King David

A postcard from my Mum and Dad, which recently re-emerged from the pages of one of my books. They'd been at the British Library with some friends to see the exhibition Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination; this was about ten years back.

The picture is King David playing the harp. It comes from the Westminster Psalter (BL Royal MS 2 A XXII), produced for the Benedictine monastery at Westminster in around 1200. The manuscript is "royal" because at a later date it was acquired from a collector by Charles II (or was he presented with it?). After all, Westminster Abbey was where coronations and other royal ceremonies took place. 

The artist who contributed this and four other full-page miniatures (ff. 12v - 14v) was, it's speculated, an itinerant specialist, not a monk. His work has also been identified in a manuscript from St. Albans. He may have learned his trade at Winchester, judging from the Byzantine style of e.g. King David's face.

As ever, the mixed perspectives are fascinating. The throne is seen more or less head-on, but the footstool is apparently seen from an angle, or rather from two angles. (Assuming that both structures are basically oblong.) The artist's picture of the Virgin and Child (f. 13v) contains a similar footstool, except you can see one of its back legs. With or without the back leg, these footstools seem to float in space. There's no single point of view. But the play-off between symmetry and asymmetry is evidentl;y important to this picture. Playing the harp necessitates an unsymmetrical way of sitting and placing your feet. David's pink cloak covers one knee but not the other. At the same time the picture captures the full-frontal impact of majesty, like the picture of Christ in glory on the preceding page (f. 14r). 

And also as ever, medieval art asks questions about audience. Who was going to look at this picture? Not the general public, of course. Only the monks who used the Psalter would ever see these full-page illustrations. And even then, not often. Their attention would be on the working pages. And yet the importance of the book, and the prestige of the abbey, cried out for top-quality illumination. Are we looking at a connoisseur abbot's household decoration, or at a pious communal devotional work whose "audience" is God himself? 

But to even ask these questions it to become aware that our concept of audience is historically-bounded. The invention of printing was one crucial step on that journey. Now we live in an era where audience has become distributed, but where it's almost felt to be a human right, and where one of our chief unsatisfied needs is to get attention, more and more attention . . .

 

Westminster Psalter, f. 14v.

Here's the picture in situ and with uncropped border. (You can flick through the whole manuscript here: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=royal_ms_2_a_xxii_fs001r ; or read it, if you want to!)

On the facing page, the psalms begin:

Westminster Psalter, f. 15r.

The beginning of Psalm I:

Beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum et in via peccatorum non stetit in cathedra pestilentiae non sedit.
Sed in lege Domini voluntas eius et in lege eius meditabitur die ac nocte.

Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence.
But his will is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he shall meditate day and night.

The later Latin text has "cathedra derisorum", and later translations reflect this, e.g. "the seat of the scornful" in the King James Version.

For medieval Christianity, King David was the author of the Psalms.

According to the traditional Hebrew headnotes, 73 of the 150 Psalms were written by King David; this isn't one of them. But the headnotes are late additions anyway. If David did exist, he would have lived around 1000 BC. A psalm like this was perhaps from around 500 years later. 

When I was at university, one of my teachers said that the oldest biblical story that was likely to be true was the disgraceful one about David, Bathsheba and Uriah (2 Samuel XI). That was because it ran counter to the evident propaganda in David's favour; it would only have been included because the facts were too notorious to conceal. I'm not sure how serious he was being, but others have certainly noted the circumstantial details in this part of 2 Samuel, the remarkable impression of being a narrative from within David's own court circle.  

And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand : so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him. (1 Samuel 16:23)

The kinnor was evidently a kind of lyre: its trapezium-shaped appearance, with the strings attached to a yoke, is illustrated in the Nineveh relief in the British Museum, and the same shape of lyre existed thousands of years earlier in Sumeria. 

In the Westminster picture, King David is playing a triangular harp (like a Celtic harp): with a column to take the tension, and a curved neck (to keep the strings equidistant). As was normal in Britain (though not elsewhere) the harp leans against the left shoulder. The left hand is playing the treble and the right hand the bass: modern harpists do the opposite. 

mysteries of west swindon: the dryad

 

Hagbourne Copse. Swindon, 24th November 2020.

I had a dental appointment in Swindon, but I no longer live there, so I had to make the journey from Frome. Just before the appointment, as the afternoon darkened, I stopped off at Hagbourne Copse, on the edge of Swindon, to have a smoke and a wee, and to clean my teeth. 

Alan Mitchell tells us that trees cannot fuse, and that branches always branch outwards, they cannot knit together again. And indeed how could that possibly happen, when only the outside of a trunk or branch is alive, the inner wood is inert? 

So I have no explanation for this dryad or huorn, some 20 feet tall, who "stands" beside the main woodland path. I imagine the woodland volunteers have tidied up and preserved this arresting sight.  

The only guess I could come up with is that it's a relic branch, presumably oak, from a long-gone tree. Perhaps it partially broke off from its parent tree, its branch tips touched the ground and rooted, then thickened as they supplied the branch with water and nourishment from the wrong end. (But that isn't really possible, is it? Could water conduction in the xylem switch direction?) 

Only the heartwood remains now, and it looks quite fragile, so it's probably worth a few more photos before someone pushes it over. 

"Dryad". Swindon, 29 January 2021.

"Dryad". Swindon, 13 November 2023.

Last time I saw the dryad I took a closer look and decide that both "feet" rose from the same rootstock. This prompted a new theory: the tree originally had a single bole until at least 15 meters high. Then something happened, by accident or design, that created a large cavity in the lower part of the bole. The tree survived, and when much later it died the outer layers of the bole abraded leaving only the heartwood: the dryad you see today. 

I'm not in the least convinced, but it gets round the difficult issue of how separately growing processes could ever become seamlessly joined.

Nordic women composers

On International Women's Day (March 2018) I was listening to the selections by women composers being played on Radio 3 and it suddenly occurred to me that though I considered myself a fan of Nordic classical music, all the music I knew was by male composers: I couldn't think of a single Nordic woman classical composer. Well, I can now!  I've been updating this list (originally part of another post) for a couple of years and it's time to post it separately.

*

Laura Netzel (1839 - 1927), born in Finland in an aristocratic family, brought up in Stockholm. Accomplished amateur pianist, began composing around the age of 35. Used the pseudonym "N. Lago".  This is the opening movement of her Piano Trio (Op. 78), as performed by Trio Lago, a Helsinki-based trio formed in 2019 who seem to specialize in the composers named in this post.

