Easter in Scandinavia

After being quiet for a while due I recently got my brand new Cintiq, which will allow me to make cool illustrations for the blog (and other surprises that you will see...), I have also been busy shooting a video at Internationella Skolorna of Barcelona, where they invited us to make Swedish decorations for Easter (today you will discover that I was not born to make decoration...) .

I thought that it would be easy to make use of this, to talk about how other Scandinavian countries celebrate Easter and that's how I got inspired to write today's entry. 

NORWAY: 

On Holy Thursday and Good Friday everything is closed in Norway. Shops are just open few hours on Saturday and Sunday on Easter holidays. On Monday Easter (just like here in Spain) it is also a bank holiday, so Norwegians make use of those 5 free days to go skiing in the mountains, specially because they know that it might be the last chance that they will have to enjoy the snow on that year.  

Easter bunny is not popular in Norway, instead they have a lot of chicken decoration. Chicken are considered a symbol of fertility and lust just like dawn and the sun, while eggs represent the rebirth of plants and animals on spring, after a long and dark winter. 
Yellow is the most predominant color on Easter, and because of that during these most of products packaging have that color. 

Norwegians also use yellow napkins and candles to decorate their tables, yellow flowers (like tulips and daffodils), which they also give as a gift to their friends and relatives.

They also hang Easter decorations and painted eggs on birch branches and put them in their homes.

During these days they also read crime and detective stories. This tradition started on 1923, and nowadays event some food brands (i.e. milk brands) put crime and detective stories in their packaging.

When it comes to food, they eat eggs (rebirth symbol), oranges (which they import from Southern countries like Spain... Norwegian families eat around 5-7kg on Easter...), lamb (symbolizes Christ and also the spring), yeast bread, cakes, candies and a lot of chocolate (specially Kvikk Lunsj). 

ICELAND: 

Easter on Iceland is longer than Christmas, and because of that Icelanders make use of those days to spend some time with their relatives and travel through out the country, just like their Scandinavian fellows. 

Their most famous tradition is related with chocolate eggs, which appear in supermarkets three weeks before Easter. There are a lot of kinds: cream filled, big like heads, ... but all of them have something in common: inside them there's a little message just like Chinese lucky cookies.
Unluckily and due to the harshness of Icelandic weather, they cannot go egg-hunting (everything is covered with snow). 

Around XVIII and XIX century, when fresh food was scarce, there was a tradition which consisted in cooking  a rich and thick porridge on Sunday easter. That porridge could be made of rice, which was considered a luxury food in those days.

DENMARK:

On Easter a lot of houses and shops are decorated with yellow and green ornaments, specially with daffodils. 

The most popular Danish symbol of Easter are eggs: they are used as ornaments, either as simple painted hen's eggs, an imitation of them, or chocolate and/or sugar eggs. 

Hens and roosters are used as decoration too, and near the German border, the Easter bunny is becoming more popular every time. 
Few weeks before Easter, Danish children prepare and cut the letters and then write a teaser verse. The letter is anonymous, although it is signed with a number of points that corresponds to the number of letters of the author of the letter, so that the receiver has the opportunity to try to guess who sent him the letter. 

The pledge is a chocolate Easter egg, which will be delivered on Easter day. The letter comes with a snowflake which representes the first flower of the year.

When it comes to Easter food, they eat basically spring food like herrings and other fishes, little hot dishes, sliced meat and cheese. Most of people drinks bier  (there's a special kind of beer for those days. It's more tasty than regular beer) and schnapps. 

Easter is not only a Christian festival for Danes, but also the spring festival which was associated with superstition and connected to weather forecast.

SWEDEN:

In the case of Sweden, we decided to prepare a little surprise for you after Internationella Skolorna in Barcelona contacted us to invite us to a Swedish decoration workshop, and made use of it to let them tell you about how they celebrate Easter in Sweden. We hope you like it :) 

After the interview, we had the chance to try some Swedish delicatessen and try to make our own Easter decorations

Swedish Delicatessen provided by Internationella Skolorna :)

Ready for the decoration!

Explaining what's HTV

Tribute to Clan Hávamál ;)

Links:

Thanks for the food
Kefairport
Denmark.dk
Internationella Skolorna

How did viking liðs work?

¡Good evening!

When we get into the viking warfare world, we could speak for hours about the combat techniques, weapons, strategy and... about battle units!

While talking about this last subject, I realized (thanks to the guests that I had during the last centuries in Helheim) that people tend to pay more attention to big viking combat armies, (specially those that operated in the North-East of Europe during middle and the last years of IX century), than to liðs, and because of that and after talking to some relevant people who came here, I decided to take back this subject and introduce it today's post. 

