imitates Art Dept:

This is a print I bought in Oslo...




So, 5 years after I bought this I was north of the Brooks Range in
Alaska when this exact scenario repeated itself! Obviously, I'm here
to tell about it. ;-)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2014 - 11:11am PT
Reilly.

Nansen was multitalented. That's an excellent drawing.

You're a lucky man. Both the owner of the Nansen drawing and nearly eaten by a polar bear. Great luck twice in a lifetime. I guess you've been on a hard work to luck ratio of 50 to 50, while most men are on a 99 to 1 ratio. Maybe that's how life as art unfolds. ^^^^ ... if you work hard...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2014 - 12:24pm PT

Johnokner. TFPU! Was it a bit wet?

Lillehammer is a town who has managed to keep a quite sympathetic atmosphere rooted in Norwegian tradition.

Another Norwegian town well kept is Røros, north of Lillehammer.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2014 - 01:03pm PT

Most of the Southern part of Norway

On this map you find Røros in the north where the blue lines meet and Oslo in the south (under the red spot Stopp). If you start from Oslo you will find Elverum where the blue line splits into two lines. North-west of Elverum you find Lillehammer and north-west of Lillehammer you find Jotunheimen.

South-east of Elverum you see Kirkenær. In the area east of Kirkenær and up north to Innbygda you find Finnskogen.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2014 - 01:06pm PT

Lom is a beautiful place...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 18, 2014 - 01:45pm PT
That map is crap, it doesn't have Hov on it. Stefaren would be mad!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2014 - 01:50pm PT

Reilly.

There's many Hov/Hofs in Norway. Where in Norway do Stefaren live?
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 18, 2014 - 01:55pm PT
He would have argued there is only one Hov, at least on Randsfjorden. ;-)
The family also had the inn at Odnes at the north end.

Are there as many Hovs as there are Å's? (trick question)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2014 - 02:06pm PT

Reilly

Here's a crap map (I can't see Finnskogen ;o)) to make Stefaren happy. You find Hov in the south-east, just west of Gjøvik, by the long great lake Randsfjorden. Randsfjorden is number four among the greatest Norwegian lakes. The greatest Norwegian lake you see a part of east of Randsfjorden - name: Mjøsa. Around Mjøsa you see two towns (red areas) with a name - Gjøvik and Hamar. In the northern end of Mjøsa you find Lillehammer (for some reason without name). You also find Lom in the north-western part of the map.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 6, 2014 - 01:30pm PT

Motti

The most well-known Forest-Finnish dish is Motti.

This is how motti is made:
1 cup of water and 1 teaspoon of salt is boiled. Then 2 cups of flour is poured into the water. Oat or barley is used as flour for the motti. The flour should cover the surface of the water. The water will boil up in small "volcanoes". While you carefully move the flour into the "volcanoes" you should sing the first verse of «Vår Gud han er så fast en borg» ("Our God is a solid castle"), and then you should stir the water and flour until the flour is forming into small lumps the size of a fingernail. It you stir the water and flour too early, the motti will end up in big wet lumps. If you stir too late the motti will end up in small dry lumps. It’s said that a lazy cook will make good motti, or also that you can go out to the shed and cut pork for the motti while the motti is boiling. The motti is served with fried pork and liquid fat. What's left of the motti is used as a dessert with sour milk and sugar on.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 6, 2014 - 01:37pm PT

Rømmegrøt

Another traditional Norwegian dish is "rømmegrøt". Rømmegrøt is a summer food and is traditionally served with vannkringle and spekemat. Spekemat is either thinly sliced cured leg of lamb (fenalår) or marinated, cured ham (skinke). Sometimes flatbrød, a crisp, thin bread, is served instead of vannkringle.

This is how "rømmegrøt" is made
Ingredients:
2 cups sour cream
1 cup flour
1-1//2 cups milk
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
butter
cinnamon
sugar

Preparation:
Bring sour cream and cream to a soft boil for 5 minutes. Sift and stir in 3 tablespoons flour - one spoon at a time. Keep at low heat while adding the remainder of the flour and milk intermittently.

After all is added, bring up to a boil on low heat and cook for an additional 5 minutes while stirring. This porridge/pudding is thin and light.

Ladle the rømmegrøt onto individual dinner plates or bowls. If you want to eat like a real Norwegian Viking, you have to sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top of the pudding.

Wait, don't forget to put a smørøye (eye of butter - exact translation) - that is a dab of butter in the center of the sour cream pudding.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 10, 2014 - 12:03pm PT

Kongsvinger this weekend
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 10, 2014 - 12:10pm PT

Finnskogen this weekend.

On Monday last week it was a bit o' the breezy...

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 16, 2014 - 11:58am PT
Jan Johansson

 Vallåt från Jämtland ("Forest People")
[Click to View YouTube Video]

 Visa Från Utanmyra
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 16, 2014 - 12:04pm PT

Solitary Pine

Plenty of space here, you've been able to
stretch up and spread your crown
wide.

But you stand alone.
When the storms come, you have no one to lean on.


And I was sorrow

And I was sorrow and stayed in a cave.
And I was pride and built beyond the stars.
Now I build in the nearest tree
and in the morning when I waken
the pine threads it's needle with gold.

Olav H. Hauge

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 16, 2014 - 12:28pm PT

An old photo from the Swedish part of Finnskogen
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2014 - 09:04am PT

Autumn at Sønsterud this weekend.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2014 - 09:27am PT

The ones who built this country (De som byggde landet) - Mora-Per, Mikael Wiehe and Sofia Karlsson
[Click to View YouTube Video]
neebee

Social climber
calif/texas
Sep 24, 2014 - 01:53pm PT
hey there say, just a bump, to help our FIRST PAGE,

HOWEVER, awww, yes, i DO love the post that i am bumping, too...
you are of value, ...


just that i can't always visit everything and post...
but today, is REALLY NEEDED FOR HELP, TO US ALL...

WILL TRY to bump some more...
this 'message will repeat' for a bit, in the bumps...
:)

hope i am helping...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 7, 2014 - 11:34am PT

Thorstein Bergman - Helgdagskväll i timmerkojan (Weekend night in the cabin)
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Sofia Karlsson & Odd Nordstoga - Jag väntar... (I'm waiting...) Lyrics: Dan Andersson. Music from 1:50.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 7, 2014 - 12:50pm PT
Sveeds? Jo? OK, I'm going back to watching Lilyhammer.
That should be required watching for any potential immigrant, ikke sant?
(and don't pretend you haven't watched it!)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 7, 2014 - 12:55pm PT

Reilly.

I'll start watching Lillyhammer and Hurtigruta 24 hours a day den dagen jeg emigrerer ^^^^
Tripod? Swellguy? Halfwit? Smegma?

Trad climber
Wanker Stately Mansion, Placerville
Oct 7, 2014 - 01:13pm PT
Isn't this when Chuck cracks a boner?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 11, 2014 - 11:28am PT

Two villages in Värmland
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 11, 2014 - 11:45am PT

The best beer cars of Sweden
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 13, 2014 - 12:36pm PT

The river Rotna flows through Finnskogen
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 13, 2014 - 01:24pm PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 18, 2014 - 02:09pm PT

As a follow-up to Reilly's polar bear (excellent drawning by Nansen)

Nansen and Fram on a well made medal:
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 19, 2014 - 12:44am PT

In a present commentary to Nansen's "In Northern Mists" the following is written about the relationship between the Sami people and Finns/Forest-Finns in Scandinavia:

Lapps are now generally known as ‘Sami’ or ‘Same’ [pronounced ‘Sar-mi’]. They are the same people who were named in the remote past ‘Finns’, [the “small (?) very mild Finns...” of Jordanes] or Procopius’s Scrithifini]. Nansen remarks that “Lapps are called ‘Finns,’ both in Old Norse and modern Norwegian...” It has been suggested that the Lapps may be unique among the present-day Arctic peoples in that they have remained in the same place in the Arctic since just after the last ice age. Their home has been the northern regions of Norway, Sweden and Finland, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia for a period of about eight thousand years.

The modern people known as Finns, inhabitants of Finland, are quite different. They are descended from a collection of tribes speaking similar languages of the ‘Finno-Ugric’ family - the same language which they passed to the Lapps and which is now spoken by them. This succession of land-hungry tribes probably arrived in the area of the eastern Baltic, Finland and Karelia around 100 B.C. to 100 A.D. and included the Estonians and Karelians. These peoples came from central Russia, and brought with them the ability to cultivate cereals. Those migrating to what is now Finland would have displaced small numbers of resident nomadic Lapps [Sami], who withdrew to the north. [‘Finnic Peoples’, Encyclopædia Britannica, Britannica (R) CD 99 Multimedia Edition (C) 1994-1999 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 19, 2014 - 12:51am PT

And then a tender tune with a traditional Scandinavian vibe...

Åsa Jinder - Cajsa Stina Åkerström - Av längtan till dej
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 9, 2014 - 03:32am PT

Finnskogen in watercolor (Manne Larsson)

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 9, 2014 - 11:18am PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 9, 2014 - 11:21am PT

Finnskog-blues

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Rock poet Joakim Thåström: 1. Främling överallt (Stranger everywhere) 2. Kort Biografi Med Litet Testamente (Short Biography With Small Testament) 3. Sönder Boulevard

The Dan Andersson of our time...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 10, 2014 - 12:30pm PT

Inspired by Kalevala.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2014 - 11:36am PT

The Kalevala has seen some great illustrators. One of them is Mud Mechev in a Russian edition from 1956. For those of us who are living among lakes in the northern forests these paintings look familiar even if we've never seen them before.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2014 - 11:36am PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2014 - 11:36am PT

Fossil climber

Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
Nov 25, 2014 - 02:38pm PT
Some of those look like they could have been used to illustrate Kristin Lavransdatter. Nice.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 26, 2014 - 11:34am PT

Fossil.

They do.

It's interesting to see how different Kalevala illustrators are giving their own interpretation colored by their own references and sensibilities. The characters are given a cartoonish look by some illustrators, some make them look like vikings, and some like ordinary people. Some dress them up in clothes from a time long gone and others in clothes from their own present time. Mechev is possibly the one I have seen who are best able to make them look like ordinary people from the time when the runes were told and sung. Though he has his own take on their clothes. It's seldom ordinary peoples everyday clothes.

In my view Mechev has an extraordinary ability to paint the landscape, the forest. He must know the area well.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 30, 2014 - 02:07pm PT

The forest on a Finnish medal
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 21, 2014 - 03:29pm PT

Thorstein Bergman - Helgdagskväll i timmerkojan
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 26, 2014 - 08:31am PT

Sønsterud jula 2014
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2015 - 11:50am PT

Larin Paraske, the "Finnish Mnemosyne".


Larin Paraske (December 27, 1833–January 3, 1904) was an Izhorian oral poet. She is considered a key figure in Finnish folk poetry and has been called the "Finnish Mnemosyne". Her frequent listeners included several romantic nationalist artists, such as Jean Sibelius, seeking inspiration from her interpretations of Kalevala, an epic poem compiled from Finnish folklore by Elias Lönnrot.

Paraske could recite over 32,000 verses of poetry, which made her an important source for Karelian culture. Her poems were written down by Adolf Neovius in the 1880s, and after several years of work, approximately 1200 poems, 1750 proverbs and 336 riddles were documented, along with several Finnic lamentations known as itkuvirsi, performed by crying and sobbing.

In 1936, sculptor Alpo Sailo created a statue of Paraske. It was planned for the Kalevala building, which however never realized, so the statue was erected in 1949 in the Hakasalmi park, off Mannerheimintie, in Helsinki. A street named after Paraske is located in Kaarela, a district of Helsinki. In 2004, Paraske placed 87th on Suuret suomalaiset, a vote arranged by YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, to determine the "100 greatest Finns". Paraske is also one of the people on stamps of Finland.

Biography

Paraske was born as Paraskeva Nikitina, her official Russian name, in Lempaala, Northern Ingria. Her father Mikitta Mikitanpoika (1802–1851) was a landless peasant, a lampuoti, who rented a farm. Both of her parents were ethnic Izhorians. Paraske took on poetry at early age by memorizing all the poems known in the area, and creating many more herself. Her relatives, Timon Tarja and Kondrolan Maura, were also prolific poets. Paraske's father died in 1851 and her mother, Tatjana Vasilovna, had died three years earlier in 1848.

In 1853, Paraske married a peasant named Kaurila Teppananpoika, or Gavril Stepanov, from Vaskela village in Sakkola (later Metsäpirtti municipality) of Viipuri Province. Her husband was sickly and 20 years older than she was, but the marriage produced nine children during the years from 1855 to 1878. However, only three of them survived until adulthood. Besides her own children, Paraske cared for 50 orphans from St. Petersburg. Her life was hard as the livelihood of the family depended on her income. She was eventually widowed in 1888.

Paraske's life changed in 1887, when she came to the attention of the clergyman Adolf Neovius, who was documenting national folk poetry. Neovius recognized her talent and paid Paraske a ruble per hour for singing her poetry. With this money, Paraske was able to save her house from seizure. Their collaboration resulted in transcriptions of 1200 poems, 1750 proverbs and 336 riddles. Her poems had earlier been written down by A. Borenius-Lähteenkorva in 1877, but this work consisted of only 26 poems.

In 1891, Neovius moved to Porvoo and Paraske traveled to the city with him to complete their project. During the years from 1891 to 1894, she gave several performances in Porvoo and Helsinki, becoming very popular. Her often Kalevala-themed rune singing influenced several prominent artists. Jean Sibelius' Kullervo, Op. 7 has been said to contain elements of Paraske's hypnotic, incantatory singing style. Albert Edelfelt and Eero Järnefelt painted portraits of Paraske in 1893.

Paraske returned to Vaskela, Sakkola, in 1894. Despite her success, she remained poor. Her house was sold during the summer of 1899 due to tax arrears, and she had to move into her neighbour's sauna. The Finnish Literature Society granted Paraske an artist's pension in 1901, but she was unable to overcome her financial problems. She died destitute in Sakkola in 1904.

Wikipedia


Andy Fielding

Trad climber
UK
Jan 1, 2015 - 04:32pm PT
Hey Marlow nice pictures. I'm curious how most of them seem to have white fluffy clouds and blue skies. I've been to Norway three times and each time I get photos like this one of me on Preikestolen. Apparently the view is fantastic :)

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 2, 2015 - 02:45pm PT

Andy.

If you live in Norway all year round and run out with you camera every time you see clear blue sky, you may be fast enough to get a non-misty photo.

That's a great misty Prekestolen photo.

Edited: Happy New Year Wilbeer!
wilbeer

Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
Jan 2, 2015 - 02:50pm PT
Looks a lot like western New York.[Your great photos just above]

Happy New Year Marlow.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 20, 2015 - 02:15pm PT

Oskar Lindberg: Gammal fäbodpsalm (Old Pastoral Hymn) / cello & organ
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 1, 2015 - 08:32am PT

Fantastic nature filming
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Jean Sibelius - Finlandia
Thanks to Mouse for posting the music on the Classical Music thread...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 30, 2015 - 10:34am PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 3, 2015 - 10:32am PT

Out of the Woods - A Norwegian city today: Oslo
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2015 - 09:33am PT
Out of the Woods II - Oslo the day after yesterday:
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 16, 2015 - 12:10pm PT

Till Min Syster (To My Sister). A poem written by Dan Andersson to his sister, Anna Andersson.
[Click to View YouTube Video]



Till Min Broder (To My Brother). A poem written by Anna Andersson to her brother after his death from cyanid poisoning at Hotel Hellman in Stockholm 1920.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 1, 2015 - 09:05am PT

Signs and symbols can tell

Signs and symbols can tell; the pentagram (viisikanta, viskant, viisnurk) was used to test the axman. With five blows he would make a symmetrical pentagram. I did not succeed. My cousin Johannes Säterbakken (1908 -1990) took me to a big spruce tree. "Here I have sat many times, thinking,” he said. "The first cut should be angled correctly." He took off his hat and demonstrated a cut in the tree-calf. "Cut the next four," he said, and gave me the ax. "This is a great star. The tip of it is pointing straight up at the top of the bush." I firmly believe that he succumbed to the tree before he put on his hat. We went back to the farm. When he put down his ax, he said, "She knows she shall be cut down come winter." That it had magical significance is not surprising. The pentagram with the tip up represents the world (maa - ilm) and with the tip down it simulates the underworld (maa - all). The Finns used it as protection for the cows, especially when they grazed in the forest. During the meal afterwards, Ellen said, half loudly: "Höss, - is it for the spruce by the sauna --- I wonder ---?" Johannes reassured that she should remain at peace. "The giant spruces standing until the old age itself lie them down. The rot ate them up from the inside and the wind had been working to tear them down. After they had eaten from the earth for a hundred years, they lied down and gave it all back. And the moss wove them fallen into the green, and Linnea decorated the graves with nodding bells on fine wire stems "(Holth 1982 223).
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 1, 2015 - 09:10am PT

Slash and burn shifting cultivation

The terminology in shifting or swidden literature is often confusing and inconsistent. I would recommend Spencer's comments (Spencer 1966 6) and Appendix B, (Spencer 1966 175).[1] which treats this terminology with English literature using "slash-and-burn or shifting cultivation". Shifting cultivation means change of place, and the cultivation refers most often in older literature to a simpler agriculture than the meaning of the word "agriculture" today. "Swidden" is rarely used in current literature, and is completely omitted in several recent dictionaries.


The clan

The heads of swidden family groups or clans (noite) had to have, at all times, an overview of their own clan's activities in order to put together these three parameters (according to their own experiences and conscious thought.

The time frame covers the first three cues of removal of the existing vegetation, which is controlled by man. The next three deal with the new vegetation, crops, and regrowth of new forests.

The time between harvest and regrowth varies from direct transition to regrowth through a number of years with a second use of swidden (vuoma) to never regrow, i.e. direct transition from the crop (pühä) to a permanent farm place / settlement (Piha).

Natural influences noite need only register and take into account in assessment: climate with rain, wind, temperature, drainage conditions, soil type, topography, flora and fauna, but he mastered his seeds brought for planting.

Noite coordinate so that all valves within the clans function: technology with adequate treatment of the area at the right time, cutting, burning, and social order. Runic poetry was a faithful helper in the exploitation of past experience and knowledge, and poems thankfully have the ability to survive generations.

Swidden cultivation requires a large number of people in the group to survive as an operational unit. It is a complex cycle of synchronized processes performed by individuals and / or groups in binding cooperation.

Such production union is often called a clan, extended family, kind, thiod, ätt, or tribe; in Russian plemja, rod; in Persian tauma, and Sanskrit jana, kula-. The village name in today's Finno-Ugric languages is küla. The word küllä is a reinforced yes: those that say yes and agree. Each man in swidden society had significance as a participant in the community, not as a person.


Mythology

Finnish mythology and the belief in supernatural forces, beings, and effects, can be traced primarily from the swidden manager ( noita ). He had the people's respect, and everyone accepted his assessment and obeyed his commands. The clan’s existence depended on his knowledge and decisions.

Missionary priests have often concluded from such loyalty that noitas practice witchcraft and possess supernatural powers; this was effective because people believed blindly in noita. But many of the priests did not truly understand what noitas’ power over the people actually consisted of. People's loyalty stemmed from the old days of noitas’ ability to lead cultivation. Could he not guide satisfactorily, he was promptly deposed, exiled or killed. Priests’ sermons about the Christian religion and promise of eternal life or suffering and destruction in the opposite case were not enough for swidden culture. The Incarnation was a completely alien thought, as well as eternal life as something desirable. The numerous Finnish runes / poems says that he who molests other clan’s selections or swidden plots should not be allowed to go back to nature, ordered to wander around forever.

Per Martin Tvengsberg
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
May 1, 2015 - 10:40am PT
Morn morn, Marlow! Takk for the gud stuff!
Just back from nordskog!

The way was clearly marked...

Parry Sound is part of Lake Huron on the Ontario side.

There are some things you have to put up with getting there,
such as bad spelling...

Why does the Orre cross the road? Interesting that Parry Sound's most
famous son is Bobby Orr!!!!!! Coincidence?

This is the home of the rare Massassauga Rattlesnake.
Sorry, no pics of them as it was too cold for them to come out.

You can drink this water...

But it wasn't quite ready for swimming...

Logging industry ruins from 1890's...

Hej, am I in Norge?


Uhhh, WTF?

Oh, I get it...

They don't do it the old-fashioned way any longer.

Storskraker...

Wild beasts, too! If you look closely you can see he is only
pretending to sleep...

Local art...

Hej daa from the 6cm man!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 1, 2015 - 11:23am PT

Reilly.

Awesome TR, very American and very Norwegian. TFPU!

I recently found this American loon. You also find them at Finnskogen. They have no respect for borders.

At Finnskogen you mostly find red-throated and sometimes black-throated loon. The painting above shows a common/great northern loon.
hashbro

Trad climber
Mental Physics........
May 1, 2015 - 08:33pm PT
glad to see traditional lifestyles being maintained in Norway.....but sad to see ecologically destructive images of apex predators being killed (cuz we live in the age of human-caused extinctions now)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 2, 2015 - 12:35am PT

Vappu (Walpurgis day)

In Finland, Vappu is one of the four biggest holidays along with Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, and Midsummer (Juhannus). Walpurgis witnesses the biggest carnival-style festival held in the streets of Finland's towns and cities. The celebration, which begins on the evening of 30 April and continues to 1 May, typically centres on copious consumption of sima, sparkling wine and other alcoholic beverages. Student traditions, particularly those of the engineering students, are one of the main characteristics of Vappu. Since the end of the 19th century, this traditional upper-class feast has been appropriated by university students. Many lukio (university-preparatory high school) alumni (who are thus traditionally assumed to be university bound), wear a cap. One tradition is to drink sima, a home-made low-alcohol mead, along with freshly cooked funnel cakes.

In the capital Helsinki and its surrounding region, fixtures include the capping (on 30 April at 6 pm) of the Havis Amanda, a nude female statue in Helsinki, and the biennially alternating publications of ribald matter called Äpy and Julkku, by engineering students of Aalto University. Both are sophomoric; but while Julkku is a standard magazine, Äpy is always a gimmick. Classic forms have included an Äpy printed on toilet paper and a bedsheet. Often, the magazine has been stuffed inside standard industrial packages, such as sardine cans and milk cartons. For most university students, Vappu starts a week before the day of celebration. The festivities also include a picnic on 1 May, which is sometimes prepared in a lavish manner, particularly in Ullanlinnanmäki in Helsinki city.

The Finnish tradition is also a shadowing of the Socialist May Day parade. Expanding from the parties of the left, the whole of the Finnish political scene has adopted Vappu as the day to go out on stumps and agitate. This includes not only political activists. Other institutions, such as the state Lutheran church, have followed suit, marching and making speeches. Left-wing activists of the 1970s still party on May Day. They arrange carnivals. And radio stations play leftist songs from the 1970s.

Traditionally, 1 May is celebrated by a picnic in a park. For most, the picnic is enjoyed with friends on a blanket with good food and sparkling wine. Some people, however, arrange extremely lavish picnics with pavilions, white tablecloths, silver candelabras, classical music and extravagant food. The picnic usually starts early in the morning, where some of the previous night's party-goers continue their celebrations undaunted by lack of sleep.

Some student organisations reserve areas where they traditionally camp every year. Student caps, mead, streamers and balloons have their role in the picnic, as well as in the celebration as a whole.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 2, 2015 - 12:37am PT

Havis Amanda or Merenneito (English: The Mermaid)

Havis Amanda is a nude female statue in Helsinki, Finland. It was sculpted by Ville Vallgren (1855-1940) in 1906 in Paris, but was not erected at its present location at the Market Square in Kaartinkaupunki until 1908.

Havis Amanda is one of Vallgren's Parisian Art Nouveau works. It is cast in bronze and the fountain it resides in is made of granite. She is a mermaid who stands on seaweed as she rises from the water, with four fish spouting water at her feet and surrounded by four sea lions. She is depicted leaning backwards as if to say goodbye to her element. Vallgren's intention was to symbolize the rebirth of Helsinki. The height of the statue is 194 centimetres and with the pedestal it stands 5 metres tall. According to Vallgren's letters the model for the statue was a then 19-year-old Parisian lady, Marcelle Delquini.

Vallgren himself simply called the work Merenneito (English: The Mermaid), but it quickly started to get additional nicknames. The Finland-Swedish newspapers dubbed it Havis Amanda and the Finnish Haaviston Manta or simply Manta. Havis Amanda is the common name used in brochures and travel guides.

It was unveiled on September 20, 1908. The work drew a lot of criticism at first, especially from women. Its nakedness and seductiveness were considered inappropriate. Not all groups objected to the nudity per se, but putting it on a pedestal was thought to subjugate women by making them appear weak and create sexual objectification and belittling of women (equal and common suffrage was introduced in Finland in 1906). Some women's rights groups criticised the look of the figure as plain and some even as "a common French whore", lacking pristine and innocence. The sea lions, with their human tongues hanging out, were said to represent men lusting after the mademoiselle. Vallgren considered himself a worshipper of women. Many in the cultural elite of Finland considered Vallgren an outsider and had judged his work even before it was finished. A good friend of his, Albert Edelfelt, was instrumental through his influence in getting the work ordered. Thanks to a small group of mainly Finland-Swedish supporters, the work gradually started gaining wide acceptance and natives started seeing it as the spirit of the city. Today it has been consistently voted the most important and most beautiful piece of art in Helsinki.

Every year on Vappu, Manta serves as a centrepiece for the celebrations. Students of the local universities put a cap on the statue in an elaborate ceremony. For many it is a "must see" event.

There is also an urban legend that Havis Amanda patronizes men's sexual potency. Some men believe that washing one's face with water from one of Havis Amanda's fountains and shouting thrice "Rakastaa!" (Finnish verb "love") increases men's sexual ability.


Havis Amanda Fountain
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 3, 2015 - 12:25pm PT

The first car I drove was a Swedish Saab 96 (V4), looking like this one:


Saab 96: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_96

Here's Saab history:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 14, 2015 - 10:30am PT

Into the woods of Sweden: Arctic Circle or Bust
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 22, 2015 - 10:03am PT

Swedish man attacking bear
[Click to View YouTube Video]
No plan B...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
May 22, 2015 - 10:07am PT
That wasn't an attack, bjorn just wanted to play but the Sweed was too mean!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 22, 2015 - 10:27am PT

Reilly.

You're right. I changed the heading. Swedish man attacking bear...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 14, 2015 - 12:20pm PT

Into the Woods

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 22, 2015 - 01:26pm PT

The Flisa river this weekend

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 22, 2015 - 01:31pm PT

Temppeliaukio Church - Helsinki Rock Church

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 22, 2015 - 01:34pm PT

Tapiola

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2015 - 01:40pm PT

Norwegian Woods - Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 12, 2015 - 11:14am PT

Finnskogdagene 2015 - Gottlundmarsjen 1
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 12, 2015 - 11:18am PT

Finnskogdagene 2015 - Gottlundmarsjen 2
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 12, 2015 - 11:25am PT

Finnskogdagene 2015 - Finnetunet 1
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 12, 2015 - 11:30am PT

Finnskogdagene 2015 - Finnetunet 2
Lollie

Social climber
I'm Lolli.
Jul 12, 2015 - 02:22pm PT
Those Brits are bloody weak. "Epic drive" indeed. :-D

I've done that trip numerous times. Admittedly, not from Copenhagen, but a few hours north thereof. And most of them my parents drove, not I, as it was visits to our grandparents who lived up in the Arctic.
It IS a long drive. Especially when you're a child.

Cool photos, Marlow.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 12, 2015 - 03:28pm PT

Thanks Lollie.

Funny Brits... I've done the trip (to Bodø) many times, though in a train...

Lollie

Social climber
I'm Lolli.
Jul 12, 2015 - 04:26pm PT
I've hitchhiked from Stockholm to Bodö twice. We did beat the train.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 13, 2015 - 02:26am PT

It's a slowmoving train, Swedish roads are excellent and the cars are fast, so if you're a lucky hitchhaiker...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 21, 2015 - 11:48am PT

Helgdagskväll i timmerkojan - Sven Olof Sandberg - 1939
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 28, 2015 - 10:07am PT

Polsdans fra Finnskogen - I Grenseland - Audun Grüner-Hegge og Anbjørg Myhra Bergwitz
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 28, 2015 - 10:28am PT

Som fågelen (Like a bird)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2015 - 08:15am PT

Finnskogen an early morning in late July
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2015 - 08:22am PT

Meet America's Most Obsessed Saab Collector.

Bruce Turk turned a childhood love for the Saab Sonett into a 25-year obsession and a collection of Saab cars, parts and memorabilia you must see to believe.
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Swedish Automaker Saab/History (Car Documentary)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Gnome Ofthe Diabase

climber
Out Of Bed
Aug 2, 2015 - 08:23am PT
#302!! Congratulations Marlow.
Isn't it good?
Norwegian wood.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2015 - 08:26am PT

Gnome.

Yes, not bad. Det er gærbra...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 20, 2015 - 11:18am PT

Där näckrosen blommar - Carl Jularbos orkester spelar
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 20, 2015 - 12:31pm PT

Omkring tiggarn från Luossa

Hootenanny Singers
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Sonja Aldén
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2015 - 12:01pm PT
Flisa today

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 1, 2015 - 12:11pm PT

A great musician documentary - Sofia Karlsson - with a lot of music. The lyrics are often written by Dan Andersson, her favourite poet.

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2015 - 01:25pm PT

Finnskogen this weekend

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2015 - 01:29pm PT

Lake Røgden
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2015 - 01:34pm PT

Lake Kirkesjøen
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2015 - 02:05pm PT

Day and night
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 4, 2015 - 03:47pm PT
Hej, Marlow, not in Finnskogen but plenty of Norwegians hereabouts.
Found a boat for us when you visit me in Port Townsend, Washington...

Lollie

Social climber
I'm Lolli.
Oct 5, 2015 - 12:28am PT
Lovely thread, this one. Beautiful pictures.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2015 - 12:44am PT

Thanks Lollie.

The name of Reilly's boat is "Torsk" - "Cod" in English.

And here's a picture of fishing at Norkapp around year 1900:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 20, 2015 - 01:23pm PT

Rune songs

During the late Bronze Age, a hunting-cultivation culture arose alongside the ancient wilderness culture, along the coastal and inland areas of the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. As had happened in other shamanic cultures, the transformed economic basis of the hunting-cultivation culture strained the limits of traditional shamanic practices. It led to the development of a unique ‘Finnish solution’ to the crisis, building upon, but also departing from, elements of wilderness culture.

First, in order to maintain protection and guidance, the new hunter-cultivators continued to embrace and honour their ancestors, as the wilderness culture had done. However, over time, hunter-cultivators changed their allegiance from the clan to the extended family, or lineage. At the same time, they continued their respectful relationships with the spirit persons of nature, the haltijas, reflecting their continuing reliance on wilderness subsistence activities.

The second development, in response to the crisis of relevance of the ancient shamanic practices for the hunting-cultivation culture, was the appearance of a new transitional shamanic practitioner, the proto-tietäjä. This figure was a variation on the Siberian model of the “independent shaman”, who could be mobile and could serve the former members of various clans. However, the new proto-tietäjä lacked a cohesive base of support and recognition, as the wilderness band had provided for the noita.

In developing new forms of practice relevant to hunting-cultivation life, the proto-tietäjä had access to unique resources: nearby bands of the wilderness shamanic culture, with their shamanistic noitas, as well as rich cultural influences arriving on their shores from Baltic and proto-Scandinavian areas. The fruit was the development of Kalevala metre runes. The runes incorporated the ancient shamanic world view in sacred folk poetry, in fixed form, that would be passed on thereafter through a vibrant oral folk tradition.



The photo above from the 19th century depicts the singing of runes, in which one singer leads and the other responds. It suggests the ancient roots of the tradition in wilderness culture: “The specific position taken by the singers and their cooperation could be a vestige of shaman activity. The fore-singer corresponded to the shaman and the after-singer to the shaman’s helper.” (Pentikäinen: 1999)

Over time, tietäjä-poets began to add songs to the body of runes composed by the wilderness noita-poets. Their songs, while maintaining wilderness motifs and images, also reflected sacred themes of the hunter-cultivation, and later swidden, culture.

According to Oinas (1997), singing the runes was not seen as “art for art’s sake, but an act of magical significance. These songs contain the most sacred and powerful knowledge that could be used to influence man’s life”. In effect, they encoded the ancient shamanic world view of the Finns and later additions to it by tietäjä-poets.

Formerly this world view had been maintained as part of the “grammar of mind” of the wilderness noita, but now it was the property of the people of the hunting-cultivation culture (and eventually, the whole Finnish people), including the tietäjäs, in the form of the Kalevala metre runes.

The body of runes or magic poems were carried down from singer (laulaja) to singer, generation to generation, over centuries and millennia in Finland. “Men and women sang—either in groups or alone—as they worked in the fields, hunted, fished, or attended to domestic duties. In the evening the men and women sang and listened to each other as they performed household tasks, the men spinning or weaving, the men carving or mending their nets.” (Kuusi, et al: 1977)

Because the runes were passed on orally, in the words of Comparetti (1898), they became a “fluctuating mass of verse, of poetic thought…in a perennial state of transformation, of decomposition and of recomposition.” In spite of the often superior aesthetic qualities of this body of verse, it never became the property of elites, including ‘artistic’ ones. Comparetti says, “In truth the traditional poetry of the Finns is popular poetry in the full sense of the word”.

The Rise of Kalevala Era Shamanism: The Kalevala Metre Runes: http://spiritboat.blogspot.dk/2012/04/rise-of-kalevala-era-shamanism-kalevala.html
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 22, 2015 - 01:19pm PT

On the eastern coast of Sweden: Stockholm around 1900

On the western coast: Smögen

Balladen om " Briggen Blue Bird of Hull", Smögen (with nice Norwegian pictures out of context)
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Smögen, Bohuslän today - fishing and eating lobster
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 1, 2015 - 11:23am PT

A tune by a musician from Finnskogen who died too early, Ted Gärdestad, and his brother, Kenneth - I den Stora Sorgens Famn (The great sorrow)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 2, 2015 - 10:32am PT

Thorstein Bergman 1975 - Gässen flytta (lyrics: Dan Andersson)
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Freddie Wadling - "Blott en dag ett ögonblick i sänder"
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 2, 2015 - 12:45pm PT

Old winter postcards from the souteastern part of Norway:

Svullrya
Elverum
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 3, 2015 - 08:29am PT

Finnskogen long ago - pictures from Värmland, Sweden
JC Marin

Trad climber
CA
Dec 3, 2015 - 08:38pm PT

One of 7 lakes on our farm in South west Norway--tons of rock to climb too.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Dec 3, 2015 - 09:02pm PT
The Nordmarkingar look ready for anything, ikke sant?
JC Marin

Trad climber
CA
Dec 3, 2015 - 09:17pm PT
Maybe everything but A-Ha
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 28, 2015 - 09:53am PT

JC and Reilly

I have to agree. Anything, but wimpy music, one-eyed devils, removable blade safety-razors, wimpiness generally and soul-speak...

And wimpy music would also mean noisy music performed by groups of long-haired girly men in girly clothes - Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones as examples.


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 29, 2015 - 01:51am PT

Popular music from Vittula

Mikael Niemi has written a book about about the 1960's/70's in Vittula, Pajala, in the northern part of Sweden. I'll leave to you to find the meaning of the word Vittula, but it's an appraisal of female fertility.

The book handles the transformation from a traditional code to a more modern code, in part driven by rock music. It is also a story about what it means to be a man in this Finnish-language part of Sweden, what's acceptable and what is not - what is "knapsu" (something only women do) and what is not. New times, new technology and new concepts give trouble.

Some activities that are clearly "knapsu":
 hanging up the curtains
 knitting
 milking a cow by hand
 washing the dishes by hand
 watering the flowers

Some activities that are clearly manly:
 hunting
 fishing
 chopping wood
 log driving
 fighting

But what about:
 eating low fat diet
 driving an electric car
 meditating
 yoga
 milking a cow using a milking machine
 washing something using an electric washing machine
 popular music


The arrival of the first Beatles record in Vittula

While the old folk sat around cackling away like black-clad crows, we youngsters wandered off outside. The boys from Missouri followed us out. They were twins, aged about eight, dressed in smart suits and ties. They spoke English to each other while Niila and I conversed in Tornedalen Finnish; they kept yawning due to jet lag, and were shivering noticeably. They both had crew cuts and looked like miniature marines with ginger hair, like their Irish-American father. You could see they were bewildered by being transplanted to the Old World and their mother’s roots. It was May, the snow was melting after the long winter, but the river was still covered in ice. The birches were naked, and last year’s grass was flat and yellow in the meadows where the snow had barely finished thawing away. They trod cautiously in their patent leather shoes, peering around uneasily on the look-out for Arctic predators.

I was curious and started chatting to them. They told us in sing-song Swedish-American that on their way to Sweden they’d broken their journey in London and seen the Beatles. I told them to cut out the fairy-tales. But they both swore blind the Beatles had driven past their hotel in a long, open Cadillac through rows of girls screeching and shrieking. It had all been filmed from a lorry following close behind.

The twins had bought something as well. They produced a paper bag and took out a record with an English price tag.
“Beatles,” I spelled out slowly. “Roskn roll musis.”
“Rock ’n roll music,” they chorused, correcting my pronunciation with a grin. Then they handed the single over to Niila.
“It’s a present. To our cousin.”

Niila took hold of the record in both hands. Fascinated, he slowly slid out the circular piece of vinyl and stared at the hair-thin grooves. He was holding it so gingerly, as if afraid it would crack, like a wafer-thin disc of ice from a frozen water-bucket. Although this disc was black. Like sin.

“Kiitos,” he mumbled. “Tack. Fenk yoo.”
He sniffed at the plastic, then held it up towards the spring sun and watched the grooves glittering. The twins glanced at each other and smiled. They were already composing the story about their meeting with the natives they’d recount for their buddies back home in Missouri as they all sat around chewing hamburgers and slurping coke.
hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
Dec 29, 2015 - 02:23am PT
thank you marlow for everything even in advance. it's like window peeking at cousin school
Rick A

climber
Boulder, Colorado
Dec 29, 2015 - 08:38am PT
I am reading a book my oldest son gave me, entitled Norwegian Wood, by Lars Mytting. It is about chopping, splitting and stacking wood for use in wood stoves. It is a quirky little book that waxes eloquent about the joys of wielding an ax with authority and splitting a log on the first blow.

I love a wood fire and have been having one every night during a recent cold spell.

From the book:

Many people are at their most contemplative when addressing a chopping block.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 29, 2015 - 11:31am PT

Hooblie
"It's like window peeking at cousin school". Hehe... great...

Rick A
That book inspired a Norwegian TV station to send a continuously running television program about wood that lasted for 12 hours. It is not on Youtube.
Here it is on NRK: https://tv.nrk.no/serie/nasjonal-vedkveld

A skilled wood-chopper at work using old equipment.
[Click to View YouTube Video]

A film about a locally made, effective wood chopping machine that was used by the whole local community in Vänsjö, Sweden.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Dec 29, 2015 - 12:37pm PT
Why are all the cartoons in svensk? (I love the last one)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 29, 2015 - 12:43pm PT

Cool that you understand Swedish, Reilly. To speak the truth - I was too lazy to even try to translate bits of the text and I have no idea how to translate some of the words.

More Norwegian wood - Norwegian Wood (acoustic Beatles cover) - Mike Masse and Jeff Hall
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Dec 29, 2015 - 12:49pm PT
I didn't say I understood them! ;-)

OK, I did look some of the big words up.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 29, 2015 - 01:34pm PT

Now there is an intended translation connected to each of the Swedish cartoons.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 2, 2016 - 08:44am PT

Around new year's eve there must be a place for an Irish tune on the Norwegian woods thread: Seán Keane - Journey Round The Sun

[Click to View YouTube Video]

and then: Sofia Karlsson & Martin Hederos - Julkortet
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 10, 2016 - 09:10am PT

Folque - Harpa
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 21, 2016 - 02:14pm PT

An early morning by Huldretjern - Jonna Jinton
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 6, 2016 - 11:18am PT

Slash and burn agriculture (Huuhtasvedjebruk) - how it spread


Huutha is supposed to have developed in the forests northeast of Viborg 1300-1400. The inner circle above shows where Huutha had spread in the 1500s. The middel line shows the 1600s and the outer line the 1700s. In the 1800s Huutha spread to Twer in Russia, Delaware in USA and many areas in Siberia.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 6, 2016 - 12:15pm PT

The map below shows where Forest Finns settled in Norway and Sweden (Scandinavia):


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 6, 2016 - 12:16pm PT

Rye from Huuhta - how it looks when it's grown:


The diversity of the rye - here showed by weight:


No monoculture involved here. Different areas had different rye.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 6, 2016 - 12:16pm PT

Sometimes we cry

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 6, 2016 - 12:16pm PT

Haldis

I dedicate this thread to the memory of my dear mother, Haldis.
She died on the 4th of March 2016.

She was born at Svullrya in 1935 and grew up at Kirkesjøberget in a home full of life and music. She loved to dance. She had five siblings - one sister and four brothers.

In her youth she helped her mother in the house and caring for the animals. She kept on doing that during the summer holidays until she married my father, Kjell. She also worked in the woods measuring timber, she worked at a bakery and in the shop at Svullrya. When she was 20 she took an education and later worked in the office.

The nature of my mother: Haldis was kind, caring, helpful, hospitable, wise and a little shy. She gave her children a safe haven to return to after their adventures. We knew she was there for us, completely to be trusted and always caring and helpful. She was also a great organizer of family holidays and family gatherings with our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

The last eight years of her life dementia reduced her ability to function well at home and she spent the last six years at Åsnes sykehjem where she was treated very well. She kept her kind and helpful personality and she always had a smile for everyone.

I will thank my mother for all the wonderful memories and everything I learned from her. She gave me the values that have served me well.

