ISSUE

1 Midnight Sun V O L U M E 2 9 J a n . 2 0 1 6

Quarterly Magazine for the Scandinavian Club of Regina

In this issue:

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Articles 1, 4, 5, 6 Members’ Matters 2 President’s Corner 3 Editorial 3 Scandinavian News 6 What did they write Events; Club Info 8 about - the peope who left their runic Picture: See p. 5 inscriptions on objects big and small more than a thousand years ago? Alphabets - where do they come from? Midnight Sun has talked with one of the world’s leading experts on unic alphabets are often looked upon as a set of magical signs, runology, emerging out of a misty, mysterious past. Modern-day movies and TV Professor series have no doubt helped furthering this image. Truly, in some cases, James E. e.g. on amulets, runic inscriptions were given special powers. We will try to Knirk at the shed some light on the use of the oldest means of written communication Museum of between our ancestors. Cultural History, the Written communication emerged The best known runic alphabet is University among tradespeople - they needed a probably the older futhark – named of Oslo. He possesses means of keeping track of their after its the big picture of rune business transactions. The first first six history, but he also has alphabet is believed to have been letters. an eye for the little invented by the Phoenicians, great There details, the small traders of the Middle East, some 4,000 have messages. In the 2010 years ago. This was a phonetic been several versions of the futhark, exhibition Kiss Me, he alphabet with only consonants. and the inscriptions found on objects showed a great number This is the sign for “ox”, aleph. uncovered in the Nordic region, have of objects with person- Phoenician signs traveled to Greece, been written in any of them. They were to-person messages - Italy (Etruscans and Romans), and it is used in , , Norway some of a rather spicy believed that Germanic mercenaries and Iceland. Finland, with its language character. picked up the use of writing and developing from a totally different brought it back to their home lands. origin, does not have national historic With some exceptions, alphabets are monuments with . There are, related to each other. The earliest use however, runes of Swedish origin of runes date from circa A.D.150, and found in Finland, and also varous runic their use varied from stone memorials inscriptions from around the Baltic Sea. to maker’s and ownership formulas on weapons and jewelry .

Happy New Year! Members’ Matters

SCoR 2015 Christmas Potluck

40th Anniversary Celebrations - YOUR Contribution...

2016 will reveal what the SSCoR Board has in store for us, but let you ask yourselves: What can be MY contribution? Whether your membership spans forty years or one - what can you tell us, or show us, as your favourite memory of our Club? Contact Greg (306- 586-9737) or Kari (kar- Guests of honour: Santa Claus of the North Pole in full regalia brought Christmas [email protected]) presents, and author Byrna Barclay of Regina did a reading of a dramatic passage from her book The Forest Horses. - but the most important guests of the SCoR Christmas Party - as always - were the children.

2 SCoR Website http://www.scandinavianclubregina.com/

President’s Corner Picture credits

It was nice to see everyone at our P.1: (JellingStone) Christmas pot luck supper in early G.Vlemmings; (J.E.Knirk, poster) UiO December, especially all of the young ©; children. Hopefully everyone was P.2: (all photos) pleased that once again Santa Claus G.Swanson; was able to join us. P.3: (G.Swanson) I know that as you read this Christmas G.Grant; is long gone. Hopefully your Christmas P.4: (bracteate) B.A. celebrations were full of happiness and Lundberg; (lead good family times. On behalf of the amulets, letter, shoe, board of the Scandinavian Club of comb) unimus photo Regina I hope that 2016 will be a good portal; year for everybody.. P.5: (UppsalaStone) WikimediaCommons; Remember that Nordic knitting will (VaxholmStone) resume in January, and we hope to M.Källström; offer some Rosemaling classes as (JellingStone) well. gyldendal.dk/; (passport) M.Schlosser; Happy New Year! JellingStoneReverse) Greg wiki2.org; P.6: (Codex Runicus, scribe) Wikipedia; (CarminaBurana) The Editorial Origin Of Backgammon; (Sverre) Wikimedia Commons; (Bracteate) Forty years - still young, some century farmers to the modern Wikipedia would say, but a considerable age day oil specialists. Younger Other: Public domain for a club counting its members generations will have other among immigrants and preferences than the founders. immigrants’ descendants: each Modern Nordic societies and culture generation farther away from the Old could have more to offer than what we Wanted: Country. Many of the founding have come to consider the typical members have departed from history, ”Scandinavian background”. New Editor but some are still around. We owe the For SCoR to continue thriving and Club’s existence to them and to waves attracting new members, it is important Our volunteer editor of new members over the years. for all of us - not just our elected wants to step down However, an anniversary should not representatives - to give input to what after the AGM in April, just make us sit back and remember we want the direction to be for our and we are looking for the past. It is important to look ahead Club’s development. That might mean her creative successor. to find out what will attract new less resources spent on trying to members. From the SCoR Bylaws: revitalise activities that we have Midnight Sun is a ”[—-] Specifically, the purposes of the outgrown, greater efforts focused on quarterly publication, Club are to: 1. maintain the what may attract younger generations. presently created with Scandinavian traditions of people who That might mean asking around: Microsoft Publisher. trace their ancestry to the northern asking the membership what focus and Contact Kari Mitchell countries of Denmark, Finland, activities they would like the Club to ([email protected]) Iceland, Norway and Sweden; [—-]” have for the next forty years - asking or Greg Swanson (306- Nordic background this day and age potential members what it would take 586-9737) for details. covers it all—from the nineteenth for them to find it interesting to join us.