 

Ingeborg Bronsart von Schellendorf (1840 - 1913). Finnish-German concert pianist and composer, born in St Petersburg.

Agathe Grøndahl, Norwegian pianist and composer (1847 - 1907), born at Holmestrand, 70km SSW of Oslo. Grieg admired her greatly and they often worked together. Became deaf in 1890 but continued to compose.

Elfrida Andrée, born in Visby (1849 - 1929). Prolific composer of songs, piano music, chamber music.... [Her 1898 opera Fritiofs saga, with libretto by Selma Lagerlöf, received its first complete concert performance in March 2019 (as part of the International Women's Day celebrations for the year after this post was first put together.]





Helena Munktell  (1852 - 1919), born in Grycksbo (Dalarna).

Amanda Maier-Röntgen

Amanda Maier-Röntgen (aka Röntgen-Maier), born in Landskrona (Skåne) in 1853. Studied in Leipzig under Carl Reinecke and wrote her excellent B minor Sonata for violin and piano in 1874, at the age of 21. Married the German-Dutch composer Julius Röntgen. The couple settled in Amsterdam and were friends with Grieg. (Other salon attendees included Rubinstein, Joachim, and Brahms.) Died in 1894 aged only 41.

Emmy Köhler (1858 - 1925). A teacher at the heart of Stockholm cultural life; friend to Tor Aulin and Hugo Alfvén; her husband was a finance minister. Mainly composed hymns and children's songs; most famously, the beloved Christmas song Nu tändas tusen juleljus. 

Agnes Tschetschulin (1859 - 1942). Finnish violinist and composer.

Ida Moberg (1859 - 1947), Finnish composer and conductor. Her long-forgotten violin concerto is on YouTube, performed by Mirka Malmi with the Wegelius kammarstråkar (conductor: Emilia Hoving), and it's very enjoyable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHN86ab1AcE .

Valborg Aulin (1860 - 1928), composer of piano and chamber music. Born in Gävle, but it seems the family had already moved to Stockholm by the time her younger brother, the composer Tor Aulin, was born.  (See also: https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-aulins.html .) This is her stunning Grande sonate sérieuse (Op 14), in a performance by Lucy Negro, who re-recorded it for the 2017 Daphne CD Revived Piano Treasures: music by Valborg Aulin and Laura Netzel.

Alice Tegnér  (1864 - 1943), born in Karlshamn (Blekinge). Poet and composer, still well-known for her children's songs, including Mors lilla Olle, and the carol Betlehems stjärna (Gläns över sjö och strand); here's my own rendition:

michaelpeverett · Betlehems stjärna (Gläns över sjö och strand)

 
Signe Lund (1868 - 1950), born and died in Oslo, but emigrated to North Dakota in 1900. Composer and music teacher. Also known as Signe Lund-Skabo. She became a campaigner for socialist causes (losing her teaching post as a result). She published her autobiography in 1944.

Ruth Sofia Almén (1870 - 1945), Swedish composer and pianist. Born in Solberga (Bohuslän), taught music in Gothenburg. 

Nancy Dalberg (1881 - 1949), Danish composer, born on the island of Funen.

Pauline Hall (1890 - 1969). Norwegian composer and music critic, born in Hamar in Hedmark (120km north of Oslo). Influenced by French Impressionism, translated and arranged performances of Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale and Brecht/Weill's Threepenny Opera.

Benna Moe (1897 - 1983). Danish composer and organist. 

Helvi Leiviskä (1902 - 1982). Born in Helsinki. Composer and music educator, librarian at the Sibelius Academy: she composed e.g. three symphonies, a piano concerto, chamber music. Her orchestral piece "The Coming of Spring" sometimes shows up on Radio 3.

Jórunn Viðar (1918 - 2017). Icelandic composer and pianist.

Inger Wikström (1939 - ). Swedish pianist and composer. One of her operas, La Mère Coupable / Den brottsliga modern (1990) is based on Beaumarchais' third Figaro play. 

Birgitte Alsted (1942 -). Danish composer and violinist, born in Odense. 

Kaija Saariaho (1952 - 2023). Born in Helsinki. Celebrated contemporary composer (e.g. her opera Amour de loin was performed at the Met).

Cecilie Ore (1954 -). Born in Oslo. Composer of electronic-acoustic, instrumental, vocal and text-based socio-critical works. 

Cecilia Franke (1955 -). Born in Malmö. Formerly a dentist, composer of instrumental music, often sacred music. 

This piece is Luxta (2001), performed by Duo Gelland, who have aroused a lot of interest in the violin duo form. (Between 2002 and 2011 they were artists in residence in Strömsund municipality, Jämtland.)

 

Victoria Borisova-Ollas (1969 -). Russian-born composer (Vladivostok), a Swedish resident for many years. First became known for her short symphonic poem Wings of the Wind, she has written operas, orchestral works including two symphonies, a violin concerto, cello concerto, chamber and piano works. 

Kristina Forsman (1970 -). Swedish composer, born in Umeå. I don't know much about her but I read this snippet: "She takes inspiration from many different fields and, for example, her interest in rhthym can be heard in her orchestral work Ninata. But it is her work with the details in the sound, the twang, which is the most salience in her music."

Maja Ratkje (1973 -), Norwegian composer (also vocalist) in experimental mode, much admired internationally.



Anna Þorvaldsdóttir [Thorvaldsdottir] (1977 -), Icelandic composer. Her music, influenced by landscape and nature, is widely performed in Europe and the USA. 

This is Hrím (Frost), a brooding seven minutes of glittering details, performed in 2010 by the UCSD New Music Ensemble, conducted by Rand Steiger: 



María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (1980 -), Icelandic composer. She is a member of the band Amiina, formed in 2004.

Thurídur Jónsdóttir, Icelandic composer.

Andrea Tarrodi (1981 - ), born in Stockholm to a musical family. Her mother is the bassoonist Julianna Tarrodi-Lindberg, her father the trombonist Christian Lindberg, her uncle the lutenist Jakob Lindberg. I hear Tarrodi's music pretty often on Radio 3.

Kristine Tjøgersen (1982 -). Norwegian clarinettist and experimental composer, born in Oslo. 

Hildur Guðnadóttir (1982 -). Icelandic cellist and composer, including for films and games, born in Reykjavik. 