Here are some pictures from the life of my mother:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 6, 2016 - 12:46pm PT

Thanks Andy, I appreciate that...
nita

Social climber
chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.
Mar 6, 2016 - 01:18pm PT
*
Marlow,

Lovely tribute ..Thank you for sharing your Mom's life and posting your family photos...Very Beautiful.

Sending my heartfelt condolence ..
Take care..

Paz..
Saludos..
ps..The sound & feel of this Norwegian fiddle made me think of you...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Love
Nita..


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 6, 2016 - 01:21pm PT

Thanks Nita...

The Maple's Lament video you posted do not function on my PC, so here is another version that plays.

"The Maple's Lament"
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Mar 6, 2016 - 06:22pm PT
Thanks, Marlow, and very sorry to hear about your mother.

This is a favourite thread, because it celebrates the folk and history of natural spaces.
Crimpergirl

Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
Mar 6, 2016 - 06:24pm PT
Very sorry to hear about the loss of your mother Marlow. What a beautiful tribute. Thanks so much for taking the time to share it with us. It is wonderful.
nita

Social climber
chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.
Mar 7, 2016 - 08:22am PT
*
Marlow, too bad you could not not hear the video i posted. It is a beautiful version of the song because of the bittersweet sound of the Norwegian fiddle.. It is quite a beautiful sounding instrument.

There is a live version of Laurie Lewis singing the song, but the sound quality is not good.

Looking at your Mom's pictures again.. and thinking of you and your family..
Sweet dreams..

Nita.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 7, 2016 - 08:36am PT

Andy, Anders, Callie and Nita: I deeply appreciate your support...
Ken M

Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
Mar 7, 2016 - 11:14am PT
This thread is a wonderful tribute to your mom.

Her generation was the one that involved the transition from "the old ways" to the new, and the adoption of so much on an industrial level.

We cannot help but view the passing of such a person as a tragedy, although it is nothing but the natural order. Perhaps not so much for the person involved, as we become increasingly diminished with age, but certainly for the rest of us and our memories.

As they say in old Norse:

As-salamu Alaykum
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 7, 2016 - 11:19am PT

So true Ken.

...and sorrow is a part of the natural order...

Wa-Alaikum-us-Salaam
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2016 - 11:13am PT

Log driving down the Rotna river (mostly 1950s). The pictures belonged to my mother's uncle Jakob who wrote a book about the log driving.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2016 - 11:19am PT

The people

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2016 - 11:25am PT

Along the Rotna river

Fossil climber

Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
Mar 22, 2016 - 01:33pm PT
I'm really sorry for your loss, Marlow. Haldis sounds like a great person and mom.

And I really enjoy Norwegian Woods thread. Our geography has certain similarities, and the frontier here is only a hundred or so years back so the historic photos are fascinating. And some people still live in log cabins here in Atlin.

I do envy Norway's long history. I was in Norway in 1949, visited a farm down below Spiterstulen (might have been in Lom, but not sure). I was sitting on a carved wooden chest and commented on it to the host. He said that it had been in the family for a long time. How long? I asked. Eight hundred years.

I got up in a hurry.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2016 - 03:14pm PT

Thanks Wayne. I appreciate that.

There are clearly similarities between parts of Canada, the Northern parts of the United States, and Norway. Reilly previously posted some photos that could have been taken at Finnskogen. I think many Scandinavian emigrants found landscapes in Canada and the US that had similarities to the landscapes that they had left behind in Scandinavia.
feralfae

Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
Mar 22, 2016 - 07:12pm PT
Marlow,
My condolences on the loss of your wonderful mother. I can see the warmth of her spirit in her smile. Thank you for sharing about her with us.

Your photographs of Norway remind me of Alaska, where I know many people who live in log cabins. Actually, I know a few folks here in Montana and in Wyoming as well who live in log cabins. I lived in a Swedish-coped log home for many years. The images of your homeland have a feel of the embracing and nurturing of the Earth about them. Beautiful to see.

I hope you and your family are doing well. Peace to your heart.

With Sympathy,
feralfae
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 23, 2016 - 11:04am PT

Thank you, Feralfae, I appreciate your feedback very much. Do you have Swedish ancestors?
feralfae

Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
Mar 23, 2016 - 12:05pm PT
Thank you Marlow.
No Swedes in my line of the family, except for one who married in, but he was from the Orkneys, although both his parents were from Sweden. I have many family members from and some still in the Highlands. Our family line is incredibly international, however, so I am purely a mongrel of many races. :)

Our Swedish-coped home was built by a chap from Sweden That home is up Lolo Pass in western Montana, a few miles from the Idaho border. We had elk and moose in the yard all the time, because the creek ran through our place. And we had the entire Bitterroot Range Of Montana and Idaho for our back yard playground, right out the door and 427 steps away. (We counted the steps to the gate.)

Your black and white photos have a feeling of loving intimacy and sense of place that drew me in to the scenes. So lovely.

I hope you and your family are doing well.

Kind Regards,
feralfae
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 7, 2016 - 02:13pm PT

Visiting Heiki at Finnskogen

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2016 - 12:36pm PT

Kirkesjøberget
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2016 - 12:44pm PT

Finnskogen this weekend

mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Apr 10, 2016 - 12:50pm PT
Wonderfuls.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2016 - 12:54pm PT

Sønsterud today

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Apr 10, 2016 - 02:04pm PT
As seen not long ago in Southern Kalifornia...


I was dying to meet the owner but couldn't wait. I've got him beat on
the first one but not the second. I only made it to Åndalsnes.

The Åndalsnes 'hood':

OK, now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 17, 2016 - 10:39am PT

The midnight sun at Nordkapp

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 17, 2016 - 10:42am PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 22, 2016 - 09:23am PT

The Forest - A Time-Lapse Journey Through the Forgotten Norway

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 3, 2016 - 12:26pm PT

Somliga går med trasiga skor - Alexandra under Solør-Mart'n 2013

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Pernilla Wahlgren och Cornelis Vreeswijk - Cecilia Lind & Fredrik Åkare

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 5, 2016 - 01:53pm PT

Faldaasen skole 2012

Faldaasen skole was in use 1901-1947. My grandfather went to this school some time around 1910. Today the school is a museum.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 5, 2016 - 01:56pm PT

This winter a marten had eaten it's way through the roof of the school and when it couldn't get out, nearly eaten it's way through a door. It was found this spring by the first visitor.

mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
May 5, 2016 - 04:31pm PT
My compliments on this peaceful, charming thread, Marlow.

It is so different from the frenzy that is apparent from where I come.

Fred.

Mouse from Merced.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 14, 2016 - 11:25am PT

Rally Sweden 2016 at Finnskogen

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 14, 2016 - 11:29am PT

Mart'n at Svullrya this weekend

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
May 14, 2016 - 01:16pm PT
Paamindelse for alle børn?. Gammel norsk?


Russisk Karelian 'doll'.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 14, 2016 - 01:19pm PT

Reilly: Norwegian from a time when Danish had an even greater influence on the Norwegian language...

That's a cool Russian Karelian doll. As taken from the Kalevala.


Kalevala, Runo 1 - the Sampo


The Sampo

In the expanded second version of the poem, the Sampo is forged by Ilmarinen, a legendary smith, as a task set by the Mistress of Pohjola in return for her daughter's hand.

"Ilmarinen, worthy brother,
Thou the only skilful blacksmith,
Go and see her wondrous beauty,
See her gold and silver garments,
See her robed in finest raiment,
See her sitting on the rainbow,
Walking on the clouds of purple.
Forge for her the magic Sampo,
Forge the lid in many colors,
Thy reward shall be the virgin,
Thou shalt win this bride of beauty;
Go and bring the lovely maiden
To thy home in Kalevala."

Ilmarinen works for several days at a mighty forge until finally the Sampo is created:

On one side the flour is grinding,
On another salt is making,
On a third is money forging,
And the lid is many-colored.
Well the Sampo grinds when finished,
To and fro the lid in rocking,
Grinds one measure at the day-break,
Grinds a measure fit for eating,
Grinds a second for the market,
Grinds a third one for the store-house.

In Finnish mythology, the Sampo or Sammas was a magical artifact of indeterminate type constructed by Ilmarinen that brought good fortune to its holder. When the Sampo was stolen, it is said that Ilmarinen's homeland fell upon hard times and he sent an expedition to retrieve it, but in the ensuing battle it was smashed and lost at sea.

The Sampo has been interpreted in many ways: a world pillar or world tree, a compass or astrolabe, a chest containing a treasure, a Byzantine coin die, a decorated Vendel period shield, a Christian relic, etc. In the Kalevala, compiler Lönnrot interpreted it to be a quern or mill of some sort that made flour, salt, and gold out of thin air. The world pillar hypothesis, originally developed by historian of religions Uno Harva and the linguist Eemil Nestor Setälä in the early 20th century, is the most widely accepted one.

According to Giorgio de Santillana, professor of the history of science at MIT, and student of mythology, the sampo and the world pillar both refer to the precession of the equinox. In Hamlet's Mill, co-authored with Hertha von Dechend, the authors find that the sampo or precession process was believed to grind out different world ages, from dark age to golden age and back again over the long precession cycle.


These two were made by my mother's uncle Jakob:


hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
May 14, 2016 - 03:14pm PT
got pangs?

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/new-bikes/2014/september/matchless-is-back/
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 15, 2016 - 12:21am PT

Hooblie: Great link.

From the link:

Matchless is a name which has long been missing from the roll call of active motorcycle manufacturers, but recent patent applications and statements of intent from the current owners promised that a new model was under development – and MCN has gained access to exclusive details of the new bike ahead of its expected launch at the Milan motorcycle show in early November.

Having been the leading British manufacturer, and the catalyst for the once enormous superpower that was AMC (Associated Motorcycle Company: Matchless, AJS, Sunbeam, Indian and Norton), Matchless effectively ceased to exist in 1966 (they thought it was all over, and it was). But the rights to the brand were purchased by the Malenotti family – of recent Belstaff fame – in 2012, and used on a new clothing line called Matchless London, managed by Michele Malenotti, in the spirit of the original clothing division of Matchless formed by the founder Henry Collier in the 1930s.

And now the firm is moving from clothing to bikes, with the expected launch of its first new bike, the Model X Reloaded, a design inspired by the legendary Model X originally built over 80 years ago. Reloaded has been designed by renowned industry stalwart Franco Malenotti, along with the Matchless design team.

Original Matchless Model X



Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 17, 2016 - 01:47am PT

Fanfanfan - a tune by Swedish singer, songwriter, rock poet Joakim Thåström

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Thåström - Långtbort

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 20, 2016 - 01:12pm PT

Sibelius: Karelia Suite (Full) - Philharmonia Orch. / Ashkenazy

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 5, 2016 - 11:03am PT

Finnskogen this weekend

Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Jun 5, 2016 - 03:45pm PT
Det er sikkert at Finnskogen er en fin skog.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 10, 2016 - 11:29am PT

Carl Michael Bellman: Fredman's Epistles No.81 - Kyösti Rautio

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Carl Michael Bellman: Glimmande Nymph - Elina

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 18, 2016 - 03:01am PT

Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884) - the author/editor of the Kalevala


A statue in Helsinki showing Elias Lönnrot and Kalevala's Vainamoinen


The Kalevala heritage - Song challenge - singing the runes:

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Education and early life
Lönnrot was born in Sammatti, in the province of Uusimaa, Finland, which was then part of Sweden. He studied medicine at the Academy of Turku. The Great Fire of Turku coincided with his first academic year. As the university was destroyed in the fire, it was moved to Helsinki, the newly established administrative center of the Grand Duchy and the present capital city of Finland. Lönnrot followed and graduated in 1832.

Early medical career
Lönnrot got a job as district doctor of Kajaani in Eastern Finland during a time of famine and pestilence in the district. The famine had prompted the previous doctor to resign, making it possible for a very young doctor to get such a position. Several consecutive years of crop failure resulted in losses of population and livestock. In addition, lack of a hospital further complicated Lönnrot's work. He was the sole doctor for 4,000 or so people, most of whom lived in small rural communities scattered across the district. As physicians and novel drugs were expensive at the time, most people relied on their village healers and locally available remedies. Lönnrot himself was keen on traditional remedies and also administered them. However, he believed strongly that preventive measures such as good hygiene, breastfeeding of babies and vaccination were the most effective cures for most of his patients.

Travels and writing
His true passion lay in his native Finnish language. He began writing about the early Finnish language in 1827 and began collecting folk tales from rural people about that time. In 1831, the Finnish Literature Society was founded, and Lönnrot, being one of the founder members, received financial support from the society for his collecting efforts.

Lönnrot went on extended leaves of absence from his doctor's office; he toured the countryside of Finland, Sapmi (Lapland), and nearby portions of Russian Karelia. This led to a series of books: Kantele, 1829–1831 (the kantele is a Finnish traditional instrument); Kalevala, 1835–1836 (the "old" Kalevala); Kanteletar, 1840; Sananlaskuja, 1842 (Proverbs); an expanded second edition of Kalevala, 1849 (the "new" Kalevala). Lönnrot was recognised for his part in preserving Finland's oral traditions by appointment to the Chair of Finnish Literature at the University of Helsinki in 1853.

He also undertook the task of compiling the first Finnish-Swedish dictionary (Finsk-Svenskt lexikon, 1866–1880). The result comprised over 200,000 entries, and many of the Finnish translations were coined by Lönnrot himself. His vast knowledge of traditional Finnish poetry made him a definite authority in Finland and many of his inventions have stuck. Finnish scientific terminology was in particular influenced by Lönnrot's work and therefore many abstract terms that have a Latin or Greek etymology in mainstream European languages appear as native neologisms in Finnish. Examples from linguistics and medicine include kielioppi (grammar), kirjallisuus (literature), laskimo (vein) and valtimo (artery). This may be well contrasted with the so-called inkhorn debate of English, in which proponents of Saxon-based words were largely defeated.

Work in botany
Botanists remember him for writing the first Finnish-language Flora Fennica – Suomen Kasvisto in 1860; in its day it was famed throughout Scandinavia, as it was among the very first common-language scientific texts. The second, expanded version was co-authored by Th. Saelan and published in 1866. The Flora Fennica was the first scientific work published in Finnish (instead of Latin). In addition, Lönnrot's Flora Fennica includes many notes on plant uses in between descriptions of flower and leaf. The standard author abbreviation Lönnrot is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.

Wikipedia

Lönnrot travelled extensively collecting the runes/stories. Her is a map showing his field trips:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 18, 2016 - 10:15am PT

The Kalevala has inspired many artists. This is Yuri Lukshin


Starting the creation of the ex-libris cycle on the basis of "Kalevala", the drawing master from Saint Petersburg, Yuri Konstantinovich Lukshin has reconstructed not only the drawing style, the manner, but also the techniques. Lukshin has conceived a series of fifty ex-librises covering the plots of all the 50 runos of the epos. An exhibition of Yuri Lukshins Kalevala art has been shown in Helsinki.

The Kalevala ex-librises of Lukshin have been addressed to one bibliophile, Pekka Heikkila, inhabitant of the small Finnish town of Tammela. Under the initiative of Heikkila, many outstanding artists from many countries have created book-marks on the basis of "Kalevala". Heikkila has managed to attract such masters-of-art-drawing as Evald Okas, Mihail Verholantsev, Vladislav Stanishevsky, Vladimir Vereshchagin, Konstantin Kalinovich, Gennady Vereshchagin and Yuri Lukshin...

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2016 - 01:20pm PT

Elgå: The woodshed in the south wind - from the book Norwegian Wood by Lars Mytting


Close to Femunden Water, the third-largest lake in Norway, lies Elgå, a tiny community that has always lived close to the forces of nature. The village was inaccessible by road until 1956, and the fifty people who live there enjoy harsh weather conditions, bitter cold, and fabulous natural surroundings. Domestic heating is provided by a full spectrum of woodstoves. The heart of the community is its one and only store, the well-stocked and well-run Peder Røsten. Fuel is dispensed from a battered old pump that still uses a mechanical counter.

Not far from the shop is a small, neat house with an equally neat woodshed. This is the home of Ole Haugen, born in 1926. Ole is a real firewood enthusiast and all the heating in the house comes from firewood he has prepared himself.

Ole has been a joiner and woodcutter all his life and has always cut his own firewood. In his childhood the usual thing was to burn dry pine, felled using a svans (a large two-man crosscut saw) and dragged back home to the village by horse. Heavy, time-consuming and exhausting work.

“The chain saw was a revolution when it came”, says Ole. “Those first saws could weigh anything up to twenty kilograms and a lot of people didn’t take to them, but to me they were a miracle to work with”.

In time, he says, foresters developed a real fondness for the chain saw. Elgå and the surrounding districts became typical “Husqvarna towns” – they didn’t think much of saws made by Stihl. Toward the end of his working life he switched brands and his last two saws – both of them now in his work shed and displaying all the signs of years of loving care and hard use – are Jonsereds, a 590 and a 2051.

Ole used to get all his firewood from a birch wood growing high up on a nearby hill. Because of the undulating terrain and the distance involved he usually leaf-felled the trees, leaving them unlimbed to make transportation easier. As the leaves continue to grow the moisture is drawn up out of the trunk, and after a few weeks the trees can be limbed and sawed up in the usual way. Because the logs are now much lighter, the method is especially suitable for places where the wood has to be transported over a distance.

With the trees felled, the timetable for the rest of the work is less critical. So if you are a little behind with the chopping and splitting and final drying, there is no great harm done. Woodcutting using the leaf-felling method also makes it easier to fit in around the other jobs.
….
Over the years Ole has observed how important it is to stack the wood so that the wind comes at it from the most advantageous angle.
“Wind blowing through the stack is what gets it really dry. Heat is important, but damp wood should be out in the sun and wind as much as possible.

Ole likes to try out new things and refine his understanding of the factors that influence the quality of the firewood. During his life he has experimented with a number of different designs for his woodshed. Now, just past his eightieth birthday, he has finally come up with one he thinks is satisfactory.

This shed is long and narrow, with a rear wall that can be removed. The four doors at the front run the full width of the shed, and when these are opened the wind blows through the entire stack. The shed is positioned so that the south wind strikes the open rear wall. Inside, the logs are stacked so that the wind blows along them lengthwise. The dark corrugated iron roof retains heat, which speeds up the drying. The removable rear wall means that the wood can be stacked from the front or back. As winter approaches the doors are closed or the back wall placed in a position so that the snow does not blow in. The design makes maximum use of all available space, and the wood is easy to get at. And, of course, the shed has its own permanent reserve for the extra cold winters.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2016 - 01:57pm PT

Norwegian Wood

An article about the book: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/how-a-book-about-norwegian-wood-has-become-a-global-hit-a6747431.html

From the article:
We meet Ottar at the beginning of the book. He is a likeable, stoic neighbour in the small town of Elverum in south-eastern Norway, where Mytting had moved to, and the man who taught Mytting that "a wood fire is about so much more than heat". In Elverum, winter temperatures hang around the -30C mark. Ottar, retired with poor lungs, treats the annual arrival of his logs in spring and the subsequent time spent chopping, seasoning and stacking as a life-giving ritual. The book is a paean to all Norwegians who revere wood. These people know that without it man would never have been able to inhabit land so far north in the first place.

"Ottar spent a month on his woodpile," writes Mytting. "I've never seen a man change quite the way he did.

"Was it just the activity and the summer warmth that made him better? I don't think so. It was the wood. All his life he'd chopped his own firewood… He enjoyed the feel of each log in his hand, the smell that made him feel he was at work inside a poem, the sense of security in his stack, the pleasing thought of the winter that lay ahead, with all those hours of sitting contentedly in front of his woodburning stove."


Elverum

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2016 - 01:59pm PT

"The scent of fresh wood
is among the last things you will forget
when the veil falls.
The scent of fresh white wood
in the spring sap time
as though life itself walked by you,
with dew in its hair."

Hans Børli



And then an Irish poem faring well on the Norwegian Woods thread: Seamus Heaney - Out West

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 22, 2016 - 08:57am PT

Portrait of a dogwalker: https://vimeo.com/122416858

In 2010 after working in Finance for nearly 5 years Matt Hein quit his job and headed off to follow his dreams.
After living and working in the French Alps he moved to Oslo, Norway where he has resided since 2012. There he put his previous experience and training to good use, combining it with his passion for dogs and nature, launching his own dog-walking company.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 24, 2016 - 09:39am PT


Kalevala - drawings by Tamara Yufa

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 26, 2016 - 01:42pm PT

The song I think my mother loved most of all: Tapani Kansa - Käymme yhdessä ain. 1968.

[Click to View YouTube Video]

The version she played: Gunnar Wiklund - Vi ska gå hand i hand.

[Click to View YouTube Video]

A month before my mother died, my brother sang this song for her. At the time, she was struggling with words. But hearing this song, the words she spoke to my brother were as clear as clear could be: "Du er fortsatt like fin, du".
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jun 26, 2016 - 02:04pm PT
Marlow, I'm behind, unnskyld! Are there any homes for sale in Elgå?
A god friend in Seattle was Karl Haugen and his dad was Ole. Jo, not a big coincidence. :-)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 26, 2016 - 02:09pm PT

^^^^ There's plenty of room left around Femunden. 50 persons live in Elgå... There's certainly room for you, Reilly... hunting, fishing and chopping wood...
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Jun 26, 2016 - 02:18pm PT
Any photos from Fiskevollen, on Sølensjøen? I've been fishing there, and it's not far from Femund.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 26, 2016 - 02:26pm PT

Anders.

I have no photos, but there is always help to find on the web... a beautiful place...

Fiskvollen, Sølensjøen


Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jun 26, 2016 - 02:28pm PT
^^^^^ I'll take THAT house!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2016 - 11:56am PT

Finnskogen turist og villmarksenter this weekend

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2016 - 12:03pm PT

Places around Kirkesjøen

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2016 - 12:10pm PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 5, 2016 - 01:26pm PT

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Norrøna Finnskogen
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 10, 2016 - 11:57am PT

Finnetunet 2016

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 10, 2016 - 12:02pm PT

Gottlundmarsjen 2016

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 10, 2016 - 12:10pm PT

Gottlundmarsjen 2016 continues

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 10, 2016 - 12:17pm PT

Finnskogdagene 2016

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2016 - 12:34pm PT

Woodcuts by Erkki Tanttu

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2016 - 12:36pm PT

Sauna diorama

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 23, 2016 - 11:26pm PT

Swedish heirloom recipes from the community of Galva, Illinois


The proud Swedish community of Galva, Illinois and nearby Bishop Hill and the farms thereabouts date back to the 1860's as does this community church. Wonderful separate section is entirely Swedish heirloom recipes of the local families and all are given with the names of the cook.



Galva, Illinois

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 26, 2016 - 10:18am PT

Hunting moose (Elgjakt) - from Malm, Åkerman and Andreæ, Älgjägarens bok, 1959, ed. 2.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 26, 2016 - 10:21am PT

Hunting moose 2

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 29, 2016 - 11:28am PT

Finnskogen this week

Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Jul 29, 2016 - 08:19pm PT
Well, it's not quite like being there in person. Maybe next summer. But still very evocative. Even if it wasn't raining. Thanks!

And it sounds like those nice Norwegians may give their neighbours a bit of land, so they have a mountain: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/28/norway-finland-move-mountain-halti-halditsohkka-highest-peak
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 30, 2016 - 01:54am PT

Mighty Hiker

That's a great idea - a mountain peak as a gift on the 100 years of independence anniversary.

The peak “would be a wonderful gift to our sister nation”, said the mayor of Kåfjord in Norway, Svein Leiros, who with other local politicians has written to the government in Oslo to express enthusiastic support for the plan.

Responding, the foreign ministry said that although it appreciated the suggestion, article 1 of Norway’s constitution unfortunately stipulated that the country is a “free, independent, indivisible and inalienable realm”.

But Øyvind Ravna, a law professor at the Norwegian Arctic university, told the paper the constitution did not apply to minor border adjustments, pointing out that Norway’s borders with both Finland and Russia had moved in recent times to reflect changes in riverbeds and the shifting position of sandbanks and islets.

A Facebook page, Halti as anniversary gift, run by Harsson’s son from his home in the US and calling on supporters to allow “Finland, on its centenary, to rewrite both its history and its geography books”, has so far garnered nearly 14,000 likes.

Public reaction has been overwhelmingly positive in both Norway and Finland, with the only objection so far coming from the indigenous Sami community, whose reindeer roam freely across the border and who argue that the land should belong to neither country.

Norway’s government has confirmed that for the centenary of Finland’s independence next year it is considering moving the border, gifting its Nordic neighbour a mountain peak that would be the country’s highest point.

“There are a few formal difficulties and I have not yet made my final decision,” the Norwegian prime minister, Erna Solberg, told NRK, the national broadcaster. “But we are looking into it.”

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 3, 2016 - 12:43pm PT

Two Swedish tunes that were played during my mother's funeral in March 2016 were:
 "Blott en dag ett ögonblick i sänder"
 "Bred Dina Vida Vingar"

Here's a Youtube example of each of the tunes:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Aug 3, 2016 - 02:48pm PT
And now Jesper, the adventurous cat from east central Norway - not far from Finnskogen - has ascended Galdhøpiggen, the highest mountain in Norway. The first recorded feline ascent ("FRFA"). A book about Jesper ("Jesperpus") will appear in a few months, and he's all over the internet.

http://www.h-a.no/nyheter/jesperpus-sov-seg-helt-til-topps
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 3, 2016 - 03:35pm PT

... and here's the picture documenting Jesperpus on the summit


His use of the Norwegian guide is hilarious... he was carried sleeping to the top...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 4, 2016 - 02:29am PT

Sofia Karlsson - Spelmannen (lyrics: Dan Andersson)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 4, 2016 - 03:00am PT

Kalevala drawings by an Ukrainian or Russian artist:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 10, 2016 - 02:45pm PT

Alongside poets Dan Andersson and Hans Børli, and singer/songwriter Sofia Karlsson, rock poet Joakim Thåström has an important role to play on the Finnskogen and Nordic woods thread.

[Click to View YouTube Video]

1.Främling överallt (Stranger everywhere)
2.Kort Biografi Med Litet Testamente (Short Biography With Small Testament)
3.Sönder Boulevard (Broken Boulevard)
phylp

Trad climber
Upland, CA
Aug 10, 2016 - 06:59pm PT
Somehow I have missed this thread until now, Marlow. I will come back and enjoy it in full, soon.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 11, 2016 - 01:02am PT

You're welcome, Phylp...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 15, 2016 - 02:22am PT

Røykstue

Ten years ago, my mother's sister, Synnøve, was at a seminar where an expert told the participants that no one still alive had grown up in a "røykstue". Synnøve stood up and replied that she had grown up for the first ten years of her life in a "røykstue". Synnøve died recently, 91 years old.


The oven
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 15, 2016 - 02:33am PT

Slash-and-burn agriculture



One culture which flourished in pre-agricultural Europe survives: the Forest Finns in Scandinavia. Martin Tvengsberg, a descendant the Forest Finns, studied them in his capacity as curator of the Hedmark Museum in Norway. The Savo-Karelians had a sophisticated system for cultivating spruce forests. A runic poem about Finland's spruce forests reads, "Gåivu on mehdien valgoinen valhe" ("The birch is the forest’s white lie"). The best spruce forests reportedly contain birch trees, which grow only after a forest has burned once or twice.

Telkkämäki Nature Reserve in Kaavi, Finland, is an open-air museum which still practices slash-and-burn agriculture. Farm visitors can see how people farmed when slash-and-burn agriculture became the norm in the Northern Savonian region of eastern Finland beginning in the 15th century. Areas of the reserve are burnt each year.

Slash-and-burn agriculture was initially practiced by European pioneers in North America such as Daniel Boone and his family, who cleared land in the Appalachian Mountains during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. However, land cleared by slash-and-burn farmers was eventually taken over by systems of land tenure focusing on long-term improvement and discouraging practices associated with slash-and-burn agriculture.

Telkkämäki Heritage Farm

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 15, 2016 - 02:37am PT

Rye/Rie: The house where the rye was stored and dried. The oven is seen.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 15, 2016 - 12:51pm PT

The strange story of the dialect spoken in Södra Finnskoga (Sweden).

Södra Finnskoga had a unique situation among the dialects of Värmland, Sweden. In Södra Finnskoga they have never spoken “värmländsk”. During the 1600s and the 1700s, Finnish was spoken. The connections they had from Södra Finnskoga went to Norway. They started speaking the Norwegian Solör-dialect. The forest owners of Södra Finnskoga went to Kristiania (Oslo, Norway) to sell their timber and get their payment. This went on a long time into the 1900s. When the school-children from Bograngen in Sweden was studying at “Karlstads läroverk” in Sweden, they had a long way to go to school. First they went, by car in summer and by horse in winter, to Flisa railway station in Norway, a distance of 30-40 km. And from Flisa they went by train to Kongsvinger (Norway), a distance of 50-60 km, then to Charlottenberg in Sweden, a distance of 40-50 km. And from Charlottenberg they finally ended up in Karlstad (Sweden), a distance of 110-120 km. Which totally gives a distance of around 250 km (155 miles) from Bograngen to school in Karlstad. In 1914, during wartime, Swedish schoolchildren had no passports. That made the passing of the border more complicated, but they were let through. Because of school, TV and radio the youth of Södra Finnskoga has more and more started speaking “rikssvenska” (statement from 1975). Source: Finnbygden nr.1, våren 1975.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 21, 2016 - 07:10am PT

Viljo Vesterinen and Lasse Pihlajamaa v.1950 - Metsäkukkia (Forest Flowers)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Aug 21, 2016 - 09:28am PT
To think that I have cousins living within 50 km of Finnskogen, and all through that area on the Norwegian side, and had not heard of it before.

Marlow, what about Lars Anders of Forsstugan, who Axel Munthe memorably speaks about in The Story of San Michele? From a somewhat similar area, but much farther north.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 21, 2016 - 12:38pm PT
Anders.

I don't know much about the story of Lars Anders of Forsstugan. Axel Munthe was an interesting person - doctor of a queen, a king and a tzar, author, traveller and so on.

"Axel Munthe was born in Oskarshamn, Sweden, his family's home. His family was originally of Flemish descent, and settled in Sweden during the 16th century.

Munthe began college in 1874 at Uppsala University. While travelling in Italy in 1875, Munthe sailed in a small boat from Sorrento to the island of Capri. Climbing the Phoenician stairs to the village of Anacapri, he came upon a peasant's house and the adjacent ruin of a chapel dedicated to San Michele, and was immediately captivated by the idea of rebuilding the ruin and turning it into a home.

Munthe studied medicine in Uppsala, Montpellier and Paris (where he was a student of Charcot), and graduated as M.D. in 1880 at the age of 23. Though his thesis was on the subjects of gynaecology and obstetrics, Munthe was deeply impressed by Professor Jean-Martin Charcot's pioneering work in neurology, having attended his lectures at the Salpêtrière hospital. He later had a falling out with Charcot, and left the Salpêtrière denouncing his former teacher's work on hypnotism as fraudulent and scientifically unsound."

If I remember right, Charcot had specialized in treating women for hysteria (Hysteria from Greek "Hystera" (Uterus)). Munthe followed a similar path and earned a fortune treating rich frustrated upperclass women for imagined colitis (that he diagnosed himself).

A Swedish book about a related theme a couple of hundred years earlier: Mikael Häll. Huldra, Näcken och Djävulen - erotic creatures in nature and demonic sexuality 1600-1700s Sweden.

In his book Munthe mentions "Skogsrået"/Huldra/The Lady of the forest.

"Her name derives from a root meaning “covered” or “secret”. The huldra is a stunningly beautiful, sometimes naked woman with long hair; though from behind she is hollow like an old tree trunk, and has an animal’s tail. She is the watcher of the forest and all of its creatures, and will not be kind to those who are cruel to her subjects.

Tales of huldra tell of her using her beautiful appearance and seductive charm to lure young men back to her cave, or subterranean home, where they may be kept aS slaves, lovers, or worse - depending on the tale. Sometimes the humans are released, but are cursed with the constant temptation to return to their captor. Other tales describe them getting married to humans, losing their tails, and becoming human themselves - but retaining their magic."

Rikesten, a man from Finnskogen known for his shamanic abilities, who lived the last years of his life in the house of my great grandparents in Rya, was telling a story about meeting Huldra by a water/lake at Finnskogen. After the incident, the water/lake was given the name "Huldretjern", a name that it still carries today. Huldra didn't seduce him, but told Rikesten to leave at once. He was fishing in her waters.





Huldra is said to have the ability to transform to different animals.


This is an ability she shares with Louhi, the main opponent of Vainamoinen in the Kalevala.

"Louhi (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈlouɦi]) is a queen of the land known as Pohjola in Finnish, Karelian and Lappish mythology. Louhi is probably an alter-ego of the goddess Loviatar.

Louhi is described as a powerful queen ruling over the northern realm of Pohjola, with the ability to change shape and weave mighty enchantments. She is also the main opponent of Väinämöinen and his group in the battle for the magical artifact Sampo in the Kalevala. She has a number of beautiful daughters, whom Ilmarinen, Lemminkäinen and other heroes attempt to win in various legends. Louhi sets them difficult to impossible tasks to perform in order to claim such a prize, which leads to the forging of the Sampo."

Louhi transforming to a bird:



And here is Rikesten at an old age:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 21, 2016 - 12:55pm PT

The hulder I knew best during my childhood was "Tandberg Huldra 5", a great radio looking just like the one in the photo below (model 1956).

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 21, 2016 - 01:39pm PT

And in the age of the video: Here's Axel Munthe's Capri and The Story of San Michele

[Click to View YouTube Video]

For all I know, Reilly could have a photo he has taken in one of the localities seen in the video, showing a bottle of fine wine on one of the tables...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Aug 21, 2016 - 02:03pm PT
Jo, Reilly har mange fotos fra Capri and he walked right by San Michele
without knowing of its connection to Skogland! It's no wonder he felt
such a strong attraction to Capri, not that it is short on other attributes.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 26, 2016 - 10:00am PT

Here is a video from Finnskogdagene 2016 and a story about Bjørn Waalberg's ancestors (in Norwegian)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

And then an old film from the land of slash-and burn (1937)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2016 - 08:25am PT

Finnskogen this weekend

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2016 - 08:27am PT

Wet weather this morning

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 14, 2016 - 08:57am PT

Dagny (Sofia Andersson, Sara Nilsson & Anna Malmström) - Nya Finnskogen | Folk You Sessions

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Sep 14, 2016 - 09:20am PT
Det var bra! It clearly helps not to wear shoes.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2016 - 12:52pm PT

The seven torp walk at Finnskogen this weekend - starting at Lebiko:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2016 - 01:00pm PT

The seven torp walk at Finnskogen continuing: Ritamäki on the Swedish side of Finnskogen:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2016 - 01:08pm PT

The seven torp walk at Finnskogen this weekend: Once again on the way...


Lomstorp

and then we're back at Lebiko on the Norwegian side:
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Sep 19, 2016 - 06:53pm PT
'Skogsrået, Näcken, och Djävulen' looks like my kind of magazine!
i-b-goB

Social climber
Wise Acres
Sep 19, 2016 - 07:07pm PT
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2016 - 12:24pm PT

One the recent page I wrote about the story of the dialect spoken in Södra Finnskoga (Sweden) and the distance travelled by the children from Södra Finnskoga to get an education in Karlstad.

Here the story is repeated and followed by old photos/postcards from the main railway stations that they passed on their way.

Södra Finnskoga had a unique situation among the dialects of Värmland, Sweden. In Södra Finnskoga they have never spoken “värmländsk”. During the 1600s and the 1700s, Finnish was spoken. The connections they had from Södra Finnskoga went to Norway. They started speaking the Norwegian Solör-dialect. The forest owners of Södra Finnskoga went to Kristiania (Oslo, Norway) to sell their timber and get their payment. This went on a long time into the 1900s. When the school-children from Bograngen in Sweden was studying at “Karlstads läroverk” in Sweden, they had a long way to go to school. First they went, by car in summer and by horse in winter, to Flisa railway station in Norway, a distance of 30-40 km. And from Flisa they went by train to Kongsvinger (Norway), a distance of 50-60 km, then to Charlottenberg in Sweden, a distance of 40-50 km. And from Charlottenberg they finally ended up in Karlstad (Sweden), a distance of 110-120 km. Which totally gives a distance of around 250 km (155 miles) from Bograngen to school in Karlstad. In 1914, during wartime, Swedish schoolchildren had no passports. That made the passing of the border more complicated, but they were let through. Because of school, TV and radio the youth of Södra Finnskoga has more and more started speaking “rikssvenska” (statement from 1975). Source: Finnbygden nr.1, våren 1975.

Flisa railway station

Kongsvinger railway station

Charlottenberg railway station

Charlottenberg - area near the railway station

Karlstad railway station

Karlstad - the railway street (Jernvägsgatan)

Karlstad - a big city for the children from Södra Finnskoga
Lollie

Social climber
I'm Lolli.
Sep 23, 2016 - 10:34am PT
Karlstad. That´s where I´m born.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 23, 2016 - 11:14am PT

That's cool, Lolli. Also Karlstad has got it's Forest Finn museum at Mariebergsskogen - "Ol-Pålssonstorpet"

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2016 - 09:03am PT

In bronze - three Finns of distinction:

Carl Gustaf Mannerheim

Urho Kekkonen

Georg Henrik von Wright
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2016 - 09:15am PT

Georg Henrik von Wright - obituary in The Guardian by PMS Hacker, Friday 4 July 2003

Wittgenstein's successor at Cambridge, he wrote perceptively on logic, values and human action


Georg Henrik von Wright was one of the most eminent philosophers of the second half of the 20th century, and a distinguished essayist and cultural critic. His philosophical interests ranged from inductive reasoning to deontic logic, from the study of values and norms to the logic of explanations of human action. To all these great themes he made important and original contributions.

His general essays (mostly in Swedish) are reflections on problems of our civilisation. They extend from discussions of contemporary strife to ecology, from Tolstoy and Dostoevsky to the condition of modern man. He wrote in a distinctive personal style, with luminous clarity, austere elegance and a magisterial overview of western culture. Much influenced by the logical empiricism of the Vienna circle, and by his great teacher Ludwig Wittgenstein, he was a rationalist humanist, who became increasingly pessimistic about the effects of science and technology on the modern world. He was renowned not only for the brilliance of his thought and writing, but also for his integrity and moral virtue.

Von Wright was born in Helsinki, the son of Tor von Wright and Ragni Elisabeth Alfthan. His family belonged to the Swedish-Finnish aristocracy and were of Scots ancestry. He was educated at Helsinki University from 1934 to 1937, majoring in philosophy, history and political science, with mathematics as a minor subject. His philosophy teacher was Eino Kaila, an affiliate of the Vienna circle, whose influence was crucial in steering him towards logic and logical analysis, and introducing him to the writings of the logical empiricists.

Von Wright resolved to do postgraduate work on the problem of the justification of inductive reasoning and went to Vienna to study with members of the circle. His wishes were frustrated by the Anschluss, and, early in 1939, he went to Cambridge to work with CD Broad and RB Braithwaite. It was there that he first met Wittgenstein, whose lectures he attended and whose impact upon him was profound. He also met GE Moore, another important influence.

In the summer of 1939, von Wright returned to Finland and, with the outbreak of the winter war between his country and the Soviet Union, being unfit for military service, he worked in a voluntary organisation for propaganda on the home front. In 1941, he married Maria Elisabeth von Troil, and they had a son and a daughter. That year, too, he published The Logical Problem Of Induction, which was his doctoral dissertation.

During the continuation war of 1941 to 1944, he worked at the government information centre. He was appointed lecturer at Helsinki University in 1943, and elevated to a chair in 1946. In 1947, he returned to Cambridge on a visit, attended Wittgenstein's last lectures on the philosophy of psychology, and renewed his friendship with his teacher. On Wittgenstein's retirement in 1948, von Wright was elected to his chair at the age of 32.

During this period, he continued working on induction but also pursued a new interest in modal and deontic logic - a subject he virtually invented. Wittgenstein died in 1951, and von Wright was appointed one of his literary executors. Over the next 40 years, he produced the authoritative list of Wittgenstein's manuscripts, and contributed extensively to their editing and publication. He wrote many illuminating papers on the life and works of his revered teacher, some of which he collected in his volume Wittgenstein (1982).

After Wittgenstein's death, von Wright resigned his Cambridge chair and resumed his professorship at Helsinki. In 1961, he was elected to the prestigious Academy of Finland, which relieved him of all teaching and adminstrative obligations. Having been invited to give the Gifford lectures at Edinburgh in 1959, he wrote two of his greatest works for the occasions, The Varieties Of Goodness and Norm And Action (both published 1963). The former was, in many ways, his favourite among his writings, and it is indeed the deepest investigation of general value theory in philosophy; the latter was a remarkable pioneering work on the logic of norms.

Von Wright was elected Andrew D White professor- at-large at Cornell University, New York state (1965-77), which enabled him to make regular visits to Cornell, and to his good friend Norman Malcolm, another of Wittgenstein's eminent pupils. Cornell became, as he said, his "third intellectual home", after Helsinki and Cambridge. From 1968 to 1977, he was chancellor of Abo Academy in Finland.

From the 1970s, von Wright's philosophical interests shifted. Beginning with Explanation And Understanding (1971), he wrote extensively on action and intention, on reasons for action and the ways in which actions are explained by reference to reasons. Opposed to the reduction of reasons to causes, he championed methodological pluralism in explanation, arguing for the autonomy of the sciences of man and against attempts to reduce the characteristic forms of explanation of human behaviour to causal explanation. These investigations led him to explore the nature of human freedom, about which he wrote luminously in Freedom And Determination (1980) and Of Human Freedom, his Tanner lectures in 1985.