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Bracteates, amulets and other small things

n the 4th of July 1955, lightening struck at Bryggen, the Hanseatic Wharf in Bergen, Norway. The fire that followed led to more than fourteen years of excavations and more han 550 ”new” rune inscriptions on bone and wood pieces were found.

One of the findings was a letter on wooden Whereas most of the sticks from Sigurd Part of Sigurd Lavard’s letter bracteate findings have Lavard - an order of been made in spearheads to one of Denmark, this gold Bryggen’s craftsmen. pendant was found at But objects with runic Vadstena in Sweden. inscriptions had been unearthed much earlier, all over . Bracteates are thin medieval or older coins. Other findings made of metal (lead) are Wooden objects have been preserved amulets with Christian inscriptions in the ground. As mentioned already on (dating from 11-1200s). They p.1, many of them were name labels sometimes had the form of a cross, or marking the ownership of goods. A were folded into a small, square shape curious (but human) practise is being which could be carried in special manifested in downright odious runes, purses or sewn into pieces of clothing, very like graffiti on washroom walls in and they had probably been buried modern-day society - naming people Cruciform lead amulet with their owners. Modern day use of and telling of sexual exploits. More with runic inscription; metal detectors has resulted in many innocuous graffiti, more like “Kilroy was Norway findings of single metal objects. here” have been found inscribed on walls of Norwegian stave churches. Animal bone material was easy to carve and lent itself to the use by crafty people with a message. Bone was also used to create important tools for everyday life. Take Folded-up lead amulet, Photo: James E. Knirk handy to carry in a combs, for instance. purse; Norway Very interesting is the fact that leather Head lice was a shoes with runes have been partly common nuisance, and the remedy to preserved under the houses at help get rid of it was a good louse Bryggen (picture above). This shoe has comb. This well preserved sample was been beautifuly adorned with an found at a site in Sogn & Fjordane inscription between borders: a Latin county, Western Norway. quotation of Vergil’s Amor vincit omnia (Love conquers all). The Detail of bone comb quotation could have continued “Let us described in text. too surrender to Love” on the other shoe, which was not found.

4 SCoR Website http://www.scandinavianclubregina.com/

Monuments

ere are some 7,000 runic inscriptions in the world, half of them located in Sweden, where the great majority are runestones dating from 900 AD onwards. most of them Christian grave monuments. The Church often took over old traditions, but at times expressed warnings against runes, considering them to be pagan. The Jellinge stone is One of the world’s largest runestones, unusual in that the the big Jelling stone, is called inscription was made ”Denmark’s Christening certificate” (see in horizontal bands. It pic. on p.1, and margin). It is a heavily says: decorated three sided granite pyramid. HARALDR KING BADE Denmark has some of the oldest Viking DO THESE RUNES Age runetones. There developed a AFTER GORMR HIS ”fashion” among men of influence to FATHER AND AFTER have their own runic stones raised, THYRVÉ HIS MOTHER Theng stones and Dräng stones, and the THE HARALDR WHO WON FOR HIMSELF DENMARK ALL AND NORWAY AND MADE We find more of the oldest runestones in THE DANES Norway than in the other Scandinavian CHRISTIAN countries. The oldest of the stones in this The king was Harold I, Harold Bluetooth. This is the first time Norway (NURUIAK) is mentioned in writing. Danish video