Lisa Streich (1985 -), Swedish experimental composer, born in Norra Råda (Uppland) and lives in Gotland.

Veronique Vaka (1986 -), Icelandic composer.

Bára Gísladóttir (1989 -), Icelandic composer and double-bassist.

the deserted yellow beaches / las disiertas playas amarillas (Blas de Otero)

Passing by the second-hand bookstall on the Playa del Cura in Torrevieja, during our recent travels, I found this selected Verso y prosa by Blas de Otero (1916 - 1979): I managed to get through the introductory material but not much more. Now back home, I happened to pick up another book from my shelves that I'd never got round to reading, and I discovered Blas de Otero here too: Vredgade vittnen (Angry witnesses), a 1966 showcase of six Spanish poets, translated by Francisco J. Uríz and Artur Lundkvist. 

So, translating partly from the original Spanish and partly from their Swedish, here's one of Blas de Otero's poems, published in Que trata de España (Paris, 1964; it was only available in censored form in Spain until 1977). 

Swimming and writing diagonally

To write in Spain is to speak in order not to remain silent

about what happens in the street, it's to say in half-words

whole cathedrals of simple truths

forgotten or concealed and endured deep down,

to write is to smile with a dagger stuck in your neck,

words that open up like the mouldered gates

of a cemetery, photo albums

of a Spanish family : the child,

the mother, and the future that awaits you

if you don't exchange the coloured marbles,

the rubber stamps and the fake postage stamps,

and learn to write twisted

and to walk right up to the illuminated threshold,

sweetness albums that one day will turn your life bitter

if you don't keep them in the depths of the sea

along with the keys to the deserted yellow beaches,

I remember childhood as the corpse of a child beside the shore,

now it's late and I'm afraid that no words will do

to save the past, no matter how tirelessly they labour

towards another shore where the wind doesn´t batter down the coloured sunshades.

Blas de Otero (1916 - 1979)

[Image source: https://victormazzihuaycucho.blogspot.com/2012_06_01_archive.html .]

Nadando y escribiendo en diagonal

Escribir en España es hablar por no callar

lo que ocurre en la calle, es decir a medias palabras

catedrales enteras de sencillas verdades

olvidadas o calladas y sufridas a fondo,

escribir es sonreír con un puñal hincado en el cuello,

palabras que se abren como verjas enmohecidas

de cementerio, álbumes

de familia española : el niño,

la madre, y el porvenir que te espera

si no cambias las canicas de colores,

las estampinas y los sellos falsos,

y aprendes a escribir torcido

y a caminar derecho hasta el umbral iluminado,

dulces álbumes que algún día te amargarán la vida

si no los guardas en el fondo del mar

donde están las llaves de las disiertas playas amarillas,

yo recuerdo la niñez como un cadáver de niño junto a la orilla,

ahora ya es tarde y temo que las palabras no sirvan

para salvar el pasado por más que braceen incansablemente

hacia otra orilla donde la brisa no derribe los toldos de colores.

Translation into Swedish by Artur Lundkvist and Francisco J. Uríz :

Simma och skriva på sned

Att skriva i Spanien är att tala för att inte förtiga

vad som händer på gatan, det är att halvvägs utsäga

hela katedraler uppfyllda av enkla sanningar,

glömda eller nedtystade, och djupt "genomlidna",

att skriva är att le med en dolk nedstucken i halsen,

orden öppnar sig som låsta grindar

till kyrkogårdar, album

över spanska familjer : barnet,

modern, och framtiden som väntar dig

om du inte byter de färgade kulorna,

stämplarna och de falsa frimärkena,

och lär dig att skriva förvridet

och gå rakt mot den upplysta dörrtröskeln,

ljuvliga album so en dag kommer att förbittra ditt liv

om du inte gömmer dem på havets botten

där nycklarna till de ödsliga, gula stränderna vilar,

jag minns barndomen som ett barnlik vid stranden,

nu är det sent och jag fruktar att inga ord ska duga

för att rädda det förflutna, också om de outtröttligt kämpar

för att nå en annan strand där vinden inte slår omkull de färgrika soltälten. 

Artur Lundkvist

[Image source: https://pippoetry.blogspot.com/2008/12/artur-lundkvit.html .]

Gabriel García Márquez, Francisco J. Uríz and Artur Lundkvist in December 1982.

[Image source: https://pazestereo.com/como-de-lejos-estoy-del-nobel/  (Archive of Francisco J. Uríz). Márquez had come to Stockholm to collect his Nobel Prize for Literature. Uríz (b. Zaragoza, 1932) is a long time resident of Stockholm (he normally translates from Swedish to Spanish, and also writes about Nordic culture and history). Lundkvist became a member of the Swedish Academy in 1968.]

*

Blas de Otero was born in Bilbao. His mother's family came from the nearby village of Orozco, set in a typical Basque valley among the mountains. 

Orozco

                       Heuskara, ialgi adi canpora! Heus-

                       kara, habil mundu guzira!

                                                               Etxepare'k *

The valley

lies at the foot of the Gorbea,

winds its way round

Santa Marina,

goes up

to Barambio, and down

to the railway line

in Llodio,

a valley characterized

by incessant light rain,

impressing, in the mud,

the slow wheels of carts

drawn by red oxen, 

behind them the black or striped smock

of the peasant with his beret,

my little homeland,

sky of cream

above the green ferns,

the hairy bramble,

the sombre oak tree, the chestnuts'

frowning shade, 

the steep heights of pinewoods.

Here is the bridge

by the town-hall square ;

stones in the river

that my thirteen-year-old feet

crossed over, pelota-court

where every day I stretched

my youthful muscles,

songs from the fields

and the sound of the tambourine,

                                                      twilights

of the traditional romerías

of Ibarra, Murueta,

Luyando, midday

in the garden

of my grandmother, 

August light iridescing the cherry trees,

painting the apple trees, polishing

the fresh pear tree,

my little homeland,

I am writing beside the Kremlin,

I hold back the tears and, despite all

I have suffered and lived,

I am happy.

* Bernard Etxepare, whose  Linguae vasconum primitiae (1545) was the first printed book in the Basque language (Euskara). 

Translation:  Euskara, go forth! Euskara, walk the world at large! 

Town Hall at Orozko

[Image source: Wikipedia . Photo by Zarateman, taken 28th March 2020.]