His interests in philosophical psychology expanded, and, in the 1990s, he became increasingly preoccupied with the mind-body relation. In The Shadow Of Descartes (1998) is a collection of essays on these themes. He published his autobiography Mitt Liv in Swedish in 2001.

Many honours and honorary doctorates came von Wright's way. He was elected a member of learned academies and societies in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Britain and the United States, and elected to an honorary fellowship at his old Cambridge college, Trinity, in 1983. He was awarded numerous medals and prizes, including the Alexander von Humboldt Forschungspreis (1986), the gold medal of the Swedish Academy (1986), the Selma Lagerlof literary prize (1993), the Tage Danielsson humanist prize (1998), and the Critical European prize last year.

· Georg Henrik von Wright, philosopher, born June 14 1916; died June 16 2003

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 27, 2016 - 11:56am PT

Carl Gustaf Mannerheim


Mannerheim – hero in Finland and Russia: http://finland.fi/life-society/mannerheim-hero-in-finland-and-russia/


Mannerheim: The Mighty Finn

The improbably tall, 29-year-old guardsman wearing a helmet crowned with the Romanov double eagle, caught on film attending Tsar Nicholas II at his coronation in St Petersburg, was known to his fellow officers as Lieutenant Gustaf Karlovich. Twenty-two years later, shortly after Nicholas had been shot by the Bolsheviks, the same imposing fellow, now a highly decorated general in a magnificent white fur hat, signed himself Kustaa - Finnish for Gustaf. He was now Regent of a Finland he had played a key role in liberating from both tsarist and Soviet Russian rule. Outmoded and superseded, Gustaf Karlovich has passed into the pageant of his own extraordinary history.

The Regent's family - aristocratic Finns of Dutch descent - knew the Hero of Finland simply as Gustaf, or, formally, Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. On missions where secrecy had been vital during the crossover between Russian and Finnish soldiering, the greatest Finn - as he was voted by his countrymen last year - had slipped across borders under the Swedish soubriquets Gustaf Malmstrom and Gustaf Andersson. Mannerheim, who had a theatrical bent, would have enjoyed such disguises as much as Robert Byron or Lawrence of Arabia revelled in theirs.

He spoke six languages, served the last of the tsars, fought the Japanese, routed the Reds during the Finnish civil war, squared up to Stalin and played cat and mouse with Hitler. He rode thousands of miles through unchartered central Asia, served as president of his country, hunted tigers, collected exquisite artefacts and created a beautiful home in Helsinki's Kaivopuisto Park. The cosmopolitan Marshal of Finland cut a figure every bit as complex and as contradictory as Winston Churchill, his British equivalent and cavalier contemporary.

Now Mannerheim is the subject of an exhibition at the State Hermitage, St Petersburg, called Mannerheim. Russian Officer. Marshal of Finland . In fact, the show is housed not in the former Winter Palace, but across Palace Square in Karl Rossi's magnificent General Staff Building (1819-29), a neoclassical design every bit as sweeping, spectacular and unlikely as Mannerheim's career.

Squeezed into six handsome rooms, the Mannerheim exhibition attempts to tell the story of this extraordinary adventurer through 600 objects. The curators have rounded up starchily posed photographs of bigwigs from before the Russian Revolution, elegantly written letters, unlikely medals, wartime newsreels and extravagant weaponry. This is something of a museological handshake between Russia and Finland: Mannerheim was accused of being a fascist by the Soviets, until four years ago when Vladimir Putin laid a wreath on Mannerheim's tomb in Helsinki as a gesture of reconciliation. And so there are paintings of weather, mostly of snow, in which the wars between Hitler, Stalin and Mannerheim were fought out and exhausted.

Then there are those exceptional pieces that make this show not simply a three-dimensional biography, but an art exhibition in its own right. Besides intricate astrophysical calendars, votive images and a pocket-sized portable altar, here are dazzling costumes drawn from across central Asia and China - the everyday garb of tribespeople, settled and nomadic, that make the costly offerings of today's international fashion houses seem lustreless and thin.

Mannerheim took many fine photographs of the peoples he encountered on his daunting ride across central Asia between 1906 and 1908. Ostensibly this was a fact-finding mission for the tsar's government; in practice, it proved to be a cultural treasure hunt for the gimlet-eyed cavalry officer rather thinly disguised - in a Burberry trenchcoat - as a scientist. At every turn on his epic journey, Mannerheim discovered new, undocumented ways of life together with the costumes, jewellery, weapons and calligraphy that framed and adorned them.

Although those he met would have been gloriously exotic to contemporary European eyes, Mannerheim took care to be dressed in a manner suited to the occasion. There was always an appropriate hat or pair of riding boots to enable him to cut the sartorial dash needed to mix it with emirs, warlords and mandarins. There is also a photograph on display in the Hermitage of the dashing colonel in 1944 looking, in today's terms, decidedly "cool", dressed in a mix of half-native, half-St Petersburg chic outside the mission church of Ganzhou. Mannerheim knew very well how to make an impression whenever the camera lens turned his way. He never looked less than a head of state or commander-in-chief, and - perhaps rightly, if not inevitably - he was to become both at the same time.

The third child of Count Carl Robert and Countess Helene Mannerheim, née von Julin, he was born in June 1867 at Louhisaari, a tall baroque manor house filled with music, paintings and play on the southwest coast of Finland. The Grand Duchy of Finland was then a nominally autonomous protectorate of Imperial Russia. For a charismatic young Finn, the one possible way out of a corner of provincial tsardom was on horseback through the Nikolaevsky Cavalry School, St Petersburg. Here, Mannerheim excelled. Almost immediately afterwards, he made a socially, if not emotionally, advantageous marriage to Anastasia Arapova, the daughter of a Russian general; she bore him two much-loved daughters.

As a 37-year-old colonel, Mannerheim volunteered to fight in the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-05, before making his trip to the Orient in 1906. Promoted to major-general in 1910, he was with the Russian army until the October Revolution. Virulently anti-communist, and therefore effectively redundant - or perhaps under an unspoken death sentence - in Soviet Russia, he returned, aged 50, to Finland, cementing its independence as he crushed leftist forces in the country. He then put art into national service, commissioning his future aide-de-camp , the artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931), to design flags, uniforms and decorations for the new republic.

This sense of artistry was woven through each act in a deftly judged life. Mannerheim believed a leader had to be someone to live up to, an almost mythical figure. Many Finns - certainly in the 1960s and 70s - found him a difficult figure, a national hero hard to reconcile with their country's democratic, largely non-hierarchical and unshowy way of life. Was Mannerheim too much of a work of art - a leader as remote, perhaps, as a painting of some mounted monarch hanging in the halls of the Hermitage?

Not if you listen to the many Mannerheim veterans who rode the train from Helsinki to St Petersburg to attend the exhibition opening in company with today's senior Russian military. "He was always calm and wise," said 94-year-old Rafael Backman, the marshal's adjutant from 1942 to 1946. "He was one of those people who treated any person with respect, be it a high-ranking official or a humble soldier. In response, he earned incredible respect."

He earned respect from the Russians, too - unofficially - for refusing Hitler's request that he use the Finnish air force to bomb Leningrad. For Mannerheim, this was simply out of the question. "In Russia," says Mikhail Pietrovsky, director of the Hermitage, "we are used to thinking that many of Mannerheim's exquisite and non-standard political decisions had to do with his wish not to harm the city where he spent his youth."

Mannerheim accepted the presidency to ease Finland from war to peace. He was 79 when he finally retired to write his memoirs, moving between his home in Helsinki and Lausanne, where he died in 1951. Today, his equestrian statue, sculpted by Aimo Tukiainen, prances confidently in front of Steven Holl's ultra-modern Kiasma art gallery on the Helsinki boulevard that bears the marshal's name. This, perhaps, is as it should be, for here was a man who, although a consummate politician and inspired soldier, lived his life - whether as Karlovich, Kustuu or the Marshal of Finland - as a work of art.

Jonathan Glancey in The Guardian 09.04.2005


The Hermitage Museum: http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/what-s-on/temp_exh/1999_2013/hm4_1_96/?lng=en
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Sep 27, 2016 - 12:30pm PT
Mannerheim was just grumpy that Hedin beat him to Central Asia by a few years. ;-)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 27, 2016 - 12:38pm PT

What you know, Reilly.

Sven Hedin Foundation: http://svenhedinfoundation.org/

Sven Hedin and the mountains of Iran

Sven Hedin is well known for his relationship to the mountains of Central Asia. In 1890 he struggled across the Alai Mountains to reach East Turkestan from West Turkestan, an arduous crossing that he repeated in 1894 (Hedin 1898 and 1903). These early encounters with high alpine terrain were followed by his mapping of the Pamir juncture of immense mountain ridges in 1894-95, and simultaneous attempts to climb Mount Mustagh Ata (five attempts, which all failed). In 1897 he crossed the Kun Lun mountains to reach the northern flank of the Tibetan plateau, which he surveyed with all its individual isolated mountains, like the Koko Chili range (which he later regretted having named “King Oscar’s Mountains” – Sven Hedin strongly favoured finding and using indigenous names of mountains, rivers and lakes.). In 1901 he again crossed the Kun Lun Mountains to enter the Tibetan plateau, striking south then to cross it from east to west. 1906-1908 he devoted to the complicated landscape of West and South-western Tibet, crowned by what he considered to be the discovery of a mountain ridge north of the Yarlung Tsangpo river valley (upper Brahmaputra) which he named “Transhimalaya” (Hedin 1909-1912) Both the discovery and the name were quickly challenged (see Forêt 2004), but the existence of the ridge is clear on modern maps, though it is nowadays given the name Gangdise. Hedin´s view of orographic processes was then still the one held at the time; mountain ridges were the result of our earth’s crust slowly crumbling as the earth cooled off. The modern Wegener view of plate tectonics, though, did reach him as soon as it was published, In his library there are copies of the 1922 2nd edition as well as its first Swedish translation of 1926 (Wegener 1922 and 1926), and the analysis of the results of his last expedition were increasingly influenced by that framework (primarily through the main geologist on that team, Erik Norin).

Håkan Wahlquist

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Sep 27, 2016 - 04:22pm PT
Jeg vet ikke noe, men jeg tror at Sven Hedin var den siste av de store oppdagelses.

I saw some of what he saw but I was not worthy...

I was weak...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 28, 2016 - 09:51am PT

Awesome, just an awesome life...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 28, 2016 - 10:13am PT

Urho Kaleva Kekkonen



Urho Kaleva Kekkonen was born Sept. 3, 1900, in Pielesvesi in central Finland. He was 17 years old when Finnish independence was declared. His 36th year turned out to be one of special achievement; during it he took his doctorate in law at Helsinki University, won election to Parliament and entered the Government as Minister of Justice. He served through the years in several ministries, and also was Speaker of Parliament.

He demonstrated his flexibility by becoming one of two members of Parliament to oppose accepting the Soviet terms for ending the Winter War of 1939-40 and then, before what was called the Continuation War of 1941-44 was over, by suggesting in a speech that postwar neutrality was Finland's only hope for national salvation. Lifelong Interest in Sports

While attending Helsinki University, he became the national high jump champion, and he maintained his interest in sports throughout his life, avidly skiing, jogging, hiking and camping.

He was a noted author, publishing books on politics and collections of speeches, weekly columns written during the wars and letters. He delighted in the latter part of his tenure in writing columns under a pseudonym in a national magazine in which he criticized the political moves of President Kekkonen.

His wife, Sylvi, whom he married in 1928, was also a writer, mainly of novellas and collections of aphorisms. She died in 1974. They had twin sons, Matti, who followed his father into Parliament and a later became an official in the Agriculture Ministry, and Taneli, who was a diplomat.

President Kekkonen read avidly and often said that one of his favorite books was ''Don Quixote,'' as it reminded him of his political career. But, he said, he was never sure whether he most resembled the knight of the woeful countenance or Sancho Panza.




Urho K. Kekkonen, Finland's President for more than 25 years, died in 1986, 85 years old.

Mr. Kekkonen, who was an adroit practitioner of a policy of neutrality and friendship with the neighbouring Soviet Union, died at the seaside residence that he had occupied during his long presidency. The cause of death, it was announced in Helsinki, was a ''circulatory disorder in the brain.''

Upon his retirement on Oct. 27, 1981, because of arteriosclerosis, the Finnish Government decided to allow him to continue living in the President's residence for fear that moving him might aggravate his illness.

Led Nation's Emergence

During his presidency Mr. Kekkonen helped lead Finland's slow emergence from the long shadow of two military defeats by the Soviet Union to self-assured participation in international affairs.

He first took office in March 1956 after an uneasy period in which Finnish leaders dared not even mention ''neutrality'' for fear of provoking Moscow.

To Finland's postwar neutrality policy, developed during the administration of his predecessor, Juho Paasikivi, Mr. Kekkonen added an ability to convince Moscow that he could be trusted to guide Finnish affairs in a way that would pose no threat to the Soviet Union. Thus, with him at the helm, Finland was able to safeguard its trade with its major trading partners in the West by becoming an associate member of the British-led European Free Trade Association and by obtaining a special relationship with the European Economic Community.

Two-Edged Sword

But the trust that Mr. Kekkonen enjoyed in Moscow also led to a shattering of presidential elections in Finland during his quarter of a century in office. With Moscow making clear at the end of each of his six-year terms that it wanted to see him continue in office, normal elections proved impossible in Finland until January 1982, when the current President, Mauno Koivisto, won a landslide victory.

Mr. Kekkonen was chosen in a normal election only once, in his first race in 1956, when he won by the narrowest of margins, an electoral-college vote of 151 to 149 on the third ballot. Another election battle appeared to be looming as his first six-year term drew to a close, but his opponent, Olavi Honka, a civil servant endorsed by five parties, withdrew in late 1961 ''in the national interest'' under the pressure of Soviet demands for military consultations, with Russians asking whether the attempt to defeat President Kekkonen was a move to change Finnish foreign policy.

Elections Were a Formality

Thereafter, with no political party willing to chance Soviet displeasure by running a real candidate against him, formal elections with only nominal opposition candidates were held in 1962, 1968 and 1978, and the 1968 term was extended by act of Parliament to 10 years from six years. The special legislation was decided upon at a time when Finland was negotiating for its Common Market link and when, close presidential associates said, the Soviet Union was demanding absolute guarantees that Mr. Kekkonen would continue as President long enough to insure that the new association with a Western organization would bring about no change in Finnish foreign policy.

President Kekkonen, an imperious leader with a military bearing that made him look taller than his 5 feet 11 inches, achieved an almost unchallengeable political position during his long presidency and eventually won universal respect within Finland for his leadership. But to his regret he could never match the warm public acceptance achieved by his gruff predecessor, President Paasikivi, who was much beloved as a father figure.

The Kekkonen presidential era began as a stormy one, with the new President accompanied into office by a reputation as an often Machiavellian poltician achieved during a political career that included serving five times as Prime Minister. There was no controversy in Finland over the necessity of a neutrality policy, but there was plenty over his judgment on what had to be done to carry it out, and he was denounced by political foes as a cynical politician playing a dangerous game with the Soviet Union to remain in office and to keep his agrarian Center Party in a dominant position.

No Headway With the Russians

Once discussing privately the problems he faced, he said that he sought in meetings with Soviet leaders to defend some of his political foes whose sidelining was demanded by Moscow on the ground that they were rigidly anti-Soviet. But, he said, he stopped when he saw that he was making no headway, and he subsequently called publicly for those Finnish figures to retire from center stage as a contribution to their fatherland.

Chief among them was Vaino Tanner, the Social Democratic leader whom the Soviet Union never forgave for his actions in the early days after Finland's 1917 declaration of independence, when he oriented the Finnish labor movement westward toward the Nordic lands instead of toward Moscow.

Emerging after World War II from the prison to which he had been sentenced as a war criminal at Soviet insistence because of his service in wartime Governments, Mr. Tanner was re-elected party leader in 1957. In 1958, with Social Democrats heading a coalition Government, a crisis developed with the Soviet Union, and thereafter they were kept on the political sidelines for eight years or until after Mr. Tanner and his associates had been retired.

Privately, Mr. Kekkonen said that independent Finland owed a huge debt to Mr. Tanner, but publicly he denounced the Social Democrat as a stubborn self-centered politician who had no regard for his country's best interests.

Finland at the Mercy of Moscow

In numerous interviews, the President declared that Finland's freedom of action on the world stage depended directly on the degree of trust Finland enjoyed in Moscow. Pointing out that the Finnish Constitution charges the President with the conduct of foreign policy, he stressed that his interest was in keeping the freedom of maneuver at its widest.

He said that Finland could not proceed haphazardly on the assumption that everyone knew its foreign policy was one of neutrality and friendship with the Soviet Union. Finns, he said, could never take their foreign policy for granted but must rededicate themselves to it every day.

An important part of his presidency was spent in cultivating Soviet leaders, something he would do with frequent private trips to the Soviet Union for hunting and other pursuits as well as with official visits. During these trips and during the visits of Russians to Helsinki, where he would entertain them in the presidential sauna as well as at luncheons and dinners, there would be much talk of strengthening Soviet-Finnish relations. But he would also take the opportunity to remind the Russians of the difference between the Finnish and Soviet ways of life.

Tart Exchange With Khrushchev

In September 1960, for example, when the Soviet leader, Nikita S. Khrushchev used a luncheon speech in Helsinki as an occasion to suggest that Finns put anti-Soviet politicians into their Government at their own peril, Mr. Kekkonen declared in turn:

''The leaders of the Soviet Union know that under all circumstances we defend our own system because we regard it best suited to us.''

Throughout his presidency, he was referred to in Government circles as Finland's ''trump card,'' to be played during touchy periods in relations with Moscow.

He seemed able to take risks, as in late 1960 when he went to Moscow to clear the way for Finland to become an associate member of the European Free Trade Association, he took off his shoe during a luncheon and, imitating Mr. Khrushchev's United Nations etiquette, pounded the table to attract the Soviet leader's attention.

Cool and self-assured though he would appear, his stomach would churn during some of his tensest missions. Returning from crisis talks in 1961 with Mr. Khrushchev in Novosibirsk, Mr. Kekkonen cleared his calendar and reportedly spent most of a week in bed.

Kennedy Was 'Understanding'

While insuring Soviet acceptance of Finland's foreign policy, he also sought Western recognition of Finnish neutrality and in the early 1960's made a series of trips for that purpose, the principal one being to Washington in 1961. The acknowledgement he received from President Kennedy, who publicly expressed his ''understanding of why Finland is neutral,'' reflected State Department reluctance to ascribe neutrality to Finns but nevertheless was welcome as the first statement of its kind from the White House.

Toward the end of his tenure, Mr. Kekkonen was much pained by the concoction of the term ''Finlandization'' in Western Europe to describe a nation's drift under Soviet domination, and he and other Finnish officials sought through numerous speeches to argue that the name of Finland could properly be attached only to a policy of independence and neutrality.


Werner Wiskari in The New York Times, August 31, 1986



More to read about Kekkonen: http://www.kansallisbiografia.fi/english/?id=632


Urho Kekkonen National Park
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Slow flow tv...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2016 - 11:05am PT

Satchmo, av Hans Børli

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2016 - 12:56pm PT

Swedish "folkparksmusik": Benny Anderssons orkester med Helen Sjöholm - Kära Syster

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Oct 5, 2016 - 01:09pm PT
Other famous Fenno-Scandinavians:

Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskjold - First to navigate the northern sea route/northeast passage, 1878-79, in Vega.

Tove Jansson: Finn Family Moomintroll!

(It's surprising that the children of Finnskogen would have had to get passports to cross the border to go to school in Norway, in 1914 - 18, as both countries were neutral. But what about 1940 - 45?)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2016 - 01:26pm PT

Anders

I don't know more than what was written above and if what was written above is correct the children should have had passports, which they had not, but with a bit of trouble they were let through without the passports. The story does not tell if they after a while got passports, but at least at the beginning the lack of passports caused trouble.

Remember that the Norwegian - Swedish union ended in 1905. There was a certain tension between the countries. My great grandfather was one of the men who in 1905 were at the border ready to answer a Swedish attack. Luckily there was no attack.

During WW2 the border was controlled. The Germans wanted to stop refugees, but those who lived close to the border had some kind of border passes and could pass more freely.

My great grandmother Karoline was known as Mother Svullrya during the war. She organised the transport of refugees across the border to Sweden. Her son Jakob was one of them who followed the refugees through the woods from an unsafe Norway to a safer Sweden. My mother's ten years older sister Synnøve was involved in bringing food and weapons to places along the routes followed.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2016 - 01:33pm PT

To add a well known Swedish Forest Finn, Tage Erlander.


Tage Erlander was Swedish prime minister 1946-69. No prime minister in any democratic country has had a longer tenure than his 23 years.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 8, 2016 - 12:26pm PT

Olav H. Hauge


There are similarities between his relationship to nature and his relationship to folk poetry and other types of folklore, Old Norse and Western tradition, classical Chinese poetry and Japanese Haikus, as well as Eastern religion: primarily Zen Buddhism. Hauge evinces an immediate empathy with these traditions. He seems to speak directly with and with familiarity about Acestes (from the Aeneid); figures from the classical Chinese era; and characters from early Nordic tradition, such as Ogmund of Spånheim (from The Saga of Håkon Håkonsson), Leif Eiriksson and others. Such poems are also often meta-texts, such as “I have three Poems”. It tells of Emily Dickinson who wrote so many poems, but published hardly any: “she just cut open a packet of tea / and wrote another one.” This is how poems should be, they should ”…smell of tea. / Or of raw earth and freshly split wood.”

I Stop below the Old Oak on a Rainy Day
My own translation

It’s not only the rain
that makes me stop
under the old oak
by the road. It’s
safe under the wide
crown, it must be
old friendship that lead
the old oak and me to stand there
in silence, listening to the rain
dripping on the leaves, looking out
at the grey day,
waiting, understanding.
The world is old, we think,
both getting older.
Today I don’t stand here dry,
the leaves have started to fall,
there is a sour smell in the
moist air, I feel
the drops through my hair.

Olav H. Hauge


It's the Dream
Translated by Robin Fulton

It's the dream we carry in secret
that something miraculous will happen,
that it must happen –
that time will open
that the heart will open
that doors will open
that the mountains will open
that springs will gush –
that the dream will open,
that one morning we will glide into
some little harbour we didn't know was there.

Olav H. Hauge


It's the Dream: The poetry of Olav H. Hauge: http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=PoemArticle&PoemArticleID=78

Olav H. Hauge Centre: http://www.haugesenteret.no/ohh/en/
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 16, 2016 - 01:00am PT

Swedish radio and Svensktoppen (Top of the Pops Sweden)


Four popular tunes that we heard on Swedish radio during our childhood (before we got a TV):

Jan Malmsjö - En Sång En Gång För Länge Sen - 1967: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqjMqFQENf8

Anna-Lena Löfgren - Lyckliga gatan - 1967: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE0-KWo_dhs

Gunnar Wiklund - Vi ska gå hand i hand - 1968: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCiXKdatuRs

Hootenanny Singers - Omkring Tiggarn Från Luossa - 1973:
[Click to View YouTube Video]

And then the three tunes that have spent longest time on Svensktoppen:

278 weeks from 2004 to 2009: Benny Anderssons Orkester, Helen Sjöholm - Du Är Min Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU5wo2lq_xg

240 weeks 2007 to 2012: Lars Winnerbäck and Miss Li - Om Du Lämnade Mig Nu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70J3Reo8M1g

167 weeks from 2012-2016: Mando Diao - Strövtåg i hembygden - Rottnadalen, Värmland:
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Another radio wonder - Radionette Symfoni 3D HiFi 1956-57

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 16, 2016 - 01:07am PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 24, 2016 - 12:48pm PT

Oslo on a wet day, Saturday last week:

mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Nov 2, 2016 - 02:36am PT
Got wood?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 3, 2016 - 10:14am PT

To stay in the western part of Norway - Hardanger 1870: Photographer Knud Knudsen's sister Martha Tokheim has collected food for the animals.

Fossil climber

Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
Nov 3, 2016 - 10:24am PT
How I love those beautiful old boats! Works of art.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 3, 2016 - 10:42am PT

My grandfather had an old log driver's boat that we used when fishing at "Lindsjøen" during my youth. Not such a beauty as the Hardanger boat above, but a beauty-in-motion and completely to be trusted.

The boat looked much like the log driving boat below.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 12, 2016 - 10:01am PT

Roine Lindström - Omkring tiggaren från Loussa - Dan Andersson

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 19, 2016 - 10:06am PT

Utadans - Dancing, Gothenburg area 1977


We often visited Elgsjövallen in Bjuberget during our youth. Popular "dansband" like Hep Stars, Jerry Williams, Sven-Ingvars, Tonix, Vikingarna, Gyllene Tider etc played at Elgsjövallen. And there we could see and listen to many cool cars, often American. Both cars and petrol were more expensive in Norway, so the Swedes had much more, for a young mind, impressive cars. We, the Norwegians, were driving a Swedish Saab 96 V4, but when we were in Sweden we could see Dodge Charger, Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, Chevrolet Camaro and so on.

By the way, do you know the story behind the name Camaro?


Stig Arnesson, Mr. Elgsjövallen, was the driving force behind Elgsjövallen since it's startup in 1958.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 20, 2016 - 09:54am PT

Gothenburg harbour, early 1900

Gothenburg, May 1965
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Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 20, 2016 - 10:24am PT

At Järntorget in Gothenburg you can see a sculpture of Dan Andersson.

While still alive Dan Andersson had a connection to Järntorget: For two years he worked at the newspaper ”Ny Tid” (New Time). His signature was "Black Jim". Often he was found at the pub ”Tullen”. At the base of the sculpture one can read: "Pray for those strangled by the city that they long may stay young and at the black pub of ”Tullen" of trolls and highlands dream."

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 22, 2016 - 11:09am PT

Swedish "Folkparksmusik": Benny Anderssons orkester - Why Did It Have to Be Me?

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 24, 2016 - 12:15pm PT

Sofia Karlsson & Göteborgs Symfoniker - Moesta et errabunda (Grieving and wandering).

Lyrics by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Dan Andersson. Music by Sofie Livebrant.

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2016 - 12:07pm PT

Gothenburg 1913-1915

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 3, 2016 - 09:28am PT
Finnskogen this weekend

Lollie

Social climber
I'm Lolli.
Dec 9, 2016 - 10:43am PT
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 9, 2016 - 11:49am PT

Nice addition, Lollie.

More Yule or Jul


Yule is attested early in the history of the Germanic peoples; from the 4th-century Gothic language it appears in the month name fruma jiuleis, and, in the 8th century, the English historian Bede wrote that the Anglo-Saxon calendar included the months geola or giuli corresponding with either modern December or December and January.

While the Old Norse month name ýlir is similarly attested, the Old Norse corpus also contains numerous references to an event by the Old Norse form of the name, jól. In chapter 55 of the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál, different names for the gods are given. One of the names provided is "Yule-beings". A work by the skald Eyvindr Skáldaspillir that uses the term is then quoted, which reads "again we have produced Yule-being's feast [mead of poetry], our rulers' eulogy, like a bridge of masonry".[9] In addition, one of the numerous names of Odin is Jólnir, referring to the event.

The Saga of Hákon the Good credits King Haakon I of Norway with the Christianisation of Norway as well as rescheduling the date of Yule to coincide with Christian celebrations held at the time. The saga states that when Haakon arrived in Norway he was confirmed a Christian, but since the land was still altogether heathen and the people retained their pagan practices, Haakon hid his Christianity to receive the help of the "great chieftains". In time, Haakon had a law passed establishing that Yule celebrations were to take place at the same time as the Christians celebrated Christmas, "and at that time everyone was to have ale for the celebration with a measure of grain, or else pay fines, and had to keep the holiday while the ale lasted."

Yule had previously been celebrated for three nights from midwinter night, according to the saga. Haakon planned that when he had solidly established himself and held power over the whole country, he would then "have the gospel preached". According to the saga, the result was that his popularity caused many to allow themselves to be baptised, and some people stopped making sacrifices. Haakon spent most of this time in Trondheim. When Haakon believed that he wielded enough power, he requested a bishop and other priests from England, and they came to Norway. On their arrival, "Haakon made it known that he would have the gospel preached in the whole country." The saga continues, describing the different reactions of various regional things.

A description of pagan Yule practices is provided (notes are Hollander's own):
It was ancient custom that when sacrifice was to be made, all farmers were to come to the heathen temple and bring along with them the food they needed while the feast lasted. At this feast all were to take part of the drinking of ale. Also all kinds of livestock were killed in connection with it, horses also; and all the blood from them was called hlaut [ sacrificial blood ], and hlautbolli, the vessel holding the blood; and hlautteinar, the sacrificial twigs [ aspergills ]. These were fashioned like sprinklers, and with them were to be smeared all over with blood the pedestals of the idols and also the walls of the temple within and without; and likewise the men present were to be sprinkled with blood. But the meat of the animals was to be boiled and served as food at the banquet. Fires were to be lighted in the middle of the temple floor, and kettles hung over them. The sacrificial beaker was to be borne around the fire, and he who made the feast and was chieftain, was to bless the beaker as well as all the sacrificial meat.

The narrative continues that toasts were to be drunk. The first toast was to be drunk to Odin "for victory and power to the king", the second to the gods Njörðr and Freyr "for good harvests and for peace", and thirdly a beaker was to be drunk to the king himself. In addition, toasts were drunk to the memory of departed kinsfolk. These were called minni.

Wikipedia


Yule is the modern English representation of the Old English words ġéol or ġéohol and ġéola or ġéoli, with the former indicating the 12-day festival of "Yule" (later: "Christmastide") and the latter indicating the month of "Yule", whereby ǽrra ġéola referred to the period before the Yule festival (December) and æftera ġéola referred to the period after Yule (January). Both words are thought to be derived from Common Germanic *jeχʷla-, and are cognate with Gothic (fruma) jiuleis; Old Norse, Icelandic, and Faroese jól; Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian jul and ýlir; The etymological pedigree of the word, however, remains uncertain, though numerous speculative attempts have been made to find Indo-European cognates outside the Germanic group, too. The noun Yuletide is first attested from around 1475.

The word is attested in an explicitly pre-Christian context primarily in Old Norse. Among many others (see List of names of Odin), the long-bearded god Odin bears the names jólfaðr (Old Norse for "Yule father") and jólnir ("the Yule one"). In plural (Old Norse jólnar, "the Yule ones") may refer to the Norse gods in general. In Old Norse poetry, the word is often employed as a synonym for 'feast', such as in the kenning hugins jól (Old Norse "Huginn's Yule" → "a raven's feast").

Jolly may share the same etymology, but was borrowed from Old French jolif (→ French joli), itself from Old Norse jól + Old French suffix -if (compare Old French aisif "easy", Modern French festif = fest "feast" + -if). The word was first mentioned by the Anglo-Norman chronicler Geoffrey Gaimar in his Estoire des Engleis, or "History of the English People", written between 1136–40.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 13, 2016 - 10:34am PT

Kerstin Ekman: Masters of the Forest

Kerstin Ekman's book, Masters of the Forest (Herrarna i skogen, 2007), is about nature, and the multiple meanings we extract from it. In a determined move away from fiction, she has assembled a collection of essays on "the forest," following an inner compass to take her from topic to topic--literary, historical, scientific, political. Sometimes the easy, discursive writing becomes personal, almost intimate, sometimes argumentative and angry. As a whole, the book reads like one of the Inuit story maps of their wild landscape, the kind of map in which "human memory and natural form rebound endlessly upon each other," as Robert Macfarlane writes in The Wild Places (2007). In the same passage he quotes the anthropologist Richard Nelson on story maps: "A person moving through nature, however wild, remote ... is never alone. The surroundings are aware, sensate, personified. They feel."


Here is an interview with the Swedish author Kerstin Ekman. The interview is not about Masters of the Forest, but it gives a short introduction to the author:

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 17, 2016 - 09:52am PT

Roger Græsberg & Foreningen / Lyden av hjul (The sound of wheels)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Roger Græsberg & Foreningen: Their first album «Triste sanger og vals» (Sad songs and vals) will be released in januar 2017 at Safe & Sound Recordings. The album is recorded in Studio Paradiso by Marcus Forsgren and at Finnskogen.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 17, 2016 - 12:14pm PT

Finnish photos, mainly from the Winter War (Talvisota) 1939-1940, but also from the Continuation War (Jatkosota) 1941-1944.


There was no military support from Norway, Sweden or Denmark, but many volunteers arrived from various countries. By far the largest foreign contingent came from neighbouring Sweden, which provided nearly 8,760 volunteers during the war. The Swedish Volunteer Corps (Svenska Frivilligkåren), formed from the Swedes, the Norwegians (727 men) and the Danes (1,010 men), fought on the northern front at Salla during the last weeks of the war.

Volunteers arrived from Estonia, Italy and Hungary. Also, 350 American nationals of Finnish background volunteered, and 210 volunteers of other nationalities made it to Finland before the war ended. Max Manus, a Norwegian, fought in the Winter War before returning to Norway and achieving fame as a resistance fighter against the Nazi occupation of Norway. In total, Finland received 12,000 volunteers, 50 of whom died during the war.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 17, 2016 - 12:23pm PT

Finnish photos continuing


Lotta Svärd was a Finnish voluntary auxiliary paramilitary organisation for women. Formed originally in 1918, it had a large membership undertaking volunteer social work in the 1920s and 1930s. During the Second World War, it mobilized to replace men conscripted into the army.

It served in hospitals, at air raid warning positions, and other auxiliary tasks in close cooperation with the army. The women were officially unarmed except for an antiaircraft battery in 1944. Virtanen argues that, their "accountability to the nation took a masculine and military form in public, but had a private, feminine side to it including features like caring, helping and loving."

The name comes from a poem by Johan Ludvig Runeberg. Part of a large and famous book, The Tales of Ensign Stål, the poem described a fictional woman named Lotta Svärd. According to the poem, a Finnish soldier, private Svärd - Swedish: svärd means a sword - went to fight in the Finnish War and took his wife, Lotta, along with him. Private Svärd was killed in battle, but his wife remained on the battlefield, taking care of wounded soldiers. The name was first brought up by Marshal Mannerheim in a speech given on 16 May 1918.

During the Finnish Civil War it was associated with the White Guard. After the war Lotta Svärd was founded as a separate organisation on 9 September 1920. The first known organisation to use the name Lotta Svärd was the Lotta Svärd of Riihimäki, founded on 11 November 1918.

The organisation expanded during the 1920s and it included 60,000 members in 1930. By 1944 it included 242,000 volunteers, the largest voluntary auxiliary organisation in the world, while the total population of Finland was less than four million.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 20, 2016 - 10:29am PT

Ingemars klyv (Ingemar's wood splitter)

I had the following demands at the tool that I was dreaming of:
It should be noiseless so I could hear surrounding sounds when I worked.
It should be effective, handy and interesting to work.
It should have no kind of engine, just my own muscles.
It should cost almost nothing to make because I had only little money to spend.


[Click to View YouTube Video]

More to read: http://www.pidia.se/ingmarsklyv_eng.html
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 27, 2016 - 12:54am PT

Traditional Finnish Log House Building Process

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Dec 27, 2016 - 08:50am PT
I see Framhuset!

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 27, 2016 - 09:14am PT

And here's what you saw in Oslo, Reilly...

Fram


The story of Fram:

- 26/10-1892 Fram sjøsettes i Rekkevik ved Larvik.
 24/6-1893 Fram legger ut på ferden langs norskekysten - klar for ferden over Polhavet.
 21/7-1893 Fram forlater Vardø med kurs for de Nysibirske øyer.
 22/9-1893 Den første kontakt med polarisen.
 5/1-1895 Det er på nære nippet at Fram unngår å bli skrudd i stykker av isen
 14/3-1895 Fridtjof Nansen og Hjalmar Johansen forlater Fram for å ta seg til Nordpolen på ski.
 16/10-1895 Fram når sin nordligste posisjon 850 57' nordlig bredde.
 13/8-1896 Fram kommer ut av drivisen ved Danskeøya og ankommer Skjervøy 7 dager senere
 9/9-1898 Fram er klar for ny dyst, denne gang med Otto Sverdrup bak roret. Ferden går til nordvestkysten av Grønland.
 18/9-1902 Fram vender tilbake og ankommer Utsira.
 10/8-1910 Fram seiler ut på sin tredje ferd med kurs for Antarktis
 14/1-1911 Fram ankrer opp i Hvalbukta i Rosshavet.
 27/1-1912 Fram ankommer Hvalbukta og henter Roald Amundsen og hans menn etter en vellykket ferd til Sydpolen.
 7/3-1912 Fram ankommer Hobart på Tasmania
 16/7-1914 Fram vel hjemme igjen i Horten.
 1929 Fram leveres Framnæs Mek. Verksted for reparasjon
 1935 Fram slepes til Oslo og trekkes på land.
 Under arbeidet med å restaurere Fram sovner Oscar Wisting i 1936 inn i Roald Amundsens og Fridtjof Nansens køye om bord. "Trofast til det siste" skriver Roald Amundsens biograf Tor Bomann-Larsen. Odd Dahl, en av Amundsens menn om bord på Maud, sier det slik "Jeg tror ikke Wisting kunne ha tenkt seg en bedre død."
 20/5-1936 Fram Museet åpnes med Kong Haakon og Kronprins Olav som æresgjester.

Sydpolen.no: http://www.sydpolen.no/fram.html
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 5, 2017 - 10:27am PT

Finnish names at Finnskogen

Unlike Scandinavian farmers, descendants of the burnbeating Finns of eastern Finland had used hereditary family names for generations. These names are frequent in Norwegian records from the 17th century and more rare in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the Gottlund material shows that they were still in use, or at least remembered, in the l800's. Gottlund mentions about 160 family names in his 1821 diary. In the letter collection, 80 different family names are mentioned, 75 of which end in inen. Many are derived from first names, Greek orthodox or Scandinavian, others from names of domestic and wild animals or names of birds. Some names seem to have described a man's, or a family's, looks or personality. A few names have their origin in Sweden or Norway, often derived from place-names. The family names usually occur in the (Finnish) nominative, but also often in the plural partitive or in the plural combined with different forms of the word suku (= family). In the 19th century the Finns were taking over more customs from the surrounding Norwegians, including the use of names, but the letters from Finnskogen and other sources also mention Norwegians who moved to Finnskogen and adopted Finnish family names.

Pål Furuberg

Find your Finnish name - Finngenerator at VisitFinland.com: http://www.visitfinland.com/campaigns/finngenerator/public/en/.

And you're warned - the generator is not completely reliable :o)


How you are wished welcome when you visit Helsinki in November:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 7, 2017 - 11:46pm PT

Norway now has three times as much forest as it did before World War Two.


In 1925 the volume of Norway’s forests was 300 million cubic meters of wood. Today it adds up to 900 million cubic meters.

The annual growth of Norwegian forests is 25 million m3, Minus the annual cutting (10 million m3), this gives the net growth of Norwegian forests of about 15 million m3 of wood per year. This is the equivalent of nearly 100 sacks of firewood for every one of Norway’s five million inhabitants, calculating with the standard 40-litre sacks or nets of firewood for sale which contain about 25 to 30 percent air.

The main reason why the forest has grown so much in the past decades is clear. In the 1960s nearly 100 million Norway spruce trees were planted annually. There was a reforestation campaign going and much of that was done by school children. These trees are now reaching maturity and are in a development phase with plenty of growth.

But the forests are growing much faster than can be explained by seeding and seedling-planting projects by schools and foresters. Researchers at the Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute in Ås, a half-hour’s train ride southeast of Oslo, have models and tables showing how the forest actually should have grown. But spruce, pines and birches are not adhering to these trajectories and growing as expected. They are all growing faster. Forestry experts are not certain why.

What’s the cause?

Like detectives, the researchers have their list of usual suspects: Higher average temperatures, longer growth seasons, more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and more nitrogen deposition from the air. Some also point to a decrease of grazing by domesticated and wild animals in the forest.

Bård Amundsen

http://sciencenordic.com/norwegian-woods-triple-ww2
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 8, 2017 - 09:58am PT

Svedjerökens land / The country of «swidden culture» (1937)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

«Swidden culture" means to burn the land to grow food. In its most developed and refined method, this slash and burn technique is called »Huuhta», in Swedish «storsvedjande» (slash and burn in a big way). The method for growing food is based upon a special kind of rye grain which grows in tussocks for two years and the understanding that the best soils (acidic--sour) for this rye are those in mature spruce forests and which can produce large amounts of grain.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 8, 2017 - 10:29am PT

Värmland. A landscape in Sweden. Texted in English.

[Click to View YouTube Video]

How to become a "Värmlänning". Only Swedish language here.

[Click to View YouTube Video]


Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Jan 13, 2017 - 11:03pm PT
Those nice Norwegians have decided that they can't give Finland a nice mountain for its 100th birthday after all. But they really wanted to.
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/512726/how-to-gift-a-mountain/?utm_source=atlfb
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2017 - 01:20am PT

Mighty Hiker

The lack of vision is always a danger among political book-keepers.

The vision of Odin: One eye turned outward, one eye turned inward and the ravens to tell...

Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Feb 3, 2017 - 12:36pm PT
Not to politicize Marlow's thread, but if this is how the USA treats its friends... Appalling ineptness.

A former prime minister of Norway has spoken of his shock after he was held and questioned at Washington Dulles airport because of a visit to Iran three years ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/former-norway-pm-bondevik-held-washington-dulles-airport-2014-visit-iran
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 3, 2017 - 12:57pm PT

Yes, Mighty Hiker, it's a strange land... a strange world is growing...