First and so that you can get into the situation, I explain what a lið is: it is a group of warriors who swore under oath to a leader, who will provide them food, equipment and rewards for their services.
It was like a ancient form of an army, which was based in the temporary coalition (it depended on the length of the leader's campaign).
The size of this group is undetermined and it depended mostly on wealth and reputation of its leader (some liðs could be compounded by the crew of a pair of ships while others were bigger).  

Keeping in mind that our nordic fellows were not living in happy-go-lucky times, actually viking age (750 -1050) was really harsh, to find a loyal crew who was ready to go for dangerous raids was a great challenge for a leader. So that you can get an idea of what it felt like sailing in those days, I will show you a video of our friends Silver Wolf reenactment group from Russia, who are sailing in their own ship from Moesgard to Wolin and to whom I'll dedicate today's post:

"come to raid to England..." they said, "it will be fun..." they said... ¬¬*

To discover the secret to get lið loyal to its leader and which was united, we based our post in a study made by Ben Raffield (Simon Fraser University), Claire Greenlow (Simon Fraser University), Neil Price (Uppsala University) and Mark Collard (Aberdeen University), who provide us with anthropological and psychological point of view after consulting historical, literary, linguistic and textual sources.  

After saying this, I will start with the base of a lið's cohesion. 

Our experts mention that there are two keys to get a loyal and united group: 

1- Ingroup identification. We define as ingroup a social group that is different to other groups (outgroup) due to one or several traits, which can be genetically inherited or socially learnt (dialects, clothing, diet, skin color, music, values, beliefs and attitude). 

2- Indentity fusion. When the members of a group share those traits and can identify themselves with it, they are prone to see their colleagues as equals and feel connected to them to the point that they can establish almost kin relationships. 

Thanks to this, they will also pay attention to the way their group is dealt in comparison to other groups, make persona sacrifices for the group and be loyal when the group's integrity is in danger, that's to say, then will appear the  true cohesion.

Identity fusion can also take place when a world view is shared inside a group or when its members share experiences, specially the traumatic ones (that's why this fusion tends to take place in warfare and conflict groups). 

Silver Wolf reenactment group from Russia, "empathising and coming together" in Wolin's festival battle.  Photographer: Marcin Somerik

Identity fusion has a negative side too: the fact that its members could perceive their group as superior compared to other groups (and in extreme cases, they might think that it is invulnerable), and tis might bring them to take an extreme pro-group attitude, or don't trust or even be hostile to all those individuals who do not belong to their group (we could say that they might think: either you are IN MY GROUP or you are AGAINST MY GROUP).  

These two elements, ingroup identity and identity fusion, are crucial when creating a new group although it is not necessary that bouth take place for the sake of the group. For example, an individual could feel united to other individuals who went through the same experiences than he did, but it doesn't mean that he feels identified with them.

We believe that there two elements were also crucial in viking liðs, due to its members spend long periods living, traveling and fighting together, and this might contribute to develop a group identity through shared experiences. 

Kin bonds and pre-established social relationships were important to the formation of the lið. The reason is simple: kin groups were highly influential in Scandinavian social structures, not only as economic units but also as a unit skilled to manipulate loyalty networks and obligations to get their own goals. 

We can find an evindence that those bonds were there in rune stones like U209 and Sö 338 in Sweden (middle IX century), which make reference to individuals who served to the same retinue and also find more references in Egil Skallagrimssonar's saga, when Þórólfr goes to raid, and the sons of a friend of his father (Kari of Berdla) join him. 

Silver Wolf reenactment group from Russia

in Wolin's Festivalla battle. Photographer: Marcin Somerik

Nevertheless a lið's membership did not depend on the kin's bond or pre-established social relationships. 

In an excavation in Dublin, Ireland, they made  an isotope analysis of the bodies of four young males, who probably operated in the outskirts of Dublin before or during the foundation of a permanent settlement for ships in the middle of IX century. 

This analysis proved that two of those young males came from the North of Scandinavia, while the other two were from the North or West of Scotland. 

We can also find in historical sources like Sernu Lupi ad anlos (Wulfstan, XI century), that some Slav who were in England, escaped from their masters to join the viking war bands. 

This would also mean that lið's individuals came from different countries and because of that they might use a lingua france to communicate. 

Thanks to Wulfstan record, we can also see how inside the liðs there were people from different social position.

The fact that some Slavs who escaped from their masters joined the viking war bans proves that those groups accepted individuals who came from low classes. 