The Danes even have a picture of a big Jelling stone detail in their passport!

picture (on the right, on display at the Runestone in Uppsala, Sweden. Oslo University Library) is a memorial ”...björn (?) and Brand bade raise stone from c. 400-500 AD, with the text: the stone after Karlung their "HadulaikaR. I Hagusta(l)daR buried father and Kättilbjörn after (his) brother. Öpir carved the runes” my son". No monumental stones with fashion spread to Sweden (but never runic inscriptions have been found on reached Norway). Earlier: Runes were Iceland. Why is that so? Perhaps so inscribed along the edges of the stones, much of the common stone found there but now they were often set in an was formed from lava and was not that elaborate artistic context, sometimes suitable for stone monuments. with the runes appearing inside snake formed ornaments. There are, however, several Icelandic runic grave stones from 1300-1500 with Archaeologists are still able to uncover a text like “Here rests NN”. Runic runic treasures. Part of a runestone from inscriptions from this period have also Norrtälje, Sweden, had been missing for been found on small objects. many years, but was rediscovered in 2013 in Vaxholm.

http://www.facebook.com/scandinavianclubregina 5 Runes in Literary Documents

hat is literature? The ethymology of the word tells us that it originates from latin litteratura, ”writing, written rendering”, derived from greek littera, ”letter”. So, anything written. Which tells us we can find literature written on stones, but mostly we would think hand written or printed sources. We can bring but a few samples...

Runes are block capitals and not at all easy to write by hand. Still, they seem to have been in fairly wide use. However, there are only two medieval written entirely with runes: Codex Runicus Codex Runicus (see margin) and fragments of Jomfru Marias klage The picture above (Virgin Mary’s Lament). The shows the final page of (in Old Danish) was Codex Runicus, a penned by the same person who wrote manuscript from c. 1300 the Codex Runicus. containing the Scanian Carmina Burana is a manuscript Law written in runes on written around 1225, but is a collection vellum (calf skin). of songs from the 1100s with poetry Scania (Skåne), now covering a part of Sweden, wide range of belonged to Denmark hedonism, back then. The last from drinking couple of lines of the songs to love lyrics. The Contemporary bust of Sverre page contains text and Sigurdsson from the Nidaros songs were music to the song Cathedral, dated c.1200 Drømte mig en drøm I popular with nat which has become vagabond-like part of both countries’ traveling culture. students. Sverre Sigurdsson (Old Norse: Sverrir Scandinavia Sigurðarson) (was the king of did not have a Norway 1184-1202. The most university, and important historical source on Sverre’s students from life is his biography, Sverris saga, in the north part written while he was alive. In the In 1931, the tune traveled to e.g. the University of oldest manuscript of the saga can be became the pause Padua. seen a handwritten inscription in runes signal of Danmarks These songs from the 12th century had condemning those who do not take Radio, the Danish never been found in Scandinavia until care of writings. On the whole, margin Broadcasting the excavation at Bryggen in Bergen graffiti in old manuscripts were not Corporation, (see p.4) brought forth citations in unusual. played on an runes of lines from two songs. We have hardly any original automatic xylophone. It is indeed interesting to see that the manuscripts from the Middle Ages, but almost only copies of copies of copies. tradition of student singers goes such a long way back - more or less directly The codex optimus (best manuscript) comparable to Carl Michael Bellman’s from c. 1300 is not the original from works around Uppsala University in the about 1210. 18th century. And of course, Carl Orff based his scenic cantata (1935-36) on these medieval poems.