Dan Andersson - Snöharpan (In Swedish)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Feb 4, 2017 - 06:55pm PT
Polish climber Marek Raganowicz made the first winter solo ascent of Norway’s Troll Wall in January. His alpine-style ascent took him 16 days and he followed a route first climbed in 1996 by Kyrre Østbø and Halvor Hagen up a large pillar.

http://gripped.com/news/first-winter-solo-ascent-troll-wall-norway/

(He sometimes posts here as Regan, and has adventures that even Burt Bronson would envy.)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 5, 2017 - 01:20am PT

High above the woods: Marek Raganowicz - Suser gjennom Harryland (6/A3), Trollveggen, first solo winter ascent, January 2017


After the first ascent of Katharsis in 2015 together with Marcin Tomaszewski, this January Polish alpinist Marek Raganowicz returned to the legendary north face of Trollweggen in Norway, better known as Troll Wall, to carry out the third winter ascent, and first solo ascent, of Suser gjennom Harryland. Put up in 1996 by Halvor Hagen and Kyrre Østbø, this right tackles the Trollryggen pillar and although it does not reach the main summit of Troll Wall, it is significantly steeper and more technical than the other routes on this part of the face. On his own for 16 days, Raganowicz climbed ground-up without ever returning to the base of the mountain and, in doing so, completed the first solo winter ascent of this inhospitable face.

Question: Marek - the first thing that springs to mind when looking at the photos: cold!

Troll Wall isn’t the warmest place in Europe!. But to be honest, the real cold I experienced was when it thawed, water dripped down like rain. I was absolutely soaked and frozen.

Question: Why this route?

My main aim was to do the first winter solo ascent of any route on Troll Wall. Suser Gjennom Harryland has the safest approach and that was important to me.

Planetmountain

Planetmountain: http://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/alpinism/troll-wall-first-solo-winter-ascent-by-marek-raganowicz-in-norway.html
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Feb 5, 2017 - 12:19pm PT
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 5, 2017 - 12:39pm PT

Great climbers, great stone, wet country...
survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
Feb 5, 2017 - 01:51pm PT
Great great stuff here!
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Feb 6, 2017 - 01:34pm PT
Norwegian humour:
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 6, 2017 - 01:56pm PT

And here's the inventor: Lars Tollef Jordet from Tolga, Norway

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 9, 2017 - 01:08pm PT

"Farvel" med Roy Lønhøiden og Elin Moen Rusten (Steve Earl's "Goodbye")

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 5, 2017 - 06:49am PT

From forest to house... (from Sanngrund)

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 5, 2017 - 06:50am PT

Finnskogen today


Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Mar 13, 2017 - 12:43pm PT
A bit north of Fram Museet, but what's happening in the real world of NATO: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/13/troubled-waters-norway-keeps-watch-on-russias-arctic-manoeuvres

Norway and Russia also have relations with regard to gas and oil exploration and production in the Barents Sea, the economic boundary (allowing for Svalbard), and related matters. The Russians hope to exploit oil and gas in all the continental shelves north of Siberia, and to steal Norwegian technology so as to do it.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 13, 2017 - 01:03pm PT

Mighty Hiker

Norway is watching the moves of it's mighty neighbour closely and not without reason. There is no need for Norwegians to be neither naive nor paranoid.

As the article also says:

"In some ways the calm cold war era suited Norway. There is no natural Norwegian wish to be hostile to Russia. Indeed, according to a former commander of the Norwegian Kirkenes force, “the closer to the border, the closer the historical and commercial ties. Borders came late to this region and families lived on both sides. The population of Kirkenes was liberated by the Russians at the end of the second world war. Even now, many adjoining the border hold joint visas and mixed families are not uncommon. Norway is the only neighbouring country with which Russia has not been to war.”
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Mar 13, 2017 - 01:05pm PT
The Rooskies also know that they wouldn't stand a chance against Norge's Air Force.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 13, 2017 - 01:12pm PT

Reilly

Put that comment on the "Religion or Science" or "Mind" thread where the method "anything-goes" is being used. We will need strong belief... ^^^

By the way - I spent many months guarding the military airport in Bodø during my military service as a youth.
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Mar 13, 2017 - 07:48pm PT
A cousin went to college in Bodø, and her son is now doing his service in north Norway. I always liked the story about the NATO base under Kolsås.

And now some Norwegians have set a world record for longest hockey game. One team from Hamar, where my great grandfather went to school. Even hockey-obsessed Canadians may be happy to allow the Norwegians this record, though.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/norwegian-hockey-longest-game-1.4023452
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Mar 16, 2017 - 09:25am PT
I don't think Trollveggen is geographically part of Finnskogen but that Polak is one bad mutha!
That shiz should be front page news! UFF DA!

A NATO base under Kolsås? Really? That explains the rumbling I felt there! It couldn't have been the previous night's Aass øl at the hut there, could it?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 16, 2017 - 01:12pm PT

When philosophy professor Arne Næss and author Jens Bjørnebo occupied NATO at Kolsås (in Norwegian):

Det er noen år siden professor Næss og jeg inntok NATO. Når jeg ikke har offentliggjort bedriften tidligere, skyldes det at en offentliggjørelse den gang kunne ha fått ubehagelige følger for de underordnede som var innblandet i saken. I dag, flere år senere, må man imidlertid regne med at ingen vil bli skadelidende ved det.

Det begynte så harmløst som tenkbart er: Arne Næss og jeg hadde planlagt en week-end på hans hytte på Kolsås. Vi provianterte uavhengig av hverandre, og møttes på Kolsåsbanen, hvor det viste seg at én av oss hadde innhandlet en boks russisk krabbe samt en boks kaviar fra samme utmerkede land.

«Nå spiser vi bare mellom måltidene!» sa Næss.

Etter en stund ble han tankefull:
«Har du hvitvin?» sa han.

Det viste seg at jeg ikke hadde tenkt på det; eventuelt hadde jeg gått ut fra at han hadde tatt det med. Begge hadde regnet med at den andre tenkte på den slags. Jeg nevner dette fordi det viser hvor uskyldige vi begge er, men også fordi mangelen på et glass vin til kaviaren var årsaken til det som skjedde videre.

«De har sikkert vin inne på NATO,» hevdet Næss: «Vi går dit og låner en flaske. Hvor det fins amerikanere, fins det også sterk drikk.»
Vi steg av banen på Kolsås og vandret opp den brede vei som fører til NATO. Innkjørselen var imponerende: Det glitret i stål, i hjelmer og bajonetter. Maskinpistoler. Piggtråd. Enorme lyskastere.

Bak den stengte gitterporten sto vaktmannskapet.

«Jeg tror ikke de liker oss,» sa jeg. «Vi slipper aldri inn.»

«Man kan hva man vil!» svarte Næss: «Du får snakke til dem først.»

Jeg svelget og gikk helt bort til buret. Jeg tok på meg mitt aller strengeste offiseransikt – mandig, men vennlig og gemyttlig. Jeg valgte det første engelsklydende navn som falt meg inn. Bananfirmaet Fyffes (uttales «faifs»).

«Aften gutterrrr!» sa jeg. «Jeg skulle ha en konferanse med Mr. Fyffes.»

Samtidig gjorde jeg en lett distret håndbevegelse mot den stengte porten. Døren åpnet seg, og Arne Næss og jeg skred inn mens vaktene gjorde honnør. Vi nikket vennlig (men med anstand!) og hilste med hver vår pekefinger mot tinningen.

«Telefonen står inne på vaktstuen,» sa en av vaktmennene, og vi bega oss dit.

Inne på vaktstuen satt størsteparten av det bevæpnete mannskap. Næss klappet et par av dem faderlig og med militær ømhet på skuldrene. Han ytret seg vennlig:

«Nå gutterrrrr!» Hvordan er forpleiningen da? Trives dere her?»

Med grunnlagsforskerens saklighet innledet han en samtale om den tekniske side av bajonettangrep. De hadde forferdelig mange geværer på seg.

Selv gikk jeg til telefonen og ringte opp sentralbordet, som jeg ba om å gi direkte forbindelse med Mr. Fyffes. Ved sentralbordet visste ingen hvor den gamle gutt Fyffes befant seg for øyeblikket. Det var endog tvil om hvorvidt noen hadde sett ham på en stund. Jeg ba dem om ikke å gi det opp, men lete videre efter ham, eftersom det dreiet seg om en viktig samtale. De fant ham ikke. Jeg sa med høy stemme, at da måtte jeg nok se efter selv, – hvorpå jeg la mikrofonen på.

Vi tok farvel med de væpnede styrker og gikk videre – mot neste bastion. Der talte Næss. Det var en ny, bevæpnet sperring med nye og fryktinngydende vaktposter. Næss tok ryggsekken sin av seg og holdt den frem:

«Hva tar dere i garderobeavgift her da, gutter?» Han rakte dem sekken, smilende, men med verdighet. Det slo meg i hvilken grad han faktisk lignet en høyere offiser i sivil.

Vaktene smilte lykkelige over at vi talte så bramfritt og demokratisk til dem. Jeg understreket forbrødringen ved å ta av meg min sekk også.

Stålporten ble åpnet under bajonettblink. Under stram og tillitsfull givakt slentret vi spenstig inn mellom dem. Sekkene satte vi fra oss på innsiden.

«Ta godt vare på dem!» fortsetter Næss: «Ingen vet hvem som vanker her!»

Vaktene smilte og rettet ryggen enda strammere. Det var mørke omkring oss, bortsett fra de steder som var opplyst av skarpe lyskastere. Vi gikk videre. Det var bare å følge veien, så kom vi til tredje og siste sperring. Den var mindre imponerende enn de tidligere. Det var min tur nå.

Helt på slump valgte jeg noe som jeg syntes måtte passe til situasjonen.

«Jeg beklager gutterrr, men jeg har glemt passersedlene. Dere kan få dem siden.»

Jeg smilte bredt, men belevent, for det tilfelles skyld at det ikke fantes slike ting som passersedler. I så fall kunne det med sedlene gå for en slags kollegial soldater-spøk. Det oppsto ingen problemer.

Vaktmennene var snille og åpnet høflig for oss. De hilste pent. Og det kan være på sin plass i denne sammenheng å føye til at man ikke kan beklage seg hos de unge medarbeidere innen NATO i Norge. Det var først hos hotellfagets folk vi møtte mistro og motstand.

Vi var nå like ved hovedbygningen, og det var mørkt og koselig. Vi kunne ha lagt et dusin bomber langs veggene, tent omhyggelig på luntene til dem, og derefter gått vår vei igjen. Men slikt tenkte vi ikke på. Isteden gikk vi til hovedinngangen, åpnet døren og gikk inn i vestibylen. Der stod en portier for å ta imot uniformsfrakker og andre ting. Han var sivil. Han så på oss, og noe foregikk i ham. Han tenkte.
«Unnskyld,» sa han. «Hva i all verden gjør De her?»

«Vi bare er her», sa jeg. Men han smilte ikke igjen. Han så kjølig på oss. Det var ingen tvil om hva som hadde skjedd: vi var oppdaget og avsløret. Vi hadde forsert mengder av væpnede styrker og vaktposter, vi hadde overlistet et sindrig alarm- og vaktsystem, men nå sto vi her foran en uniformløs portier. Hva maskinpistoler og piggtrådsperringen ikke klarte, det formådde denne elendige sivilist fra hotellfagbransjen. Han hadde tenkt på egen hånd.

«Vi skulle bare ha en flaske vin,» sa professor Næss: «Vær så snill å hente øverstkommanderende på stedet! Kommandanten. Il commandante!»

Mannen ble hentet, og det gikk virkelig hurtig. Som til et bajonettangrep kom il commandante stormende nedfor trappene. «Hvordan kom De inn her?» ropte han.

«Peder pedes,» svarte Næss: «Til fots.»

Jeg vet ikke hvem eller hva il commandante var, men noe over sersjant var det helt sikkert. Uniformen var ruvende, og på ermet eller brystet bar han et vakkert merke som forestilte et vikingskip. Kanskje han var general eller noe sånt.

«Hvordan er De kommet inn?!» gjentok han, temmelig høylydt.

«Vi bare gikk inn,» svarte jeg. Men Næss avbrøt meg:

«Unnskyld,» sa han og rettet pekefingeren mot vikingskipet: «Det er mulig vi har gått feil. Vi skulle til NATO, men dette er kanskje marinen. Jeg mener selvfølgelig krigsmarinen, ikke handelsflåten.»

En stund ble de to herrer stående og betrakte hverandre. Det var et syn av stor verdighet: den militære makt overfor den professorale myndighet.

«Mener de at De helt enkelt er gått inn gjennom portene?» sa generalen tvilende.

«Selvfølgelig!» svarte Næss.

«Hvordan skulle vi ellers ha kommet hit? Har De sett all den piggtråden der ute? For ikke engang å nevne maskingeværer og bajonetter.»

«Hva er Deres navn?» sa generalmajoren.

«Arne Næss, professor i filosofi ved Universitetet i Oslo.»

Generalissimus vendte seg nå mot meg:

«Og Deres?»

«Jens Bjørneboe. Jeg skriver litt i avisene sånn en gang imellom.»

Det skjedde en slags forvandling med il generalissimo. Han smilte, men smilet var skjevt og blekt.

«Og hvorfor er De kommet hit? Hva er meningen med dette her?»

«Vi medfører en atom-bombe,» sa jeg; «men den er ikke av den store typen, bare av den taktiske sorten. Det gjør ikke noe særlig vondt.»

Næss avbrøt meg på ny:
«Ikke hør på ham!» sa han. «Han bare spøker. Vi er kommet for å få en flaske vin. Det er det hele.»

«Vin?» sa generalen. «Vin?»

«Ja», fortsatte Næss: «Vi har kjøpt kaviar, og så har vi ingen vin. Og det ville være synd på den deilige kaviaren, om den skulle bli spist uten vin. Synes ikke De også det, general?»

«Hvordan kan De tenke Dem at De kan få vin her? I NATOs hovedkvarter? Vin?»

«Vi kan selvfølgelig ta brennevin også,» sa Næss. «Men det syntes vi ville være så rent for meget. Og vodka har De vel ikke her? Vi kunne selvfølgelig eventuelt ta whisky, men i så fall ikke rug-, bare skotsk.»

Lenger kom vi ikke. Antagelig var det slått alarm, og resepsjonen ble fylt av væbnede styrker. Derefter ble vi satt på dør, geleidet av noen dusin mennesker med geværer og Herren vet hva i beltet.

Noen minutter efterpå sto vi utenfor piggtråden, og samme natt inntok vi vår kaviar til en sterk og velsmakende kopp te. Vi drakk den forresten av glass, for at det skulle bli litt mer russisk.

Efterpå fanget Næss en levende mus med hendene, et syn som jeg aldri hadde vært vitne til før. Og han gjorde det med en behendighet som bare kunne skyldes mange års trening i logisk empirisme og klatring i Himalaya. Men det er en annen historie.

Ovenstående er den fulle og hele sannhet om hvordan professor Arne Næss og jeg i fellesskap erobret NATO. Avstanden i en tid kan ha ført til at én og annen detalj er blitt glemt eller utelatt, men i store trekk var det nøyaktig slik vårt felttog foregikk.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2017 - 11:15am PT

The group most often listened to locally at Finnskogen in the 1960s was Sven Ingvars with their joyful life-appreciating music. The singer Sven-Erik Magnusson died this night.

"He changed Swedish popular music and made Värmland a national theme. His music and actions will be praised and appreciated for a long, long time."

Sven Ingvars - Min gitarr (1964)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Bargainhunter

climber
Mar 22, 2017 - 11:30am PT
Just got this book. Highly recommended for those of you with woodstoves who enjoy chopping and stacking their own winter wood supply. I have about 3-4 cords of cured maple under my back deck from a 65' snag in my front yard that I had to take down last year. Security.

https://tinyurl.com/mvg4rlm

Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way
By Lars Mytting
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Mar 22, 2017 - 11:39am PT
Hvor det fins amerikanere, fins det også sterk drikk.»

Jo? HaHaHa!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2017 - 12:19pm PT

Reilly,

They asked for Wine, but didn't get it...
They asked for Vodka. but didn't get it...
They even asked for Whisky, but didn't get it...

Were they wrong or was the general just being difficult?


Bargainhunter,

If you follow this link, you find more from and about Norwegian Wood: http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1941764&msg=2831505#msg2831505
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 25, 2017 - 01:06am PT

Not at Finnskogen, but with a close connection to Norwegian history - Granavolden at Hadeland:
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 25, 2017 - 01:10am PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2017 - 11:19am PT

Old postcards with motives and parts of verses from the Kalevala:

MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Apr 21, 2017 - 05:43pm PT
Marlow,

Are you aware of the book

Half Hours in the Far North: Life Amid Snow and Ice

with numerous illustrations

New York
Dodd, Mead & Company
751 Broadway

?




Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2017 - 11:41pm PT

MH2

I wasn't aware, but now it is ordered. Seems like the book is well written and the drawings are superb...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 22, 2017 - 02:08pm PT

Oslo in April 2017

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 22, 2017 - 02:13pm PT

Oslo in April 2017

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 22, 2017 - 02:16pm PT

Oslo in April 2017

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 17, 2017 - 10:57am PT

Sofia Karlsson - Spelar för livet

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
May 17, 2017 - 11:36am PT
Toronto Public Library, May 11th, 2017. A Norwegian climber giving a talk about his new (non-climbing) book.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 17, 2017 - 12:00pm PT

Mighty Hiker

Yes, a climber he is, Nesbø, easily identified by his sunglasses, and an internationally recognized and celebrated crime author...

Have you read the last issue of "Tidsskrift for norsk Alpinklatring" (2017)?

There's an article by Ben Johnsen and Ivar Walaas about Alf B. Bryn, multitalented and a formidable Norwegian climber in the years from 1907-1915. Not much progress was seen in Norwegian climbing during the next 20 years. He had a lot of FAs, many in Norway (Stetind among them) and some in the Alps, the needle of Salbitschijen maybe the most daring... When the picture you see below was shown in the Akademischer Alpenclub in Zürich it caused the sensation they expected. Many climbers had tried, but turned on the way.


... and there's many more cool articles. Among them one about Colorado based Rannveig Aamodt (It was like coming home).

Everything in Norwegian.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 18, 2017 - 11:30am PT

Finnskogen this weekend
feralfae

Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
Jun 18, 2017 - 09:47pm PT
Marlow, thank you for such a treat for the eyes.
And for the beautiful music. That was a special treat!
Have a lovely Summer.
feralfae
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2017 - 11:17am PT

Timid and Feralfae

I appreciate your kind words. Have a lovely summer, you too!

There's room for Driftwood on the Norwegian Woods thread:

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2017 - 11:19am PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 9, 2017 - 10:32am PT

Finnskogen this weekend

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 9, 2017 - 10:34am PT

Gottlundmarsjen 2017

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 9, 2017 - 10:41am PT

Finnetunet 2017

JC Marin

Trad climber
CA
Jul 9, 2017 - 12:36pm PT

Lund
c_vultaggio

Trad climber
new york
Jul 10, 2017 - 02:58pm PT









Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2017 - 09:23am PT

JC Marin and c_vultaggio.

It's a beautiful country... TFPU.


Now to Sweden and a calendar from 1946: 1946 - The Year of Peace. Examples are given below.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2017 - 09:27am PT

Swedish calendar 1946 - The Year of Peace - continues

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2017 - 09:33am PT

Swedish birds giving a good meal

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2017 - 09:35am PT

Measuring units compared


Look at the phone number: Hagbert Danielsson - Tel. 12

Tel. 37 belonged to Eliassons in Arkiva as seen from this hanger:


Not many telephones around at the time.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 11, 2017 - 09:43am PT
^^^^ HaHaHa! Det var godt! Sort of a 1944 take on 'fake news'? (the Gallup op-ed) ;-)

But I like the praktiska tipset about using mirrors to bring more light
into the house. Probably not a real concern now, jo?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2017 - 09:52am PT

^^^^ Yes, Reilly, and isn't it nice to know how many calories you need every day working in the office: 2600. Read: Kcal.

A good educational calendar.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2017 - 11:07am PT

Finnish axes are known to be among the best of axes. Traditionally two Finnish producers have been dominant: Billnäs and Kellokoski.

Billnäs axe:

Kellokoski axe:

But also Strömfors Bruk produced axes. I found an old axe head I believe to be a Strömfors at Finnskogen lately:


Strömfors Bruk: http://www.museo-opas.fi/sv/museet/str%C3%B6mforsin-ruukin-pajamuseo

An introduction to Finnish axes: The Finnish Axe by Marcus Lepola - https://nordiskaknivar.wordpress.com/tag/history-of-finnish-axe/

Axe head rehandling
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Bladesmithsforum commenting the video and the rehandling of Finnish axes: https://www.bladesmithsforum.com/index.php?/topic/27829-carving-a-handle-for-a-finnish-axe/
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 11, 2017 - 11:14am PT
What is it with Finns and axes and knives? ;-)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2017 - 11:36am PT

After all this is a Woods thread... ;o)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2017 - 12:23pm PT

Upon knives: As a young boy I saw a knife my grandfather had. He used the knife with great skill rinsing fish and cutting wood. It had the head of an "indianer" on the sheath. My younger brothers and me thought the knife was magic. We were promised to get knives when we were some years older. We always remembered the promise, but for some reason never got a knife. Lately, clearing out the house after my grandmother used by my mother and her sister, I found the knife in a drawer. It looked just as it looked when I was young, though it wasn't magic any longer... It's a Solingen, Made in Germany, DBGM.


mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Jul 11, 2017 - 04:15pm PT
This is a four star thread, Marlow. Bravo!
Some real eye candy here.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 11, 2017 - 04:49pm PT
My finsk fisk knife...(Järvenpää)
It's really sharp - ready for a night on the town in Turku! :-)


SISU!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 21, 2017 - 11:45pm PT

Open spinning reel and wobbler

c wilmot

climber
Jul 25, 2017 - 12:43pm PT
Marlow- got any pics or info on masonry heaters? I just found out about them the other day. Seems they are the most prevalent in your neck of the woods.

My Finnish axe
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 25, 2017 - 01:42pm PT

c.wilmot

If you're looking for a masonry heater, Norwegian Jøtul is a good place to start: http://jotul.com/us/home

Here's my latest old Finnish axe - Kellokoski 12.1 Kemi
The shaft is far from perfect, but the head is quite well preserved.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 12, 2017 - 09:59am PT

When lost in the forest

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree of a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest know
Where you are. You must let it find you.

David Wagoner
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 15, 2017 - 01:42pm PT

On their way to work, 1894.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 25, 2017 - 10:05am PT

Kalevala (Belsky, Yufa)

If you ever get the chance to buy this Russian edition of the Kalavala: Just do it. Tamara Yufa, the illustrator, is an exceptional artist...

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 26, 2017 - 11:54am PT

Kirkesjøen today

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 28, 2017 - 11:49am PT

Piilu kirveita

Finnish workshop: Improving the weather resistance of the wood surface.

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 29, 2017 - 11:09am PT

tradmanclimbs

Ice climber
Pomfert VT
Aug 29, 2017 - 06:16pm PT
Anyone know if the weege is ok??
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2017 - 12:12pm PT

Finland 1961 - Tapio Wirkkala's Koskenkorva label


Koskenkorva - Vodka from a village
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 10, 2017 - 12:24pm PT

Tage Erlander was of Forest Finn origin. He was Swedish Prime Minister 1946-69. As earlier written, no Prime Minister in any democratic country has had a longer tenure than his 23 years.

Here's some photos from the life of Tage and his wife Aina. Aina was a school teacher. She was teaching mathematics, physics and chemistry and loved by the children.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 10, 2017 - 12:35pm PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 10, 2017 - 12:56pm PT

Broder Joachim (Dan Andersson) by Johan Axel Sandström

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 14, 2017 - 09:23am PT

Piilukirves: Below you see the old sort of carving axe used to make the wood surface smooth to improve the weather resistance.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 16, 2017 - 12:57am PT

Skuggsjá - Kvervandi

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Thanks to cybele for posting the vid.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 16, 2017 - 06:30am PT

Slash & Burn


The 2017 Leica Oskar Barnack Award goes to Terje Abusdal. Born in Norway, Terje Abusdal is honoured with this prestigious photography prize for „Slash & Burn“ and receives 25,000 euros and a Leica M camera and lens.

Tradition and mysticism, provenance and belonging, facts and fiction: Terje Abusdal’s long-term “Slash & Burn” project draws a picture both mysterious and impressive of the Forest Finns, an ethnic group in Norway who live in close touch with nature.

http://www.leica-oskar-barnack-award.com/en/winner/winner-2017-terje-abusdal.html

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 16, 2017 - 06:43am PT

cybele

Trad climber
Salt Lake City
Sep 16, 2017 - 09:31am PT
I love this thread. Never had a look before, for some unknown reason. Until today I'd never seen Olav H. Hauge's poetry - it is wonderful, and I learned more than I knew before about Yule...and 20th century history...just so much here. Thanks to all posters.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 18, 2017 - 11:41am PT

The White Moose

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2017 - 10:19am PT

Then a dose of sweet Scandinavian melancholy: Sofia Pekkari and Benny Andersson's Orchestra - Svarta silhuetter (Black silhouettes)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
Sep 22, 2017 - 02:18am PT
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2017 - 07:30am PT

A weekend in...

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2017 - 07:31am PT

... a wet...

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2017 - 07:31am PT

... wonderland...

hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
Sep 25, 2017 - 08:24am PT
^^^ i would trade my favorite teddy bear for that rig ^^^
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2017 - 11:58am PT

Kari Bremnes - E Du Nord? (Are You North?) with photos from Herøy, Helgeland, Norway

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Sep 29, 2017 - 12:16pm PT
That was nice. Takk! Just this week I've been looking at AirBnb in Lofoten!
Not a lot of places on offer. :-( Can't decide where I want to go either. :-/
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2017 - 12:18pm PT

If you go, remember to order the weather before you go...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Sep 29, 2017 - 01:18pm PT
But all the nice fotos in that slide show nothing but nice vær! ;-)
I would actually love to spend a few weeks there in Feb or Mar
but I doubt I could trick La Femme into it. :-(
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 30, 2017 - 12:17pm PT

Vamp - "Liten fuggel"

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 1, 2017 - 10:01am PT
I found my place in Å!

Do you know how many Å there are in Norge? :-)

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 1, 2017 - 10:13am PT

No, I don't know how many Ås we have in Norway, places or streams.

These guys are passing a stream, an "å":

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 1, 2017 - 10:18am PT
I meant towns named Å you silly! :-)

And a real norwegian woulda skiied across that log!

Think I found something to climb up there...
but 6000K for a guide? Uff da!

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 1, 2017 - 10:23am PT

Then you'll have to leave the island

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 1, 2017 - 10:26am PT

Å to Stetind

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 1, 2017 - 10:38am PT
Jo, but since we'll be driving from Göteborg (wink) it will be hard to get to Moskenes without going by Stetinden, ikke sant?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 1, 2017 - 10:39am PT

Haha... Göteborg, good route...

... and you don't need a 6000,- guide to dance on the devil's dance floor...

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 1, 2017 - 10:46am PT

I change my mind regarding the 6000,- guide. If you choose a 6000,- guide, the sun always shines - see the proof below:

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 1, 2017 - 10:59am PT
Is the rest of regular ruten that easy?
Even a fett gammelgubb could do that!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 1, 2017 - 11:02am PT

No, go for the sunshine guide(s)...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 1, 2017 - 11:07am PT

Back to Finnskogen.... soon it's winter... på Ljusnetjärnarna...

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 2, 2017 - 04:39am PT

The Hidden Life of Trees

Peter Wohlleben talks about the natural world admiringly, wondrously even, but unsentimentally. “The question for me is not should we use any living being but just how to deal with them.” He wants us to cut down our wood consumption and enjoy trees more – he describes them as “plant elephants”. Have we lost our connection with the natural world? “No, I don’t think so. Perhaps we have a little distance because scientists over the last 200 years have taught us that nature works without soul.”

His book "The Hidden Life of Trees" starts with wise words for those entering a forest: “Slow down, breathe deep and look around.” Not only is the air cleaner under trees, as their leaves filter out harmful pollutants, but pine forests release defensive compounds that kill germs: “Trees disinfect their surroundings.” Trees also release oxygen, so a walk in the woods is “like taking a shower in oxygen”. Wohlleben’s aim is to let us see the trees and forests around us not just as “lumber factories” but as wondrous organisms, as complex as any animal. Wohlleben’s book will change your view of the wooded world.

[Click to View YouTube Video]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/12/peter-wohlleben-man-who-believes-trees-talk-to-each-other
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 2, 2017 - 05:03am PT

Suzanne Simard - How trees communicate

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 2, 2017 - 10:48am PT

... and then more Scandinavian sweetness...

Benny Andersson's Orchestra - Helen Sjöholm, Saknadens Rum, Kärlekens Tid

[Click to View YouTube Video]
cybele

Trad climber
Salt Lake City
Oct 4, 2017 - 09:43am PT
Suzanne Simard - How trees communicate - thank you for posting this video, it should be required viewing for all. I'd have preferred the science presented more rapidly, in a concise manner without the witty lecture bits, but it was well worth the listen all the way through her reasonably entertaining talk.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 8, 2017 - 11:01am PT
Chef Bjørn av Bessheim Fjellstue.
I'm not used to that sort of mountain hut!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 8, 2017 - 11:08am PT

Hi Reilly,

Did you take that photo? When?
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 8, 2017 - 11:09am PT
Nej, off their website. Just thought that Grand Cru Jotunheimen was funny.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 8, 2017 - 11:11am PT

Ahh... Then there's still travel to do...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 10, 2017 - 12:54pm PT

Finnskogen this weekend

ionlyski

Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
Oct 10, 2017 - 05:57pm PT
Marlow the vid skating at Finnskogen is beautiful. I'm sure they all are but you can tell the guy in the lead is also a nordic skate skier.

Mange takk,
Arne
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 12, 2017 - 12:01pm PT

The old grey Fergie (Gråtass) was a popular tractor at Finnskogen. My grandfather had one. I spent a lot of time with the Gråtass during my youth. It was slow, steady and reliable, and didn't like to be pushed... Great great memories...

[Click to View YouTube Video]

An old English Ferguson documentary and a commercial
[Click to View YouTube Video]
[Click to View YouTube Video]

And from an an old English book

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 15, 2017 - 11:26am PT

Finnskogen this weekend

Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Oct 18, 2017 - 08:44pm PT
Perhaps in Finnskogen they practice the trucker's hitch:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 19, 2017 - 11:29am PT

Mighty Hiker.

Hehe... no, that's cash-making city boys... at Finnskogen it's like this:

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 19, 2017 - 11:40am PT

Knallis mila - Mylla spelar Fredrik Åkares morgonpsalm - Dan Andersson veckan 2013

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 19, 2017 - 02:07pm PT

Katie Lambert and Eddie Bauer climbing in Lofoten, Norway - Sea and Towers

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 19, 2017 - 02:49pm PT
Eddie ville ikke betale for en rorbue?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 20, 2017 - 07:39am PT

Did you recognize the name of the routes/walls they climbed?

 The next best thing/Helvetestinden
 Vårkåt/Jomfru
 Codfather/Presten
 Storpillaren/Vågakallen

Some funny names there...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 20, 2017 - 08:26am PT
What’s funny about Storpillaren? ;-)
Now Vår kåt does make me wonder. There must be a story there.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 29, 2017 - 11:13am PT

Tar kiln (Tjæremile)

Tar kilns (Swedish: tjärdal, Danish: tjæremile, Norwegian: tjæremile, Finnish: tervahauta) are dry distillation ovens, historically used in Scandinavia for producing tar from wood. They were built close to the forest, from limestone or from more primitive holes in the ground. The bottom is sloped into an outlet hole to allow the tar to pour out. The wood is split into dimensions of a finger, stacked densely, and finally covered tight with dirt and moss. If oxygen can enter, the wood might catch fire, and the production would be ruined. On top of this, a fire is stacked and lit. After a few hours, the tar starts to pour out and continues to do so for a few days.

Tar was used as seal for roofing shingles and tar paper and to seal the hulls of ships and boats. For millennia, wood tar was used to waterproof sails and boats, but today, sails made from inherently waterproof synthetic substances have reduced the demand for tar. Wood tar is still used to seal traditional wooden boats and the roofs of historical shingle-roofed churches, as well as painting exterior walls of log buildings. Tar is also a general disinfectant. Pine tar oil, or wood tar oil, is a pure natural product used for the surface treatment of wooden shingle roofs, boats, buckets, and tubs and in the medicine, soap, and rubber industries. Pine tar has good penetration on the rough wood. An old wood tar oil recipe for the treatment of wood is one-third each genuine wood tar, balsam turpentine, and boiled or raw linseed oil or Chinese tung oil.

In Finland, wood tar was once considered a panacea reputed to heal "even those cut in twain through their midriff". A Finnish proverb states that "if sauna, vodka and tar won't help, the disease is fatal." Wood tar is used in traditional Finnish medicine because of its microbicidal properties.

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 29, 2017 - 11:26am PT
Morten Rustad is a time-lapse specialist who also has a short vid of his Top Ten places and he has Femundsmarka tied for #1*! That’s definitely Norwegian Woods, ikke sant?

Here’s one of his vids. I’m only providing the link cause you want to watch it on YouTube!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pqEGCQq1m9s

*He has Lofoten way down at #8 cause like our famous baseball player, Yogi Berra, said

“Nobody goes there any more, it’s too crowded.”
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Oct 29, 2017 - 11:50am PT
Proper respect and admiration.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 29, 2017 - 12:06pm PT

Phenomenal video from Morten Rustad...
With its imposing mountains, endless plateaus and echoing valleys, Norway is a country where nature takes the lead. Using time-lapse, this film attempts to capture the ebb and flow of the seasons and is a result of one year of planning, a second year of shooting and four months of editing.

20,000 kilometers have been travelled, 200,000 photos taken and 20 terabytes worth of hard drives filled. Months have been spent hiking through the mountains, sleeping in tents and travelling through the entire country hunting for the best locations.

SEASONS of NORWAY is shot and edited by Morten Rustad. The video is available in up to 8K resolution (7680*4320 letterboxed)
.

Femundsmarka in Norway and the same area across the border into Sweden have some of the last real wilderness in Scandinavia.

Femundsmarka 2017 - Jocke & Karma
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Fossil climber

Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
Oct 29, 2017 - 02:16pm PT
Loved that Seasons of Norway. It felt so familiar -there are so many shots that could be Alaska, Yukon or northern BC.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 10, 2017 - 09:30am PT

Finnskogen an early morning
[Click to View YouTube Video]

In the summertime
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 10, 2017 - 09:46am PT
^^^^ LOVE that old time norsky music! Quite a propos!

Question: What the heck is that hole in the bottom corner of the dør før?
So the røyskatt can come in and eat the mices?

I screwed up by truthfully answering La Femme’s question
“Are there mosquitoes in Norway?” (she HATES ‘em!)
“Uh, only in Finnskogen and Finnmark, mostly.”
Hopefully it will be windy in Varangerhalvøyen.
No amount of wind will help in Finnskogen, ikke sant? 😬
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 10, 2017 - 10:00am PT

At Varangerhalvøya nothing but the wind or a net covering your head will help you. At Finnskogen the mosquitos have for some reason unknown been few the last two years, but the knot is in a part of the summer ready to eat you alive in the evenings unless the wind blows. A couple of years ago I had to work late outside and my face ended up looking like a paprika covered pizza.

hehe... norsky music is the best...

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 10, 2017 - 10:23am PT
No confirmation of my weasel hole theory? I don’t much like mice indoors,
but I’m in the Frank Zappa camp as far as indoors weasels are concerned.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 10, 2017 - 10:31am PT

Upon the hole. Mice don't like cats... I have never seen them deal with weasels...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 10, 2017 - 10:38am PT
Jeg tror the hole is too small for most cats.
That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it! 🤓
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 10, 2017 - 10:41am PT

Norwegian cats from the woods are still slim...

Skogkatt at Finnskogen

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 12, 2017 - 12:41am PT

"Kun Mun Kultani Tulisi"
This poem is probably the most translated Finnish poem. In 1850's C.G. Zetterqvist wanted to do linguistic research, and picked this poem as his material. He had it translated to Latin, French and German, and sent the translations to 1400 people all around the world, asking them to translate it into their own language or dialect. As a result he got over 600 translations from 467 people - and so the poem has been translated, among other languages, to Arabian, Chinese, Basque, Tahitian, Old Norse, and Moksha.

Loituma - "Kun Mun Kultani Tulisi"
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 12, 2017 - 08:35am PT
Snakker du finsk?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 12, 2017 - 08:38am PT

No, only google-finsk...

Like this: Ei, vain google suomeksi...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 19, 2017 - 12:08pm PT

Kongsvinger this weekend

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 19, 2017 - 12:19pm PT

Kongsvinger

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 3, 2017 - 09:15am PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 5, 2017 - 12:32pm PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 5, 2017 - 12:45pm PT

Hotel Kalevala
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 26, 2017 - 06:29am PT

Finnskogen 24.12.2017

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Dec 26, 2017 - 10:59am PT
So little snow? Hasn’t Oslo gotten a lot more than that already?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 26, 2017 - 11:01am PT

Even less in Oslo right now. It's raining...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Dec 26, 2017 - 11:28am PT
😩 KLISTER!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 26, 2017 - 01:04pm PT

Yes, klister eller rulleski ^^^^
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 30, 2017 - 11:51am PT

Two of Norway's oldest wooden buildings:

Vindlausloftet, Eidsborg in Telemark. Built in the 1130s.


Finneloftet, Finne farm, Gullfjordungen at Voss. Built in the 1290s.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 2, 2018 - 01:18pm PT

Norway has had different capitals:
 Nidaros 997-1016 (today the name is Trondheim)
 Borg 1016-1028 (today the name is Sarpsborg)
 Nidaros 1028-1217 (Trondheim)
 Bjørgvin 1217-1314 (today the name is Bergen)
 Oslo 1314-1536
 Copenhagen 1536-1814 (Norway was a part of Denmark)
 Christiania 1814-1877 (today the name is Oslo)
 Kristiania 1877-1924 (Christiania renamed)
 Oslo 1924-

Reilly earlier mentioned Oddvar who was from a little village outside Bergen. Here's some old Bergen photos. I think they are from a period of about 50 years, starting in the 1880s and ending in the 1930s. The last black and white postcard could be even younger - from the 1950s/-60s.


And then a Vossabrud (bride from Voss), photo taken by the Persen sisters in Bergen, 1902.

ionlyski

Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
Jan 2, 2018 - 04:18pm PT
Marlow,
Why were some of those cities names changed, like Trondheim and Bergen? So Christiania was known as Oslo in an even earlier time?

Thanks for posting,
Arne
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 2, 2018 - 04:44pm PT
And I’ve noticed they don’t call it Tyske Bryggen any more, just Bryggen.
I would have thought they would have stopped in 1945. Hva?
Lollie

Social climber
I'm Lolli.
Jan 2, 2018 - 06:49pm PT
You forgot Stockholm/Kristiania among the capitals, 1814 -1905.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 3, 2018 - 09:37am PT

Ionlyski

Yes, Oslo was Oslo before it ever became Christiania from the Danish king Christian IV.

Nidaros is the oldest name for Trondheim. Nidaros is found in the Firenze-list of 1120 as Nithirosa.

Bjørgvin, is found as Bjargvin, Bjærgvin, Bergvin and with a latin way of writing as Biargina, Berginum, Bergæ. In a couple of original letters from 1349 one find the form Biørgvin and in another written source from 1343 Biørvin.


Reilly

That's right. The name was Tyskebryggen until the 25th of May 1945 when the name was officially changed to Bryggen.


Lollie

Yes, Norway and Sweden had a union. We usually count Kristiania as our capital during the union. More to come about Oslo.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 3, 2018 - 10:13am PT

Oslo around year 1900

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 3, 2018 - 10:26am PT

My great grandfather, Lauritz, were among the men who in 1905 waited at the border in case there would be a Swedish attack.

He was also one of the three men who built the school in Faldaasen at Finnskogen where a flag from the union between Norway and Sweden is kept.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 5, 2018 - 10:37am PT

... all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in icicles
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

ST Coleridge

Tobia

Social climber
Denial
Jan 5, 2018 - 03:57pm PT

klister.

i met a girl from Oslo in a pub in London 30+ years ago. We spent afternoon and evening talking about the U.S. and Norway. My Southern triphthongization (look it up, i just learned the word) or drawl, made communication interesting especially as the night went on.

Back to klister, she kept saying that word repeatedly and giggling each time. The bartender, an English chap, knew the meaning, but neither would do more than laugh when i asked for a translation.

i stayed the night w her and had to leave to catch a train early the morning after, never to see her or hear from her again. I forgot the word due to the alcohol and fun. I had long given up trying to remember it. And Reilly posts it. (That's two for Reilly, crankloon and klister)

i just looked it up. i wish i could find that woman and tell her what i learned. i better post a pic, but it has nothing to do with klister or Norwegian Woods.


Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 5, 2018 - 06:55pm PT
I recall it was still referred to as Tyske in 78 but I could be wrong. 😉
karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Jan 5, 2018 - 07:42pm PT


Great stuff Marlow!



Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 5, 2018 - 11:57pm PT

Thanks for the story, Tobia.

Reilly: It is even today often called Tyskebryggen, but the official name is Bryggen.
nah000

climber
now/here
Jan 6, 2018 - 12:03am PT
Marlow: you're a trip.

thanks. [both specific to this thread... as well as generally]
ionlyski

Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
Jan 9, 2018 - 05:17pm PT
Marlow,
My great grandfather was Lauritz (spelling?) too. The others (I guess I had 4) were Mathias, and..................I forget the other two just now.

Arne
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 19, 2018 - 11:18am PT

An old Forest Finn having his photo taken by Amelie Rydberg, Arvika, Sweden, around year 1900

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 19, 2018 - 11:22am PT
Gardnos Meteorittparken Sommersesongen 2017 varer fra 15.juni til 31.august
WTF? 😩😡
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 19, 2018 - 11:28am PT

I didn't know, Reilly, I didn't...