*

You can find a lot of the poems in Que trata de España (in the original Spanish) here:  

https://elfarodeferia.wordpress.com/portfolio/que-trata-de-espana/

obscurity

Two half-posts in default of a post. . .

*

Richard Warren writes a blog that's, mostly, about British art and literature in the twentieth century, especially its more obscure practitioners. It's been a bit more active than usual recently, and I've relished these posts:

Cameron Cathie, briefly a poet (1938).

https://richardawarren.wordpress.com/2020/11/10/nostalgia-for-no-known-face-the-poems-of-cameron-cathie/

A sub-quotation from Cameron Cathie, meeting up with a lover:

Your eyes trace the slow bewildering trajectory
till I look on the words’ source, moving me, gleaming anew:
stares from your eyes, stares ecstasy back on me,
come between fragments of speech from afar.

Roger Pryor Dodge and Mura Dehn, jazz dancers in Greenwich Village in 1937.

https://richardawarren.wordpress.com/2020/10/31/empathetic-embodiment-the-dance-of-roger-pryor-dodge/

The paintings of Mabel Layng (Macclesfield, 1881- London, 1937); her most striking paintings are from c. 1915-1930. 

https://richardawarren.wordpress.com/2020/07/25/out-of-the-ordinary-the-paintings-of-mabel-layng/

Layng studied under Frank Brangwyn, but she soon ougrew his influence, which Warren characterizes as "deft but mannered and insincere, in shades of brown". Layng became a wonderful discoverer of the ordinary. Here's one of her paintings:

The Omnibus, painting by Mabel Layng

*

We've been travelling in Europe for long enough now (eight years?) to see some changes. One is that, at the service stations in France, literary books have completely disappeared; the books for sale are all genre fiction. Hence I'm now reading a Scandinavian noir, by Viveca Sten, in French translation: Les Secrets de l'île. The Swedish title was I natt är du död, and it's also been translated into English as Tonight You're Dead. It's the fourth of ten books (so far) collectively named The Sandhamn Murders.*  In this case the police investigators fail to prevent five murders, always arriving just too late and never seeming to ask the right questions soon enough.  It's as if their function is not to prevent but to narrate in a titillating way, never uncovering too much. Like a media team. And after all, the murders have a strong element of public statement. (The author works alongside the police, sacrificing closure in favour of maintaining attention, leaving false clues unexplained and rapidly abandoning the victims' families to their obscurity.) But we remain firmly on the side of Thomas and Margit and Nora, because they're presented as ordinary, well-meaning people with meetings and coffee and children and their own real-world problems. It could be an image of how our society fails to address its greater challenges. 

My French (at least, modern-day French) is no better than my Swedish. And I found I was unfamiliar with some of the basic phrases that appear again and again in this novel and probably in most other popular fiction. 

Le Vieux se racla la gorge.  (cleared his throat)

Birgit Hagelius hocha la tête.    (nodded)

Thomas secoua la tête.       (shook his head)

Ses réflexions lui arrachèrent une grimace  (made her wince)

Elle raccrocha et se tourna vers lui.   (she hung up)

Elle décrocha.  (She answered the phone)

L'esprit de Thomas se mit à tourner à plein régime.   (his mind began to work furiously)

C'est vrai? dit-il d'une voix rauque.   (hoarse)

C'est exactement comme les empreintes digitales, ricana le Vieux.   (sneered)

Thomas avait décelé une légère inflexion qui ne cadrait pas avec ses propos.     (detected / did not fit)

Il afficha un sourire las.  (he smiled wearily)

Thomas enclencha le haut-parleur  (went on speaker-phone)

L'imprimante s'est coincée  (printer got jammed)

Il se pencha en arrière / en avant  (leaned back / forward)

Je suis réveillé, marmonna-t-il. (he muttered, murmured)  

Thomas opina, las.   (nodded wearily)

Elle avait l'air désemparée.  (seemed distraught)

Il déglutit pour refouler cette impression désagréable. (He swallows, to suppress this unpleasant feeling)

Cronwall s'immobilisa. (froze)

*Sandhamn is a small island on the Stockholm archipelago (strictly, the port on the island Sandön), popular with summer tourists. 

A brief clip, with English subtitles, of the TV series, Morden i Sandhamn (The Sandhamn Murders), with Alexandra Rapaport as Nora and Jakob Cedergren as Thomas. 

Jakob Cedergren has subsequently starred in Den Skyldige (The Guilty) (2018), a celebrated Danish cop movie with just a single on-screen character (the US remake, featuring Jake Gyllenhaal, is apparently due for release). 

The "Koh--i-noor" pencil

 

Just realized this pencil in my pencil box must be pretty old. This brand was the source of the joke in 1066 and all that about someone presenting Queen Victoria with a giant pencil. 

1066 and all that was a very popular book at school. I read it dozens of times, along with Molesworth, Three Men in a Boat, P. G. Wodehouse, Jennings, Enid Blyton (Famous 5, Secret 7) and cowboy books. This was especially age 13-16; before that I read much more widely, and "better" children's lit -- Michael Joseph translations of Edith Unnerstad and Astrid Lindgren, for example. And afterwards I discovered "literature". But, in the mean time, Wodehouse rather strangely combined with my new passion for pop music -- T.Rex, Slade & very soon Family, Procol Harum, Van Der Graaf Generator, Can and Pet Sounds. The Faust Tapes, Jethro Tull's Living In The Past, Slayed!?, Great Western Movie Themes (Geoff Love & his Orchestra), Roxy Music and For Your Pleasure, Bandstand, Landed, Chameleon In the Shadow of the Night, Grand Hotel, Old Soldiers Never Die, Friendliness, Pour Down Like Silver, were some of my earliest LPs. 

It's confusing because some of my favourite music belonged to other people. John Scott had Electric Warrior and Robin Trower; Anthony Aloof had Ziggy and Aladdin Sane. Records went rounbd at school -- I seemed to know everything. And I had Sibelius' 5th and Brahms' Clarinet Quintet, & a piano in my room, & violin lessons. I looked at the Collins Field Guide to Birds of Britain & Europe, but I didn't have the patience or energy to watch birds. In Sweden I played the guitar and made recordings with Annika. I wrote more than 100 songs -- mostly they sounded like Neil Young, but I know I didn't discover him until the chantier in Bonnet when I was 15. I think I might have read Le Grand Meaulnes a few times, and The Trial. I roamed with Beth (collie) over the fields & through the woods to the "Roman campsite" (in fact, an ironworks). I climbed the beech tree and the larch in the big garden -- I walked on the wall of the walled garden. I had 20 numbered camps in the laurels and I directed epic films about wars in some kind of Mexican America. 

