the black overcoat going round and round

     Dreams can reassure us, they can help us to overcome mistrust, fear or evil presentiments.
     And stories can do that, too.
     Old man Berglund had a pack of them, but not many listeners; he had Edvin.
     He never talked of her who lay tied to the bed for at least one month in every year, nor of Helge who had died from cancer. He talked about horses.
     And how you should never lose hope, or start to believe the worst, or think that things won't be all right.
     So he leaned himself back in his rocking-chair.  Edvin reversed a kitchen chair and sat down on it, with his arms along the back, and listened while his grandfather recounted the story about the horse and the rye-meal:

    "The horse was ugly, sure enough, not its head so much, but its back didn't go down into a dip but rather into a hump, its backbone rose up into a ridge, as on a cow. But Bodin had been drinking all day, and it was Christmas Eve and the seller was only asking four hundred kronor* and that included a brand new harness, and an old kibeck sleigh as well, and he had the money, Bodin did. He lived over on the far side of the lake, just opposite the Swedish-American, though it's been rebuilt now, that house.
     Anyway, when he woke up on Christmas Day his mouth was dry and his clothes were dirty and the horse was standing out in the snow, and a black overcoat with a velvet collar was draped over its withers. And Bodin, he could see through the bedroom window how the horse was pulling the sleigh round and round in the meadow and carving a deep track through the snow.
     How he got home from town he hardly remembered and still less did he recall how he went down to Sundberg later the same morning and how he drunkenly drove the horse back through the woods.
     And now my dad got to hear about all this. I myself had been born just the evening before, so I don't remember anything, but Dad used to tell me the story and it's all true.
     He came down to our place later on Christmas Day, Bodin did.
     I don't want any bloody horse, he said. It's no good, someone like me with horses.
    Then they stood out on the slope by the stable and Dad felt its belly, breast and shoulder, he measured the distance between the front legs and he ran his hand along the backbone and down over the loins and the croup.
     There's nothing wrong with him, said Bodin. I bought him in Sollefteå yesterday, but there's no way I'm keeping a horse.
     That's quite a back, that is, said Dad and ran his hand along it, lifted the tail and examined the buttocks.
     The tail hasn't been trimmed, that's so he won't be scared around his legs. He's a strong one. Look at those legs, said Bodin. He sounded like a salesman.
     And he leant down, Bodin did, and felt at the hocks but the horse kicked out backwards and he had to jump to one side.
     He's got spirit and he's strong, he said and laughed. The guy who owned him before was going to buy a plough, a single-horse model from Kulvert and Co., but he made a mistake, he ended up with an Överums 50 for a pair of horses, but he hitched him up anyway and it didn't bother the horse, you can be sure of that.
     But Dad just ran his hand along the humped back.
     Mm-mm, you're thinking about the back, said Bodin. Yes, he's as ugly as sin, but you won't be putting him in the front hall.
     Finally Dad nodded and went for it. Four hundred kronor with the harness and sleigh, the kibeck, which was falling apart and underpinned with rusty runners. Two hundred down and the rest in a month.
     He didn't have things so easy, Dad didn't, but this much he could manage. The old nag had just gone to slaughter, and the slaughter money plus a bit more that he'd saved up and kept in his pocket, Bodin had it all as a deposit. The old nag had been seventeen years old, and he really needed a new horse, not so much for the small-holding itself, but for the timber wood, and for the occasional run to and from the steamboats.
      After Bodin had gone, Dad took the horse by the halter and led him up to the kitchen window, and knocked on it. Mum held me in her arms so I might see the horse too, and then she went outside with a cardigan over her night-dress.
      He doesn't look so great, she said, but he'll do. As long as he doesn't turn out to be a cribber, or restive.
     He won't, said Dad. Bodin's evil when he's had a drink, but he doesn't swindle people. It's a Finn-horse. He's quick, he's done beer deliveries up and down the coast.
     He's a good one, he said, and he patted the horse that was now his. And you know, we have to have a horse.
     The horse stood still beneath the window and flicked its ears and Dad filled a nose-bag with oats and let the horse stand and eat while he drew up the sledge. Down by the earth-cellar there was a fair old heap of big logs that he bundled up using the grapple. This would make a good trial load, but first he went indoors for a moment, and there I lay, swaddled at Mum's breast and sucking like a baby calf.
     Dad heated the coffee-pan and drank while standing beside the stove, and he thought about the horse, and maybe about me too.
     It's Christmas Day you know, Mum said.
     Yes, said Dad, but I'll just do a trial pull, see if he'll be any use in the wood.
     When he came back out the horse had emptied the nose-bag and Dad tightened the yoke, bitted the horse and led him up to the sledge.
      He hitched him to it, stroked the horse's muzzle and whispered:
      Fine horse, fine horse, now we shall see.
      He drew in the reins, cracked them and the horse pulled but only that, the sledge squeaked and shifted a little bit. Dad struck him with the reins, the horse stretched forward and then suddenly went down on his knees. Dad shouted and struck and the horse made an attempt to get up but instead slipped to one side. There was a creak along the timbers and soon he was lying on his side frothing at the mouth with one of the shafts off.
      And Dad, he rushed forward and released the other shaft and tugged at the bit and got him standing up. He stood there in the snow and just trembled, the horse did, and Dad was doing about the same.
      But one should never lose hope or think the worst.
      He went indoors again, Mum had got up and put her clothes on. That was the end of her lying-in, and she was up and about once more.
      How did it go? she asked, shooting a birch log into the stove.
      It went all right, Dad said, and coughed, but in the morning I'll just have a wander down to Lundgren's so he can take a look at him before I decide for definite.
      Lundgren, he lived down at the ferry, in the red house on the left hand side.
       Dad slept little enough that night but when he came out to the stable the horse had eaten and emptied the water bucket and was looking a bit more lively, and he drew the kibeck nice and easy down to Lundgren's.
        He was old then, Lundgren, with a grey beard and dirty homespun frieze trousers. He put on his sheepskin cap and followed Dad out onto the slope and took a good while to check the horse over. He felt the calves, the belly and shoulder, looked into his eyes, lifted the upper lip  and examined the teeth.
        Then he spat twice and hitched up his trousers.
         He's utterly marrowless, he said. Both out and in. But there is a remedy, and if he manages to eat it without it spurting out of him then it'll be all right. But if the guts don't hold, you'll simply have to sell him to the tinker or put him down.
          Never will I sell him to the tinker, Dad said and rubbed his moustache.
          If he stands the remedy he'll get his marrow back, said Lundgren. You buy a hundred kilos of sifted rye-meal. Then chop up the best hay you've got. Mix the meal with the chopped hay and stir the whole lot up together with some water and give it to the horse morning and night. Get good stools from that lot and the horse will be whole and well again, but if it just comes spurting out then there's nothing for it but to put him down.
          He spat far out in the snow and scratched the horse under one ear.
          That sort of horse, it's no use beating it either. A cross-breed mare that lays herself down, you can spark her up with the thick end now and then, but for this type of horse, rye-meal is the only thing that works, said Lundgren, spat once more, shivered in the cold and stepped back into his warm kitchen.
            And Dad, he did just as Lundgren said. He chopped hay and mixed it with rye-meal into a greyish mash and fed the horse.
            All that night he lay awake. He thought, about the horse and about those four hundred kronor, and the timber wood, and the sledge, and the old nag, and when it lightened he went out to the stable with a paraffin lamp in his hand. It was freezing cold and he shivered as he went. The horse was standing and Dad lifted the lantern up to the horse's head and the horse flicked its ears, and then Dad lowered the lantern down to the manure and there was a song within him when he saw the heap of round balls, and he stroked the horse's muzzle and crammed a bit of sugar into his mouth and there was singing inside him and it coursed all through his stroking hands.
            Yes, well, later he hitched him to the sleigh. It was still dark, but the horse stood erect and when Dad pulled on the reins he set off at once towards the stable and out onto the track, up over the meadow and into the woods, and Dad sat on the logs and sang, and the horse drove mil on mil through the wintry wood, over rivers and dikes, over ridges and mountains and even where the snow was absent far down the valley, there was a puff of flame and smoke behind the runners on the sleigh drawn by the new horse who had got his marrow back."