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 19, 2018 - 11:38am PT
Så, lunsj 1 eller 2 juni i Oslo?
ny email: snekker49 at gmail dot com
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 19, 2018 - 11:42am PT

Akseli Gallen-Kallela (26 April 1865 – 7 March 1931) was a Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic (illustration, below). His work is considered very important for the Finnish national identity. He changed his name from Gallen to Gallen-Kallela in 1907.

Gallen-Kallela was born Axel Waldemar Gallén in Pori, Finland in a Swedish-speaking family. His father Peter Gallén worked as police chief and lawyer. At the age of 11 he was sent to Helsinki to study at a grammar school, because his father opposed his ambition to become a painter. After his father's death in 1879, Gallen-Kallela attended drawing classes at the Finnish Art Society (1881-4) and studied privately under Adolf von Becker.

In 1884 he moved to Paris, to study at the Académie Julian. In Paris he became friends with the Finnish painter Albert Edelfelt, the Norwegian painter Carl Dörnberger, and the Swedish writer August Strindberg.

He married Mary Slöör in 1890. The couple had three children, Impi Marjatta, Kirsti and Jorma. On their honeymoon to East Karelia, Gallen-Kallela started collecting material for his depictions of the Kalevala. This period is characterized by romantic paintings of the Kalevala, like the Aino Myth, and by several landscape paintings.

In December 1894, Gallen-Kallela moved to Berlin to oversee the joint exhibition of his works with the works of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. Here he became acquainted with the Symbolists.

In March 1895, he received a telegram that his daughter Impi Marjatta had died from diphtheria. This would prove to be a turning point in his work. While his works had previously been romantic, after his daughter's death Gallen-Kallela painted more aggressive works like the Defense of the Sampo, Joukahainen's Revenge, Kullervo Cursing and Lemminkäinen's Mother.

On his return from Germany, Gallen studied print-making and visited London to deepen his knowledge, and in 1898 studied fresco-painting in Italy.

In 1918, Gallen-Kallela and his son Jorma took part in the fighting at the front of the Finnish Civil War. When the regent, General Mannerheim, later heard about this, he invited Gallen-Kallela to design the flags, official decorations and uniforms for the newly independent Finland. In 1919 he was appointed aide-de-camp to Mannerheim.

From December 1923 to May 1926, Gallen-Kallela lived in the United States, where an exhibition of his work toured several cities, and where he visited the Taos art-colony in New Mexico to study indigenous American art. In 1925 he began the illustrations for his "Great Kalevala". This was still unfinished when he died of pneumonia in Stockholm on 7 March 1931, while returning from a lecture in Copenhagen, Denmark.

His studio and house at Tarvaspää was opened as the Gallen-Kallela Museum in 1961; it houses some of his works and research facilities on Gallen-Kallela himself.


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 20, 2018 - 02:21am PT

Arvika in Sweden, around year 1900

Torggatan

Hamngatan

Östra Esplanaden
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 24, 2018 - 01:20pm PT

Sofia Karlsson - Hemlängtan (Homesick)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Reilly: Corrected (I hope)
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 24, 2018 - 01:26pm PT
Jeg tror det ær ‘homesick’?

Senja eller Lofoten?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 24, 2018 - 02:05am PT


Evil came to me and turned off the light. I flew to the forest. The forest gave me a pole. The pole showed me the road. The road brought me to the village. A woman was baking bread. The daughter kneaded the dough. My dear woman, just a little bread... The woman gave me bread. I gave the bread to the fisherman. The fisherman gave me his fish. I gave the fish to the Rie-man. The Rie-man gave me rye. I gave the rye to the pig. The pig gave me half her side. I gave the side to the dog. The dog barked me a squirrel. I gave the squirrel to the priest. The priest gave me a shirt. I gave the shirt to a poor one. The poor one gave me the wage of God. And the wage of God brought me to the Eagle. The Eagle gave me half her wing. With the wing I flew across nine seas and half the tenth, where the hens carry golden claws, where chickens walk on a copper line, where the ground is red, and the leaves are shimmering. And then I started on a poem: I created for the goodman a lynx fur. I created for the wife a robe of clothes, for the boy a fox fur beanie, for the girl a bunad, and for the servant red pants…


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 24, 2018 - 09:05am PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 24, 2018 - 09:52am PT

Rally Sweden 2018 at Finnskogen

[Click to View YouTube Video]
hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
Feb 25, 2018 - 04:01am PT
[Click to View YouTube Video]

berklee school production of same tune: http://youtu.be/4iO_DyH5rhk
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 25, 2018 - 09:38am PT

Beautiful, Hooblie.

Here' some Folk: Erlend Viken Trio - Fossegangar

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Mar 11, 2018 - 11:40am PT
Forgive me, father, I have sinned. I’m going to finnskogen i Sverige (nær Jokkmokk).


We were warned that even there they have gangs!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 11, 2018 - 11:56am PT

Then, Reilly, if you want to be a really bad boy, you can buy a fur hat at the local market...

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 11, 2018 - 11:56am PT

Finnskogen... slowly seen, slowly heard...

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 12, 2018 - 11:25am PT

Old Swedish Haglöfs marking axe

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 20, 2018 - 01:23pm PT

Old Kalevala postcards

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Mar 20, 2018 - 03:28pm PT
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 20, 2018 - 03:40pm PT

Though crowd, great climbers. Carl Hall on the left side, guide Erik Norahagen center, and guide Matias Soggemoen on the right.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 26, 2018 - 11:49am PT

During these times and a little late, here's a Christmas song about "Peace on Earth": Sofia Karlsson - Frid på Jord (Not only looking outward at the others, but also inward at oneself)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Mar 26, 2018 - 10:16pm PT
Fra Telemark, unnskylld.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gabJ4zE7Uz4

An interesting read on munnharper. I want one made from the British B-17 shot down the war.
http://jewsharpguild.org/Jews_harp_traditions_in_Norway_Update.html
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 27, 2018 - 11:34am PT

Cool...

Bjørgulv Straume making Jew's harp (munnharpe in Norwegian)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 28, 2018 - 11:43am PT

The fire wood is hardly Norwegian, but ok, here it comes: Gammel Mariavise ("Maria durch ein' Dornwald ging"), Franziska Wiese.

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 28, 2018 - 11:51am PT

Then local Flisa music: Håkon Banken - På Flisa (At Flisa)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Banken died recently, 69 years old. His music was to a large extent biographical.

His best known tune: Riktige Venner (Real Friends)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
DaveyTree

Trad climber
Fresno
Mar 29, 2018 - 02:38pm PT
Awesome. Nice bear. What kind of bird was that?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 29, 2018 - 03:14pm PT

I don't remember the bear, but if there was a bear it was an "ursus arctos" ("brunbjørn" in Norwegian). And the bird was a peacock related to the poem he reads in the first part of the Finnskogen video above (With the wing I flew across nine seas and half the tenth, where the hens carry golden claws, where chickens walk on a copper line, where the ground is red, and the leaves are shimmering):

Evil came to me and turned off the light. I flew to the forest. The forest gave me a pole. The pole showed me the road. The road brought me to the village. A woman was baking bread. The daughter kneaded the dough. My dear woman, just a little bread... The woman gave me bread. I gave the bread to the fisherman. The fisherman gave me his fish. I gave the fish to the Rie-man. The Rie-man gave me rye. I gave the rye to the pig. The pig gave me half her side. I gave the side to the dog. The dog barked me a squirrel. I gave the squirrel to the priest. The priest gave me a shirt. I gave the shirt to a poor one. The poor one gave me the wage of God. And the wage of God brought me to the Eagle. The Eagle gave me half her wing. With the wing I flew across nine seas and half the tenth, where the hens carry golden claws, where chickens walk on a copper line, where the ground is red, and the leaves are shimmering. And then I started on a poem: I created for the goodman a lynx fur. I created for the wife a robe of clothes, for the boy a fox fur beanie, for the girl a bunad, and for the servant red pants…
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Mar 29, 2018 - 03:23pm PT
Wish we were going through Setesdal this summer - I woulda looked up Bjørgulf for sure!
He looks like someone I could hang out with, although I’d be saying “en gang til?” a lot!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 1, 2018 - 12:46am PT

Icelandic standup about Nordic neighbours...

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Apr 1, 2018 - 09:33am PT
HaHaHa! He was actually funny! 😉 Quite funny, really.

This pike is pretty funny too...
[Click to View YouTube Video]


And guess what the 69th most common surname in Norway is?

Yep - Nguyen! 😳
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2018 - 11:37am PT

One of the teachers I appreciated most during my school years was Knut Lilleåsen. He also trained the football team.

He's still active. Here he's getting the volunteerism award in Grue: https://www.glomdalen.no/frivillighet/dugnad/pris/knut-ble-satt-pris-pa/s/5-19-402028

And here on NRK: https://tv.nrk.no/serie/distriktsnyheter-oestnytt/DKOP99040913/09-04-2013#t=11m38s

He played/plays in the band PE-TO. I don't know if this is the band, but it sounds good...

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2018 - 11:54am PT

Light and dark... Reality and dream...

Heilung/LIFA - Krigsgaldr Live

[Click to View YouTube Video]

For those who are confused on the time frame of what this is representing, it's not necessarily "Vikings," and more or less not Neolithic.

It's Proto-Germanic she's singing here, and in most of their music. It's Pre-Migration Period, 600 years before the Vikings, ~1st Century CE til ~550 when Elder Futhark broke into Younger Futhark. It's based on historical linguistic reconstruction and snippets of text found archeologically and through Tacitus & Saxo Grammaticus, some of which were carved in runes on bone fragments, or described pejoratively by Latin writers, who described the throat singing as like "howling dogs," when it would sound provisionally like in this video, inferred by the Sammi & Hunnic traditions which survived the ages relatively unchanged.

Then they kinda do this English language "rap," which is based on descriptions of Galdralag and Seiðalag -- no surviving examples of which exist outside of very, very scant snippets in the Poetic and Prose Edda, and in descriptions by Saxo Grammaticus and possibly by Tacitus. The low growling and hissing, the forked fingers, is based on descriptions of Seiðr magic. That kind of image survived in the inspiration of "witches" which Christians were terrorized by, who were real people practicing a similar indigenous artform, and came to become an abstracted meme of its own that evolved & mutated into the 21st century.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 16, 2018 - 12:21pm PT

Since we touched vikings and the continent above: Here's Copenhagen last week

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 17, 2018 - 01:00pm PT

Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson (Old Norse: Haraldr Gormsson, Danish: Harald Blåtand Gormsen, died c. 985/86) was a king of Denmark and Norway.

He was the son of King Gorm the Old and of Thyra Dannebod. His father had been the first ruler of the Danish kingdom and founder of the Jelling dynasty. Harald ruled as king of Denmark from c. 958. Harald introduced Christianity to Denmark and consolidated his rule over most of Jutland and Zealand. Harald's rule as king of Norway following the assassination of King Harald Greycloak of Norway was more tenuous, most likely lasting for no more than a few years in the 970s. Some sources say his son Sweyn Forkbeard forcibly deposed him from his Danish throne before his death. He is thought to have crossed Rugen during his escape.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 17, 2018 - 01:06pm PT

Finnskogens hus

A team of young architects based in Copenhagen has won first prize for a museum competition in Norway. Their proposal for a new Museum of Forest Finn Culture (Finnskogens hus) in Svullrya, Norway was chosen from 203 entries in the fourth largest architectural competition in Norway to date.


The international team is composed by architects Juráš Lasovský (Czech Republic), Filip Lipinski (Sweden), Hanna Johansson (Sweden) and Andrea Baresi (Italy).


The playful column facade gives the building a unique expression, especially during the dark hours of the day when the light from the inside trickles through the forest of columns and light up the surrounding landscape. When you approach the building, the entrance will appear as a glade through the forest and lead you into the reception area, café and library.

Light filtered through the ceiling is a reference to the Forest Finns building technique where smoke was ventilated out through a smoke hatch in the ceiling. Finnskogens Hus is a simple building that in many ways are relating to the Forest Finn Culture with its direct relation to the forest. Wood is present in both structural elements and interior spaces, where for example burnt wood is present to tell a story about the slash-and-burn cultivation in the Forest Finn Culture.


https://www.dailyscandinavian.com/copenhagen-architects-won-first-prize-international-architectural-competition/
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Apr 17, 2018 - 01:33pm PT
^^^^^ FLOTT! Will it be done by July? 🤪
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 17, 2018 - 01:36pm PT

^^^^ I believe some more NOK are still needed to finally realize this long planned museum project...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 18, 2018 - 01:56pm PT

O. Mustad & Sön fishing hooks. Oslo (formerly Christiania) 1927.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 24, 2018 - 09:49am PT

Levi Henriksen & Babylon Badlands - Pilegrim Måne (Pilgrim Moon)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Levi Henriksen is a well known Norwegian author based in Kongsvinger... and front man in Babylon Badlands...


Levi Henriksen & Thomas Mårud med Bra Landsens Folk - Langt Sakte Tog (Long Slow Train)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2018 - 11:47am PT

Kongsvinger last weekend

The train station


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2018 - 01:29pm PT

Sand

There is a precise total for all the grains of sand on earth,
as well as for the starry worlds above our heads
(supposedly the same for each), if only we knew it,
but it’s more important to know that the grains of sand
grow constantly in number and the deserts are getting bigger.
A touch
of violet has mixed itself into the pink of sunset.

Sand is white as milk and soft
as a bowing of violins.
Sand kisses your foot
and trickles over your palms like clean water.
At Bir el Daharrem hills and valleys are made of bronze.
At Thebes and Asmara dead cities lie under the sand.

Sand is crushed mountains and the ashes of everything that has
existed.
The sand dunes cross hot countries like stripes of fire.
Sand covers the planets. Moonbeams are reflections in sand.
Sand is the last thing on earth.
Time sleeping.


Guardian Angel

I am the bird that knocks at your window in the morning
and your companion, whom you cannot know,
the blossoms that light up for the blind.

I am the glacier’s crest above the forests, the dazzling one
and the brass voices from cathedral towers.
The thought that suddenly comes over you at midday
and fills you with a singular happiness.

I am one you have loved long ago.
I walk alongside you by day and look intently at you
and put my mouth on your heart
but you don’t know it.

I am your third arm and your second
shadow, the white one,
whom you don’t have the heart for
and who cannot ever forget you.


Rolf Jacobsen translated by Roger Greenwald.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 6, 2018 - 09:34am PT

The Magical Forest

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Sinikka Langeland: kantele, vocals
Arve Henriksen: trumpet
Trygve Seim: soprano and tenor saxophones
Anders Jormin: double bass
Markku Ounaskari: drums
Trio Mediaeval: vocals

Sinikka Langeland (born 13 January 1961 in Grue, Norway) is a Norwegian traditional folk singer and musician (kantele), known for combining traditional music with elements of jazz.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 13, 2018 - 01:54pm PT

Finnskogen this weekend


Sønsterud


Flisa

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
May 13, 2018 - 05:43pm PT
OK, major thread drift (not so much geographically) but this is from the Täby kyrka just north of Stockholm. It is mainly known for the many nearby rune stones but I gotta check the church out!
One serious chess game!

The church is best known as one of the churches with mural paintings by Albertus Pictor (died 1511). The ceiling frescos are from the 1480s and, unlike many of his other works, were never whitewashed over. They include a picture of a man playing chess with Death, a motif that inspired Ingmar Bergman to a famous scene in the movie The Seventh Seal. The motif is very unusual, known only from one other source. Wiki

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 14, 2018 - 09:54am PT

Yes, there's the wood painting showing the Knight and Death playing chess. The first game went well. Bergman wrote Wood Painting upon which The Seventh Seal is based: http://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/wood-painting-1


The Seventh Seal - The Knight playing chess with Death

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Ingmar Bergman interview on The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries & more

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 16, 2018 - 01:38pm PT

Log driver Gotmar Sletengen, Ringlidammen in Julussa, spring 1959. Nordskogbygda - Elverum.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 17, 2018 - 10:19am PT

Hans Børli


Hans Børli (1918-89) was born and lived in the wooded county of Hedmark in south eastern Norway. He was the fifth of seven children born to Nils Thorkildsen Børli (1883–1951) and Marie Bolette Olsdatter Børli (1881–1962). Børli was raised on a small farm in a road-less area in the forests of Eidskog Kommune.

Børli was considered a gifted boy and was admitted to Talhaug Mercantile School in Kongsvinger. He later was admitted to a military academy in Oslo, but his education was ended by the outbreak of the Second World War. Børli fought against the invading German Army, was involved in some intense battles in Vardal, and was captured in Verdal. After being released, he went back to Eidskog and worked as a teacher and forest worker for the remaining of the war. During the Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, he was also involved in illegal activities including guiding refugees across the Swedish border.

His experience of poverty and hardship would leave a deep imprint on his later art. However, the positive effects of living close to nature, the wisdom of tradition and the solidarity between workers also had a significant bearing on his writings. A strict Christian pietism upbringing would leave Børli forever struggling with the counteractive forces of rebellion and a deeply embedded sense of religious longing.

His days seem to have been divided into two separate parts: by day, he lived the physically demanding life of a lumberjack, but by night, he turned poet and spent the still, dark hours writing. His days, however, were an enactment of his poetry. Borli's verse is alive with his experiences of the Norwegian forests - with the moods of sky and water, with the creatures that moved in air and woodland, and with the trees themselves. Sometimes lonely or even mystical, some of his finest poems bite deep like the blow of an axe.

His first collection of poetry, Tyrield was published in 1945. Until the mid-1950s, he published books almost annually, both poetry and prose. Ole Gundersen Børli (1860–1945), his mother's father was considered one of the last great oral narrator of legends and stories of the area. He was considered an important influence on the young writer-to-be. Hans Børli was by his own account also heavily influenced by the writings of poet Olav H. Hauge (1908-1994).

Hans Borli: We Own the Forests and other Poems (translation by Louis Muinzer)


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 17, 2018 - 10:27am PT

It is dark you say..

Oh my friend, paths are often dark
but mankind must want to see a guiding star
and fight for it so passionately and boldly
from the depths of all his rebel heart
that the darkness catches fire
and the star is suddenly there, sparkling and eternal
over the frozen fields.

Hans Børli


So take it with you.

The smallest green
that has happened to you
can save your life some day
in the winter's land,
just a blade of grass,
a single, little faded blade
from last summer,
frozen fast in the snowdrift
can stop the avalanche's
thousand deadly tons
from plunging down..

Hans Børli
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2018 - 10:19am PT

Albert Engström


Lovisa Persson in her worst battle mood saying to Anderssonskan:
"You, fat cow, put your ass where your head is, then maybe you would look better"

Anderssonskan, answering superiorly:
"Ack, that’s what I did yesterday, but then someone passing me said, “but isn’t it Lovisa Persson who is out walking” "
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2018 - 10:32am PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2018 - 10:49am PT

Albert Engström's satirical cartoons and caricatures ridiculed the powers that be, including priests, rulers, burgess and officers. His best-known character was 'Kolingen', a tramp who always observed and made fun of the upper classes from an outsider's point of view.

Alberet Engström: https://www.lambiek.net/artists/e/engstrom_albert.htm
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
May 19, 2018 - 11:24am PT
Nice. I like the Strix header...
My take on the byline:
‘Notwithstanding evil intelligence in the world
be happy for all that is good’

(Do correct me)

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2018 - 11:29am PT

Yes, or another alternative:

Accept nothing evil in the world,
but be thankful for everything good...

Not that Albert himself was always able to follow his scripture...

Reminds me of Johan Borgen and his words: "Du skal ikke tåle så inderlig vel den urett som ikke rammer deg selv"...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2018 - 12:36pm PT

Albert Engström - self portrait 1917

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2018 - 12:37pm PT

The scent of fresh wood
is among the last things you will forget
when the veil falls.
the scent of fresh white wood
in the spring sap time:
as though life itself walked by you,
with dew in its hair.
That sweet and naked smell
kneeling woman-soft and blond
in the silence inside you,
using your bones for
a willow flute.
With the hard frost beneath your tongue
you look for the fire to light a word,
and know, mild as southern wind in the mind,
there is still one thing in the world
you can trust.

Hans Børli
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2018 - 12:38pm PT

Tyrived: Pine full of resin used to get fire in the oven or fire up the campfire or get better friction on French sandstone.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2018 - 12:47pm PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 24, 2018 - 12:29pm PT

Stories of Finnish Art – Akseli Gallen-Kallela: Lemminkäinen's Mother, 1897

[Click to View YouTube Video]


Akseli Gallen-Kallela painted some powerful interpretations of the Finnish national epic, The Kalevala. Among the most moving of these was the Symbolist painting Lemminkäinen's Mother, in which youthful bravado and recklessness have driven the hero to destruction. The scene is set in the realm of the dead, by the river of Tuonela, from which there is no return. And yet the power of a mother’s love transcends the bounds of humanity, and the dead awaken to life. The film takes the viewer deep into another world, into limbo, into a land that does not exist.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 3, 2018 - 01:53am PT

Tomatoes talk, birch trees learn – and the Swiss constitution states that living beings have a dignity to be respected | Florianne Koechlin

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 10, 2018 - 11:07am PT

Finnskogen this weekend.

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jun 30, 2018 - 01:34am PT
Hej! Who cut down all the trees?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 30, 2018 - 09:25am PT

You have ended up too high above ocean level. Where's that?
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jun 30, 2018 - 01:58pm PT
We took the ‘shortcut’ from Gausta to Geilo. It was way cool north of Austbygdi when it got down to one lane! 😜 We were on some vidda between Lufsjå and Sønstevatn.

On Hardangervidda today. Heinrik wasn’t home.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 5, 2018 - 12:22pm PT

I don't know who Heinrich is or was, Reilly, but I'm quite sure he didn't know Forest Finn "Vesterås-Anders":


But what about artist Tore Hansen:

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 5, 2018 - 12:44pm PT
How about Ole Brude?

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 5, 2018 - 12:57pm PT

That's hardware for hardmen...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 5, 2018 - 01:09pm PT
More hardware for hardmen:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 5, 2018 - 01:18pm PT

A little bit of Troll Wall history


The Troll Wall was first climbed in 1965 by a Norwegian team. The Norwegian team, consisting of Ole Daniel Enersen, Leif Norman Patterson, Odd Eliassen, and Jon Teigland, finished one day ahead of the British climbers Tony Howard, John Amatt and Bill Tweedale, who established the most popular climbing route on the wall, the Rimmon Route. As of 2003, this route was reported unclimbable because a rockfall in September 1998 destroyed five of its pitches.

The wall saw its first winter ascent in March 1973, when Wojciech Kurtyka from Poland spent 13 days repeating the 1967 French Route with Marek Kęsicki, Ryszard Kowalewski, Tadeusz Piotrowski (all Polish).

In 1979, the wall was free climbed for the first time by local climber Hans Christian Doseth and Ragnhild Amundsen.

Today, there are many routes on the wall, ranging in length and difficulty. The classic Rimmon and Swedish routes were normally free climbed in a day or two until being heavily damaged by the 1998 rock falls. The longer and more engaging aid routes, such as the 1972 test piece Arch Wall (climbed by Ed and Hugh Drummond in 20 days), or the 1986 Death to All/Pretty Blond Vikings, which cuts through the steepest part of the wall, require advanced knowledge of big wall climbing and several days on the wall.

Due to the serious character of the wall, in addition to a cold and damp climate, new routes on Troll Wall are rare. In February 2002, a Russian team established the Krasnoyarsk Route during 19 days. The 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) long Krasnoyarsk, graded f6c+/A4+, is generally thought to be the hardest aid route on the wall and was awarded first prize in the 2002 All Russia Winter Mountaineering Championships.

In July 2010, Arch Wall, previously a serious aid route of difficulty up to A4+, saw its first all-free ascent by local climber Sindre Sæther and his father, Ole Johan. Arch Wall is about 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) of climbing over 37 pitches, and it took the two a total of 36 hours of climbing to reach the summit.

In July 2012, Sindre and Ole Johan Sæther repeated the feat by free climbing the Krasnoyarsk Route.

The most recent contribution to climbs on the Troll Wall is Katharsis, established by Polish climbers Marek Raganowicz and Marcin Tomaszewski over 18 days in January and February 2015. According to Planetmountain.com, the new route shares the first two pitches of the French Route, before forging a line between the Russian Route and Arch Wall. The team reported of difficulties up to A4/M7.

On 11-26 January 2017 Polish climber Marek Raganowicz made the first solo ascent of the wall in winter.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 5, 2018 - 02:15pm PT

More hardmen: At work in finnskogarna

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 8, 2018 - 11:15am PT

Richard Powers - The Overstory

A monumental novel about reimagining our place in the living world by one of our most “prodigiously talented”(New York Times Book Review) novelists.

An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. These four, and five other strangers—each summoned in different ways by trees—are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent’s few remaining acres of virgin forest.

In his twelfth novel, National Book Award winner Richard Powers delivers a sweeping, impassioned novel of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of—and paean to—the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, exploring the essential conflict on this planet: the one taking place between humans and nonhumans. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

The Overstory is a book for all readers who despair of humanity’s self-imposed separation from the rest of creation and who hope for the transformative, regenerating possibility of a homecoming. If the trees of this earth could speak, what would they tell us?


[Click to View YouTube Video]

Richard Powers in conversation with Scott Timberg at Live Talks Los Angeles
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 9, 2018 - 12:14am PT
Hard work indeed på Korgfjellet...

When I went up to the ridge top at 2330 I wondered why I heard so many Cuckoos.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 9, 2018 - 09:20am PT

That's a dark chapter in Norwegian history.

As a young student in 1950, Professor Nils Christie was assigned the task of finding out what happened to the Yugoslav prisoners in Norway.

His publication in 1952 pointed out gross cruelties, but at that time the report raised little attention. "We didn’t want to accept that such a thing could happen here too," he said.

"My research started when I was asked to come to Professor Johs. Andenæs office. There was Attorney General Andreas Aulie. "There's something terrible we want to know more about," he said. "My first thought was that Norwegians do not do such things."

"But my investigations showed that Norwegians had worked with German SS and carried out the most cruel actions against vulnerable and defenceless people, Christie says.

"What struck me at that time was that there was no interest in Norway. This was a disgusting piece of history that no one touched. My master's degree contained a lot of new material, but nobody cared, says the professor.

In 1972, his work appeared as a book at Pax publishing house, still the interest was lacking.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 10, 2018 - 01:53pm PT
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2018 - 09:13am PT

Are you making Bacalao, Reilly?

Or are you talking metaphorically from a vegetarian perspective?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2018 - 09:17am PT

To cool it down a little during the hot summer: Winter Traktor Cross at Kirkenær

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 13, 2018 - 10:42am PT

Kil, Värmland, Sweden

Kil is a focal point in Sweden's railway network. Kil has grown around the railway station and in one of the postcards below is called a station society (atationssamhälle). Here is the main line to the west to Charlottenberg and Oslo, to the east to Karlstad and Stockholm and to the southwest to Öxnered and Gothenburg. Northwards, Fryksdalsbanan goes to Sunne and Torsby.


You find Kil where the red dot is in the map below.


Värmland in Sweden is the red area in the map below.

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 14, 2018 - 09:11am PT


So the king visited the layby and they put this up?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 14, 2018 - 10:21am PT

Stetind, that is...

Stetind had several attempts at first ascents. First was the German Paul Güssfeldt and the Norwegian Martin Ekroll in the summer of 1888. The Dane Carl Hall and the Norwegian mountain guide Mathias Soggemoen attempted in 1889.

Neither group succeeded, but Carl Hall built a cairn on the lower summit about 500 metres (1,600 ft) southeast of the main summit. That cairn is now called Halls fortopp (elevation 1,304 metres or 4,278 feet). Around 1900, William Cecil Slingsby also failed to reach the summit.

It was not until 30 July 1910 that Ferdinand Schjelderup, Carl Wilhelm Rubenson, and Alf Bonnevie Bryn finally reached the summit of Stetind. The weather conditions were good. It was Rubenson's 25th birthday, and he was given the honor of being first in the rope. The hardest part was to pass the smooth crag "Mysosten", which Rubenson finger traversed along a tiny crack. After this passage there was an easy climb to the summit. The same three climbers continued their 1910 tour by making first ascents of the Lofoten summits Svolværgeita and Trakta. Arne Næss, Ralph Høibakk, and K. Friis Baasted did the first winter climb of Stetind in 1963 on the eastern wall. In 1966, Arne Næss and four others were the first ones to summit via the west wall.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 15, 2018 - 11:12am PT

Finnskogen July 2018

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2018 - 08:52am PT

Forest Finns: Track for woodland settlement 1686

From around 1630 Forest Finns began to emmigrate from Sweden to Norway. In Norway, Forest Finns mainly resided in forest areas uninhabited by Norwegians, especially Finnskogen, a district from Trysil in the north to the central parts of Østfold in the south.

In the census of 1686 we can see that Finns had also settled in the Eidsvoll area, in the forests around Oslo and Drammen, in Aurskog-Høland, Hurdal, Hadeland, Ringerike (Finnemarka), Romerike and in the eastern part of Telemark. At the end of the 1700s, Forest Finns from Trysil also settled in Verdal in Nord-Trøndelag.

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 18, 2018 - 09:32am PT
Not quite finnskog style but I love my new hat!

Man, the traffic SUCKED yesterday in Laponia!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2018 - 10:50am PT

Where did you find the hat? I wonder what creature takes it for a bird. Is it part of the swimming suit of an under-water hunter?

And that's a Norwegian street gang. Luckily not quite as scary as the Canadian street gangs.

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 18, 2018 - 11:11am PT
Dood, are you blind? Those are Sweeds!

But I got even at lunch!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2018 - 11:31am PT

Ahhh... Swedes.

That's strange... they are usually even more disciplined than Norwegians... Could it be Norwegians in Sweden?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 19, 2018 - 12:46pm PT

RRad

Trad climber
Escondido, CA
Jul 19, 2018 - 04:00pm PT
This thread is a real treat, growing up I spent many summers in the woods of Varmland. Haven't thought about it for years. That troll family might as well be my own when I grew up, our family outings were generally out in the woods collecting berries, mushrooms and picnicking.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 20, 2018 - 10:14am PT

RRad

That's cool. Then we have grown up under the same sky with similar outdoor habits.

Here's a photo from the early 1970s. You see three brothers, their grandfather Martinus and his sister Kristine resting while picking cloudberries at Fjærhaneberget on the Swedish side of the border, close to Bograngen in Sweden.


In Solung, the local dialect, Martinus is pronounced Martt'nus, and Kristine, Kresstine.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 22, 2018 - 07:32am PT

10 km from Svullrya in Norway you find Sundelins Lanthandel in Torsby kommun, Värmlands län, Sweden. Many Norwegians shop in Sweden because of the lower cost, especially vodka, wine and tobacco. When Norwegians shop in Sweden it is called Svenskehandel (Swede-shopping).


Sundelins is situated on the shoulder of Lake Røgden

Sundelins: https://www.visittorsby.se/sv/gora/sundelins-handel-ab-52461
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 22, 2018 - 07:37am PT

By Lake Kirkesjøen (Kirkkojärvi) this weekend.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 22, 2018 - 07:41am PT

Some birds and animals seen at Finnskogen

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 22, 2018 - 07:52am PT

Yes, they are.

Helmers and Felix last "mila"

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 22, 2018 - 07:56am PT

One of the comments to the video:

"How those old men lived up again for 2 weeks, I'll never forget, all the stories and knowledge we got to know ... and above all the cultural heritage they gave us"

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 22, 2018 - 08:40am PT

You find Kirkesjøen (Kirkkojärvi) in Finland too. Here's a video from Kirkkojärvi school:

[Click to View YouTube Video]

"Kirkkojärvi school is an educational center located in Espoo, Finland, in which the architectural space and the building itself take center stage. It stands out mainly for how it integrates immigrant students in its center and for the use of sustainable architecture."

Finland is known for the superb educational system...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 22, 2018 - 09:12am PT

I'm trying to stay away from prejudices, though I have to admit, at times it's hard...

I'm staying away from burgers. That's what it means to be informed...

:o)
Todd Eastman

Social climber
Putney, VT
Jul 24, 2018 - 12:28pm PT
[url="http://https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2018/07/20/inside-a-mostly-faded-culture-on-norways-border-with-sweden/?

WaPo article about the Finnskogen...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2018 - 01:01pm PT

Great link, Todd. TFPU!


“Throughout Slash & Burn, the conventional clarity of the photographic image is often blurred and obscured — by smoke, mist, vapor, dust and darkness — which transform the solidity of the world we think we know into something much more ethereal and atmospheric…. And in a sense, when it comes to this field, Abusdal’s artistic approach is in itself a form of slash-and-burn cultivation, in that through various forms of photographic disorientation, deconstruction and destruction, he creates a new, fertile layer of information and meaning; photographic ashes which are rich with the nutrients needed for newfound notions of personal understanding and cultural identity to grow.”

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 28, 2018 - 10:17am PT
9LD gets Dan Andersson feeling


[Click to View YouTube Video]

Lyrics:

Natt – Dan Andersson

Jag vill ut till att vandra i vildmark om natten,
till att leta mig vägar där ingen har gått.
Jag vill stanna på Matalams stenfrusna vatten
för att hölja mitt vemod i skymmande grått.

Jag vill hälsa dig, hemland av sånger och saga
och av snö kring Ajatteles klippor och snår;
mitt frostiga arvland där rävarna jaga,
medan midnattens hunger kring skogarna går.

Mina marväxta tallar ha torkat med åren,
och se storfuran lutar sig trött för att dö. -
Det är grått, det går krypande skymning i snåren
och i topparna visslar en västan om tö.

Och ur skuggornas djup klinga urgamla låtar,
där är vallhornets lockton med vemod uti,
där gå viddernas visor kring vindfällda bråtar,
och den själ som de fångat vill aldrig bli fri.

Så jag hälsar dig, gran, som min ensamma like
och jag räcker dig, ungbjörk, min trofasta hand,
och jag kallar mig fri fastän här i mitt rike
jag har fångats och snärjts av det namnlösas band.


Night – Dan Andersson (only content translated)

I would like to walk in the wilderness at night,
and look for ways where nobody has gone.
I want to stay on Matalam's stone-frozen waters
and cover my sorrow in shaded grey.

I want to greet you, homeland of songs and sagas
and of snow around Ajattele’s bushes and rocks;
my frosty land where the foxes hunt,
while midnight’s hunger around the forests grow.

My crippled pines have dried over the years,
and watch the old pine tired leaning over to die –
It's gray, there's creeping twilight in the thicket
and in the crowns the western wind whispers about warmer weather.

And from the depths of the shadows, ancient songs,
there is the goat horn call with sorrow within,
there is the moorland songs around windswept pines,
and the soul they caught will never be free.

So I greet you, spruce, like me alone
and I give to you, young birch, my faithful hand,
and I call myself free although here in my kingdom
I have been caught and entrapped by the nameless bond.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 28, 2018 - 10:38am PT
Lk Tåkern (almost Norwegian woods!) wildlife reserve humour...there was a bunch of these along the trail.


I saw a rödräv!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 28, 2018 - 10:53am PT

A well made fox. Is it from a park?

Lonely together (ensamma tilsammans) is always a good theme for poets, film makers, musicians and psychologists...


... and Blue Sky Blues is always a Scandinavian alternative... (Blå Himlen Blues - Imperiet with the president of underground rock'n roll Joakim Thåström)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2018 - 05:24am PT

Finnskogen this week.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2018 - 05:29am PT

Finnetunet on Tuesday



Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 5, 2018 - 12:49pm PT

An artist who knew the forest well: Ivan Shishkin


Ivan Shishkin was part of a cooperative of artists. In 1863 a group of fourteen students decided to leave The Imperial Academy of Arts. The students found the rules of the Academy constraining; the teachers were conservative and there was a strict separation between high and low art. In an effort to bring art to the people, the students formed an independent artistic society; The Petersburg Cooperative of Artists (Artel). In 1870, this organization was largely succeeded by the Association of Travelling Art Exhibits (Peredvizhniki) to give people from the provinces a chance to follow the achievements of Russian Art, and to teach people to appreciate art. The society maintained independence from state support and brought the art, which illustrated the contemporary life of the people from Moscow and Saint Petersburg, to the provinces.

From 1871 to 1923, the society arranged 48 mobile exhibitions in St. Petersburg and Moscow, after which they were shown in Kiev, Kharkov, Kazan, Oryol, Riga, Odessa and other cities.

Another artist from the cooperative was Ilya Repin. Here's his painting "Barge Haulers on the Volga"


And here's a song to go with it: Volga Boatman By The National Tatarstan Orchestra

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Yo, heave ho! Yo, heave ho! Once more, once again, still once more
Yo, heave ho!
Yo, heave ho!
Once more, once again, still once more
Now we fell the stout birch tree,
Now we pull hard: one, two, three.
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Now we pull hard: one, two, three.
Now we pull hard: one, two, three.
Yo, heave ho!
Yo, heave ho!
Once more, once again, still once more
As the barges float along,
To the sun we sing our song.
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
To the sun we sing our song.
Hey, hey, let's heave a-long the way
to the sun we sing our song
Yo, heave ho!
Yo, heave ho!
Once more, once again, still once more
Oh, you, Volga, mother river,
Mighty stream so deep and wide.
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Volga, Volga, mother river.
Yo, heave ho!
Yo, heave ho!
Once more, once again, still once more
Yo, heave ho!
Yo, heave ho!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 12, 2018 - 11:00am PT

Sønsterud this weekend...

Human culture landscape:

Beaver culture landscape:

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Aug 12, 2018 - 11:36am PT
Do they ever do anything with those big rolls or are they just for turoids?

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 12, 2018 - 11:50am PT

It's food for the trolls...

And here's Troll salmon:

Always be careful when you feed the trolls...

RRad

Trad climber
Poway, CA
Aug 15, 2018 - 02:30pm PT
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 16, 2018 - 12:37pm PT

RRad

John Bauer was a fantastic artist. In Sweden Bauer means fairytales, trolls and forests.

Bauer's favorite subject was Swedish nature, the dense forests where the light trickled down through the tree canopies. Ever since he was little he had wandered in the dark woods of Småland imagining all the creatures living there. His paintings frequently included detailed depictions of plants, mosses, lichens and mushrooms found in the Swedish woods. He is best known for his illustrations of Among Gnomes and Trolls.

In a 1953 article in Allers Familje-journal (Allers Family Journal), his friend Ove Eklund stated that "although [Bauer] only mumbled about and never said clearly", he believed that all the creatures he drew actually existed. Eklund had on several occasions accompanied Bauer on his walks through the forests by Lake Vättern, and Bauer's description of all the things he thought existed made Eklund feel he could see them as well.

Ove Eklund on Bauer:
Yes, there he was, John Bauer, with his brown, eternal pipe glued to the corner of his mouth. Now and then he blew a small cloud of brown troll smoke straight up into the turquoise-bleu, sun-sparkling space. And muttered something far behind his tight, narrow lips—not always so easy to decipher. But I, having had the key for many years, understood most of it.

Bauer and his friends were part of a generation of Swedish painters who started their careers just before the Modernism movement began to flourish, but at the same time were considerably younger than those dominating the Swedish art scene: artists such as Carl Larsson, Anders Zorn and Bruno Liljefors. Bauer was inspired by these artists, but from his heritage came in contact with Fritz Erler, Max Klinger and other German illustrators. He lived in an era when the Old Norse were romanticized throughout Scandinavia, and borrowed ideas and motifs from artists like Theodor Kittelsen and Erik Werenskiöld, yet his finished works were in his own style. After his journey to Italy his works clearly showed elements from the 14th century Renaissance. The pictures of princes and princesses had elements from Flandic tapestries, and even the trolls garments were pleated, much like the draped clothing seen in antique Roman sculptures.



At midnight, without fail, the Troll King goes up Troll Hill and stands gazing at the stars. Below him the wind sighs through the tree tops in the Forest. His golden crown glints in the starlight as he studies the sky. He looks like solid rock perched on solid rock. He has stood there for centuries, and he intends to stand there for many centuries more.

ionlyski

Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
Aug 16, 2018 - 03:02pm PT
Marlow,
Is that a stump puller upthread? If so, how does it work?

Arne
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 17, 2018 - 09:39am PT

Ionlyski

Yes, it's a stump puller. "Stubbebryter" in Norwegian.


My grandfather Martinus had a self-made one.
ionlyski

Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
Aug 17, 2018 - 07:13pm PT
Our spruce are all dying out from root rot, a fungus that can reside in the stumps and roots for decades. Some recommend pulling the stumps to remove the fungus as they can travel through the root system into other trees.

Thanks Marlow, I had an idea about a tripod like that. Nice to see that it does work.

Arne
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 18, 2018 - 12:02pm PT

Rydvall/Mjelva - Hjaltaren

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Gjermund Larsen Trio & Nordic - Kind of Polska

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 26, 2018 - 07:57am PT

In optical democracy I: Finnskogen this weekend...

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 26, 2018 - 08:01am PT

In optical democracy II

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 26, 2018 - 08:25am PT

French Swedes in Norway


Sanngrund

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Aug 26, 2018 - 09:02am PT
O la la! Quatre chevaux!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 26, 2018 - 09:07am PT

They've been driven up "Trollstigen", though not up the Troll Wall...

Does a ladder count?

Trollstigen
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2018 - 09:57am PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2018 - 09:58am PT

Stetind - The Norwegian Eco-Mountain: http://sustonmagazine.com/2017/06/05/the-norwegian-eco-mountain/


The young climbers were troubled by two questions. They came from Trondheim University of Technology. How could they explain to people why they spent so much time on life-threatening climbing routes, instead of being in the center of modern Norway?

Second was that during their hikes in the mountains, they saw how new roads and hydroelectric power construction destroyed one beautiful mountain after another. Was it really right?

Arne Næss introduced them to the 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and his pantheistic thoughts about how everything and everyone belong together, about the nature of nature and how we can identify with this nature – and then experience deep, true joy. This philosophy of everything’s own element was well suited to the new subject of ecology, studied by Nils Faarlund, which showed how living organisms depend on each other and the environment around them.

