{"id":398,"date":"2008-06-20T00:36:08","date_gmt":"2008-06-20T04:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=5"},"modified":"2008-06-20T00:36:08","modified_gmt":"2008-06-20T04:36:08","slug":"midsummers-eve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/midsummers-eve\/","title":{"rendered":"Midsummer’s Eve"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s that time of the year again when the entire Sweden goes outside to sing, dance, drink and celebrate the arrival of summer. Yep, it\u2019s Midsommarafton<\/strong> (Midsummer\u2019s Eve) today. Regardless of the actual day of the summer solstice, the holiday is always scheduled for Friday-Saturday between June 19th and 25th.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On Midsummer\u2019s Eve businesses close early and people rush home. It\u2019s time to raise the maypole! The big celebrations, which in my town are organized in an open-air museum, are taken very seriously. After all, Midsommar<\/strong> is the most important holiday of the Swedish calendar.<\/p>\n

As an outsider, I find it a curious holiday to observe. Seeing people decked out in their folk costumes, with flowers garlands in their hair, hopping around the maypole doing the \u201cFrog dance\u201d<\/em> (Sm\u00e5 grodorna dans<\/strong>) makes me giggle. The maypole itself with its pagan phallic symbolism makes me giggle.
\n\u201cYeah, we have maypoles in England,\u201d<\/em> you may say. True, but you simply can\u2019t compare the puny little British stick with its proper Swedish equivalent. See what I mean? Ahem, ahem\u2026<\/p>\n

And because you can\u2019t have Midsommar<\/strong> without traditional food, it\u2019s also the perfect time to load up on fresh potatoes (with dill, naturally), pickled herring (not as bad as it sounds), sour cream, and strawberries. And don\u2019t forget snaps<\/strong>. It wouldn\u2019t be Midsommar<\/strong> without snaps<\/strong>. That of course means lots of song singing, with every song demanding a round of snaps<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A few years ago IKEA<\/strong> made a series of Midsommar<\/strong> themed TV commercials for the German market poking fun at this typically Swedish celebration. Needless to say, these ads were very quickly banned and never made it into broadcast.<\/p>\n

The festivities in my town are not as rowdy as those envisioned by IKEA<\/strong> (simply because it\u2019s a university town and most students are already gone for the summer), and instead the focus is on heritage and tradition. There\u2019s much flatbread baking (typical in this part of Sweden), fiddle playing, and tradition folk costume wearing. But no matter how sophisticated the celebrations, the “frog song”<\/em> must be sung and the “frog dance”<\/em> MUST be performed.<\/p>\n

Here are the lyrics in Swedish and English:<\/p>\n

Sm\u00e5 grodorna, sm\u00e5 grodorna \u00e4r lustiga att se.
\nSm\u00e5 grodorna, sm\u00e5 grodorna \u00e4r lustiga att se.
\nEj \u00f6ron, ej \u00f6ron, ej svansar hava de.
\nEj \u00f6ron, ej \u00f6ron, ej svansar hava de.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
\nkou ack ack ack ack kaa.
\nKou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
\nkou ack ack ack ack kaa.<\/strong><\/p>\n

English translation:<\/p>\n

The little frogs, the little frogs are funny to watch.
\nThe little frogs, the little frogs are funny to watch.
\nNo ears, no ears no tails do they have.
\nNo ears, no ears no tails do they have.<\/p>\n

Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
\nkou ack ack ack ack kaa.
\nKou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
\nkou ack ack ack ack kaa.<\/p>\n

Now imagine grown men, women, and children of all ages hopping around a huge green \u201cyou-know-what-I-mean\u201d symbol and singing \u201ckou ack ack ack kaa<\/strong>\u2026\u201d No wonder foreigners think Swedes are a little bit weird.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a vocabulary list for your Midsommar<\/strong> meal:<\/p>\n

Potatis<\/strong> \u2013 potatoes
\nInlagd sill<\/strong> \u2013 pickled herring
\nGr\u00e4ddfil<\/strong> \u2013 sour cream
\nDill<\/strong> \u2013 dill
\nJordgubbar<\/strong> \u2013 strawberries
\nAnd of course snaps<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

It\u2019s that time of the year again when the entire Sweden goes outside to sing, dance, drink and celebrate the arrival of summer. Yep, it\u2019s Midsommarafton (Midsummer\u2019s Eve) today. Regardless of the actual day of the summer solstice, the holiday is always scheduled for Friday-Saturday between June 19th and 25th. On Midsummer\u2019s Eve businesses close…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[364862,2052,364867,3296,3301,2534,913],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-culture","tag-dance","tag-food","tag-maypole","tag-midsummer","tag-song","tag-traditions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5550,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/5550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}