             Oh yes, that was a story, that was.
             And so one must never lose faith.
             They sat quietly, but grandpa rocked in the rocking-chair and searched in his memories for more stories, now that he had a listener.
             But Edvin stood up, shifted his chair back to the kitchen table and went towards the door.
             -- It's time for her medicine again, he said.





(Bo R. Holmberg, Dagsmeja, pp. 67-72)


 *400 SEK = about £40.

Gosh, this is hard! The whole novel, set in Ångermanland in northern Sweden, has a lot of local dialect words, and a lot of technical rural terms. I know nothing about horses and less about sleighs, so translating this is quite an education. The words in bold type are where I've been defeated and either made a guess or simply thrown up my hands. 

A kibäck is evidently some kind of sleigh, but it's a word that that doesn't exist on the internet, at least not in that sense. (Apparently IKEA once named one of their products, a kilim carpet, KIBÄCK, to the general bafflement of even Swedes.). It's probably a variant of kibitka  or kibicka, meaning a covered sleigh (originally Russian). 

Where I've put "there's nothing wrong with him", the word -- again, unknown to the internet -- is lastbränd -- "cargo-burnt". I imagine this might be a condition arising from pulling heavy loads, perhaps sores on the flanks or just being worn out? Another word I couldn't match is födslovilan, which I take to mean birth-rest, i.e. lying-in. Lundgren's sentence about the lethargic mare is less than guesswork, it's just papering over the cracks. The original sentence is: En blanningsmärr som lägg sej kan man dänga upp med grovändan på en vi, . . .  I've found no parallel for på en vi. 

Cross-breed mare. The word in the text is blanningsmärr  ( = blandningsmärr). That is, a cross between the local North Swedish breed and the heavier Ardennes breed, introduced to Sweden in 1873. K.G Holgersson in Dalarna in the 1930s, remembering his first farm horse: “Putte was a gold-bay and probably a cross-bred horse, in other words a cross between Ardennes and North Swedish. Crossing the two breeds produced a slightly heavier horse, which better suited the daily farm-work of ploughing and hauling loads of timber.” (Gold-bay: a bay with a light, not black, mane and tail.)  “Putte var guldfux och antagligen en blandningshäst, alltså en korsning mellan ardenner och nordsvensk. Genom att korsa de båda typerna fick man en lite tyngre häst som bättre än nordsvensken passade för gårdarnas dagsverken framför plogen eller timmerlasset.” (Mitt liv och mina hästar, by K.G. Holgersson in collaboration with Willy Klaeson, 2008).

*

Bo R. Holmberg, a teacher in Ångermanland until his retirement, now 75, the author of some fifty books in various genres: children's books, young adult fiction, a series of eight historical whodunnits covering the period 1840 - 1960, memoirs, local history and topography -- and adult novels, of which Dagsmeja (Day-melt, 1989) is I believe the earliest. Some of his other books have been translated in various languages, but Dagsmeja feels like a book in the provincial hinterland of national culture, the kind of book whose rich local detail is aimed purely at a Swedish audience and never translated or even heard of outside Sweden (except here). That's the kind of writing I find most intriguing.