From these discussions about the philosophy of life and science, new thoughts and ideas were born. That preserving a free nature, unharmed by modern society, may not only be pleasant – maybe it is also possible to scientifically prove that it is vital to life?

And that being in nature may not only be generally pleasant and healthy – maybe it is also vital to life, on a deeper level?
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Sep 6, 2018 - 10:06am PT

I saw it! Really!

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2018 - 10:09am PT

Zapffe: "Dreams should not be realized, the poets say, because then they die. But here it was fully alive in all its towering glow right into its earthly incarnation – fourteen hundred meters of adventure castle in silver gray granite"

Reilly: That's exactly what you get when you order no sunshine guide... And here's proof of what you get with a sunshine guide:


Stetind: An anvil upon which the gods can hammer...

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2018 - 11:09am PT

Zapffe climbing Storesvaet at Kolsaas.

"In these seconds, which my concentration makes timeless, I experience how the whole of my fate's wide web runs together into one single thread in this passage of twelve-fifteen bitter fingergrips."

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 16, 2018 - 11:20am PT

Finnskogen this weekend

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 16, 2018 - 11:23am PT

Finnskogen this weekend continues:

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Sep 16, 2018 - 12:57pm PT
Too early for drunken elg?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 16, 2018 - 01:01pm PT

Drunken moose?

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 23, 2018 - 12:24pm PT

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Sounds like a more recent recording than 1933, but whoever plays... well done...

And then: Livet i Finnskogarna

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Sep 23, 2018 - 02:46pm PT
That’s some virtuoso munnharpe playing! 👍
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 24, 2018 - 01:11pm PT

I Theodor Kittelsens håndspor (Drawings by Th. Kittelsen)


[Click to View YouTube Video]

Music: Kjell-Arne Rolstad - "Fanitullen i Setesdal" i G-dur
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 30, 2018 - 10:25am PT

Finnskogen this weekend

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Sep 30, 2018 - 10:43am PT
Høsten ær hær!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 30, 2018 - 11:08am PT

Jepp, den beste tiden på året... :o)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 2, 2018 - 06:44am PT

Autumn

Early morning

Late night
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 3, 2018 - 09:19am PT

The Plane Tree

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Arthur Rackham was an illustrator in the late 19th and early 20th century. He was born in London in 1867. He began studying at the Lambeth School of Art at the age of 18, and soon found his passion and calling. …

Rackham’s pieces were known for their luxurious use of color and keen attention to detail. His styles ranged easily from vivid, bright splashes of color to more muted, subtle tones. He became a member of the Royal Watercolour Society and mastered the watercolor method of painting, seen in many of his works. Many of the books Rackham illustrated include both his black and white, and color plates. Some, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Wonder Book, include Rackham’s experimentation with partially colored prints, similar to the effect seen with Japanese woodblock art.

Much of Rackham’s work depicts gnomes, fairies, goblins or other creatures from mythology, folklore or fable. His work has been an inspiration to many, including film director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) and modern illustrator Brian Froud. Beyond the fantastical natural world, Rackham also found inspiration in unusual places, creating his own artistic interpretations of pieces from music and theater, such as Wagner’s operas, or Shakespeare plays.


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 7, 2018 - 12:47pm PT

The heart of God

We do not know the heart of God,
but we know
something that streams over us
like rain over our hands.
We do not see his eyes,
but we see
invisible light over all things
as in the summer night.
His voice is not heard,
but we find
roads everywhere and traces in the hearts
and trails with silent lights.


- When they sleep

Every human is a child when sleeping.
When they sleep there is no war in them.
They open their hands and breathe
in the silent rhythm that heaven has given to humans.

They pucker their lips like little children
and they half-way open their hands,
soldier and statesman, servant and gentleman.
The stars stand guard then and there
is fog over the vaults,
a few hours when nobody will make harm to anyone.

Could we just talk to each other then
when the hearts are like half open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in there.
God, teach me the language of sleep...


Smoke…

The sea’s mills grind,
night and day
smoke from the coast where
the clouds bend down
and eat from the flour covered hands
raising, raising unstoppably
while big wagons come
falling in from the plains
on their mighty wheels of iron,
with new cargo, new cargo forever
to the sea’s mills.

Rolf Jacobsen

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 10, 2018 - 09:12am PT

Monica Zetterlund - Ack Värmeland, Du Sköna
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 15, 2018 - 12:11pm PT

hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
Oct 15, 2018 - 04:29pm PT
that ^^^ word got me thinking ...

there was a glade of cottonwoods down country by the creek
which was the scene of an annual fest of sorts and special events
attended by my finnish neighbors when i lived in red lodge montana.

so googling "kaleva," which was the name on the gate
and also the fraternal organization, led to this series of worthy postings:

http://www.finnishkalevalodges.com/

just one country and a sea over to the (patient's left) of norway (map people's right) ...

please indulge :), i thought it was an interesting side trip.

also, since i've run amok and maybe you're not a clicker, here's the sibelius monument in helsinki:


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 16, 2018 - 09:47am PT

Saga found a sword in lake Vidostern, Sweden

I ran to my mamma and my mormor – my grandma – and some other relatives who were all sitting outside having fika, which is Swedish for having a sit-down with coffee and cookies. I was yelling, “I found a sword, I found a sword!” Daddy went to show it to our neighbours, whose family has lived in the village for more than 100 years, and they said it looked like a Viking sword. Daddy didn’t get to watch the football in the end.

When he showed it to an archaeologist, she said she had goosebumps and that it was at least 1,000 years old. Actually, they now think it’s 1,500 years old – from before the Vikings. She called it “sensational” and said nothing like this had ever been found in Scandinavia before, and that maybe I had found it because of the low water levels. She made me promise not to tell anyone because she and other archaeologists wanted to see if there was anything else buried in the lake; they didn’t want anyone else to come and take the treasures.

It wasn’t hard to keep the secret. But I did tell one of my best friends, Emmy, and now I know I can trust her because she didn’t tell anybody, except her parents – but they promised not to tell anybody else, so that’s OK.

This month, the archaeologists finally came to search the rest of the lake and they found a brooch that is as old as my sword, and a coin from the 18th century. Then they announced the news and I could finally tell everyone at school. I came back from gym class and the whiteboard said, “Saga’s sword” and there were balloons, and the whole class got to have ice-cream.

I had to give the sword to the local museum – Daddy explained that it’s part of history and important to share it with others. I felt “boo” that it’s gone away, but “yay” that other people will get to see it. I’m going to try to raise some money to make a replica sword that I can keep.

People on the internet are saying I am the queen of Sweden, because in the legend of King Arthur, he was given a sword by a lady in a lake, and that meant he would become king. I am not a lady – I’m only eight – but it’s true I found a sword in the lake. I wouldn’t mind being queen for a day, but when I grow up I want to be a vet. Or an actor in Paris.

Now, whenever I go swimming in the lake, I will be looking to see what I can find. It feels like that lake might be a little bit magic. On that day I felt a little bit magic, too.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 20, 2018 - 12:56am PT

Thanks Hooblie, cool trip...

A photo found: Lofoten

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Oct 20, 2018 - 08:01am PT
I felt “boo” that it’s gone away, but “yay” that other people will get to see it.

My kind of girl, and well named! 👸

Lofoten:
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 20, 2018 - 08:27am PT

Well named: Yes, indeed - Saga adds to the Saga...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 21, 2018 - 02:13am PT

Monica Zetterlund - Under Vinrankan

[Click to View YouTube Video]

So I got up slowly,
from my dinner table.
In the corner of the garden,
where you live.
Under the vines, I went
straight across the room.
I walked slowly
Everybody seemed silent.
I was wandering along rivers,
through green groves.
With the light in the back
thought...I heard dogs.
So slowly flowing
to a sparkling sea.
So slowly flowing
straight to my grave.

It was already decided,
far back in time
before temples were built
for the heavenly peace.
Before lizards were born
in the stormy seas.
Before the desert sun burned away
the shining sap.
Anyhow a long time
before everything started spinning.
So it was told once upon a time.
If someone would wonder.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 21, 2018 - 02:45am PT

Monica Zetterlund was a Swedish singer and actress born in Hagfors, Värmland, Sweden, 1937.

Zetterlund began by learning the classic jazz songs from radio and records, initially not knowing the language and what they sang about in English. After she started playing in Swedish and Danish jazz bands, she became well known and world famous in the 1960s through collaboration with American musicians like Thad Jones, Zoot Sims and Bill Evans. The LP "Waltz for Debby" with Bill Evans Trio is considered one of the classics of jazz history. In addition to American jazz standards, she was also known for jazz interpretations of Swedish folk melodies and other songs with Swedish text.

The author and actor Tage Danielsson described Monica Zetterlund in this way: "A blonde negress from Värmland's hulder-woods scented by the logs - lingon berry put into a cocktail glass ..."

Bill Evans & Monica Zetterlund - Waltz for Debbie (1966 Live Video)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Värmlands stjärn ho va hellt underbaar.

clifff

Mountain climber
golden, rollin hills of California
Oct 21, 2018 - 09:23am PT

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1&biw=1600&bih=837&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=1UHHW-7VN469jwT-mL7wDA&q=+norway&oq=+norway&gs_l=img.3..0i67l7j0l2j0i67.849519.850271..856064...0.0..0.133.1191.0j10......1....1..gws-wiz-img.......0i10i24.j4dSu4whbCg#imgrc=J3kM59543SspzM:
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 21, 2018 - 09:41am PT

Clifff: When I follow your link - here's more: 23 Pictures Prove Why Norway Should Be Your Next Travel Destination - http://www.earthporm.com/23-pictures-prove-norway-next-travel-destination/

Here's one of the photos: Renndølsetra, Innerdalen

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 26, 2018 - 08:33am PT

Jan Johansson - Visa från Utanmyra (med kommentarer)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

From the documentary "The Wizard", about Jan Johansson, by Anders Østergaard. 1999.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 28, 2018 - 12:48pm PT

Christian Borlaug - Fanitullen
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Hårgalåten
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Oct 28, 2018 - 02:38pm PT
The photo titled "Renndølsetra" is of Innerdalen, to be precise Innerdalstårnet. It's on the west coast, between Molde and Kristiansund. I've climbed and worked there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innerdalen
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 28, 2018 - 02:53pm PT

Thanks, Mighty Hiker, you know Norway better than I do... :o)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 2, 2018 - 11:17am PT

Jan Johansson

 Klara stjärnor
[Click to View YouTube Video]

 Sinclairvisan (La Folia)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 3, 2018 - 09:03am PT

My latest LPs: Jan Johansson - Musik genom fyra sekler (Four Centuries of Music)

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 3, 2018 - 09:05am PT

Sinclairsvisan (La Folia) as sung by Sven Bertil Taube

[Click to View YouTube Video]

The song is narrated by the shepherd Celadon, who describes how he is brought by a "strange old man" into the Elysian Fields. He watches as the murdered Sinclair enters a great castle, where he is greeted by 12 kings ("twelve Swedish Carls", i.e. Charles I–XII), to whom he relates the circumstances of his death.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 7, 2018 - 11:42am PT

The film "Jan Johansson - Trollkarlen" (The Wizard)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

It must be possible to play the tone c in such a way that people let go...

The Danish DVD has English subtitles.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 9, 2018 - 09:27pm PT
Just watched first episode of Vikingane/Norsemen. That’s some funny stuff!
Konen couldn’t take the violence. She thought they were American actors
putting on Norwegian accents! HaHaHaHa!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 9, 2018 - 10:13pm PT

Then maybe Norseman is better for konen

Isklar Norseman 2015 - Bad to the bone

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 9, 2018 - 10:53pm PT
UFF DA!

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 10, 2018 - 09:57am PT

Stupid is only half the fun, the rest is smart... All the best to you and your wife, Reilly...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 17, 2018 - 02:15am PT

Anders F Rönnblom Band - KOMEDIA Live

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Matt Sarad

climber
Nov 17, 2018 - 09:55am PT
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 17, 2018 - 10:29am PT

Matt.

Thanks for posting the video. Some musicians stay so close to their music for such a long time that they end up being extensions of their instrument just as much as the instrument is an extension of them as artists. Terje Rypdal is one of them... Paolo Vinaccia on drums too...

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 17, 2018 - 02:05pm PT
Magnus Carlsen emerged from the Norwegian Woods yesterday with a spectacular save of his losing position proving why he is still Numero Uno! Signore Caruano is proving a worthy
challenger.
Lollie

Social climber
I'm Lolli.
Nov 19, 2018 - 05:03pm PT
Have you done your part of raking the Finnmarken today?
wilbeer

Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
Nov 19, 2018 - 05:08pm PT
Laughing out loud.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 19, 2018 - 05:08pm PT
Lollie, was that you I saw raking when I drove through Linköping?
Lollie

Social climber
I'm Lolli.
Nov 19, 2018 - 05:10pm PT
Sure, I do my duty!
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 19, 2018 - 05:46pm PT
I’m not joking, I was on my way to Tåkern! 😁
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 20, 2018 - 12:24pm PT

Tåkerns Fältstation: http://www.takern.se/

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 29, 2018 - 10:30am PT

Reilly said:
Magnus Carlsen emerged from the Norwegian Woods yesterday with a spectacular save of his losing position proving why he is still Numero Uno! Signore Caruano is proving a worthy
challenger.

Yesterday: Magnus Carlsen beats Caruana in tie-breakers to retain World Chess crown
As Magnus Carlsen sat in his dressing room, euphoric and chatty after finally suppressing the stubborn resistance of Fabiano Caruana to retain his world chess title, he made a stark confession. “If I had lost, it could very well have been my last world championship match.”

The words came as a thunderous bolt from the blue and they are bound to send tremors through the chess world. After all, Carlsen has been the world No 1 since 2010 and would have been a warm favourite to regain his title in 2020 if he had lost. Yet, for the first time, here he was acknowledging that he would have contemplated turning his back on the biggest prize in his sport at the age of 27.

The brilliant Norwegian, who retained his title with a thumping 3-0 rapid-play victory over Caruana on Wednesday after all 12 classical games were drawn, was just as frank when asked whether he could ever again scale the heights of his peak Fide rating of 2,882, the highest in history, which he obtained in his early twenties.

“It is going to be very difficult,” says Carlsen, whose ranking now stands at 2,835, three ahead of his American rival. “It is a lot about the mindset. There is no pure chess reason in terms of understanding the game that I should play worse than I have before. But these games show that I have not been able to take all my chances. I need to work on that to be even sharper the next time.”

At least there will be a next time. Before the match Carlsen’s frustrations with his performances had led his sister Ellen to hint that Carlsen might retire if he was defeated. When asked whether such a course of action was really on his mind, he replies: “For sure,” before clarifying his position. “If I had lost, it could very well have been my last world championship match.”

When pressed why, Carlsen replies: “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have retired from chess but I might not have played another world championship match. But now we’ll see. I have a lot of time over the next two years to improve my game.”

The sport certainly needs him to stick around. For these days the Norwegian is a bona fide celebrity, guest-starring on The Simpsons, modelling for G-Star Raw and making $8m (£6.25m) a year according to Forbes magazine. Such is Carlsen’s popularity in Norway that his matches were shown live on NRK, the equivalent of BBC One, with Wednesday’s tie–breaks breaking all previous records for Carlsen’s games. Three million of the country’s five million population watched at least some part of the match.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 29, 2018 - 10:52am PT
I have a lot of time over the next two years to improve my game.

That’s a scary thought, ikke sant? 🤣
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 29, 2018 - 11:31am PT

Yes, a scary thought, much to my amusement.
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Nov 29, 2018 - 02:01pm PT
Perhaps Carlsen feels that he should be out raking forests instead.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 29, 2018 - 04:16pm PT
He has people for that. I fear he may be tempted by a certain
'bargain' to better his game.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 4, 2018 - 12:03pm PT

And in that case, Reilly, we can take on Goethe's Faustian view - forgiving the soul who always stretches beyond what it already is - or we can take Dan Anderssons view in Snöharpan:

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 4, 2018 - 12:07pm PT

Kalevala women honor: "From my mother I learned to speak up."

Larin Paraske must have been model for that medal.

Larin Paraske (1833-1904) was a central figure in Finnish folk poetry. The immense number of verses she could recite (over 32,000) made her one of the irreplaceable sources of Karelian culture. In fact, she is the single most important source of folk poetry in Finland. Paraske's poems include proverbs, lamentations and riddles. Her Finnish contemporaries (scientists and artists) drew enormous inspiration from her.

As an illiterate member of an oral culture ("doesn't know a single letter", Neovius wrote), Larin Paraske did not know anything by heart. In her own words, she sang from her "head memory", "by ear". In Finnish this means sudden remembering and improvisation. Thus, with the help of traditional images and a total mastery of the language of Kalevala metre, Paraske repeatedly constructed poems that were at once of great antiquity and on each occasion slightly new. Like all good traditional singers, she also inserted hints of her own private life into the poems. Such allusions can be discerned, for example, in the exceptionally expressive widow's songs, which Paraske presented in a number of variations; in one of them she longs for her "lovely one", her "black-browed one", using images drawn from the world of men's work: "there is no sound of my darling, no sound of him coming home; he does not chop firewood by the pile, he does not clatter under the shed roof."


Larin Paraske's claim to greatness is justified by her phenomenal memory ("The Finnish Mnemosyne") and its proof, a huge collection of poems. The dramatic contrast between the richness of her inner life and the poverty of her external existence has touched the hearts of subsequent generations. Guilt feelings have been aroused by the fact that the Finnish cultural élite, at whose disposal she placed herself and her poetry, did not take the trouble to offer her 200 marks in her hour of need. The pension granted by the Finnish Literature Society in 1901 came too late and was too small.

Today Paraske is the subject of a search for ever new dimensions. One such dimension is her status and experience as a conscious artist. Another is the distinctive quality of the oral, communal form of remembering and creating that she represents. The copiousness of her poetry provides rare opportunities for research on this topic. Paraske's role in our national culture in the 1890s - and later as well - is also an interesting phenomenon. It illustrates a process typical in the history of the Finnish identity: the encounter of official and unofficial, literary and non-literary, Eastern and Western culture, and the influences that they exert on one another.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 4, 2018 - 12:25pm PT

Anders F Rönnblom Band - Osårbar

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 15, 2018 - 10:38am PT

To stay in the Nordic countries - from Iceland: KALEO performs "Save Yourself" LIVE on an iceberg at Fjallsárlón Glacier Lagoon
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Posted by Eric on another thread...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 16, 2018 - 12:37am PT

Kalevala 1868 translated by John Porter and formerly owned by the Nordland Lodge 544 of Sons of Norway

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 16, 2018 - 01:34am PT

Then a little bit of brilliant Danish dreaming: Kim Larsen & Kjukken - Joanna (Officiel Live-video)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 16, 2018 - 08:29am PT

One for those who understand Norwegian: Lensmannen på Finnmarksvidda- Dokker e' omringa!!

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Gane

Ice climber
State of Confusion
Dec 16, 2018 - 02:13pm PT
Hi there Marlow and Reilly.
Thank you for the discussions about Nordic geography and culture.
Born and raised in Sweden, I lived in Linköping a couple of years during the 90's and have passed by Tåkern birdstation quite a few times. Now I live on the Swedish west coast and go to Norway at least a couple of times a year, for the mountains.

The post about Anders F Rönnblom above reminded me about this gem from the 1980's. It's called "Det är inte snön som faller (God jul, God jul!)". It translates to "It's not the snow that's falling "Merry christmas, Merry Christmas!)"
Let's just say it's a song about Christmas spirit, and somewhat critical about the consumerism that surrounds it... Enjoy :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqxRbWUiS40

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqxRbWUiS40]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 17, 2018 - 10:32am PT

Thanks, Gane.

The world is changed.

I feel it in the water.
I feel it in the earth.
I smell it in the air.

Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.
hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
Dec 18, 2018 - 01:23am PT
https://www.behance.net/gallery/58336221/Norway-from-above?tracking_source=curated_galleries_list

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Dec 18, 2018 - 09:32am PT
Just a brief reprise re: Tåkern. While the birds are the aim the visitor center is an amazing building...
I believe the operative word is ‘harmonious’.

It is covered with the reeds that make it so enticing to the wee birdies...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 18, 2018 - 12:40pm PT

Hooblie: Fantastic coastal photography

And then a photo from inside Reilly's Tåkern Naturum

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 20, 2018 - 06:21am PT

Mika Sagulin's last dive of this summer
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 20, 2018 - 08:59am PT

Sofia Karlsson - Spelmannen

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 21, 2018 - 06:14am PT

A new book has been published about Norwegian mountain rescue:

"Between Life and Death. Norwegian Mountain Rescue from the inside." (På Død og Liv. Norsk fjellredning fra innsiden.) by Ture Bjørgen on Fri Flyt forlag 2018.


The hardest and most dangerous rescue missions in Norwegian mountains are solved by unpaid mountain climbers in alpine rescue groups. "I do not know how long it will be like this, but I think this is a virtue worth taking care of," says Ture Bjørgen.

Bjørgen’s book contains detailed descriptions and pictures from rescue operations where unfortunate rock climbers, base jumpers and people during other tragedies have been rescued from the most inaccessible and dangerous mountain walls in Norway, often under dramatic circumstances. Most of the operations covered in the book received huge media attention. But how was it really? What happened on the wall during the rescue operations? And what happens to the "heroes" who time after time meet the death of others?
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Dec 21, 2018 - 06:05pm PT
Reilly: not a big coincidence. :-)



And, though not in the over-arching great spirit of this thread, true to the letter of it, the book Norwegian Wood: chopping, stacking, and drying wood the Scandinavian way by Lars Mytting (translated by Robert Ferguson) arrived at our home today.


Back in June 2016 Marlow mentions the book and posts an excerpt. He also begins a poem from the front matter of the book:

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1941764&tn=377

which continues:

"That sweet and naked smell
kneeling woman-soft and blond
in the silence inside you,
using your bones for
a willow flute.
With the hard frost beneath your tongue
you look for fire to light a word,
and know, mild as southern wind in the mind,
there is still one thing in the world
you can trust."

Hans Børli


could be talking about this thread


(It was complete coincidence for the book to show up at our door so far as I can tell.)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 22, 2018 - 10:13am PT

Thanks, MH2. Much appreciated. If that feeling is achieved in between reading or "listening" to the thread, I'm thankful:

"The scent of fresh wood
is among the last things you will forget
when the veil falls.
The scent of fresh white wood
in the spring sap time
as though life itself walked by you,
with dew in its hair.
That sweet and naked smell
kneeling woman-soft and blond
in the silence inside you,
using your bones for
a willow flute.
With the hard frost beneath your tongue
you look for fire to light a word,
and know, mild as southern wind in the mind,
there is still one thing in the world
you can trust."
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 22, 2018 - 10:48am PT

The original Norwegian “nisse” is "fjøsnissen" (the barn gnome/santa).

Up until the 19th century, it was not uncommon for people to believe that "fjøsnissen" existed and therefore they took him into account in their daily life on the farm. "Fjøsnissen" did not tolerate swearing. Once a servant who led the horse into the stable in the evening, started to swear on his way out and got a slap to the head so hard that it sang in his ears. It was obvious that this was to give him a lesson.

Many stories are also told showing that "fjøsnissen" did not like people to work late in the evening.

On one farm they worked long into the night. "Fjøsnissen" was annoyed. One evening he kicked a bag full of peas. It fell and the peas started to roll and fall down the stairs. One could hear peas falling all night long, but the next morning the pea sack stood as full as ever and in the same place as before. On another farm where people did not take into account the rule about not working late, neither did they put forth porridge on Christmas evening. "Fjøsnissen" became very angry and got his revenge. One morning when people came out, they found their best cow stuffed into a barrel.

When "fjøsnissen" was given gifts and treated well he cared for people and animals, but if he was not treated well he could become cruel.

A "fjøsnisse" who has been treated well:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 22, 2018 - 02:06pm PT

Så mörk är natten i midvintertid (So dark is the night in mid-winter)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Ale Möller (accordion), Lena Willemark (vocals), Sofia Karlsson (pump organ), Lisa Rydberg (violin), Esbjörn Hazelius (violin), Roger Tallroth (cittern), and Olle Linder (double bass).
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 31, 2018 - 02:47am PT

Astrid Lindgren - a Scandinavian treasure


Icelandic publisher Halldor Gudmundsson's first meeting with Astrid Lindgren, Iceland 1985:

“The night Ronia was born, thunder was rolling over the mountains, yes, it was a thunder night where all the small “tusses” living in Mattisskogen fearfully crawled into caves and holes. Only the scary, wild “vettes” liked thunder best of all the weathers”.

In May 1985 Swedish author Astrid Lindgren visited Iceland. She was invited to the film festival of Iceland. The opening film was based on Lindgren’s book about Ronja Røverdatter (Ronia, the Robber's Daughter). Her publisher on Iceland was “Mål og mening” (Goal/language and meaning), originally a literary society established by radical authors like Halldor Laxness in the 1930s to publish books at low prices and to spread the word about socialism through the periodical “Raudir pennar” (Red pens). Fifty years later “Mål og mening” was an ordinary publisher and 28 years old Halldor Gudmundsson had been employed as publisher. He had just finished his literary studies. He didn’t know much about publishing, but thought he knew everything about literature.

Year 1985 was during the cold war and because of the background of “Mål og mening” the conservative government of Iceland did not invite Astrid Lindgren’s publisher to her official celebration with the exception of being invited by Vigdis Finnbogadottir. Finnbogadottir would some years later become the president of Iceland.

Astrid herself wanted to meet her publisher and among the celebration activities there were a couple of hours where she could meet Halldor Gudmundsson. Not much happened at first, there was coffee and pastry, but Lindgren made a strong impression on young Halldor. “From the first time I experienced her as quite as captivating as her stories: Wise, sharp and ironic also in her amiability, with an aura that made the self-centered young publisher feel like a shy pupil meeting an old master.

For some reason Halldor thought it was a good idea to show her some of the Swedish books they had published. Swedish social realism was quite the thing at the time and Halldor kept on more and more unsure until Astrid finally found a book among the others and lightened up. The book was Victoria by Knut Hamsun. She looked for a long time at Halldor and finally she said “How good to find that you also publish literature.” The publishing line of “Mål og mening” has hardly ever after suffered such a blow.

The view of Hamsun’s book put something in motion inside Astrid and she started to talk about the books she had read during her youth, the books that contributed to form her as the formidable story teller she became. Astrid took book after book from the bookshelves and talked about them: many of Hamsun’s early works, but also “Hærverk” by Tom Kristensen and “Den forsvundne fuldmæktig” by Hans Scherfig.

Astrid often wrote about love between children and parents and friends, but maybe only one love story in traditional form, the book “Samuel August from Sevedstorp and Anna from Hult”. The book opens with these lines: “Now I will tell you a love story, not one I have read or invented, but one that I have heard. It has room for more love than anything I have read in books and to me it is touching and beautiful. The story is about two humans who happened to become my parents”.

The themes of her books: love, adventure and death, are classical, everlasting themes.

The memories that a man turns back to are always coloured by a certain bias and this is surely also so in this case, but Halldor thought he recognized both a smile and warmth in the eyes of Astrid Lindgren when she said goodbye in front of the bookstore with the words: “Remember Halldor, the ways of love are full of flowers and blood, flowers and blood”


Astrid Lindgren on www: https://www.astridlindgren.com/en
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 31, 2018 - 08:41am PT

"Nu blev det kvällen". "The evening came suddenly" is said when light disappears under the fur hat. Ronia has been skiing, has fallen and is stuck in their roof. Why does she do it this way? Voffå? Våffå? Voffå? Voffå då då?

[Click to View YouTube Video]

And here's the boulder "Nu blev det natten" (The night came suddenly)

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2019 - 09:46am PT

Some examples of adventure in the drawings and paintings of Theodor Severin Kittelsen

clifff

Mountain climber
golden, rollin hills of California
Jan 1, 2019 - 09:58am PT
Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way


https://www.amazon.com/Norwegian-Wood-Chopping-Stacking-Scandinavian/dp/1419717987/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1546260673&sr=1-1&keywords=Norwegian+Wood%3A+Chopping%2C+Stacking%2C+and+Drying+Wood+the+Scandinavian+Way#reader_1419717987
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2019 - 10:27am PT

Clifff: Very cool... TFPU!

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2019 - 10:36am PT

Theodor Severin Kittelsen (27 April 1857 – 21 January 1914)



Kittelsen was born in the coastal town of Kragerø in Telemark county, Norway. His father died when he was young, leaving a wife and eight children in difficult circumstances. Theodor was only 11 years old when he was apprenticed to a watchmaker. When at the age of 17 his talent was discovered by Diderich Maria Aall, he became a pupil at Wilhelm von Hanno’s drawing school in Christiania (now Oslo). Because of generous financial support by Aall he later studied in Munich. However, in 1879 Diderich Aall could no longer manage to support him, so Kittelsen had to earn his money as a draftsman for German newspapers and magazines.

In 1882 Kittelsen was granted a state scholarship to study in Paris. In 1887 he returned to Norway for good. When back in Norway, he found nature to be a great inspiration. He spent the next two years in Lofoten where he lived with his sister and brother-in-law at Skomvær Lighthouse. Kittelsen also started to write texts to his drawings there.

Theodor Kittelsen and his family settled in a home and artist studio which he called Lauvlia near Prestfoss during 1899. Kittelsen spent his best artistic years here. During this period, Kittelsen was hired to illustrate Norwegian Folktales (Norwegian: Norske Folkeeventyr) by the Norwegian folklore collector Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. In 1908 he was made Knight of The Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav.

Theodor Kittelsen was pursued by financial worries throughout his life. In 1910 he had to sell his home in Sigdal and move with his family to Huseby outside Kristiania, and finally to Jeløya outside Moss in 1912, where he died in 1914. Towards the end of his life, Kittelsen was broken down by illness, adversity and disappointments. He still worked until the very end.


The spirit of Kittelsen in his eternal shifting is related to the strongest forces in the Norwegian people. His imagination can swing to Wergeland's flight of the eagle and make mountain goat leaps with Wessel's whimsicality. Werenskiold has in a small critical sketch found the core of Kittelsen’s thought by emphasizing the basic ideas of his unreflected philosophy of life: The contradiction between the petty and limitations of mankind, and the unfathomable grandeur of nature: Life is ignorance and coincidences. The mysterious majesty of death is upon us all.


The day after Kittelsen’s death Henrik Sørensen published a memorial poem in the newspaper Dagbladet:

Night has reached Soria Moria castle -
the golden key is lost, -
the evening path to the castle will never more be found
Behind the hills – in the halls of gold – for ever
the princess is now bound
because – in her kingdom
far behind day and night
the dreamer is now riding the white sunpath
And far into the forest where the forest whistles deep
where a cold wind is spreading -
trees and trolls are waiting -
Waiting for their redeemer.

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 1, 2019 - 10:58am PT
Marlow, takk for det! Really like Kittelsen.

Skomvær - now THAT is getting away from things! LOL!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2019 - 11:17am PT

So, is this where you are, Reilly: Skomvær lighthouse?

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 1, 2019 - 11:25am PT
I wish! Kittelsen was there! I really wanted to go to Røst in July but it didn’t happen.
The ferry schedules were not conducive. You can go Bodø-Røst but you have to go
back to Bodø to get to Å. 😐
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2019 - 11:33am PT

Here's what Kittelsen saw from Skomvaer: Nykene

hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
Jan 1, 2019 - 11:35am PT
back to Bodø to get to Å.
^^^ this is why i love the guy
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Jan 1, 2019 - 01:08pm PT
Here is another of Kittelsen's paintings, now in the royal collection:
It shows the innocent country troll, out for a walk on the main street in Oslo - Karl Johans Gate. He is clearly mystified by what the humans are doing, and wondering why he left his peaceful woods and mountains. On the right, the figure in the top hat is Henrik Ibsen, who stoutly denied the existence of trolls, and other such romanticist claptrap.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2019 - 01:30pm PT

Anders.

Hehe... Ibsen was trolling. In reality he used trolls to great effect in Peer Gynt...

Peer Gynt in the hall of Dovregubben

And here's from Academia:
One can find «trolls» mentioned throughout the entirety of Henrik Ibsens authorship, from his earlierst poetry to his later dramatic work. How they appear in the texts varies, but they are most visible i Peer Gynt (1867). In this thesis I examine the relationship between their apperance; both physical and mental, and the various functions they have in the play. In addition to covering the most common readings of their satirical and psychological functions, I will also consider their function up against Ibsens own thoughts on the poetic treatment of folklore. In Ibsen's earliest poetry and in his nonfiction, he writes thoroughly on how authors ought to use folklore in their creative output. Based on this, I will explore the notion that the trolls are a result of Ibsens mythopoesis; his subjective creation of myths. To do this I will have to examine how Ibsens trolls differ from the various sources Ibsen has used. With the help of various commentaries and annotated versions of the play, I have investigated the intertextuality in relation to the trolls, and discussed the various suggestions of sources Ibsens might have used; in particular I have used the notes in Henrik Ibsens Skrifter (2007) version of the play. My thesis will therefor indirectly serve as a commentary on those.

In my analysis I demonstrate how most of the traits of Ibsens trolls are virtually unchanged from the folklore; mostly the specific traits Ibsen has chosen can be found in two of Peter Christen Asbjørnsens stories, «Høifjeldsbilleder» (1848) and «En Signekjærrings Fortællinger» (1845). Some traits are from other sources, including the satirical tradition of using «under-earthlings» to represent Norwegians. One of the main traits of the trolls is how their inner qualities, like personal flaws, manifest themselves on the troll's outer apperance. Ibsen's mythopoesis consists of developing the troll's character with clear presence and introspection, while still keeping the trolls in line with their folkloric background. By letting the troll society collapse, Ibsen comments on Norwegian society, the state of the modern man and the place of folklore in his own time.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 2, 2019 - 11:23am PT

When Theodor Kittelsen came home from Munich for the first time in the fall of 1880, the new illustrated edition of Asbjørnsen and Moe's Norwegian folk tales had just been published. Suddenly Erik Werenskiold was the big new name in Norwegian illustration art.

Already in 1881, Asbjørnsen had new plans to release a collection of illustrated children's adventures, and it was natural that he first approached Werenskiold.

But he had many other tempting offers and did not need to spend too much time on illustration work for economic reasons. Therefore, on Werenskiold's recommendation, Asbjørnsen accepted Kittelsen as illustrator. In a letter to Asbjørnsen, Werenskiold writes that Kittelsen "is quick to conceive and has a wild, peculiarly inventive imagination.... I have for many years been thinking that he is the man who casn do the parts of your fairy tales that none of us others have till now been able to do, the amazingly creative parts

This would be a happy choice. "Fairy tales for children" came out in the autumn of 1883 with a total of 12 Kittelsen drawings, several of which we know today. In "Fairy tales for Children" that came the following year, Kittelsen draws almost all the animal drawings. It is part of the story that Kittelsen first made some drawings of the Ashlad competing with the troll to eat the most – that were so "wildly grotesque, hideous and scary", that Asbjørnsen believed "children would be terrified". Kittelsen accepted the criticism.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 2, 2019 - 11:23am PT

Erik Theodor Werenskiold (born 11. februar 1855 in Vinger, dead 23. november 1938)


Erik Werenskiold grew up in the fortress town of Kongsvinger, where his father, Captain Frederik Daniel Werenskiold, was commander. He started studying in 1872, but began shortly after taking drawing lessons with Julius Middelthun at the Royal Norwegian Drawing School in Christiania, on the advice of Adolph Tidemand. In the fall of 1875 he went to Munich and stayed there for four years. There he visited an international exhibition that opened his eyes to French outdoor paintings and naturalism. Werenskiold moved to Paris in 1881 to study on his own.

In 1883 Werenskiold moved to Norway. He made several depictions of Norwegian farmers in their natural landscape, as well as portraits of famous people such as Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and Henrik Ibsen. Creating illustrations for fairy tales he had already started while he was in Munich. He illustrated Norwegian folk- and huldre fairy tales in 1879 and continued with Theodor Kittelsen with Fairy tales for Children in Three Volumes in the period 1882–1887. These drawings were collected in 1910 in a separate edition. With their peculiar fusion of reality and fantasy, they are claimed to hit the tone of the Norwegian fairy tales. Furthermore, Werenskiold has illustrated the best known edition of Snorre Sturlason's saga stories and Jonas Lies “The Family at Gilje” (1903).

Werenskiold was strongly influenced by naturalism in the 1880s and 1890s, but later disregarded this and was closely related to newer directions in Norwegian painting. He made decorations with motifs from the fairy tale "Liti Kjersti" on the walls of Fridtjof Nansen's villa Polhøgda at Lysaker, he designed drawings for lock fittings and much more.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 2, 2019 - 12:14pm PT

Werenskiold: Life at farms and in the woods

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 2, 2019 - 12:16pm PT

Here you see some of Werenskiold's illustrations to Snorre's king sagas. Most of the drawings are found at the digital National museum and they are not seen in chronological order.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 2, 2019 - 02:29pm PT

Werenskiold's illustrations to Snorre's king sagas continuing

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 3, 2019 - 09:57am PT

Mighty Hiker posted Kittelsen's drawing of a troll in Oslo with Henrik Ibsen in the lower right part of the drawing. Ibsen used to sit in the restaurant at Hotel Grand on the left side of the street seen, Karl Johans gt. The Norwegian Storting is seen on the right side of the street in the drawing.


... and here you see Werenskiold's Henrik Ibsen portrait

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 3, 2019 - 12:28pm PT

Erik Werenskiold's drawing of Fridtjof Nansen


And then from the life of Fridjof Nansen - photos and some of his drawings:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2019 - 11:35am PT

Rewild the mountain: https://rewild.no/ (teaser)

I am the spirit of the wild
that protects and preserves
the very meaning of your soul
by breaking down your steps
in small pieces...


This ski movie portrays the value and beauty of wild nature and the joy of being in nature. Nature is not only our playground it is the premise for life and our fundament. Often, ski movies portray the human using nature as a playground, in a hectic and action oriented way, where the human ego is in center.

This movie is rather portraying the importance of being present, of enjoying and take in the mighty surroundings the mountains have to offer. The movie is not the standard ski movies, it is eco-philosophical, it shows compositions where man is small in big scenery and it is slow moving as this is how I experience being in nature - not hectic but harmonious and peaceful.
The movie has no dialogue, but a Norwegian poet has developed a narrative to accentuate the essence of the movie in words, to strengthen the images and make the message of the movie even clearer. The poetry is written by Øyvind Egeland.

Magnificent wild nature provides possibilities for reflection. The film is a result of thoughts and reflections that have come out of years spent in the mountains. Feeling insignificant and small in large nature is humbling and this humbleness we need to take with us in our lives.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 14, 2019 - 12:13pm PT
The trailer looks godt!* Looks to be shot around Romsdal?
Didn’t see ANY woods!

*even if they used a drone 😡
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2019 - 12:32pm PT

Rewilded forest for you, Reilly: First Fidjadalen 1927, then today...

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 14, 2019 - 12:44pm PT
Amazing! Hvorfor? Og sammen våningshus!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2019 - 01:04pm PT

The farm at Fed - an old manor. The wealth in part came from a hulder.

A walk through Fidjadalen offers many experiences. There’s a rich bird life, and some plants that are not quite common. There are traces of beaver, and there are deer, although they are not easy to spot. There is trout if you want fishing. The wear on some stones along the path upwards shows that people have walked here for thousands of years. This is a cultural landscape in it’s best sense. The path up the Fidjadalen valley can be difficult to follow. It goes over the scree in the height along Månvannet before it continues at Huldrehaugane. Some believe it is easier to walk on the right side upwards along the Månvannet. This is possible if the water flow and the water level are low, but the river must then be crossed. It can be difficult to get through Fidjadalen early in the year because of ice and snow. The valley is also difficult to get down on skis - although some have done so. By extremely large water flow, it can be difficult and somewhat dangerous to pass the Fidjafossen waterfall.

The farm at Fed was known as a manor and they owned large areas of land. It is said that butter prices fell when the farmer from Fed came to town with his butter. It is also told that a son of the farmer was married to a hulder. Some of the wealth on the farm should come from her.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 14, 2019 - 01:08pm PT
Does the huldra come with a medgift?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2019 - 01:11pm PT

Huldra is both wealthy and mighty... but I doubt "medgift" is an issue. She usually means trouble... The son at Fed must have been lucky with his hulder.
Todd Eastman

Social climber
Putney, VT
Jan 14, 2019 - 03:45pm PT
Wonderful thread!

Thanks
ionlyski

Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
Jan 14, 2019 - 05:03pm PT
Thanks so much Marlow for all your time and energy. I wish my father was still around to enjoy and contribute to this thread.

Mange tak,
Arne
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 14, 2019 - 05:07pm PT
Oh, Arne, unnskyld! “Much roof”? 😳🤓
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 15, 2019 - 09:34am PT

Arne.

If you have memories related to Norway left by your father, you are more than welcome to share...

Norway now has three times as much forest as before WW2: http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1941764&msg=2928545#msg2928545
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 17, 2019 - 11:31am PT

Fay Wildhagen is a talented Norwegian singer/songwriter

Into the woods
[Click to View YouTube Video]

"You are safe with me
Don't worry with the wind chasing the sea
Breathe out Breathe in
Listen to trees caught by the wind
So come on give in
There nothing left to win
Aaahh"

I think Johan Wildhagen who made the film "Rewild the mountain" is her father.
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Jan 17, 2019 - 07:38pm PT
Speaking (and singing) of the wind,


This past December 20 we had a windstorm. Many trees went down.

A person who lives nearby posted a video of two tall trees falling in tandem near their house. It may happen that the root systems of trees close to each other intertwine. This can protect the trees from falling in high winds. The person whose video I saw also posted a much-viewed video (by Thaddeus Moore, perhaps) of wind affecting trees in a forest in Quebec.