In Egil Skallagrimssonar's sage it is said that there was a high born man called Arinbjörn who provided with three ships for a raid expedition and took not only household members but also the sons of several local farmers. 

In a nutshell, we would say that heterogeneity in liðs was due to language, social and nationality matters. 

Silver Wolf reenactment group from Rusia. 

Photographer: Hammerheartart

Despite the travel and the warfare activities were associated mainly to men, there are evidences that sometimes women (it was not very usual) also collaborated in war, like the historician John Skylitzes indicates that women fought as a part of Rus' forces in 970. The Irish source Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh mentions that a "fleet of Inghen Ruaidh" (red girl) operated against Munster in X century.  

Despite of this, it is still a very ambiguous subject due to the available evidences that we can find nowadays, do not allow us to conclude that women participated on a daily basis on raids and warfare, which would have increased the heterogeneity of liðs.

Previously when I mentioned briefly the ingroup identity inside those processes we could include the adoption of specific cultural material like, for example, the liðs equipment. 

Besides finding archeological records and writing sources that can prove this fact, we must keep in mind that generally it was the elite groups who provided the members of the liðs with equipment (clothing, shields, weapons,...) so that they could distinguish they colleagues and promote the cohesion in the group and its unit. 

An homogeneous equipment is crucial

Silver Wolf reenactment group from Russia

Photographer: Millarca

Sometimes the standard and the artifacts employed in the battlefield, besides contributing in the identification and cooperation of the group, also promoted pro-group behaviors during the conflict, or even were perceived as talismans that might bring luck to the group. For example, it was said that the carrier of Haraldr Sigurðarson's standard “Land Waster”, will always be victorious in the battlefield.

Probably, before joining to a lið, an individual had to present certain conditions like taking an oath.

Keeping in mind that a lið's structure was determined by the direct master relationship between servants and their masters, it is probable that the oath taking might take place during the group formation and the initiation of new members. 

Those oaths were useful to create strong obligation and loyalty bonds between individuals, who without it might not be bond and the cohesion of the group might not be so strong.

Silver Wolf group from Russia

This oath was made with a big ring which was taken with one hand by the master and the servant or by taking the sword handle of the leader. 

Another kind of oath might also be required. There are references of blood oaths, for example, which can be found in Gísla saga Súrssonar and in Gesta Danorum of Saxo Gramático.

Despite oaths might have created and kept powerful bonds between the members of a lið, there were other features that were also influential. For example, it is possible that the members of the group might have to take certain ideology, including religion and belief rituals. For example it was suggested that Odin's cult, a got strongly associated with shape-changing, shamanic skills and war, was linked to the identity of certain groups of warriors during viking age. At least, some of those groups seem to belong to the warrior class depicted in sources as Berserkers (berserkir and ulhednar - “bare shirt” and “wolf pelt”). 

In the case of berserkir and ulfhednar it is suggested that the idetification with an ingroup warrior might have depended on certain physical and psychological traits. Either it was or not, they were associated to Odin, we must not take out the possibility that those groups really believed that they had the ability to change their shape or the possibility that others saw them visually as if they were in a transformation process in the battleship. If this was the case, to have this "ability" might have contributed to a well-defined ingroup identity and presumably with strict limits when it comes to be part of this group.
Any ideological aspect or identity ritual of the ingroup might contribute to a potencial bigger to the identity fusion, which at the same time, might have been strengthened by the combat experiences shared and the participation in common rituals. If it was so, then those norms of mutual strengthening might have created the invulnerability perceptions and the pro-group attitudes and behavior.

After showing you the main ideas of the article, "Ingroup identification, identity fusion and the formation of Viking war bands" de Ben Raffield, Claire Greenlow, Neil Price and Mark Collard, I hope that I have contributed to provide you with a better understanding of the key points that contributed to keep a lið together and how were the individuals that composed it. 

"Ingroup identification, identity fusion and the formatiion of Viking war bands" of Ben Raffield, Claire Greenlow, Neil Price y Mark Collard

 Silver Wolf   reenactment group.

Marcin Somerik Photography

Millarca and Hammerheartart photos.

All about Sleipnir (juicy gossips )

Today I'm going to introduce you Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged mount (and no, he's not a spider!). 

Odin riding Sleipnir  ( Tjängvide's picture )

Sleipnir, is the strongest, biggest and most powerful horse in the world.
He can run at unbelievable speed (that's why Odin always gets the best fallen warriors of every single battle... My poor three legged nag can't compete with him) either in the sky, on earth or over the sea.
The English word "slippery" could be  a good translation of his name, and it makes me consider that maybe it could be so, due to he doesn't like interviews and I had to insist a lot to make him tell me about his life... Luckily a jar of mead can make things easier, mhwahahahaha! 