[memory dump found in a notebook.]

Sir Walter Scott: Anne of Geierstein (1829)

Charles the Bold, c. 1460, painting by Rogier van der Weyden

 

[Image source: https://www.wikiart.org/en/rogier-van-der-weyden/portrait-of-charles-the-bold-1 . The painting is in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.]

 So my somewhat reluctant journey into Scott's last novels is under way. 

Anne of Geierstein, published after much labour and hesitation in 1829, is, um, OK. I have some doubt whether I'll ever read it again, but I'm wholly glad that I read it once. 

The first couple of chapters are, I think, the best in the book. Here a father and son are travelling through Switzerland, the weather gradually closes in, the younger ends up trapped on a crumbling precipice, until he's rescued by the sure-footed heroine of the title. Scott's evocation of Arthur's giddy terror is surprisingly powerful.  (This is also the scene in which the lammergeier appears.)  

Anne rescues Arthur (Anne of Geierstein, Ch. II)

[Image source: The Corson Collection at Edinburgh University Library . 1838 engraving by W.H. Capone from a painting by F. W. Topham.]

But thereafter, the intensity of narrative interest gradually subsides. A great deal of Scott's immense daily labours in his last years were historical rather than fictional: for example, the Life of Buonaparte and the Tales of a Grandfather. And as this novel proceeds, it pulls more and more towards pure history.

Evidently Scott enjoyed portraying irascible, wilful, impetuous monarchs. King Richard of England had appeared in two of his novels (Ivanhoe, The Talisman); Charles of Burgundy was a major figure in Quentin Durward and now steps forward again in Anne of Geierstein. 

The historical novel is always in dialogue with history. But Anne is so weighted towards history that it starts to import the sombre implications of historical chonicle. In particular, compared to those earlier novels, the line between good and bad conduct is now far less clear. This father and son (the Philipsons, pretending to be merchants but actually noblemen) are the novel's right-minded observers, but they're also driven by their own political agenda, the Lancastrian cause. At first they're drawn towards the Swiss side, but before the novel ends they're fighting against them. Their personal conduct remains above reproach, but in the tangled mess of this European power struggle, we become ever less confident that they're working for the right side, or even whether there is a right side. 

This feeling of moral relativism -- a strange one to readers of Scott's novels -- affects our view of other characters, too. At the start of the novel, there's apparently a clear binary distinction between a good brother (the Landamman Arnold Biederman) and a bad brother (Albert Biederman). But by the end of the book, young Arthur revises his view of Albert, seemingly for no other reason than that Albert's intervention has worked out for him personally.  On the other hand, the morally consistent if painfully arrogant Rudolph Donnerhugel is dispatched without concern: he stood in Arthur's way. It's convincing, but we've moved a long way from a warm bath of moral certainty. 

To this list we might add the deposed Queen Margaret. The Philipsons of course profoundly revere her; she herself lives by an austere and unsparing code; but she works towards an ill end, and we're glad she fails. No simple moral grading is available. (And of course, we can't altogether forget Shakespeare's Queen Margaret, though Scott takes care not to remind us.)

I'm sure this isn't unconnected: along with the chilly realpolitik there's a noticeable absence of comedy. I'm thinking of that gallery of chatty personages who supply so much joy and sanity and moral perspective in Scott's novels. The artillery officer Colvin (Ch XXVI) might have been one of them: like Dalgetty in A Legend of Montrose, perhaps. Instead he's only keen-sighted. And when we meet him again, in the bleakly impressive final chapter (XXXVI), it's as a man of violence who dies violently. The ghost of comedy appears e.g. in Annette and in Sigismund, the dimmest and most likeable of the Landamann's sons. But it's sadly frail. 

Lockhart wrote that Anne of Geierstein "may be almost called the last work of Scott's imaginative genius".  Whatever we make of that "almost", there's no doubt that in the midst of this tale of fifteenth-century European conflict, we spare an occasional troubled glance for the other story that's unfolding alongside it, the decline of its author's health and powers. 

The canvas of Anne is impressively broad: I doubt if any other of Scott's novels has such variety of scene. The novel incorporates e.g.the spectral Anne who passed the gate at Graffs-lust; the fanciful tale of the Baron of Arnhem's traffic with Persian necromancy and his mysterious wife; the absurdly villainous Governor Archibald cooking up plans with his more intelligent squire Kilian; the frank Swiss waiting-woman Annette Veilchen (owing more than a little to Ann Radcliffe's Annette in the Mysteries of Udolpho); the grim secret tribunals of the Vehme; the mysterious female in Strassbourg cathedral; good King René's Provence, with an account of the Troubadors;  the bleak monastery on the summit of Mont Saint-Victoire. Variety that perhaps strives to compensate for the absence of deep engagement with any of these individual ingredients.

As a kind of sequel to Quentin Durward, the novel was enthusiastically received in Europe. Scott reported, for example, that admirers had sent him no less than six medieval Swiss long-swords to add to his armory at Abbotsford (the huge two-handed sword that features in the duel of Ch VI). 

But at a closer level we begin to miss a different sort of amplitude: the overflowing of what had once seemed an inexhaustible spring of invention. I sorely miss Scott's own sense of amusement, his ready anecdotes and quotations, his capaciousness and his way of turning a topic around to show it from an unexpected angle.

It would be a shame to post about Anne of Geierstein without including a short extract, so here's one. We're in the camp of the Duke of Burgundy's forces, near Dijon.  "Philipson" ( actually the Earl of Oxford) is giving his son directions concerning a mission to Queen Margaret in Provence. 

