One of our great Swedish poets once wrote “Ingen maj en dager sprider som den klarnande april” which loosely translates as “no May day ever shines as brightly as the returning light in April”. I totally agree: April is the month of LIGHT up here in the north. We write the 6th of April today, […]
St Lucy’s Day – or St Lucia as we say here in Sweden—is a celebration of light when winter is at its darkest. Prior to adopting the Gregorian calendar back in the 18th century, the Swedish calendar had St Lucia falling on the darkest day of the year, the midwinter solstice, and…What? You’ve never heard
At three, I start to turn in bed, suspended somewhere between actual sleep and wakefulness. The birds are announcing the birth of a new day, and I lie there, listening to the blackbird’s warbling, the monotone double-cheep of the resident blue tits, and I’m not sure if I am irritated or overjoyed at being woken
Welcome to Sweden, staunch home of the Lutheran church as is displayed by the relatively large number of religious red letter days in our calendar. Not that Swedes are particularly religious – not these days. Neither are we pagan, but some rituals are hard to kill, and no matter Anselm (our apostle) no matter the