Sleipnir is the son of Loki ("his mother"... I told you in the title of this entry, that there would be juicy comments ;) )  and Svaldifari, a horse with a high repute who helped to build Asgard's wall.
The history about how their parents meet started when an anonymous builder came as a volunteer to build a fortress for the gods, which will not let any enemy in.
In exchange for his services, he asked for the Moon, the Sun and the goddess Freyja (as you can see, he was a clever dude). 

Loki would give it to him just if he worked alone and finished his work in six months. Actually Loki thought that he would only be able to build the half of the fortress, and as a result he would get all this work done for free.

The builder accepted and asked if he could be helped by his horse Svadilfari. 

Svaldilfari was very strong and could move huge stones easily, which made the gods fear that he might get it... specially when they realized that he was doing all the work on time.

Due to "as usually" Loki was the one who got them into troubles (Freyja gave Loki the cold shoulder for a while), they decided that he would be the one to sabotage the builder's work, so that he would not finish his work on time.

Loki knew that Svadilfari was crucial for the builder to work and because of that he decided to taint the majestic and strong horse by turning himself into a mare and flirting with him... but he went "a little to far" with it... Loki in his mare form, became pregnant and that's how Sleipnir was conceived.

One of the most famous characteristics of Sleipnir is his ability to bring his rider to my place (Helheim), which allowed him to come over and let me interview him and Odin, who you will get to know soon. 

There are people who believe that he can fly (I cannot assure it, since he moves his legs so fast that I don't know if he flies or runs...) and because of that they link him to shamanic tradition.

Curiosities about Sleipnir:

I : L Hilda Ellis Davidson , an expert in Nordic mythology states that there is a relation between Sleipnir and the funerary rituals of Old Nordic people. In those funerals, the body of the deceased person was put over a frame and four men brought it to its resting place (either a pyre or a burial mound). According to this, we could consider that the deceased was brought to the underworld by "an eight-legged horse", that's to say, by four men who carried the body to the pyre/burial mound.

II: Some people believe that the eight legs of Sleipnir represent the eight directions in the sky and the eight dimensions. 

III: Other fonts suggest that Sleipnir has only 4 legs, and  each leg is divided in the knee in two parts, which makes us see as if it was an eight-legged horse.
This representation could be dated around year 900, when viking horses were brought from Norway to Iceland. Those horses have 2 wars of walking besides throttle gallop and walk. One of them is Tölt, which could be defined as a walking style between walk and run, which the horse can do at any speed and is really confortable for the rider. The other walking style is the Flying Pace, really common when racing, which allows the horse to reach 30 m.p.h. An Icelandic horse walking like that produces the eight-legged optic effect (check the following video): 

 In 1:45 minute 1:45 you will see the Flying pace

References:

[1] Price, Neil S. 2002. The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. p. 320-323.

Norse Mythology for smart people

My job: identifying the newcomers (I)

Good evening everyone!

Living and working at Niflheim is really hard, and it sometimes can make even the most experimented people fail.
As I told you in my previous post, in early times, I used to walk through the streets wearing my bull disguise and looking for new Niflheim's guests.
My strategy stopped to be useful when in XVth century, people realized that as a bull, the oat was so irresistible to me that I would not take them to Niflheim if they gave me some... This rumor spread so quick that I had to change my strategy and decided to get a granny's disguise.
In the beginning I walked through villages with my granny's look and a broom or a rake, but nowadays I decided to get a more modern version of this fancy dress and I decided to adopt this look:

Hella's actual image while looking for Niflheim guests. 

Actually between IX-XIth centuries it was not that easy to know if the right guest of Niflheim was in front of you, and I had to become a gossip girl good observant to avoid mistakes.

A good technique to know where this person might roam, was to know is social status, which we could know easily thanks to his/her clothing.
Viking clothing colors were limited due to they were created through natural dyes made of ingredients like the scarce rubia tinctorum (it turns white clothing into a reddish one) or something as simple as the red onion's rind, which gives clothing a yellow-like color. Here you can see an image of Nille Glæsel, where you will appreciate the main colors that you could make thanks to natural dyes.

Check out this  link  to find more info

Reddish, purple and bluish colors were the hardest to get due the scarcity of elements to elaborate them, and as you probably have already guessed, only people with a high status owned clothes of these colors.
Another indicator of the status of a person were the jewels that he/she wore. Most of European people were fascinated by gold, but vikings preferred silver.
A woman whose brooches were made of silver, indicated that she belonged to a wealthy family and the bigger the brooches, the higher her social status was.
Here you can see a good example of silver brooches:

Brooches made by Alban Depper

As you can see in the picture, between both brooches hangs a kind of necklaces with colorful beads (they were made of different minerals and amber). 