"And now, Arthur," said his father, "we must part once more. I dare give thee, in this land of danger, no written communication to my mistress, Queen Margaret; but say to her, that I have found the Duke of Burgundy wedded to his own views of interest, but not averse to combine them with hers. Say, that I have little doubt that he will grant us the required aid, but not without the expected resignation in his favour by herself and King René. Say, I would never have recommended such a sacrifice for the precarious chance of overthrowing the House of York, but that I am satisfied that France and Burgundy are hanging like vultures over Provence, and that the one or other, or both princes, are ready, on her father's demise, to pounce on such possessions as they have reluctantly spared to him during his life. An accommodation with Burgundy may therefore, on the one hand, insure his active co-operation in the attempt on England; and, on the other, if our high-spirited princess complies not with the Duke's request, the justice of her cause will give no additional security to her hereditary claims on her father's dominions. Bid Queen Margaret, therefore, unless she should have changed her views, obtain King René's formal deed of cession, conveying his estates to the Duke of Burgundy, with her Majesty's consent. The necessary provisions to the King and to herself may be filled up at her Grace's pleasure, or they may be left blank. I can trust to the Duke's generosity to their being suitably arranged. All that I fear is, that Charles may embroil himself"——

    "In some silly exploit, necessary for his own honour and the safety of his dominions," answered a voice behind the lining of the tent; "and, by doing so, attend to his own affairs more than to ours? Ha, Sir Earl?"

    At the same time the curtain was drawn aside, and a person entered, in whom, though clothed with the jerkin and bonnet of a private soldier of the Walloon guard, Oxford instantly recognised the Duke of Burgundy's harsh features and fierce eyes, as they sparkled from under the fur and feather with which the cap was ornamented.

    Arthur, who knew not the Prince's person, started at the intrusion, and laid his hand on his dagger; but his father made a signal which stayed his hand, and he gazed with wonder on the solemn respect with which the Earl received the intrusive soldier. The first word informed him of the cause.

    "If this masking be done in proof of my faith, noble Duke, permit me to say it is superfluous."

    "Nay, Oxford," answered the Duke, "I was a courteous spy; for I ceased to play the eavesdropper, at the very moment when I had reason to expect you were about to say something to anger me."

    "As I am a true Knight, my Lord Duke, if you had remained behind the arras, you would only have heard the same truths which I am ready to tell in your Grace's presence, though it may have chanced they might have been more bluntly expressed."

    "Well, speak them then, in whatever phrase thou wilt—they lie in their throats that say Charles of Burgundy was ever offended by advice from a well-meaning friend."

    "I would then have said," replied the English Earl, "that all which Margaret of Anjou had to apprehend, was that the Duke of Burgundy, when buckling on his armour to win Provence for himself, and to afford to her his powerful assistance to assert her rights in England, was likely to be withdrawn from such high objects by an imprudently eager desire to avenge himself of imaginary affronts, offered to him, as he supposed, by certain confederacies of Alpine mountaineers, over whom it is impossible to gain any important advantage, or acquire reputation, while, on the contrary, there is a risk of losing both. These men dwell amongst rocks and deserts which are almost inaccessible, and subsist in a manner so rude, that the poorest of your subjects would starve if subjected to such diet. They are formed by nature to be the garrison of the mountain-fortresses in which she has placed them;—for Heaven's sake meddle not with them, but follow forth your own nobler and more important objects, without stirring a nest of hornets, which, once in motion, may sting you into madness."

    The Duke had promised patience, and endeavoured to keep his word; but the swoln muscles of his face, and his flashing eyes, showed how painful to him it was to suppress his resentment. 

    "You are misinformed, my lord," he said; "these men are not the inoffensive herdsmen and peasants you are pleased to suppose them.    . . ."

(from Ch. XXVI)

The elder Philipson and the surly innkeeper John Mengs (Anne of Geierstein, Ch. XIX)

[Image source: The Corson Collection at Edinburgh University Library . 1838 engraving by George Cruikshank.]

*

King René in Anne of Geierstein was in his younger days the Reignier of 1 Henry VI (by Shakespeare and others).

Scott's portrayal of the art- and poetry-besotted court of King René turned out to be influential. 

It may have suggested the Dane Henrik Hertz' 1845 play Kong Renes Datter (not about Margaret but her elder sister Yolande), which was the source of Iolanta, Tchaikovsky's last opera.

Via Myles Birket Foster, it inspired Dante Gabriel Rossetti's oil-painting King René's Honeymoon (1867). Strictly Rossetti's painting was originally part of a project called King René's Honeymoon Cabinet: items René might be imagined to carry. Details are in the article below, which points out that though Scott is a source for the general idea of René's devotion to art (which dated from the time of his second marriage), Scott himself says nothing about a honeymoon or a cabinet. 

http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/s175.raw.html

In fact, Scott's portrayal of the dottard René and his court is highly critical, but it opened a door to the Pre-Raphaelites' enthusiasm for the Provençal troubadors. 

*

At around the same date Anne of Geierstein may have had another and more dire influence. The Ku Klux Klan (formed 1865) may have based some of the details of their operation  on descriptions of the secret court of the Holy Vehme, ultimately from Goethe but most likely taken from this very novel. (For example the black cloaks and hoods; the white cloaks came later.) This at any rate was the theory put forward by James Taft Hadfield (PMLA, Vol 37 No 4 (Dec 1922), pp. 735-739):

https://www.jstor.org/stable/457170

Forty years later Thomas Dixon Jr, in The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905), invented the detail of the Klan's burning crosses, apparently basing it on the Gaelic crann-tara, which he probably knew from Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake. Subsequently, the reviving Klan adopted Dixon's idea. 

 [For more on Scott and subsequent American history, see https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2021/03/scott-and-american-violence.html .]

Scott's novels: A brief guide

yellow barges in pushing away sense

. . .

to match an eyebrow

wilted flower code

assault upon language

both sides of a coin

yellow and black

false dilemma on an empty train

images faster than an eye

palm trees in a row of sorrow

no one speaks

of bark of sunlight

a man whimpers at the clouds

somewhere a young girl

plastic flowers in a pink bedroom

my back crooked from watching

yellow barges in pushing away sense

in a portable landscape

stars trapped in nets

dire thrown carelessly

diced food

dark web of buildings

in a summer heat of reason

split open like a moving variegated shadow

across a black canvas

are pink lines

weblike forest

yellowed lips of sense

against a moving

target of glitter trees

thoughts leftover

soundless atmosphere

slow move away from fading language

to which i pin my hope

great blur of reason

new versions of radiant forests

at the deaf of feeling

a hundred views of 富士山

outdated throng of tired listening

dissolve into grey pools of regret

yellow objects in my mind

not this heavy lifting of concrete

. . .

*

The distinctive features of the music slowly come into focus. For instance, the colour words. The nouns, which usually toll the end of the lines. The big abstract nouns: reason, language, sense, feeling, mind. (Is "mind" an abstract noun? . . .) . The emotional words. The metaphors. 