[Click to View YouTube Video]





My wife got another book recently that reminded me of this thread. It is photos and stories from Iceland. From one of the stories,

There are few places where the wind blows as hard as at the base of the Eyjafjöll mountains. A storm was brewing when I came. Björn Halldórsson from Holt wanted to feed his horses before the weather broke loose but the hay blew away as soon as he let it go so the horses had to snatch bites out of the air.

The wind grew worse. Vigfús, a farmer at Berjanes, saw his barn roof rise in one piece and fly away only to crash to the ground a few hundred meters from the house. The roofs of Vigfús’ outbuildings had all blown away before.

Yet the horses at Holt didn’t blow away. They planted their feet in the ground until the storm blew over.

The power lines were mended and roofs rebuilt. After each gale the farmers buy longer nails.






I believe that the use of the image is okay according to fair use guidelines.

Further info here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnar_Axelsson



Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 18, 2019 - 10:13am PT

MH2

After each gale the farmers buy longer nails.

Some nails from Finnskogen. The longest one is 25 cm long.


Ragnar Axelsson is new to me. Superb photography...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 18, 2019 - 10:31am PT

Norway has some very talented young musicians at the moment. Here's two of them. Let's first stay in the woods: Aurora - Runaway

[Click to View YouTube Video]

And then to the mountains: Sondre Justad in concert at Festvågtinden, Henningsvær, in Lofoten: "Tett inntil mæ" (Stay close to me)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

I have to thank two colleagues at work, Malin and Bo, for pointing in the direction of the younger generation...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 18, 2019 - 12:14pm PT
That Ragnar Axelsson is big time! Quite the large and impressive body of work.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 19, 2019 - 12:20pm PT

More Ragnar Axelsson...

When Ragnar Axelsson was a boy, back in Iceland, he shot and killed a bird. He says he still feels bad about it. Yet for three decades he has followed the fortunes of Inuit hunters in Greenland, capturing on camera the last throes of a harpooned whale or a cornered polar bear. The chase for a bear can take days, he says, as men and dogs follow pawprints in subzero temperatures. “It gets to the stage where either the bear falls or they fall . . . which is why one feels in the last moments that they share a type of respect for each other.”

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 20, 2019 - 01:23pm PT

The new Oodi library in Helsinki


"A library card was the first thing that was mine, that I had ever owned,” says Nasima Razmyar. The daughter of a former Afghan diplomat, Razmyar arrived in Finland with her family in 1992 as a refugee fleeing political unrest. Unable to speak the language, with scant resources, and trying to make sense of the strange new city she found herself in, she was stunned to discover she was entitled to a library card that would grant her books – for free. Her appreciation of the privilege has not faded: “I still have that library card in my wallet today,” she says proudly.

Today, Razmyar is deputy mayor of Helsinki, and ready to champion the institution that has given her so much – starting with the construction of Oodi, the city’s new central library. She is not alone in her passion for libraries. “Finland is a country of readers,” declared the country’s UK ambassador Päivi Luostarinen recently, and it’s hard to argue with her. In 2016 the UN named Finland the world’s most literate nation, and Finns are among the world’s most enthusiastic users of public libraries – the country’s 5.5m million people borrow close to 68m books a year.

In recognition of that fact, at a time when libraries worldwide are facing budget cuts, a decline in users and closure, Finland is bucking the trend. According to local authority figures from 2016, the UK spends just £14.40 per head on libraries. By contrast, Finland spends £50.50 per inhabitant. While more than 478 libraries have closed in cities and towns across England, Wales and Scotland since 2010, Helsinki is spending €98m creating an enormous new one. Not content with merely building a library, the Finns have gone public with their passion: Mind-building, the Finnish pavilion at this year’s Venice architecture biennale, is a love letter to the nation’s literary landmarks.

Oodi – Ode in English – is more than a sober monument to civic pride. Commissioned as part of Finland’s celebration of a century of independence, the library is no mere book repository. “I think Finland could not have given a better gift to the people. It symbolises the significance of learning and education, which have been fundamental factors for Finland’s development and success,” says Razmyar.

Libraries are seen as the visible face of the Finnish belief in education, equality and good citizenship. “There’s strong belief in education for all,” says Hanna Harris, director of Archinfo Finland and Mind-building’s commissioner. “There is an appreciation of active citizenship – the idea that it is something that everyone is entitled to. Libraries embody that strongly,” she adds.


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 30, 2019 - 10:05am PT

Gro Steinsland: Dovrefjell i tusen aar. Mytene, historien og diktningen. (Mount Dovre for a thousand years. The myths, the history and the poetry.) Dovre has been important when building the country that Norway today is.

My own associative comment:
The Norwegian workers movement with log drivers and people working in the forest found inspiration in the king sagas when they, poor as they were, in the 1920s/early 1930s stood up against the forest owners and demanded their fair share of the value created by their work. Many of them were communists in their own way. Against great resistance from forest owners, bourgeois politicians and their police, and after a long struggle, they were finally able to organize, and they demanded and got a collective agreement. Martin Tranmæl was one of the Norwegian politicians playing an important role, even he inspired by the king sagas.

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 30, 2019 - 10:09am PT
Why is it the ‘kingsway over all other kingsways’?
And why would the king go way up there? 🤓
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 30, 2019 - 10:13am PT

One of the points in this well researched book is that the king really to be connected to Mount Dovre is another king than the king now known to be connected. Go read the book... :o)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 31, 2019 - 08:44am PT

From Norwegian mythology and nation building: How Norway was finally gathered into one kingdom - it happened at Dovre...


King Harald Hårfagre made lifelong bonds to Jotner and the Sami people. Representatives of both groups had contributed to educate him as king. When Harald had almost gathered Norway into one kingdom, only the Sami people were missing in the alliance. Then it happened that one year he celebrated Christmas at Tofte farm in Dovre. Here he met the Finn King Svåse and his beautiful daughter Snøfrid. She offered the king a bowl of mead. He drank it all and held her hand and immediately he felt like a fire came into his body and he wanted to go to bed with her right away. Her father Svåse didn’t allow him. First he had to marry her. So he did. He loved her so dearly that he forgot the whole kingdom. Four sons were born; Sigurd Rise, Halvdan Hålegg, Godrød Ljome and Ragnvald Rettelbeine. When Snøfrid later died, Harald was inconsolable and mourned for three years before he was again able to start his work as king. He was now King of Norway because through the marriage with Snøfrid he had gathered Norway into one kingdom.

Tofte farm at Dovre is real enough:
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 31, 2019 - 09:22am PT

Kongevegen (The King Road) crossing Mount Dovre


The road between Dovre and Oppdal has been one of the most important and widely used mountain crossings in Norway. The mountain plateau separates the southern and northern. The physical tracks of the traffic routes can be traced back to the Iron Age and the Middle Ages. People have traveled over the mountains in all times. We find settlement tracks back to the Stone Age at Dovrefjell.

According to the king sagas, the road over Dovrefjell was an “allfarveg” or main road. An «allfarveg” is mentioned in Magnus Lagabøte's national law from 1274, and is here defined as the most significant road being subject to public regulation. In the Middle Ages, however, most roads were more like trails or riding roads.

At present, there's a Kongevegen project in Norway: https://www.kongevegenoverdovrefjell.no/kongevegen/#om-kongevegen

Following the road: https://www.vegvesen.no/_attachment/2164290/



Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 31, 2019 - 09:54am PT
Fredrik IV skildrer likevel en farefull ferd over Vårstigen, hvor de måtte få hjelp av bøndene i området for å skyve karjolene.

How ‘perilous’ was it if he was riding in buggies? I guess the peril was he would have to
get out and walk if the farmers didn’t push? 😈
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 31, 2019 - 09:57am PT

Hehe... yes, farmers at Dovre and sherpas at Everest...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 1, 2019 - 09:48am PT

Log drivers and the 1930s Randsfjorden conflict with forest owners translated from an article by journalist Terje Valestrand


The conflict between log drivers and forest owners

Fascism opposed communism when Norway's longest labor conflict was fought in the Randsfjord watercourse in Oppland between 1930 and 1936. And connected to the conflict we find Nasjonal Samling (NS) and the nascent Nazism. During the conflict, Torpa kommune chose Norway's only NS Mayor, democratically. For the poorest among the poor, whom the forest workers were called, it was a matter of survival.

From day to day

Specifically, the conflict was about who would work as log drivers in the Dokka and Etna rivers, and at what price. But socially, culturally and politically, in the troubled 30s, it got far larger dimensions. The Randsfjord conflict was characterized by hunger and distress, ideological struggle and armed police against poor families. Log driving happened a few weeks in May, when the rivers went lush enough to be able to transport the timber down to the large lakes and further towards the buyers, who were often industry or sawmills closer to the coast. The log driving was essential for the forest owners, who had to wait a whole year if they did not get the timber out during these weeks. For the workers, this was where they could most effectively go to action to improve their conditions.

Poverty on tender

When the log driving season approached, and the forest owners knew the size of the log, they invited workers to what many considered to be an unworthy show. Different groups of log drivers were asked for a price for driving the log along the different parts of the route. The poorer the people, the cheaper they would do the work. It was poverty and desperation and no solidarity. After all, it was better with a little income than none. Many of the workers had many children and a lot of debt. The daily salary for log driving in Etna / Dokka could be nine NOK. But if the auction was tough, one could come far below that price. The most important thing was to secure a tender. In the spring of 1930, it exploded along the rivers that flow into the Randsfjord. The young Federation of Norwegian Forestry and Labor (hereafter Forestry and Labor) had since the beginning in 1927 recruited more than 90 per cent of the experienced log drivers. Growth was formidable, Forestry and Labor was also marked by the conflict between communists and social democrats. Forest and Land's requirements were to discontinue the tendering scheme and introduce collective agreements, as otherwise in the labor market. The parties met for negotiations at Dokka Hotel on Saturday 15 March. It was here the conflict escalated. The forest owners, both the small and the large, were historical traditionalists, closely connected to their family and "their" peasants and workers. Trade unions and collective agreements were undesirable and seen as unnecessary, it was a communist threat that belonged to the large industry and did not belong to the villages. The forest owners meant this absolutely for the next six years.

Man against man

When the ice melted on the rivers, Forest and Land started a blockade. The forest owners put in what they called "willing people", often young and inexperienced boys who were chased away as strike breakers by the strikers. Already on day two of the conflict police came to the area to help the forest owners. But only four men in uniform could do little. The affected rivers were 130 km long, and the striking log drivers were well organized, wading through snow and slush, blocking the rivers, and chasing away those trying to drive the log. This left bitterness between people on both sides. Families who were previously friends did not speak together. During a party at the Arbeidersamfundet in Fluberg later this year there was a bloody fight, with bottles, stones and the furnace iron. Three men attacked a father and his sons because they had been strike breakers at Tingvoll, where the timber was gathered north in the Randsfjord. "Judas," the striking workers shouted before attacking the father and his sons. In a court case in Hamar in February of the following year, the attackers were sentenced to several months' of imprisonment, NOK 30 in case costs and NOK 150 in compensation to the offended. This was big fines for people who every summer had to dig ditches and drain marshes for the forest owners at a daily salary down to NOK 1.66 "if the terrain was decent", as it was said in the agreements.

Police and dynamite

In the spring of 1931, the actions continued. The forest owners refused to negotiate collective agreements, Forest and Land blocked the rivers. Bitterness grew in pace with poverty. Torpa municipality (now in Northern Land) was very hard hit. Poverty and distress characterized the entire municipality, the municipal care support was cut radically. In other words, the municipality decided that "... contributions must under no circumstances, illness be exempted, paid to persons or their families, who rather increase the difficulties of the village, in any way hinder the performance of others by their lawful work." Striking forest workers should not receive social assistance. This spring, 16 men from the newly created state police were sent to the conflict area. 106 men were organized in this agency which went to action and cleaned up where the local police did not manage the task. The peasant party (Bondepartiet) had the government, and the defense minister was Vidkun Quisling. The state police were best known for their efforts in the Menstad team later that year. In the Randsfjord conflict, they stopped a demonstration of striking workers at Odnes. The protesters were sent back to Dokka. During this action, dynamite was thrown, and exploded without doing any harm. It was an avid striker who threw the dynamite.

... the article continues below...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 1, 2019 - 09:50am PT


The hope that burst

At Gjøvik, a mayor had hope, faith and a warm heart. His name was Niels Ødegaard (Arbeiderpartiet) and he became involved early in the conflict. When the police first appeared on the forest owners ' side, Ødegaard wrote a letter to Justice Minister Haakon Evjenth (Venstre): "... I hope, however, that your heart is not completely unaffected by the fact that 700 poor forest workers are in conflict, and that the authorities' power resources are used against the men who are really responsible in this fight, the stubborn river boards ... » The Gjøvik mayor did more. He gathered the parties to a meeting and many believed it would resolve the conflict. One of the participants at this meeting was big farmer and veterinarian Thorstein Fretheim. Ten years later, he was Minister of Agriculture in the Quisling NS government. Both parties signed a protocol that also the workers union LO set itself behind. The conflict was suspended until the forest owners had organized themselves and formulated a common vision and a common strategy. The setting should be ready well in advance of the next season, that is, in the spring of 1932. But it was not. Both then and in retrospect, the Gjøvik Protocol was criticised. Especially because it gave the forest owners a quiet year of operation, but also because Forest and Land gave up control of the Randsfjord waterways. So one waited in anticipation of what the forest owners would come up with. It would be the hope that burst.

"Fascism in Norwegian"

In May 1932, while the season was in progress, the forest owners came up with their proposal. They would resolve the conflict by creating so-called "forestry associations", where owners and workers stood together, without anyone being organized in other associations or federations. Thus, the industry would collectively run its business, undisturbed by professional organizations or employers' associations. "This was the first complete attempt to realize a kind of corporate fascism by Italian pattern," wrote Johan Ødegård (1890-1955) in his book on Forest and Land, where he was both editor and trustee. He was not alone in drawing the parallel of Mussolini's organization of the Italian business community. Particularly among communists and workers 'parties, the forest owners' model was faced with strong reactions. The Finnish anti-Communist Lappo movement was also an inspiration for one side, and a fear for the other side. And now the Randsfjord conflict became a conflict for the entire Randsfjord waterway. In order for the timber to reach its buyers, the industry along the Drammen River, the log had to be towed 80 km from Dokkadeltaet to Jevnaker. There were two companies that had a monopoly on this transport: "Fellesfløtingen" with the tugboat "Oscar II" and "Randsfjordelskapet" with its tow "Trygve". On board, mostly unorganized seamen and peasant sons from Søndre Land worked. This was where the strikers this time would block the transport.

The police was refused food and accommodation

Twice the state police confronted the population of Jevnaker, where all the timber had to be distributed before it was driven down Randselva towards Hønefoss. On May 31, women and children were the victims. Their men had gathered at a strike meeting in the People's House. 60 men from the state police chased people across the bridge, they mounted a machine gun on the slope, but used only clubs and blows. On June 9, it happened again, this time there were 700 civilians chased by the 60 police officers. The state police were so hated in Jevnaker that they could not buy food, and they had nowhere to stay at night. The entire police staff had to be accommodated in the Military Hvalsmoen closer to Hønefoss. The day after the conflicts at Jevnaker, the newspaper Aftenposten wrote: "The state police have shown forceful and correct behavior and have put themselves in the respect of these troublemakers.”

Quisling moves in

On March 3, 1933, the Peasant Party (Bondepartiet) government fell, and Vidkun Quisling's time as Defense Minister was over. Two months later, he founded his own party, National Samling (NS). The party's first county group came in Oppland, where the Randsfjord conflict raged for the third year. Over many parts of the region, "forestry associations" were created, which the forest owners had proposed, and many workers joined. "Now Forest and Land is a fairy tale," wrote the newspaper Vestopland, which was the farmer's newspaper. Quisling went on several tours to villages with mixed success. At a meeting in Søndre Land, the local Labor Party had invited 400 spectators, who shouted when Quisling repeatedly tried to start his speech with "Norwegian women and men ..." Finally he gave up. A man was fined 50 kroner for leading the rebellion. His fine was covered by the workers' association. In the crisis-affected municipality of Torpa, NS had greater success. At the municipal elections in 1934, large-scale farmer Arve Frøisland was elected Norway's first and only NS mayor, supported by Bondepartiet (the Peasant Party) and the Radical Party - a bourgeois labor party that disappeared nationally in 1918, but continued for many years as a municipal party in some counties in Eastern Norway.

Defended in court by Trygve Lie

Stortinget had adopted a boycott law, after pressure from farmers and the business community. The law was proposed by the Peasant Party government and enforced by Venstre (the Liberal Party), which took over. This was now used in several court settlements during the conflict. A profiled NS lawyer, Johan B. Hjort, which was one of the founders of Quisling's party, defended the forest owners. While a rising star in the Labor Party, Trygve Lie, was the unions' defender. He later became Minister several times and eventually the UN's first Secretary General. In the log driving trials there was just as much ideology at play as pure law. The A-press wrote: "Now NS has taken over the management of the Randsfjord conflict". The outcome of these cases was somewhat surprising for the forest owners. The boycott law meant that they could no longer favor workers organized in the forestry associations and keep out the trade unions of Forest and Land. Slowly, the conflict resolved, even though collective tariff agreements still were far from what forest owners wanted. First in the spring of 1936 Dokka Elveforening established an agreement with Forest and Land. Then the last ones followed and collective agreements were established for log drivers and people working in the forest. Six years had then gone since the Randsfjorden conflict started.

Before the Randsfjorden conflict you had the Julussa conflict at Elverum and Rena and there were many similar conflicts in the 1920s and first half of the 1930s...

Gotmar Sletengen who you see below was involved in the Julussa conflict in the late 1920s. The photo is taken later.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 1, 2019 - 10:21am PT

My grandfather Martinus worked in the forests of Åsnes in Solør during the 1920s and 1930s. He once told us a story about one time when he went to a forest owner to pick up his wage. Walking up to the house he saw the forest owner through the window. My grandfather took off his hat and the forest owners wife opened the door. He asked for his wage and she answered: "No, you cannot get your wage. My husband is not at home". He had to return without his wage, go to the local grocery and "buy" on "krita" to feed wife and children who waited at home. The debt was noted in a little book. He was not the only one who had to buy on "krita".


My grandfather only told us this story once when I was a young boy, but I remember it to this day, and it has played a part in forming who I am...

Some forest owners treated their workers with respect, other forest owner were known troublemakers, but the forest workers had to take work where work was.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 2, 2019 - 09:32am PT

Then it's time to repeat "The ones who built this country" (De som byggde landet) - Mora-Per, Mikael Wiehe and Sofia Karlsson

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Here's a translation of the song:

The ones who built this country (text and music P-E Eriksson)

Five hundred years ago
There was a dream and a land
Miles of forests
For slash and burn…/
With children on the arm
They started walking for something that was better
A sky, towards mountains that were blue /
They ploughed up the land
And put their rye in black-burned forests
As no one had been able to /
They forced stones up from the ground
They put them in piles, they lie here still...

Oh… They were the ones who built the country / …

When grandfather was sixteen
There was a dream of a country
With miles of plains
A prairie that burned /
He went to America
And worked his way up
Sawmills and buildings
Among sawdust, rags and dust /
After twenty years in America
He returned home
With money in his pocket
And a back that was straight /
It was soon after the war
He was going over again
Then he met my grandmother
He stayed, and he is lying here still…

Oh ... / They were the ones who built the country/…

Vito was twenty
The war was over
His land was in ruins
He longed for something else/
No job, no money
He left his village
Took the train up north
An adventure, something new /
There was a country up in the North
With white nights and light
With winters so cold
And red small houses /
They needed his hands
They needed his time
And people who he knew from the village
Had already arrived…

Oh… / They were the ones who built the country/…

I look at the country that was built
I see how much is now being torn down
From the dreams you had
So that some should get more /
This country is ours
We got it from you
We are building this country,
there is room for others ...

Oh ... We are the ones who build this country/…
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Feb 2, 2019 - 09:40am PT
Nice pic of farfar and Trond.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 2, 2019 - 10:16am PT

When I was 3-4 years old grandfather Martinus used to take me on his arm and carry me out in the stable to Trond with a slice of bread. I loved the bread crust and ate it on the way out, but the rest of the bread Trond got. Good memories...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 10, 2019 - 09:53am PT

The European population

Europeans are the descendants of at least three major migrations of prehistoric people. First, a group of hunter-gatherers arrived in Europe about 37,000 years ago. Then, farmers began migrating from Anatolia (a region including present-day Turkey) into Europe 9000 years ago, but they initially didn’t intermingle much with the local hunter-gatherers because they brought their own families with them. Finally, 5000 to 4800 years ago, nomadic herders known as the Yamnaya swept into Europe. They were an early Bronze Age culture that came from the grasslands, or steppes, of modern-day Russia and Ukraine, bringing with them metallurgy and animal herding skills and, possibly, Proto-Indo-European, the mysterious ancestral tongue from which all of today’s 400 Indo-European languages spring. They immediately interbred with local Europeans, who were descendants of both the farmers and hunter-gatherers. Within a few hundred years, the Yamnaya contributed to at least half of central Europeans’ genetic ancestry.

Until about 9,000 years ago, Europe was home to a genetically distinct population of hunter-gatherers. Then, 9,000 to 7,000 years ago, the genetic profiles of the inhabitants in some parts of Europe abruptly changed, acquiring DNA from Near Eastern populations.

Archaeologists have long known that farming practices spread into Europe at the time from Turkey. But the new evidence shows that it wasn’t just the ideas that spread — the farmers did, too.

The hunter-gatherers didn’t disappear, however. They managed to survive in pockets across Europe between the farming communities.

“It’s an amazing cultural process,” said David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School who led the university’s team. “You have groups which are as genetically distinct as Europeans and East Asians. And they’re living side by side for thousands of years.”

From 7,000 to 5,000 years ago, however, hunter-gatherer DNA began turning up in the genes of European farmers. “There’s a breakdown of these cultural barriers, and they mix,” Dr. Reich said.

About 4,500 years ago, the final piece of Europe’s genetic puzzle fell into place. A new infusion of DNA arrived — one that is still very common in living Europeans, especially in central and northern Europe.

The closest match to this new DNA, both teams of scientists found, comes from skeletons found in Yamnaya graves in western Russia and Ukraine.

Archaeologists have long been fascinated by the Yamnaya, who left behind artifacts on the steppes of western Russia and Ukraine dating from 5,300 to 4,600 years ago. The Yamnaya used horses to manage huge herds of sheep, and followed their livestock across the steppes with wagons full of food and water.

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Feb 10, 2019 - 06:09pm PT
Why is Yamnaya feminine yet the Afanasievo is neutral?
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2019 - 08:04am PT

Reilly.

That's hard to say.

Upon the name Yamnaya:

The name Yamnaya was given by the archeologists who discovered the culture. They were Russians and named it in Russian: "yamnaya", which means "pitt-grave", after the burial sites that typified this culture and distinguished it from the otherwise similar neighboring "catacomb" (which is again a reference to the burial rites) culture . Now, one question could be if the Russian word Yamnaya shares its etymology with the Vedic Yama.

And, yes, there's a relation. Yama or Yamarāja is a god of death, the south direction, and the underworld, belonging to an early stratum of Rigvedic Hindu deities. In Sanskrit, his name can be interpreted to mean "twin". In the Zend-Avesta of Zoroastrianism, he is called "Yima".
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2019 - 08:12am PT

Yamnaya culture
DNA tests indicate that the Yamnaya-people were the result of admixture between two different hunter-gatherer populations: distinctive "Eastern European hunter-gatherers" with high affinity to the Mal'ta-Buret' culture or other, closely related Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) people from Siberia and to Western Hunter Gatherers (WHG) and a population of "Caucasus hunter-gatherers" who probably arrived from somewhere in the Near East, probably the Caucasus or Iran. Each of those two populations contributed about half the Yamnaya DNA.

According to Dr. Andrea Manica of the University of Cambridge they've found that the Yamnaya genetic make-up is a mix of Eastern European hunter-gatherers and a population from a pocket of Caucasus hunter-gatherers who weathered much of the last Ice Age in apparent isolation.

Early Bronze Age men from the vast grasslands of the Eurasian steppe swept into Europe about 5000 years ago—and may have left most women behind. This mostly male migration may have persisted for several generations, sending men into the arms of European women who interbred with them, and leaving a lasting impact on the genomes of living Europeans.

“It looks like males migrating in war, with horses and wagons,” says lead author and population geneticist Mattias Jakobsson of Uppsala University in Sweden.

Eastern Europe and Finland
In the Baltic, Jones et al. (2017) found that the Neolithic transition – the passage from a hunter-gatherer economy to a farming-based economy – coincided with the arrival en masse of individuals with Yamnaya-like ancestry. This is different from what happened in Western and Southern Europe, where the Neolithic transition was caused by a population which came from the Near East, with Pontic steppe ancestry only being detected from the late Neolithic onward.

Per Haak et al. (2015), the Yamnaya contribution in the modern populations of Eastern Europe ranges from 46.8–64.9% among Russians to 42.8% in Ukrainians. Finland has one of the highest Yamnaya contributions in all of Europe (50.4–67.8%)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2019 - 08:52am PT

Mikael Niemi, Koka björn (To Cook a Bear)


“To cook a bear” sees Niemi return once more to his native Tornedalen in Sweden’s Arctic. The story takes place in 1852, in the village of Kengis, where the consequences of a momentous summer reverberate into a sobering autumn. One of its central figures is the Swedish pastor Lars Levi Laestadius, a prominent revivalist, botanist and teetotaller with Sami roots whose legacy Niemi touched on in Popular Music, the novel which brought him fame. Although there are allusions to Milla Clementsdotter, Laestadius’ spiritual muse, and to the Kautokeino rebellion, references to the spread of Laestadianism across Arctic Scandinavia end there. The rest is fiction, adeptly conjured up through Niemi’s powerful, spellbinding writing.

The nexus of the story is the relationship between Laestadius and a Sami foundling boy, barely able to talk, whom he discovers neglected and abused at the wayside. Laestadius names the boy Jussi, and enters his birth retrospectively in the parish register, thereby symbolically bringing him into existence. Over the years the pastor teaches him the power of letters, reading and language, and respect for indigenous Arctic flora. Jussi grows into a young man whose childhood scars and mental demons set him apart. Many villagers fear this otherness, believing him to be a Noaidi, a Sami shaman capable of sorcery.

The prejudices are great, the local establishment strong and hostile. The brandy is a dividing line. The brandy generates income for the Swedish-speaking upper class and keeps the service people in place. But the evil forces do not only fit into a bottle.

At the same time as the highly appreciated priest, yes the master, must appear to be strong and wise, he wrestles constantly with faith and doubt. At last, Jussi does too. The ambush devil always lurks around the corner, self-righteousness, pride, affectation and selfishness. Niemi's novel is a lesson in social and human knowledge.

One day Laestadius makes a discovery that will unleash a series of fatal events. While out walking, he discovers a pole poking out of the black water on the springy marshland. Shaking it, he realises that the glinting in the sludge is blond human hair. A young maid has gone missing. The villagers are convinced she is the victim of a killer bear, and a bounty is promised to whoever can deliver the beast’s skull. Prejudices surface. Swedish-speaking local powers among the poorer Finnish and Sami-speaking villagers become hostile, wanting to maintain the status quo. Brahe, the local bailiff and Michelsson, his petit constable, are among them. But Laestadius will have none of it; his knowledge of the lie of the land and what grows in it tells him that the killer is two-footed. As the number of suspicious deaths that summer grows, despite the sacrificial slaughter of a pregnant bear, the pastor disregards Brahe and Michelsson’s theories of natural causes, accident or misadventure. Instead, he uses contemporary science in the form of daguerreotypy, fingerprints and botanical knowledge to collect evidence for his own theories. In contrast, the bailiff and constable continue to proffer their out-of-date, evidence-scant verdicts with increasing menace.

What of the bear? Niemi’s titles are inventive, and the bear is a metaphor here. Its body represents evil, one of the novel’s subtexts being how evil arises, how it is manifested and feared. The skull houses the soul. An abhorrent analogy is drawn later when two academics visiting Karesuando during Laestadius’ time there look for Sami crania for research purposes. Boiling a stew is how the drunken bear hunters envisage tasting the meat, while boiling the she-bear’s head is the pastor’s strange instruction to Jussi.

Niemi’s narrative technique is beguiling. The novel falls into four sections, each beginning with a verse. You naturally seek to deduce the author of the verses and whether they are written by the same hand. The first-person narrative is shared by Jussi and, as the book progresses, the pastor. However, an omniscient narrator appears in places to intrigue you further. Whose is this voice, and how are they privy to such information?

More than historical crime fiction, “To Cook a Bear” is a literary novel with crossover points. Niemi’s characterisations are vivid, sharp and credible: these people inhabit your mind long after you have finished the book. A skilled wordsmith and natural writer, Niemi juxtaposes lyrical pastoral beauty with the grotesque and the hideous. He is able to enchant, lull and repulse in equal measure. This is writing that will make you think. The story doesn’t end on the last page...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2019 - 10:16am PT

Origins of Horse Domestication: Botai, Yamnaya, Sintashta
[Click to View YouTube Video]

David Reich: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2019 - 10:32am PT

Ole Andreas, 99 years old and hunting moose in the forests of Oppland. Norway

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Feb 12, 2019 - 12:04pm PT
hunting Moose

As long as he's not doing it here.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2019 - 12:24pm PT

Hehe... yes, Moosedrool is protected...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Feb 12, 2019 - 01:01pm PT
Ja, I could easily sit there a couple of days smoking a ‘pipe’ with Ole!
His Oppland accent isn’t too hard to forstår! Sounds like stefarens fra Randsfjorden. 🤡
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 13, 2019 - 12:35pm PT

The Luossa cabin where poet Dan Andersson lived with his family 1912-1915. Here you today find his worktable, his bookcase and his guitar.


This tune deserves repetition: Sonja Aldén - "Omkring tiggar'n från Luossa" ('Round the beggar from Luossa)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

'Round The Begger From Luossa (Lyrics: Dan Andersson)

From Luossa came a beggar singing to the village folk.
Round the watch fire they lingered while he sang
Songs of pilgrims and of beggars, song of wondrous, wondrous things
And of his yearning did he sing the whole night long

"There is something beyond mountains, beyond stars and all the blossoms,
Something, too, behind my song, behind this burning heart of mine
Listen — something goes and whispers, goes and lures me and beseeches
Come to us, for earth below is not the kingdom that is thine!"

I have listened to the lapping of waves upon the shore,
I have dreamed that the wildest seas were calm and still.
And in spirit I have hurried to that contourless land,
Where the dearest we have known we´ll know no more.

To a wild, eternal longing were we born of ash-pale mothers,
And from travail, anxious, painful, rose our first, our wailing cry
Were we tossed on plain and hillside, just to tumble round and frolic,
Then we played at elk and lion, beggar, God and butterfly.

Did I sit beside her, silent, she whose heart was as my own,
Did she tend our home with soft and gentle hands,
Loudly was my own heart shouting, "What you own there is not yours!"
And my spirit drove me onward to find peace.

What I love is lying yonder, lies concealed in dusky distance,
And my rightful way leads high to wonders there.
In this clamor I am tempted to beseech Him, "Lord, O Master,
Take all earth away, for own I will what no one, no one has

Join me, brother, beyond mountains with their still and cooling rivers,
Where the sea is slow to slumber in its peak-encircled bed.
Somewhere far beyond the heavens lies my home, have I my mother
In a gold-besprinkled vapor, in rose-tinted mantle clad.

May the black and brackish waters cool our cheeks with fever reddened,
May we be from life far distant where the morning is awake
Never was I one with this world, and unending tribulation
Suffered, restless, unbelieving, suffered from my burning heart.

On a seashore sown with cockles stands a gate with roses laden,
There in slumber, vagrants perish and all weary souls find peace.
Song is never heard resounding, viols never echo, ringing
Under arches where forever cherubs of salvation dwell.

Translated by Caroline Schleef


And then in Finnish: Esa Niemitalo - Luossan kerjäläinen

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2019 - 11:24am PT

Log driver photos from "The Book about Lekvattnet" (Boken om Lekvattnet)

https://www.lekvattnet.se/skog-flottning-och-sagverk/flottningen/

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2019 - 10:23am PT

Ritamäki, Lekvattnet, Sweden

Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Feb 17, 2019 - 07:53pm PT
You can count on Marlow to deliver the goods, here and on L'Equipement de l'Alpiniste 1900. Coincidentally, making marmelade today - but not Marlowmelade. Or Moosemelade. Or Mousemalade.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2019 - 10:07am PT

Anders.

The marmalade made me think of rhubarb soup and jam. When we were young boys our mother in late spring/early summer always made rhubarb soup. We found the soup cold in the refrigerator as a surprise when we returned home after a long day of playing football. It tasted of heaven...

Also our grandfather loved the soup. When he went on fishing trips on his Tempo Corvette moped he had 2 litres of rhubarb soup and a bottle of vodka in his rucksack. I never saw him drunk and he always returned home with a small bucket of trout which led to another culinary peak experience - trout fried in butter and with sour cream. Life is good…

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2019 - 10:37am PT

A spiritual song if there ever was one... Roine Lindström: I will walk through silent clouds (lyrics: Dan Andersson)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

I will walk through silent clouds
through seas of starry light
I will walk during white nights
until I find my father's house

Slowly I will knock on the gate
where no one leaves any more
and I will sing with joy
as I never sang before
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 22, 2019 - 10:48am PT

"Anytime I can disappear. Such is the wanderer. Now I'm here, and in the next moment I'm there. I get on my feet, put the rucksack on my back and start to walk. That's all. The poor can live this way. All I own I carry on my back. The clothes on my body, the knife in the belt. The stone of flint and the bowl for food, the sheath of horn, the bag with salt. Altogether, they weigh almost nothing. I'm quick and nimble on the foot, before anyone misses me, I'm over the next river valley. I leave no traces. Not more than any animal. My feet are stepping on grass and moss, and they immediately rise again. When I make up fire, I use old bonfires, my ashes lie down on others' ashes and in this way become invisible. My necessity I do in the woods, I fold up a turf and put it back in place afterwards. The next walker can put his foot straight on it without noticing, only the fox can sense a weak human odor. During the winters, I leave ski tracks across the soft sky of silky snow. I float four feet above the ground, and when spring comes, all the traces melt. Man can live this way. Without really being there. Being just like the forest, like the summer foliage and the falling leaves of autumn, like the mid-winter snow and the countless buds at spring. And when you finally leave, it's like you've never been here."

Translated by Marlow from "To Cook a Bear" by Mikael Niemi


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 23, 2019 - 11:11am PT

Nitahå-Jussi is said to have been the last wanderer at Finnskogen. He knew the woods well and took a job where he found it, when he needed it. He lived and worked for a while in the US, but returned to Sweden to take over the farm after his father's death. Someone had illegally taken the farm and years of juridical trouble started. In the film "Finnskog and trollskap" we are following Jussi. The film made him "famous", as did the book that was written about him. The book carried his own name. He was still active as an old man - as you see from the pictures below. I think he's in his 80's. The film "Finnskog and trollskap" has finally reached dvd and is now to be bought. In the film is also my great grandfather on my father's side - Laurits - a man worth his own film.

Some Jussi quotes:
"These woods are my woods, though I do not own them."
"I'm following the bird-paths."
"There's a trick to solve everything." (Det er et knep ved alt)

Here you see him at old age:

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 24, 2019 - 11:47am PT

Then I leave the word to an Irish poet: The Song of Wandering Aengus. Words by W.B.Yeats. Spoken by Michael Gambon

[Click to View YouTube Video]

The Song of Wandering Aengus
By William Butler Yeats
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.


The Waterboys
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Feb 24, 2019 - 11:51am PT
I may have to eat raspeballs later.

(I've had them before - a nice way to dress up potatoes.)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 24, 2019 - 11:54am PT

Anders

You have nothing to fear... :o)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 28, 2019 - 10:50am PT

Troll Wall by Kilian Jornet

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 1, 2019 - 01:22pm PT

In Sweden, the migration of the Forest Finns was at first masterminded and encouraged by the kings, notably Charles IX (reign: 1604–11) and Gustavus Adolphus (reign: 1611–32). They did so in order to make the vast border areas of the North, East and West of the kingdom inhabited. Among attractions offered for the migrating Finnish farmers in Sweden were seven years total exemption of all taxation and the prospect of ownership of large fertile plots of land.

The situation would change as an emerging, but primitive, iron industry was growing in the beginning of the 17th century, smelting was powered by charcoal. The Forest Finns with their demanding slash-and-burn agriculture were suddenly considered an economic threat by increasing the cost of charcoal by burning off now valuable timber. The burning of the forests was officially forbidden in 1647 and the Finns were obliged to support the iron factories by providing charcoal at an artificially low price.

By the end of the 18th century, a large part of the descendants of the Forest Finns had become culturally assimilated into the Swedish mainstream population. During the previous two centuries, various laws and regulations had been passed to speed up the "Swedification" process of the Forest Finns, including total banning of the use of Finnish language.

During the reign of Christina, Queen of Sweden, a proclamation of 1646 called for the burning of houses of all those Finns who did not want to learn Swedish in the area that was later to be called Sweden Proper, west of the Gulf of Bothnia. Reading books written in Finnish in some cases led to imprisonment still in the 18th century.

In Denmark–Norway (Norway was then part of a union), the situation was somewhat similar. The Dano-Norwegian authorities in Copenhagen were allegedly in favor of the de facto immigration and their slash-and-burn agriculture due to the relatively high yields of rye production, compared to traditional Norwegian staples. However, from the middle of the 17th century the locals communicated their dissatisfaction with the newcomers, and in 1648 King Frederick III issued a "decree on the Forest Finns" (Norwegian: Forordning om skogfinner), an ultimatum which provided they either return to Sweden or accept the same taxation as the native Norwegians.

Despite new legislation by 1673, immigration continued, and by 1686 the authorities responded by arranging the Forest Finn Census (Norwegian: Finnemanntallet) – at the time probably the most detailed census in Norway. It not only included men, but also women and children of the Forest Finn population. The 1686 census still exists and provides valuable information about the extent of the immigration to Norway at that time, and a total of 1,225 people (including 160 of mixed Finnish-Norwegian descent) were accounted for. Furthermore, most of them were in fact second or third generation descendants of immigrants from Savonia.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 4, 2019 - 12:30pm PT

The legend of the three axes
An old Estonian legend tells us: "On the shore of a lake a poor man once chopped a log of alder tree. Suddenly the axe jumped off the shaft and sank in the water. The man searched for it on the bottom of the lake and at last he thought he had touched it. He jumped into the water and searched where he meant he had felt the axe, but he could not find it. He dived several times and explored the bottom – but no. Very sad he went back on land with tears in his eyes observing the lake where he had lost his axe. He then went home to get another axe. The forest owner was very rich, but greedy and very angry. He said: - If you have thrown the axe into the lake, then you have to cut the log with your hands or however you want to do it. A stable of wood shall be put up before the evening. If not, you don’t get your wage! The man returns to the beach and continues his search diving many times, but - no. What should I do? He mourns and sits down on the ground. Now I have no axe and I get no pay! My wife and the children will have no food tomorrow! Hardly has he said this, before he hears the sea starts bubbling and foaming and he sees an old man with a large grey beard comes swimming towards him. The man is afraid, but the old man raises from the water and asks: - Why are you sorry? The woodcutter tells the story and complains about his bad luck. The old man answers - This I know. But wait! I will search for your axe. He disappears into the water and returns with a copper axe in his hands, shows it to the man and asks: - Is this your axe? - No, answers the man. The old man dives another time, and now he is brings up a silver axe, shows it to the woodcutter and asks: - Is it this one? - No, the man answers. The old man dives a third time and comes up bringing a golden axe. He asks: - Then it must be this one? - No, the man answers. Again the old man dives and now he comes up with the man’s real axe. The man reaches for it with great thankfulness. The old man also gives him the other three axes, the one of gold, the one of silver and the one of copper. Then the man finishes his work. In the evening he tells his greedy master about his good fortune. His master thinks: - You only wait! You did not understand to take the precious things, the old man had to force them on you! – I will handle this task better! He brings three axes with bad shafts to the lake and starts cutting trees. The first axe jumps off the shaft and into the sea. Then the second axe and the third. He then walks up and down the beach, regretting loudly, until the old man from the water appears and asks about the reason for his grief. Then the old man dives into the water and comes up with three golden axes and asks: Are these your axes? Yes, they are mine! The answer comes very quickly, and the greedy man stretches out his arms to receive the axes. But suddenly the water is boiling up and foam is flying into the eyes. At the same time the old man disappears and the water is suddenly quiet. Not a single wave is moving. For a long time the man keeps sitting on the beach nearly in panic. Not a sound - nothing to see. Ashamed and sorry that he lost the three axes he at last walks home. During the rest of his life he never again returns to the beach"
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 4, 2019 - 12:30pm PT

Individualism was an unknown phenomenon in this society

Individualism was an unknown phenomenon in this society. The complex cultivation cycle consisted of a variety of carefully synchronized tasks, performed by individuals in an intimate partnership. This interaction should be so well established that the individual fits into the community. These sophisticated procedures are not well performed by outsiders, and are in the older literature often characterized as religious rituals, without being given any practical significance. Only rarely have outsiders been able to understand the functional correlation. Swidden cultivation depended on the different procedures being correctly and synchronously executed. Incorrect procedures were disastrous, and could not be accepted. Religion was strings of knowledge about the world, a communication process where the knowledge is kept alive through constant use, and new knowledge is developed and displaces useless routines with new rituals. The code was ruled by the forest, air and water spiritual supernatural beings. Skogsråa / wood nymph, giants and dwarfs lived in the underworld (allima), and they were given three functions: to help those people who respect and appreciate the forest spirits, punishing those who break the rules of the forest, and to remind that in the forest you are not the boss, you can not act arbitrarily. Similarly, the air (taevas) and water spirits, (jumal) were both helping and punishing.

