{"id":104,"date":"2011-08-08T23:23:52","date_gmt":"2011-08-08T23:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/?p=104"},"modified":"2011-08-09T07:15:45","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T07:15:45","slug":"bright-nights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2011\/08\/08\/bright-nights\/","title":{"rendered":"Bright Nights"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sommeraften<\/a>

P.S. Kr\u00f8yer captured the essence of a white night perfectly in this painting. (Copyright expired.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Looking at today\u2019s kalender<\/strong>\u00a0I couldn\u2019t help feeling a bit of nostalgia as it informed me the lyse n\u00e6tter<\/strong>\u00a0were coming to an end.<\/p>\n

Lyse n\u00e6tter<\/strong>, literally\u00a0\u2019bright nights\u2019, usually rendered in English as\u00a0white nights<\/em>, are the hallmark of a pleasant summer in Denmark. From about 5th of May till 8th of August<\/a>\u00a0there is literally nothing between dusk and dawn. The sun waiting just a few degrees below the horizon, dusk glides silently into dawn, resulting in a special kind of faintly illuminated night experience. It does get dark \u2013 at 10 pm or so \u2013 but never completely.<\/p>\n

By the way, the word for \u2019night\u2019, nat<\/strong>, is another example of a noun changing its root vowel in the plural<\/a>.\u00a0(The doubling of the \u2019t\u2019 is just a spelling convention; let\u2019s discuss this in another post, shan\u2019t we?) A single \u2019bright night\u2019 is called a lys nat<\/strong>. So in Danish, adjectives (words like \u2019bright\u2019, \u2019dark\u2019, \u2019rainy\u2019)\u00a0also get inflected. Fortunately, it is very easy to make the plural \u2013 you just add an -e<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Lyse n\u00e6tter<\/strong>\u00a0without too many\u00a0skyer<\/strong>\u00a0(clouds) provide a very romantic backdrop for holding hands and suchlike activities. They are also perfect for improvising a garden party. You just need a good grill<\/strong>\u00a0(or rather a good griller-in-chief), some p\u00f8lser <\/strong>(sausages), salat<\/strong>\u00a0and a lot of \u00f8l <\/strong>(beer). If you start early, you and your venner <\/strong>(friends) can enjoy the atmosphere well into the night.<\/p>\n

Lyse n\u00e6tter<\/strong>\u00a0were a popular theme for Danish artists during the Romanticism\u00a0(mostly the 19th century). Somehow the bright nights linked Denmark to its Nordic past rather than to, say, Italy or France. This notion got popularized by the singalong 1922 song\u00a0\u201dDanmark, nu blunder den lyse nat\u201d, written by Th\u00f8ger Larsen and Oluf Ring (melody). It is still sung today.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take the first<\/a> and two last verses:<\/p>\n

Danmark, nu blunder den lyse nat
\nbag ved din seng, n\u00e5r du sover.
\nG\u00f8gen kukker i skov og krat.
\nVesterhavet og Kattegat
\nsynger, imens det dugger,
\nsagte som sang ved vugger.<\/p>\n

Denmark, now the bright night is slumbering<\/em>
\nbehind your bed, while you\u2019re asleep.<\/em>
\nThe cuckoo\u2019s calling in the woods and the thickets.<\/em>
\nThe Western Sea and Kattegat<\/em>
\nare singing, while the dew is falling<\/em>
\nslowly like cradle songs.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

K\u00f8er og heste og f\u00e5r p\u00e5 gr\u00e6s
\nhen over brede agre,
\n\u00e5bne lader for fulde l\u00e6s,
\nsejl, som stryger om klint og n\u00e6s,
\nbyger, som g\u00e5r og kommer \u2013
\ndet er den danske sommer.<\/p>\n

Pasturing cows and horses and sheep<\/em>
\n across broad fields,<\/em>
\n full-loaded, open barns,<\/em>
\n sails sweeping around the cliff and the foreland,<\/em>
\n showers passing and coming \u2013<\/em>
\n that is the Danish summer.<\/em><\/p>\n

Pigernes latter og lyse h\u00e5r
\nleg, som f\u00e5r aldrig ende,
\n\u00f8jnene bl\u00e5 som vand i v\u00e5r
\nmildt om et evigt Danmark sp\u00e5r
\nsol over gr\u00f8nne sletter
\nlykke og lyse n\u00e6tter.<\/p>\n

The girls\u2019 laughter and fair hair,<\/em>
\nneverending play,<\/em>
\nthe eyes with the blue of water during spring<\/em>
\nmildly predict an eternal Denmark,<\/em>
\nsun above green plains,<\/em>
\nhappiness and bright nights.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"Sommeraften

Looking at today\u2019s kalender\u00a0I couldn\u2019t help feeling a bit of nostalgia as it informed me the lyse n\u00e6tter\u00a0were coming to an end. Lyse n\u00e6tter, literally\u00a0\u2019bright nights\u2019, usually rendered in English as\u00a0white nights, are the hallmark of a pleasant summer in Denmark. From about 5th of May till 8th of August\u00a0there is literally nothing between dusk…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}