So it's poetry that is quite overt about its constructed nature. Yet it moves and means. 

*

dire thrown carelessly : Maybe that's meant to say "dice thrown carelessly". It suggests it anyway. 

富士山 = Mount Fuji

[Figuring out how I was going to reproduce this, I discovered that Google Translate has a handwriting option, so I didn't need to learn how to use a Japanese keyboard: with care and patience you can make a drawing of each character, retrieve a copy-and-paste-able Japanese character, and at the same time learn its approximate equivalent in English. 

Just for the record, the following characters show up later on in the extract:

川     river

森木林石水火雲霧     forest tree forest stone water fire cloud fog  ]

*

A modern landscape. There's hardly any human physical activity but there's plenty of movement. It's a "portable landscape"; sometimes the thing that appears to move is what stands still, and vice versa. So which is the moving target? 

Meanwhile, what to make of the recurrent hints of haikuesque tranquillity? The clouds, the canals, the wet trees. . .

A glimpsed tranquillity here in this modern poem, mocked by the ersatz flowers, and paradoxically co-existing with the un-haikuesque abstract nouns and metaphors: yet glimpsed all the same. 

But what is the meaning of tranquillity now? Is it merely too late for a human to act? 

And other things are here too. The barely contained emotions, they are spilling out. (It's not only the palm trees in that "row of sorrow".) And the exhaustion of "pushing away", "fading", "tired".

*

So my slow dawdle through the poetry anthology women: poetry: migration (2017) has in due course brought me to the poetry of the editor herself, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa (born in Harvey, Illinois; she has lived in Japan since 1989). It's an extract from <<terrain grammar>>, a collection published by the same publisher (theenk Books) in 2018. (Her ninth collection, or thereabouts.)

The extract looks like a single flow of carefully considered quatrains (about three times longer than the bit I quoted).  Apparently it consists of several poems (and thus my sub-quotation might inadvertently cross a poem boundary). The blurring of poem boundaries is maintained throughout the collection, according to this helpful review by Brianna Vincent:

https://plumwoodmountain.com/brianna-vincent-reviews-terrain-grammar-by-jane-joritz-nakagawa/

Jacket of <<terrain grammar>> (theenk Books, 2018)

[Image source: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Terrain-Grammar-Paperback-9780988389199/351386092 .]

Not all of <<terrain grammar>> has the quatrain format. Here's a taster from another section, which appeared in Cordite Review:

and thus die toward/of a language. as it may [have been]. turning (in that
direction). whirling verb (of) personage.  not grasped (to). in

search of [nautical roughage like as]. to displace (to). at refuse (of)
historical bending past. expands breadth toward/beyond

urchin of noun objects. forgetting of it now. (a) breach of always.

http://cordite.org.au/poetry/theend/from-terrain-grammar/)

Some extracts from a wide-ranging and lucid interview conversation with Thomas Fink:

I see FLUX in large part as a book of characters trying to navigate difficult things (economic personal and sociopolitical uncertainty and trauma, untrustworthy organizations, natural disasters, etc.). Whereas FLUX is perhaps primarily about “the material world” Distant Landscapes is a more personal book about a character who is similar to me living in a forest versus the larger cityscapes and more numerous types you find in FLUX, both urbanscapes and mental landscapes which emphasize a kind of escape or wish to transcend the world. Both books dispensed with poem titles and are weavings of disparate elements that I try to make harmonize / cooperate with each other; there is a fair amount of formal and stylistic and tonal diversity etc. But Distant Landscapes is I think a quieter or more introspective and more nature-oriented book and is much more me or the me that was writing the book, a character very close to myself (my actual self v. a social self). After FLUX I wrote a chapbook titled wildblacklake and Distant Landscapes continued some of what I was experimenting with in that chapbook, a kind of minimalism that owes much to haikuesque poetics, much moreso than FLUX does.

          . . .

Yes, language including my own writing of course is imperfect, as far as trying to capture the world and one’s thoughts and feelings about it in words so that generates the next poem, or thought in language (sometimes gestures seem to work better or music, etc.) where one tries again but only succeeding at best partially:-), an ongoing process that needs to be repeated! As you said the alphabet (or other orthography) can’t help us “merge” with the natural world, a desire some of us including myself often has, or at least it doesn’t work for me that way. Especially for me as far as “thought” (v. “feeling”) poetry is closer to me, more “real” or “truth-full” than “linear” prose which tends to feel much more artificial and divorced from my actual “thinking”. But even so, there is some lack, a kind of grasping/gasping/gaping…gaps! The “music” of poetry is important because it helps make up for some of the lack, but the lack continues….

          . . .

It’s not a secret that I have an ecofeminist perspective. Ecofeminism often links together destruction of the environment with patriarchy, masculinities theory, racism, ableism, animal rights etc., as I do. If it matters I am also the survivor of physical assault. This does not make me special, there are many such women in the world. Rape occurs in numerous of my works, both the attempted rapes I experienced as well as the actual rapes of friends and acquaintances or rapes I have heard about in the news. Sex occurs because sex occurs. Environment appears because I care about it. Anything that takes a poet’s attention can be in a poem.

https://dichtungyammer.wordpress.com/2016/10/30/exchange-on-jane-joritz-nakagawas-recent-poetry/

Jane Joritz-Nakagawa in 2018

[Image source: https://isobarpress.com/authors/jane-joritz-nakagawa/ .]

Some other poems by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa: 

"Buildings fall              (2003)

http://www.shampoopoetry.com/joritz-nakagawa/

Sonnet A                       (2008)

http://cordite.org.au/poetry/experience/sonnet-a/

Ode 8                            (2008)

http://cordite.org.au/poetry/experience/ode-8/

Dear Diary                    (2008)

http://cordite.org.au/poetry/experience/dear-diary/

methane dress               (2017)
http://cordite.org.au/poetry/confession/methane-dress/

<<terrain grammar>> was followed by the long poem Plan B Audio, published earlier this year (2020). It's about the author's experience of disability, life-threatening illness and radical surgery.