Again more quantity means more status, so in a nutshell the more necklaces the richer its owner was. 

It means that when I had to go and pick up someone who belonged to rich family, like a jarl's daughter, I only had to look for someone with colorful clothing, who wore several layers of clothing and wearing a lot of jewels. 

On the other hand if I had to pick up someone who belonged to a humble family, I had to look for someone who did not wear silver jewelry (this person might wear bone or brass jewels), plain colored clothing (green , brown, white...) without any embroidery. 

In this picture of Clan Hávamal  reenactment group, you can appreciate 3 different social classes. On the left there is a jarl's wife, and next to her sit two Smáboendr (a social class a little bit humbler than a Boendr) ladies.

In a viking village, you could also distinguish traders or craftsmen thanks to their tools and their daily routines.

Here are a pair of examples: 

  

I would like to tell you more about how to distinguish the social class of a warrior by looking at his clothing but I must admit that it is something that I am still learning, due my "beloved" Odin is the one who always steals the fallen in battle warriors before I arrive  and pick them up... Damn! If he could only turn into a fat bull or a granny, or had to ride three legged a horse or a goat and half of his body was skull-like, we'll see who would get the best warriors!

Despite of my "love" for him, I might consider ask him to collaborate in this blog to tell you more about warriors...

Hella

Hello everybody!

My name is Hella (actually the word hell is closely related to my name and both come from Anglosaxon words like hélan or helan, which mean to cover or to hide; in old Norse slaa ihel means "to kill") and I live under one of the roots of Yggdrasil tree. 

To be more specific, I live in Helheim, the darkest side of Niflheim (I've never been a big fan of sunbathing...). 

Actually you will recognize my home easily since it is surrounded by a wall with one or more opening doors (it depends on how many visitors come to my place that day...) and the shady rivers around it, like Slid, which flows towards West through valleys full of poison, mud and swords (doesn't it sound like paradise?). 

You can arrive to my home, by walking through Helway just like the god Hermóðr did, when he came to ask me to set Baldr free, so that they could go back together Asgard. Needless to say that I refused his request due some reasons that I will tell you in future entries of this blog...  

To arrive to my home, Baldr rode Sleipnir (Odin's eight legged horse) for 9 days and 9 nights, through a downward war and always toward north... I guess that due the cool and fast cars that we have nowadays, you could make it even faster. 

If you are not in a hurry and are not that sporty or virtuous people, I can always come and bring you to my sweet home. 

You will recognize me easily: my dog Gnapapellir will bark near you as I approach, or you will see my three legged horse or my three white legged goat come to you.

I must warn you that to fight boredom (now you know why some people say to be bored like hell...), sometimes I turn myself into a bullock and go from farm to farm looking for my future guests. I must admit that I do not do it too often, since I always get halitosis when I do it... 

The other reason I do it from time to time, is that some people offered me oatmeal if I let them live longer, and as a bullock I cannot resist a good dish full of delicious oatmeal and neither my  horse and my goat can do it. 

Because of that in the middle of XIV century, as the Black Pest devastated Norway and other European regions, I had to change my strategy and turn myself into an old sorceress and knock every church door with a rake or a broom (it depended on how many guests did I want to have that day) to do my job. 

I must admit that my home is big enough to host everybody, although due Odin is faster when it comes to pick up fallen in battle men (I think that after doing that they see the best moves in battle when they reach Walhalla... just like as if they were watching a soccer match...), and because of that I always end up picking up the non-virtuous men, men without honor, adulterous, traitors... or those who die because they are too old or ill. 

If I had two normal legs instead of having a normal one and one skeleton-like, which tumbles down every now and then, then we'll see who gets the best guests home...   

Although I must confess that I have also had celebrities like Baldr who was killed by his brother Höðr,  Sigurd who killed Fafnir and who was killed by Günther or the lovely Brynhildr who arrived with her beauty cart after being burnt in her pyre.

Thanks to those important guests and the information about the Scandinavian people that I gathered for centuries (and yes, the arrival of new technologies was a great help too...), which I got through conversations with my guests or simply with the notes that my servants took during the night chit-chats next to the dying people, I decided to create this blog to share with you all weekly the traditions, art, gastronomy, mythology , etc... of Nordic people who lived between IX and XI century. 

I will also tell you about the Eddas' gossips and their main characters so that you get to know them better. 

I hope that you enjoy as much as I do, the stories about my guests that I will write here.

See you in Hel :)