Per Martin Tvengsberg

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 4, 2019 - 12:54pm PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 7, 2019 - 10:21am PT

Grindzone, grindstone, grinderman

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 8, 2019 - 03:36pm PT

Into the woods

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 11, 2019 - 10:22am PT

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 12, 2019 - 12:10pm PT

JazzBaltica 2017: Jan Lundgren "Tribute to Jan Johansson"

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 16, 2019 - 12:19pm PT

Moa Martinson (1890-1964)

Moa Martinson Literary Society: https://www.moamartinson.se/


Moa Martinson was born on 2 November 1890 in Vårdnäs, Linköping Municipality. Her mother was Kristina Swartz (sometimes spelt Christina Schwartz) who served as a maid wherever jobs were available. There are no legal records stating who her father was, but according to researchers Annika Johansson and Bonnie Festin, he was probably Anders Teodor Andersson, a farmhand who served at the Kärr farm in Motala at the same time as Swartz. Since she carried, what in those days was referred to as an illegitimate child, she had to go to her parents home for the birth. Swartz' father, Nils Peter Swartz, was a poor soldier who lived with his wife, Carin Olofsdotter, in a derelict croft in Vårdnäs. On 17 February 1891, Swartz sued Andersson for child support at the Motala district court, where two witnesses testified that they had seen her and Andersson in the same bed around the time the child would have been conceived. Andersson failed to appear in court in February as well as on the two following hearings. Swartz finally said that he had gone to America and the proceedings were stayed. The identity of her father was unknown to Martinson her entire life, but her speculations about who it could be were an inspiration for her work.

During the first years of her life, Martinson lived with her paternal grandparents and their youngest daughter Hulda while Swartz worked as a maid or in the textile mills in Norrköping. There are many discrepancies in the timeline of Martinson's early year between official records and her books. These are most likely due to that her stories built on the oral traditions of the family. In 1892, her grandfather became ill and died and her grandmother could no longer take care of Martinson so she went to live with her mother. There is no record of where they lived until 1894, when they moved to Norrköping. Swartz earned very little money. In 1894–1896, she worked at Norrköping's wool weaving mills, where working conditions were extremely bad and wages low. During her early school years, Martinson had a stepfather, Alfred Karlsson, who she described as an alcoholic. He was a sometime statare who worked odd jobs in the countryside outside Norrköping. He married Swartz on 11 March 1896, and they had three more daughters, but they all died within days of being born. After the years at the textile mill, the family moved several times to different locations in Östergötland, settling down for a time wherever work was available. This affected Martinson's schooling since they only stayed in one place for a couple of months. Despite this, she left school with high marks after six years in 1903. She was confirmated in 1905 in Risinge Church, Finspång Municipality, after which she got her first job at a farm in Vikbolandet.


[Click to View YouTube Video]

In Martinson's book Kvinnor och äppleträd (Women and Apple Trees), which is set in Norrköping, she described the hard and ruthless situation she and her mother were in during the 1890s. In the novel we find Ellen who is being confirmed. She has several times been abused. During the confirmation the priest warns the girls and says that they must be submissive. Ellen thinks for herself:

“What does he know about fear and dark backyards? Does he know that no prayers can guard against rats? Full of himself he knows nothing...”

Because of this book, Martinson was accused for denigration by right-wing critics, but Martinson said that what she did was the opposite. The different run-down lodgings the family moved in and out of are described in the books Kyrkbröllop (Church wedding) and (My Mother Gets Married) as well as in a couple of the short stories in Jag möter en diktare (I meet a poet).

Martinson's political interest started to develop in 1921, when unemployment in Sweden was higher than ever before, and in 1922 she and Johansson joined the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden where Martinson became very active. To further educate herself, she read the works of authors like Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Émile Zola, Maxim Gorky and Martin Andersen Nexø. Because of her political interest in better pay and conditions for workers and her ability to speak in any context, she was elected to the municipal council in Sorunda where she represented the labour party. She resigned from office in 1926. In November 1922, Martinsson wrote her first article for the syndicalist paper Arbetaren's ("The Worker's") page for women. She continued writing for the paper and in 1923 she had articles published weekly in Arbetaren. In her articles she wrote about how men and women should work together for a better world. She engaged in many debates, especially those involving women's issues.

With her work for Arbetaren she developed her writing skills, but even though she often pushed the boundaries in her articles, she went too far in 1924, when she wrote that women and men should receive equal pay for equal work. Quarrels started at the magazine, resulting in Martinson resigning from the paper, but due to her contributions in Arbetaren she was now known to the public although mostly in syndicalistic circles.

One author who had significant impact on Martinson was Martin Andersen Näxö. It was the first time she recognized her own experiences in a literary work. She wrote a letter to him, telling him about her own life and also sent an article she had written for Arbetaren. Näxö responded positively, telling her she should write a book about her life. Shortly afterwards Martinson started writing the book Pigmamman ("The Maid Mother"). In 1925, she worked for a new magazine called Vi kvinnor ("We women"), where she contributed with articles, novels and causeries.



During the 1970s, Martinson became a role model for female writers during the feminist movement in the Nordic countries. Earlier, during the 1960s, she had been labeled "the cheerful chronicler of misery" by Swedish author Erik Hjalmar Linder.

"Paradoxically enough, I am mostly indignant not because I was denied the possibility to get a university education, but because I landed right in the same anonymous hell as my mother. Maybe it was even harder for me, for I was fully conscious that it was hell. I was clear about the injustice against all of us, and powerless."
— From foreword for My Mother Gets Married

In 1989, a literary award named after Martinson was instituted by the Workers' Educational Association (Arbetarnas bildningsförbund, ABF) and the Moa Martinson Society. The Moa Award (Moa-priset) is an annual prize awarded to a person who writes in the spirit of Martinson

Moa-priset 2018: Sara Stridsberg - Kärlekens Antarktis (The Antarktis of love)

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 17, 2019 - 01:56pm PT

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2019 - 04:10pm PT

Minna Canth (1844-1897)


Ulrika Wilhelmina Johnsson was born in Tampere on 19 March 1844, the elder daughter and first surviving child of Gustav Vilhelm Johnsson, whose hard work in the Finlayson textile factory enabled him to become a foreman there. At home and at school she was strongly influenced by the emphasis on industry and piety, and when in 1853 her father was promoted to manager of the Finlayson textile shop in Kuopio, she continued her education there, doing so well that she was allowed to enter a school for daughters of the upper classes and, in 1863, to enrol at the newly-founded teacher training college in Jyväskylä (now the University of Jyväskylä), the first institute in Finland to admit women to higher education and to deliver teaching in Finnish.

However, before completing her studies, Minna married the college’s natural sciences teacher, Johan Canth, who was nine years her senior, and over the next thirteen years produced a family of seven children. Nevertheless, this was not the end of her ambitions, which developed in a literary direction. Canth became the editor of the newspaper Keski-Suomi (Central Finland), and his wife contributed articles on matters particularly relevant to women, including temperance, which she saw as a means of combating the addiction to alcohol which reduced many families to poverty. Her polemical attitude, which her husband shared, compelled them to leave Keski-Suomi in 1876 and to move in 1877 to a rival newspaper, Päijänne, which began to print her stories. Two years later her first collection of these, Novelleja ja kertomuksia (‘Novellas and Tales’) appeared in print.

Minna Canth did not shrink from taking on prominent public figures such as churchmen and authors when the occasion demanded. In 1885 she published one of her most famous plays, Työmiehen vaimo (‘The Wife of a Workman’), the story of a spirited and capable woman, Johanna, whose shiftless husband Risto ruins the family by drinking her money away while the laws governing women’s property render her helpless to prevent him. Set in contemporary Kuopio, the drama created a considerable scandal; that same year, its author spoke out robustly against a bishop who claimed that emancipation was against God’s law and the writer Gustaf af Geijerstam who supported him by arguing that men’s different needs and nature made it impossible for them to achieve feminine purity. Before the year was out, the Finnish Parliament had passed a new law allowing married women to hold property in their own right.

Around her a literary salon arose, which brought together young writers and artists such as Karl August Tavastjerna, Jean Sibelius and Akseli Gallen-Kallela.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2019 - 04:26pm PT

The 50th and final Runo (canto) of the Kalevala

In the 50th and final Runo (canto) of the Kalevala, the narrator tells of Marjatta, a cherished and protected young girl so pure that she will not drive in a sleigh pulled by mares who have been running with a stallion, or drink milk from cows who have been kept with a bull. Sent to the upland pastures to guard the flocks, she eats a magical lingonberry and shortly afterwards finds that she is expecting a child. Her parents cast her out, and she seeks refuge in vain with neighbours who drive her away with harsh words. In a stable deep in the forest she gives birth to a son, warmed by the breath of the horses:

//And a sinless child was given,
On the hay in horses’ stable,
On the hay in horses’ manger.

Then she wrapped the little infant
And in swaddling-clothes she wrapped him,
On her knees she took the infant,
And she wrapped her garments round him.//

Shortly afterwards the baby mysteriously vanishes and Marjatta goes in search of him, asking the stars, moon and sun for guidance until she finds him in the marshes and carries him off to be baptized. The old man asked to do so demurs, asking Väinämöinen for his judgment. When the latter calls for the destruction of the child, the infant speaks out and denounces him, and Väinämöinen, realizing that his power is at an end, sings for the last time before stepping into his copper boat and sailing away, leaving his kantele as a final gift to ‘Suomi’s children’.

Drawing together the threads of Christian and pagan tradition like Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue, the closing lines of the Kalevala sum up its enduring significance for the Finnish people and for poets throughout the world:

//Here the path lies newly opened,
Widely open for the singers,
And for greater ballad singers,
For the young, who now are growing,
For the rising generation.//

Susan Halstead, Content Specialist (Humanities and Social Sciences), Research Engagement.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2019 - 04:41pm PT

Northmen, viking and vikingr

The ancient Scandinavians’ name for themselves was ‘Northmen’ and for their language and culture ‘Norse’ (norrœn).

Of the two Old Norse nouns víkingr (m.) and víking (f.), the first meant ‘pirate or sea-rover’ (OED), the second an overseas plundering expedition. Their etymology is contested but related to the noun vík, ‘bay’, or the verb víkja, ‘to turn away’ etc., referring either to people from a bay area – such as the Vik region around the Oslofjord (though its inhabitants were called víkverjar, not víkingar) – or to those who ‘set out’ on raiding voyages. But such ‘vikings’ formed only a fraction of the Norse peoples. Overseas trading voyages had been undertaken long before then, for instance by the peaceful ‘farbönder’ of Gotland, while the fact that travel by boat was so much faster than overland was the basic reason why so many Norse groups lived near and moved around on water.

A cool blog: https://blogs.bl.uk/european/finland/
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 26, 2019 - 12:13pm PT

Road's End

The roads have come to an end now,
they don't go any farther, they turn here,
over on the field there,
You can't go any farther if
You don't want to go to the moon or the planets. Stop now
in time, and turn into a wasp's nest or a cow track
a volcano opening or a clatter of stones in the woods
 it's all the same. Something else.

They won't go any farther as I've said
without changing, the engine to horse butts,
the gear shift to a fir branch
which you hold loose in your hand
 - what the hell is this?

Rolf Jacobsen

Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Mar 26, 2019 - 07:39pm PT
A Finnish friend has the last name Ruotsi, which with variations is fairly common in Sweden and Finland. The roots of the name are as a very old Finnish word for settlers from what is now Sweden. It eventually morphed into Rus, the word for Swedish settlers and traders in what became northwest Russia, and along the great rivers leading to Miklegard. And Rus is thought by many to be the root word for Russian - the state that arose based at Novgorod in part had Swedish/Rus roots.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 27, 2019 - 10:03am PT

Mighty Hiker.

The cool connection made me search for the etymology of the name Sweden on Wikipedia.

The name Sweden was loaned from Dutch in the 17th century to refer to Sweden as an emerging great power. Before Sweden's imperial expansion, Early Modern English used Swedeland. Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod, which meant "people of the Swedes" (Old Norse Svíþjóð, Latin Suetidi). This word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas (Old Norse Sviar, Latin Suiones). The Swedish name Sverige (a compound of the words Svea and rike, with lenition of the consonant [k], first recorded in the cognate Swēorice in Beowulf) literally means "realm of the Swedes", excluding the Geats in Götaland.

Variations of the name Sweden are used in most languages, with the exception of Danish and Norwegian using Sverige, Faroese Svøríki, Icelandic Svíþjóð, and the more notable exception of some Finnic languages where Ruotsi (Finnish) and Rootsi (Estonian) are used, names commonly considered as referring to the people from the coastal areas of Roslagen, Uppland, who were known as the Rus', and through them etymologically related to the English name for Russia.

The etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning "one's own", referring to one's own Germanic tribe.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 27, 2019 - 12:41pm PT

Grand Merlin - Rautalampi

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Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 31, 2019 - 11:03am PT

The Peregrine by John Alec Baker (1926 – 1987)


The Peregrine by John Alec Baker recounts a single year from October to April from the author's ten-year obsession with the peregrines that wintered near his home in Chelmsford, Essex in eastern England. The writing is lyrically charged, as the author's role of diligent observer gives way to a personal transformation, as Baker becomes, in the words of James Dickey, "a fusion of man and bird”

The story of The Peregrine’s writing is remarkable, and has a mystery at its heart. For around a decade – from 1954 to 1964 – a myopic office worker from Essex tracked the peregrine falcons that hunted over the landscape of his county. He pursued them on bicycle and on foot, watching through binoculars as they bathed, flew, stooped and roosted. He carried Ordnance Survey maps on which he marked in ballpoint pen the locations of his sightings, with circled capital letters – P, SH, HH, BO – recording raptors by species (M is for Merlin, K is for Kestrel).

He learned to predict the peregrines’ locations by means of an intelligence that began as logic and ended as instinct, and in a relationship that began as fascination and ended as obsession.
Even the savage winter of 1962–63 – when the sea froze for two miles out from the shore, and spear-length icicles hung from eaves and trees – didn’t deter Baker from his quest. After a day in the field, he would retreat to the spare room of his Chelmsford terrace house, and write up the details in journals that together run to more than 1,600 manuscript pages.

In the mid-1960s, he compressed those journals into a book fewer than 60,000 words long, and written in ecstatic, violent, enraptored prose. The journals were coal to The Peregrine’s diamond: crushed, they became the book. He collapsed 10 years into a single “season of hawk-hunting”, and “stripped” the narrative “down to the livid bone”, to borrow a phrase from one of his early poems. Instead of plot, he deployed pattern. The same actions recur across the book’s course: man pursues falcon, falcon pursues prey.

In the words of Baker: “I have always longed to be a part of the outward life, to be out there at the edge of things, to let the human taint wash away in emptiness and silence as the fox sloughs his smell into the unworldliness of water; to return to the town as a stranger”

Robert Mcfarlane writes that Baker’s Essex is "landscape on acid: super-saturations of colour, wheeling phantasmagoria, dimensions blown out and falling away, nature as hypernature.”

Violent spring: The nature book that predicted the future: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/15/the-peregrine-by-ja-baker-nature-writing


The Peregrines of Norway:

Until 1933 hunters were rewarded to shoot them because "they killed carrier pigeons". In the 1950s and 1960s farmers use of DDT nearly succeeded to kill them completely.

Nesting Peregrine falcons are today still a threatened species in Norway, but not critically so. They are today found all along the coast of Norway. They are seldom seen nesting in the Finnskogen area, but nesting Peregrine falcons were in 2011 found for the first time in many years in Engerdal.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 31, 2019 - 12:00pm PT

Werner Herzog talks books with author Robert Pogue Harrison

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Some Baker quotes:

“Bar-tailed godwits flying with curlew, with knot, with plover; seldom alone, seldom settling; snuffling eccentrics; long-nosed, loud-calling sea-rejoicers; their call a snorting, sneezing, mewing, spitting bark. Their thin upcurved bills turn, their heads turn, their shoulders and whole bodies turn, their wings waggle. They flourish their rococo flight above the surging water. Screaming gulls corkscrewing high under cloud. Islands blazing with birds. A peregrine rising and falling. Godwits ricocheting across water, tumbling, towering. A peregrine following, swooping, clutching. Godwit and peregrine darting, dodging; stitching land and water with flickering shuttle. Godwit climbing, dwindling, tiny, gone: peregrine diving, perching, panting, beaten.”

“A day of endless wind and rain, which I wasted away in the lee of hollow trees, in sheds and barns, and under broken carts. I saw the hawk once, or thought I saw it, like a distant arrow flicking into a tree, blurred and distorted by the million shining prisms of the rain.
All day the unquenchable skylarks sang. Bullfinches lisped and piped through the orchards. Sometimes a little owl called lugubriously from its hollow tree. And that was all.”

“The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there. Books about birds show pictures of the peregrine, and the text is full of information. Large and isolated in the gleaming whiteness of the page, the hawk stares back at you, bold, statuesque, brightly coloured. But when you have shut the book, you will never see that bird again. Compared with the close and static image, the reality will seem dull and disappointing. The living bird will never be so large, so shiny-bright. It will be deep in landscape, and always sinking farther back, always at the point of being lost. Pictures are waxworks beside the passionate mobility of the living bird.”

“It is an effort to descend down the hand-holds of memory to the plain beneath, to recall the lost future, the dusk hovering above the sunken cities, the dim western world of fallen light and broken skies. My life is here, where soon the larks will sing again, and there is a hawk above. One wishes only to go forward, deeper into the summer land, journeying from lark-song to lark-song, passing through the dark realm of the owls, the fox-holdings, the badger-shires, out into the brilliant winter dominion, the sea-bleak world of the hawks.”

“East of home, the long ridge lies across the skyline like the low hull of a submarine. Above it, the eastern sky is bright with reflections of distant water, and there is a feeling of sails beyond land. Hill trees mass together in a dark-spired forest, but when i move towards them they slowly fan apart, the sky descends between, and they are solitary oaks and elms, each with its own wide territory of winter shadow. The calmness, the solitude of horizons lures me towards them, through them, and on to others. They layer the memory like strata.”
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 31, 2019 - 12:05pm PT

Looking: Wall, window and selfie reflection in window this weekend

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2019 - 11:31am PT

"The trees did not reflect the sun so much as glow from within, as though their bark was of parchment, a membrane through which a steady flame was shining. They seemed to have their own light, absorbed from the sun, and retained. When I went past at dusk they were still shining with a strange, almost gaseous, incandescence, a reddening luminosity that only faded, and then quite suddenly, when night came, as though the colder air had frozen it away.

The tall pines rose from the heath in complete stillness, unmoved by the wind. The bark of one tree was peeling, and the eye winced from the flayed look it had. Slowly I saw, really saw and did not simply know, that these pines were living things, standing like emaciated horned animals, maned with their dark green or dull blue clusters of narrow leaves. Their deep piny smell was the small of living beings, anchored by their roots, able to move only upward or outward as the sun ordained. They were not dead, but merely prisoners, land-captives, with the sound of the sea in their leaves.

...Nothing disturbed my vision of these ancient Nordic pines, herded together here like the last buffalo, living their own intense life, the slow fire that can never be seen. Cut where you will, you cannot find that flame. It can never be seen, any more than you can see the spirit, or soul, of a man.”

John Alec Baker

hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
Apr 5, 2019 - 03:21am PT
hello marlow!
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 5, 2019 - 11:46am PT

hello marlow!
hi hooblie!

more from the forest: protecting biodiversity in northern forests

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marlow as an idea is a channel, like Conrad's Marlow an observer, driftwood carrying grounded stories, and unlike Conrad's Marlow searching to facilitate something good... which doesn't exclude the possibility of time-based bias... and self-deception...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 12, 2019 - 01:07pm PT

IL Trysilgutten established 1861 was the first skiing club in the world

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Marlow

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OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2019 - 10:23am PT

Some Animals Are More Equal than Others: Keystone Species and Trophic Cascades

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formerclimber

Boulder climber
CA
Apr 21, 2019 - 11:50am PT
Why is Yamnaya feminine yet the Afanasievo is neutral?


That's hard to say.
Upon the name Yamnaya:

The name Yamnaya was given by the archeologists who discovered the culture. They were Russians and named it in Russian: "yamnaya", which means "pitt-grave", after the burial sites that typified this culture and distinguished it from the otherwise similar neighboring "catacomb" (which is again a reference to the burial rites) culture . Now, one question could be if the Russian word Yamnaya shares its etymology with the Vedic Yama.

It's just a linguistic play. "Yamnaya culture" - "culture" is a female noun in Russian ("kultura"). So pit-burial culture gets female-sounding suffix "aya", to match "culture".
"Afanasievo culture" is neutral only in English version, it seems to be transliteration error that stuck around - it's real/original name is "Afanasievskaya culture".
There're different of versions of Russian word "yama" origin but none of them are Vedic, it would be a real stretch. (it seems like it's possible to bring Vedic origin under pretty much anything these days, there's whole school that likes to exercise in this)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2019 - 11:57am PT

formerclimber

Thanks for making clear the Yamnaya - Afanasievo f. - n. form matter.

Then a tune from Finnskogen: Omkring tiggarn från Luossa - Jahn-Erik Rehn

[Click to View YouTube Video]
formerclimber

Boulder climber
CA
Apr 21, 2019 - 01:17pm PT
Which is the US region closest to having forests like this?
Makes me think of Michigan Upper Peninsula, or may be, Aroostook county, Maine.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2019 - 01:40pm PT

Areas of Michigan. Reilly has indicated areas in Wisconsin. Many Norwegians settled in Minnesota. Maine at a distance from the Great Lakes.

And areas of Canada as Fossil climber (Wayne) has indicated.
formerclimber

Boulder climber
CA
Apr 21, 2019 - 01:44pm PT
Yes, Maine is very far - Aroostook being "far Northern Maine" seems to have similar looking forests. I guess it's a combination of latitude (as far North as Michigan UP) and the required moisture level. The winter temps are about the same as in Northern MN/MI.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2019 - 01:49pm PT

You find these Northern forests all around the globe - in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, USA, Canada... We have much in common.
formerclimber

Boulder climber
CA
Apr 21, 2019 - 01:52pm PT
For sure I've seen them in Russia (especially having spent much time in the wilds of Karelia)... in the US, there's a cutoff latitude - seems like only somewhere very close to Canadian border, not leaving a lot (or, needs higher altitude) + plus needs enough moisture, so this zone ends somewhere in MN not extending West.
I'm trying to map out these forests in the US for my trip.
If one gets a little South from Canada in the East - seems like too many deciduous trees...
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2019 - 01:58pm PT

If you have stories and/or photos from the wilds of Karelia you are very welcome to post them here. Three of my grandparents have roots leading back to Karelia around year 1600.

And please report from your US Northern forest trip...
formerclimber

Boulder climber
CA
Apr 21, 2019 - 02:24pm PT
I don't have photos; it's been long ago during Soviet times in the part of historic Karelia that was split off into USSR/Republic of Karelia. We lived on a boat/yacht throughout whole summers, traveling though remote parts of it. It was infinitely safer than now in term of crime there, but even then had to take care to keep to ourselves and not stop overnight by any settlements.
We did visit some hermits, like the guy who run a lighthouse on Onega lake near this Devil's Nose petroglyph site:
http://strana.ru/media/images/uploaded/gallery_promo21236824.jpg
or the guy who lived off smoking lake fish. It was a different time; places were quite wild and no humans for very long stretches. There're hermits there too now, though, and some families of homesteaders who live separately from everyone.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Apr 21, 2019 - 03:07pm PT
US Finnskogen - N Minnesota, Upper Peninsula and a few parts of N Wisconsin, possibly a
few bits of N New York (but I haven’t been), and Maine. Maybe a couple small bogs in New Hampshire and Vermont.
formerclimber

Boulder climber
CA
Apr 21, 2019 - 10:01pm PT
It eventually morphed into Rus, the word for Swedish settlers and traders in what became northwest Russia, and along the great rivers leading to Miklegard. And Rus is thought by many to be the root word for Russian - the state that arose based at Novgorod in part had Swedish/Rus roots.

Rus is the origin of Russia, this part would be hard to dispute, Rus had been and is still a used name for Russia (internally)...The were several names/words among different nations transliterating into "Rus" before VIII, but seems like the dominant version now that it was Swedish Rus origin. Varangians, which were the type of Vikings, formed Rus population (though it's possible that they were given Rus name after some earlier, non-swedish local source). There was an old Swedish settlement in the place of Novgorod (Novgorod seems to be Holmgård in Scandinavian sagas) before there was "Novgorod" itself. Later, Varangian/Rus/Swedish Rurik (Hrøríkʀ) was invited to rule over Novgorod (by local Slavic, Finnish and, likely, Rus populations) in IX. Rurik became the Prince of Novgorod and started Rurikovich dynasty that ruled over Russia until early 1600s (but Romanovs were also mixed with Rurikovich). Russia (its statehood) had originated with the start of Rurik's rule in Novgorod.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 22, 2019 - 09:06am PT

formerclimber

I had to dive into the Varangians' Eastern story

Varangian/Væring

Varangian/Væring (Norse væringi m., plural væringjar — Ukrainian: Варяги - Varjahy; White-Russian: Варагі - Varahi; Russian: Варяги - Varjagi; Middle age Greek: οἱ Βαριάγοι - hoi Variágoi, undertiden: οἱ Βαράγγοι - hoi Varángoi, eller οἱ Βάραγγοι - hoi Várangoi), perhaps derived from the noun várar [fem. plur.] = promise, ed) is a common Norse term for the men who served in the guard force of the emperor at Miklagard (Konstantinopel). Væringer are a form of mercenaries in years 900-1100.

Væringer as a concept is related to or overlapping with the term varjager, "the sworn". They were men who traded east and south on the Russian rivers, or were looting as Vikings.

Archaeological discoveries on Gotland in the form of foreign coins indicate a western center for this trade, and that the trade was significant. Today, you can see traces of varangians in Istanbul, by seeing runes in Hagia Sophia.

The concept varangian usually included men from the Nordic countries, but could just as easily include anyone from western Europe, for example, Anglo-Saxons who fled from the Norwegians' conquest of England. Slaves and Byzantines did not distinguish between Northern Europeans.

The Russian Nestor Chronicle even included Danes and Englishmen as væringer or varangians. One of the most famous varangians was Harald Sigurdsson from Norway, the later King Harald Hardraade.

Væringer had driven trade in the Baltic Sea as far back as the 6th century. "He was killed in the East" or "he went in the eastern direction of the Gardarik" stands on runes in Sweden. Already when Helgö was a thriving trading place in Mälaren in Sweden in the 6th century there were contacts on the other side of the Baltic Sea.

Outlaws, violent men, adventurers, merchants and settlers from Sweden in particular and the other Nordic countries went to the east in the same way as they also went west. The mighty country in the east meant opportunities. The Russian rivers were the connection between buyer and seller of the expensive products of the Orient. Along the rivers, Norse men reached the Black Sea and in the year 839 and arrived in the city they called Miklagard - the capital of the great Eastern Roman Empire Constantinople.

Or the journey could alternatively go along the river Volga even further east to the Caspian Sea and carry on until they got in touch with Baghdad and the Arab world. A man who equipped a large-scale journey eastward was the Swedish “Ingvar den vidfarne” who has his own separate story.

In the wake of the adventurers and traders, settlers who formed Swedish "colonies" followed from the 700's. These Swedish settlers joined the native Slavic population and became the Russian Empire and later the Kiev Empire, which reached its peak in the 11th century. It was a kingdom that covered an area larger than Norway, Sweden and Denmark and the British Isles together and stretched from the Gulf of Finland in the north and almost to the Black Sea in the south.

Varangian and Rus

Norse settlers were probably an element of the early ethnic beginnings of society Rus and played a significant role in the formation of the Khaganaat Rus, a Slavic-Norse-century society in the 8th century that existed before the Kiev Empire. Varangians are first mentioned in the Russian Nestor chronicle, which was probably written down in the early 12th century, and these Varangians are told to have demanded tax from Slavic and Finnish tribes in 859. In 862 these tribes rebelled against the Varangians, but ended up with fighting against each other:

"(They) drove the varangians back over the sea, refused to pay taxes to them, and reckoned to rule themselves. But there was no law between them, and tribes stood up against tribes. The disagreement followed among them, and they began to fight one tribe against the other. They said to each other, "Let us search for a prince who can rule over us and judge according to our ways of living." Then they crossed the sea to the varangians, to Rus. These varangians were called Rus, just as some are called Swedes, and other Norwegians and Anglish, and others for Goths (from Gotland), because they were so called. The Chudas, the slaves, the kriviches and the vesens, they said to the Rus: "Our country is vast and rich, but there is no order in it. Come and reign and rule us. ”Three brothers, with their offspring, volunteered. They took with them all the Rus and came."

According to legend, these varangians or Rus came from "over the sea", a Rurik or Rørik and his two brothers Truvor and Sineus with other varangians and settled in the city of Novgorod. Rurik remained the ruler until he died in 879.

Although many historians look at the varangians of the 8th century as a legend, the historic settlement around the city the Norse called "Aldeigja", Aldeigjuborg (from Finnish Alode-joki = lowland river), was the current Staraya Ladoga, associated with the name Rurik ( Hrørīkr, Rurik, Riurik), the varangian who took control of the area in 862 and built Holmgard (Ryurikovo Gorodischtsje) in Novgorod around Lake Ladoga. Aldeigjuborg was the first major trading place on the road to the east and an important road junction between the trading roads of the time.

In the 8th century, it had as many as 1,000 inhabitants. Western historians believe that this Norse settlement merged with the Slavic settlement and formed the Kiev Empire, the Russian kingdom of Kiev, and thus renamed Russia. Although many Slavic scientists have objected to national considerations and denied that it was a Norse influence.

In contrast to the great Norse influence in Normandy and especially the British Isles, the culture that the varangians brought with them to the east left very few traces. The ruling classes in the two powerful cities of Novgorod and Kiev seem to have been slavified very quickly, probably because the hosts were a small minority and their language was displaced by Slavic. Nevertheless, Norse language was spoken in Novgorod right up to the 13th century, and hosts in the sense of mercenaries continued to serve the Eastern Roman emperor.

The Varangian Guard

The Varangian Guard was established in 930 and consisted of warriors from the Nordic countries who served as mercenaries for the Eastern Roman emperor. Those who returned home affected the surroundings with foreign impressions. The five-year-old church in the Danish city of Kalundborg bears influence from the east that was brought home by varangians.

In 839, Emperor Theophilus employed Norse men, orphans or warriors, as mercenaries in the guard force of Constantinople. Teofilos negotiated with the hostages he called "Rhos" to get mercenaries to his army. In the year 860, the varangians in Kiev had attacked Constantinople for the first time. The first attack was unsuccessful, but it did not prevent them from making new attacks, while other varangians were busy with peaceful trade. The varangians returned with new attacks in 860, 907, 911, 941, 945, 971, and the last time in 1043. Despite the constant attacks, the varangians were always defeated by the Emperor's army, especially by Greek fire.

Varangians were hired by the Kingdom of Novgorod and Kiev as mercenaries from the 8th century until the 11th century. The last time a varangian is mentioned as a mercenary in Russia is in 1043. If the reason was that they were no longer needed, or if the mercenaries had been assimilated into the community of the place and were no longer regarded as varangians, is open to speculation.

Translated by Marlow from the Norwegian Wikipedia
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Apr 22, 2019 - 09:14am PT
The Varangians clearly believed that practice makes perfect. The Byzantines were clearly intent on using them to prove that the exception proves the rule.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 22, 2019 - 09:20am PT

Repetition clearly isn't all... Maybe it was a cover up to establish trade ^^^ Nothing new under the sun...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Apr 22, 2019 - 09:31am PT
Interesting that the end of the Varangians’ visits to Constantinople nearly coincided with the first of the Vikings’ visits via the Pillars of Hercules, ikke sant?
formerclimber

Boulder climber
CA
Apr 22, 2019 - 09:48am PT
Varangians were hired by the Kingdom of Novgorod and Kiev as mercenaries from the 8th century until the 11th century. The last time a varangian is mentioned as a mercenary in Russia is in 1043. If the reason was that they were no longer needed, or if the mercenaries had been assimilated into the community of the place and were no longer regarded as varangians, is open to speculation.

The Varangians weren't one unified nation rather being groups, seems like...
Novgorod had "officially" founded around the same time it acquired Varangian ruler Rurik (the 9th century), and Kiev was conquered by Rurik's descendant Oleg shortly, in 882 AD (the event which started Kievan Rus state). Before that, Kiev was ruled by another Viking, Askold. So, while Novgorod and Kiev were ruled by Varangians and already had their population/Rus originally they seemed to be hiring outside Varangians as mercenaries for a century or two. The old pre-Novgorod settlement in its place was determined Swedish (probably "Varangian"). Igor (Ingvar) and Oleg (Helgi) - Old Norse names - were the names of Rurik's descendants which later became some of the most common names in Russia.

Oleg, who ruled immediately after Rurik: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_of_Novgorod
He was supposedly given a prediction to die through his horse by a fortuneteller, which caused him to let his horse go....later, he learned that his horse died and he came to visit its bones - he thought he had nothing to worry about then, but a snake bit him when he stepped on the horse's skull and he died. (but similar horse/snake story exists in Islandean saga about Norwegian viking Örvar-Oddr, so this might be a tale)
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 22, 2019 - 01:14pm PT

Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik - Skuggsjá: [Click to View YouTube Video]

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 23, 2019 - 10:58am PT

And then a song about love and holy mountains: Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik - Um Heilage Fjell: [Click to View YouTube Video]


Eyes pulled towards the holy peak
Clearly defined on the horizon
Each wind from there
Carries a memory of you

Certainty of your wit and nearness
Cures my lonely sorrow
Doubly sting the wounds
That nobody else can see

Guest in Dáinn's hall
Until you were reborn
To song of Norns, in weave of Norns
The thread strengthened by fortune
From former fathers, former mothers
You continue the lineage

Guest in Dáinn's hall
Until Norns spin you a new thread
From wind you were brought forth
By wind you will be brought back

From wind you were brought forth
By wind you will be brought back
formerclimber

Boulder climber
CA
Apr 23, 2019 - 10:40pm PT
These guys are very good too, Heilung (Othan - Odin):

https://youtu.be/h1BsKIP4uYM?t=3238

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 24, 2019 - 12:55pm PT

The wilderness is here. To me the wilderness is not a place. It is the indefinable essence or spirit that lives in a place, as shadowy as the archetype of a dream, but real, and recognisable. It lives where it can find refuge, fugitive, fearful as a deer. It is rare now.

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 30, 2019 - 10:47am PT

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.

Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.

Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind

as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.

Pablo Neruda


Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 1, 2019 - 10:34am PT

Älvdalen:

In 2012 Maja Daniels, photographer and sociologist began working in the Swedish region of Älvdalen inspired by the current generational shift, where negotiations and tensions between modern lifestyles and tradition – including the preservation of a strong cultural identity imbued with mysticism – represent an important contemporary struggle. Through making her own photographs of the region, and creatively appropriating parts of the archive of photographer Tenn Lars Persson (1878 –1938) within her work the community’s unique and mysterious eccentricity is reinforced. Steeped in both reality and myth, past and present, an imaginary tale influenced by language, mystery and local history quietly reveals itself through the resilience of the subjects, the strangeness of the events and the beauty of the land. ATA


Witch hunts, mystics and race cars: inside the weirdest village in Sweden

In 1926, the yearbook of the Swedish Tourism Association described the village of Älvdalen as “a community with a dark insular spirit” where locals were “shadowed by distrust and unease”. It was there in 1668 that the Swedish witch-hunts began, resulting in the execution of 19 girls and one man suspected of occult practices. One senses that the tourist association thought the stigma had lingered on into the 20th century. “It is not easy to get close to them,” the yearbook added, “particularly if you don’t speak their language.”

Today, Älvdalen, in the west of Sweden, still has its own language, Elfdalian, which has been traced back to Old Norse, the tongue of the Vikings. Swedish-born photographer Maja Daniels spent many childhood summers there, in a cabin built by her grandparents in the woods by the river.

“Älvdalen is part of what I call home,” she says. “My grandparents spoke Elfdalian, whose continued existence baffles linguists, but also is a personal mystery to me, as I cannot speak it.” The language has undergone a recent revival, with bursaries granted to 16-year-olds who are proficient speakers.

Daniels has made Elf Dalia, an intriguing, mysterious photobook that combines Daniels’ often impressionistic images of the landscape and its mainly young people with a fascinating archive of photographs by a local eccentric, Tenn Lars Persson, who was born there in 1878 and died in 1938.

“Tenn Lars was interested in what can be described as natural magic – knowledge of astrology, alchemy, the occult and the hidden power of plants, animals and stones. Despite spending only four years in school as a child, he became a self-taught electrician, optician, inventor, photographer and scientist. In many ways, he was a wizard of his time.”

Persson made his own cameras and lenses, as well as constructing a telescope to study and photograph the moon. He is remembered as the man who brought electricity to Älvdalen, and for his lectures on the wonders of the solar system and plant life. For Daniels, his monochrome photographs of the landscape and people of Älvdalen distil “the sense of wonder and mystery” that drew her back there. “I felt a deep connection to his work,” she says. “I wanted to initiate a dialogue with it, to emphasise the unique, almost eccentric spirit of the place.”

Her rural landscapes suggest human presence – denuded forests, the glare of streetlights filtered through trees, young men racing cars through rutted woodland tracks. Other more impressionistic images use sunlight, shadow and sparks to evoke the unchanging natural mystery of the elemental Swedish landscape. In several portraits, faces of strangers are fully or partially obscured, while individuals she knows are revealed in closeup. All the while, you are gently reminded that she is an outsider despite her family connections.

Sean O'Hagan

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/may/01/maja-daniels-photographer-alvdalen-sweden-witch-hunts-elf-dalia-weirdest-norse


Älvdalska: [Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 3, 2019 - 02:25pm PT

Älvdalen 1951: [Click to View YouTube Video]

Älvdalen 2018: [Click to View YouTube Video]

And then an Älvdalen lullaby: Huldrelokk live - Kerstin Blodig, Mia Gunberg Ådin and Liv Vester Larsen - [Click to View YouTube Video]
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 4, 2019 - 01:26am PT

Älvdalen

The Universal Grassclimbing Meet 2016: Dalarne climbing club climbing ice in Älvdalen -Grövelsjön - and right across the border on the Norwegian side - Båthusberget - not far from Elgå: [Click to View YouTube Video]

Yes, you find cliffs in Älvdalen:

And a river:
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 4, 2019 - 02:16am PT

Hykjeberget

Hykjeberget is a mountain where biology and geology interact so that special conditions are created. The mountain has sides facing south, east and west. The cliff's ability to store heat means that the rock gives off heat to its surroundings, primarily during autumn and winter. Then a good local climate is created that favors demanding plants, often species that can only be found further south.

Already in 1734 Carl von Linné visited Hykjeberget and described the peculiar flora below the mountain slope. Here you can find species that are otherwise unusual in these areas - maple, linden, skogstry (Lonicera xylosteum), sötvedel (Astragalus glycyphyllos), getrams (Polygonatum odoratum) and gaffelbräken (Asplenium septentrionale).


formerclimber

Boulder climber
CA
May 8, 2019 - 08:28am PT
Regarding Yamnaya culture mentioned above - came across this random article calling them most violent people that ever existed, huh.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6865741/The-violent-group-people-lived.html

The wording might be sensationalist (definitely different from more of a rosy picture which was being presented back when I was in high school history class). They built kurgans - I grew up near one of those, they were all over the place and called exactly that. Most of them weren't excavated but you knew what they are, very different from a regular hill (kurgans were built by their descendants too).
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2019 - 01:50am PT

The Forest - A Time-Lapse Journey Through the Forgotten Norway: [Click to View YouTube Video]

"The Forest" takes us on a journey through the deep forests and aims to shine light on a landscape in Norway one usually does not see in the tourist magazines. This is portrayed through the magical night, mystical morning and adventurous day. Set to the words of Theodor Kittelsen the film gives associations with the traditional, Norwegian fairytales in a modern visual and auditive setting.

The soundtrack (named "Urskog") is custom composed for this film by Jogeir. Check out his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/jogeirmusic/); and Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/jogeirmusic);. Vocals on the track is done by Katrine Ødegaard Stenbekk. Mixed and mastered by Tony Draper. These guys were also the creators of the soundtrack from my last video, "NORWAY - A Time-Lapse Adventure". The voice over is done by the brilliant Norwegian actor Ingar Helge Gimle.

Morten Rustad


The TH Kittelsen story told at the beginning:

When the sun went down, solitude and quietness swept through the forest
silent and dense
It was as if they did not dare to take a breath
as if the forest had quiet, silent expectations
Then our hearts started to pound, we wanted more, we begged and prayed for adventures
and the forest gave us adventure...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
May 19, 2019 - 02:56am PT
I will miss this, Marlow. Tusen takk!
cybele

Ice climber
Salt Lake City
May 19, 2019 - 11:00am PT
Oh Marlow all the beautiful rare pictures... thank you for this thread
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
May 19, 2019 - 04:48pm PT
A lifeboat of tranquillity in a sea of rancor.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Topic Author's Reply - May 20, 2019 - 10:49am PT

Reilly and Cybele. I appreciate your feedback.

A lifeboat of tranquillity in a sea of rancor.

^^^^ I'll remember those words ....
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
May 31, 2019 - 02:29pm PT
I'll particularly miss Marlow's contributions here and elsewhere.
Fossil climber

Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
May 31, 2019 - 02:42pm PT
Thanks for this thread, Marlow! Always great stuff! I'd include a Kittleson troll, here - the one who wonders how old he is - but - not my photo!

Wayne
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
May 31, 2019 - 02:44pm PT
Just seeing this thread brings back the taste of Sognefjord strawberries last summer!
How are those even legal?
JC Marin

Trad climber
CA
May 31, 2019 - 08:28pm PT
Ha det!
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