Here are some extracts:

https://aglimpseof.net/2017/10/14/the-uncontrollable-issue-jane-joritz-nakagawa/

https://www.dispatchespoetrywars.com/poetry/from-plan-b-audio/

Here's a review by Ian Brinton in Tears in the Fence:

https://tearsinthefence.com/2020/06/15/plan-audio-b-by-jane-joritz-nakagawa-isobar-press/

my generation

The following passage is quickly translated from Bodil Malmsten's memoir, Mitt första liv (2004). [She was born in 1944 and died in 2016. Her parents separated and she was brought up by her grandparents on a rural farm in Jämtland.]

*

At one time in my childhood I lived by the slalom slope on Frösön. It was after the village school at Bjärmelund and before Ångermannagatan in Vällingby, I went for the second term in high school to the college in Östersund, Ö H A L.

Every day after school I changed into anorak and ski trousers, put my skis on my shoulders and took the ski lift up to the summit of Frösön hill.

There were two ways of getting down. The slalom slope or the ravine. 

I'd never been to a ski school, never had a slalom course either as part of a group or as an individual. I didn't know that I was able to slalom until I did it. 

Maybe all who are born in the inland areas and mountain tracts of central Norrland are born with this ability, even if not all of them know it and far from all of them make use of it.

My gran on my mother's side, her sister Regina, my grandpa and others of their generation never did.  When they put on a pair of skis it was to go somewhere that hadn't been cleared, because something was to be fetched or left, because someone in distress needed your help. To put on your skis without such an object, to ride up on the ski lift with no other aim than to ski back down again; this wasn't something you did in those days.

In Gran and Grandpa's world there were neither holidays nor hobbies, it was use that governed their activity. Compulsion and duty, necessity. Need. 

You just had to make the best of your circumstances. 

Grandpa did it cheerfully and Gran did it complainingly, but neither would put their skis on without some end in view. 

It was different in the world of my dad's parents.

In that world they played tennis and sailed boats, skated long-distance and went skiing, both downhill and cross-country.

But my generation was the first where everyone did stuff that didn't have a practical object. 

With my generation needlessness and wastefulness came into the world. We had never experienced need ourselves and when the old folk warned us of the consequences of our carelessness and our extravagance we despised their old-fashioned kind of reasoning.

That the world should come to a sticky end because of our carelessness and extravagance; that was all of a piece with Gran's blow-ups and with "The Russians are coming". 

That within a few generations the earth will be threatened with destruction as a consequence of our recklessness: that, by and large, we still pay no heed to.

We didn't believe in God and we weren't dependent on the village community for our survival. With us came washing machines and fridges and, gradually, television.

That Gran became so besotted back then with Arne Weise [TV presenter], that was our fault. If we'd never existed she would still have been sitting by the wood stove and spinning thread. 

To get into discussing how much good got lost and how much bad took its place, that's a big risk. You end up in the nostalgia trap and in the worst sort of company. 

Once you start talking about how great it was in the old days you're right there with the folklorists, the preservationists, and the family history people.

To paint romanticized pictures of how the women in the village washed their mats in the beck every spring, how the mats were beaten with clothes-beaters against the rocks in the water of the purling beck, how the steam from the washtubs rose up to the heavens, how fragrant the soap smelled; this is irresponsible and indefensible. Such pretty pictures are made only by those who have lost contact with reality. 

Someone who doesn't know how it is. Someone who has gone backwards. Someone from my generation or someone from Stockholm. 

Someone who has never known the merciless weight of those wet rag rugs, how the cold water attacked the hands, how much was still in them and how they all had to be hung up in the attic and ironed, how the irons were indeed made of iron and were as heavy as lead.

While the cows were being pastured at the summer crofts, we scoured the cow-shed on our knees. The calf partitions were brought out onto the hill slope, the shit scraped out of the corners, every smallest nook was swept clean and soaped. 

That the young ones were in it too, of that you can be sure, everyone had their own scrubbing brush. 

It was the same at hay-making time, so much hay to be gathered in, barley to be harvested, potatoes set in the earth and afterwards pulled up. 

Everything was necessary and the work was never finished.

Pink plastic gloves to protect your hands, that was something neither gran's nor mum's generation had, and if anyone had rocked up to wash their mats in the beck wearing pink plastic gloves they would have been driven forth from the village community, gloves first.

With my generation came pink plastic gloves, the individual's enjoyment and the shortsighted gratification of desires. And when the individual's enjoyment and the shortsighted gratification of desires take over, no-one can answer for the consequences. 

Even if individualism wasn't discovered by my generation, it was certainly we who cultivated it. 

Without being either upper class or wealthy. 

That it's my generation who today govern the world's future is alarming. Representative democracy is fair enough so long as the representatives of the people represent the people and not merely themselves. 

The social democracy that my grandfather was involved in founding is as far from today's as a surströmming from a truffle, and yet there are no more than two generations between him and the government of today. 

That my skiing down the slalom hill at Frösön in 1955 should be the beginning of the end for Swedish social democracy is drawing overblown conclusions from a single case, but why not?

If my generation had shown a greater sense of responsibility, Swedish society would perhaps have developed a bit more along the lines of my grandfather's model.  

(pp. 156-159)

*

Notes

Frösön is a lake island reached by bridge from Östersund, Jämtland's principal town. The nearer parts of Frösön are effectively part of the town. The rest is more countrified, for instance the much visited idyllic summer residence of the composer Wilhelm Peterson-Berger (1867-1942). Östersund Airport lies at the far end of the island. 

The Swedish school year has only two terms. The "second term" runs from January to June. 

Gran's blow-ups: mommas huvvaligen. I think this is right, but it's a bit of a guess. Huvva is a slang term meaning both awful and awe-inspiring. (Probably this is explained earlier in the book, but I've forgotten.)

calf partitions:  kättarna. A kätte in a cowshed (ladugård, or lagård) is a wooden partition allowing a separate but shared area for e.g. calves (or sheep, or pigs).

at the summer crofts: i buan. Jämtland dialectal form of bodarna, referring to the local transhumance culture. In summer the cows were taken from the village to an often distant location in the woods or mountains, the fäbod. Here they fed off the lush summer pasture, tended by the younger village girls, who had a kind of working holiday. Apart from watching the cows, they also made and sent back preserved milk products such as cheeses and messmör. Meanwhile, at the home farm, the fields were freed up to grow winter feed as well as vegetables for the family. 

you can be sure: using the idiomatic phrase fattas bara annat ("you bet", "I should jolly well think so"). 

surströmming: fermented herring, a local delicacy with a notoriously strong scent and flavour. Here implying something rough and unrefined, but also genuine and honest.