Part-time Ghost

'Tis the month when everything is so green it hurts to look at and I'm thinking about a poem by Werner Aspenström (half-assedly translated by yours truly):

THE CITY (1964)

I am not an apolitical person.
I have an opinion about how things
should be done in this country.
I consider peace to be our greatest thought.
But I do not wish to use the great dream's scissor
to cut the smaller dream's weave.
It is the time of day
when the towboat Rex embarks into the archipelago
to fetch the sunrise.
It is the time of year
when the giant on Skinnarvik Mountain
wears clusters of lilacs in his hair.
Soon he will open his maw and spit out
a swarm of seagulls over the city.
I think it is beautiful, simply put.
I think it is human, sometimes.

Girlfriend wanted to hear this story; I thought I could just as well make a complete post about it here.

In the 1670s, in Småland, the south of Sweden, the mistress of the Röckla estate died while giving birth to her first child. This doesn't seem like a particularly special event, but for some reason there would be many stories and rumours to circle around her death, even when her widowed husband was still alive.

The priest of Virestad parish back then was called "Master Nils" by the local population. There were lots of stories told about him too; that he knew magic both of the good and bad kind. Maybe this was what originally spurred the legend around Röckla.

The forests of Småland are old and big. The trees are tall and the rocks are big and covered with moss; in some parts the light may come trickling down through the crowns of pines and aspen. They are real troll forests, and trolls are in my experience more usual in Småland than anywhere else in southern Sweden.

The story of Per and Kersti of Röckla is no exception. The first time I heard about it, was in a folk song from the 1800s that I decided to upload and translate.

( Sent om en afton... )

Google Maps tells me, that Röckla still stands down in southern Småland, Virestad parish. But if Per's family lives there to this day, I do not know.

Found this interesting little record of south-Swedish folklore in the ethnological study on Näcken and thought I'd share it with you. It was recorded in Skåne in 1881, and is relating to how women who haven't yet been to church after childbirth are extra vulnerable to the menacing watersprite:

"Some wives are, when they have yet to be taken to church, so vulnerable to the Stream man's intrusiveness that they, for protection, when there is nothing between them and the sky, wear one of their husband's clothes; for if they wear as much as his hat, the rascal doesn't have any power over them. In Rebbelberga parish, Bjäre county, the village of Skörpinge, there served a farm maid many years ago now, I knew her very well, who was always so exposed to the Stream man's impudence, that she always walked around dressed in men's clothing and couldn't stand anyone calling her by her real name."

Now, I'm not going to draw any conclusions here. These beliefs are spread by oral tradition; it's impossible to tell if the person who told this snippet on information is really recalling something s/he had personal experience from.

I'm just saying, that from a queer historical point of view, that last sentence is quite intriguing though.

Look, I found an awesome online edition of Hávamál in Swedish, Icelandic and English. This is why I love Google.

First day of Christmas break = awesome. I promised myself to do nothing today, and I haven't. Just lazed around, taken a long hot bath, watched television and eaten pizza. And sat in front of the computer, translating some more sägner.

This time, there are stories from Sweden's two island provinces, and the western part of Skåneland. The source is as before, Herman Hofberg's Svenska Folksägner from 1882.

And like before, here's a map of the Swedish provinces.

( Gotland )

( Öland )

( Halland )

Ok. Reading the first chapter of Catch 22 and post opinion in A course forum=Done. Also, almost finished the first of my two Swedish essays. :D

Therefore, I thought it was time for me to indulge myself and some other people on my F-List a little. Not counting the coke and chocolate next to me, that is. I remember telling (promising? o__o;) Finny amongst other people to make an entry here concerning the English edition vs the Swedish translation of Good Omens, comparing words and expressions and such. Last year, in fact. And today I finally had enough of severe procrastination to the point of ridiculousness and decided to write it.

Since I haven't actually *read* the Swedish edition, just skimmed through, I won't bring up every single difference between the two, just some of the more memorable quotes or that I find a little funny. Since I'm going to write both English and Swedish quote and then try to explain as detailed as possible the differnces it might end up quite long as well, so I'm not sure how many quotes I'll get done when I'm writing this.

Anyway, here's to dorkiness:
 

( Det var en fin dag. )Conclusion: if you didn't think Crowley/Aziraphale had real basis in the book, read the Swedish version. Translations=Hilarity.

//Taiyou-Chan.