6 SCoR Website http://www.scandinavianclubregina.com/

News From the Old Countries

High Speed Railway New Star Wars Language

New developments are on the horizon Newspaper Helsingin regarding the ongoing discussions Sanomat reports that Sara about linking Iceland’s Keflavík Forsberg, known as Smoukahontas for International Airport to the Reykjavík her "What Languages Sound Like to Most Googled Capital Region by high-speed train. Foreigners" YouTube video (12 million The latest is that municipal authorities hits in 2014), was asked to develop a The search for the areas through which the train new alien language for the blockbuster engine would pass - Reykjavík, Kópavogur, movie franchise. The offer came Google has Hafnarfjörður, Reykjanesbær and through Forsberg's agent when released lists of the Garðarbær - will sign a contract to Lucasfilm asked her to create a totally most searched begin preparatory work and research new language for "Star Wars: The people and questions for the project in February 2016. Force Awakens." in 2015. Plans for the rail line are still in the "I thought that such In Denmark, the most beginning stages, with investors and a large movie ‘googled’ men were local parties aiming to begin actual production astronaut Andreas work within the next three years. company would use Mogensen, journalist According to the Project Manager some super- and politician Mads Runólfur Ágústsson, the venture may experienced Holger and commence production in 2018 and be language person, rapper TopGunn. finished by 2024. The estimated cost of but they wanted the project is 105 billion ISK (56.7 me," Forsberg told the newspaper. The list of most million CAD). researched women Forsberg, 21, [is] also known as the is topped by the Before the work singer Saara. [She] said there were no young, conservative can begin, special demands for the space politician Nikita assessments are language from the production Klæstrup, followed by still being made company, just an email with a few actresses Søs Egelind as to the impact pages from the script that needed to be and Ena Spottag. of a high-speed translated into a new, made-up alien rail line on the language. As for foreign celebrities, Danes surrounding environments. The rail will "It was quite straightforward really. I run above ground from the airport to were most curious developed words, then sentences, and to learn about the US the outskirts of Hafnarfjörður, where it then recorded them. I thought a lot will then run through an underground transgender icon about emphasis and other issues so Caitlyn Jenner, the US tunnel the rest of the way to the main that it would sound as much like a real bus terminal in central Reykjavík, BSÍ. basketball player language as possible and not just Lamar Obom and the The train itself will be electric and will brskbrzt," Forsberg told the newspaper. Australian TV travel at a maximum speed of 250 [—-] Everything related to the new Star presenter Ruby Rose. kilometers per hour (155 mph). This Wars movie was top secret, so [—-] will reduce the travel time from the Forsberg had to keep mum about her Online Post airport to the capitol from 40-50 role for close to a year and a half. Her minutes by car or bus to roughly 15-18 manager Johannes Ylinen told the minutes by train. The cost of a regular newspaper that Forsberg's work ticket is expected to be within the garnered praise from the movie's range of 800-3.800 ISK (approx. 9-16 director J.J. Abrams at the premiere in CAD). Reduced fares will be made LA on Tuesday evening. [—-] available to regular commuters and students. icenews.is Yle, Helsingin Sanomat 7 http://www.facebook.com/scandinavianclubregina Upcoming Events For all events, check our website or Fishy Friday at Ricky’s AGM 2016 First Friday of the month! The date for this The back room at Ricky’s year’s AGM has been Grill, 777 Albert Street, at set to Thursday, April 4:30 p.m 21st. SCoR No need to sign up - just turn up! Whitmore Park United Church, 1976 - 2016 Children are welcome. 336 Durham Drive, Regina.

40 years! For details: Follow us on our website or Nordic Knitters Facebook pages! For SCoR history, Nordic style knitting - Every visit the Our 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the SCoR 40 Years Story page at the month. 2600 Arens Road - Club’s website. push top buzzer for the The official celebration of On the final page, "Activity room". SCoR’s 40th anniversary will a reference is take place in the fall. made to “Snute”. Share the Saskatchewan Nordic Details to follow in the next Now, who can tell ambience! issue of Midnight Sun. us about that Bring family and friends creature? to the SCoR functions!

Midnight Sun Issue 1, Vol. 29; Jan. 2016 Quarterly Magazine for the Scandinavian Club of Regina Any views expressed in individual articles do not necessarily reflect the policies of the Scandinavian Club of Regina

2014-2015 Board of Directors Membership Fees Family membership $ 30 President Greg Swanson 306-586-9737 Single membership $ 20 Vice President Kate Keyes 306-584-0063 Student membership $ 10 Past President Pearl Baumgartner 306-761-0678 Treasurer Susan Bjorndalen 306-540-4637 Membership starts January 1, expires December 31. Secretary Connie Grasdal 306-359-1031 Directors Andrea Ashton 306-545-6683 Mavis de Bruin 306-570-9339 Contact us: Blair Hudyma 306-543-6084 Email [email protected] Kelly Nelson 306-584-2562 Jamie Struthers 306-949-5608 Membership contact Robin Woodward 306-565-3201 Kelly Nelson , Phone 306-584-2562 Email [email protected]

Webmaster Kim Rathwell http://scandinavianclubregina.com/

Midnight Sun editor SCANDINAVIAN CLUB OF REGINA Kari Mitchell Phone 306-565-2450 P.O.Box 37182, Regina, SK S4S 7K4 Email [email protected]