Tre trallande jäntor / Three carolling maidens

Tre trallande jäntor, painting by Åke Skoghäll.

[Image source: https://www.fyndgren.se/begagnat/vykort/vykort-ake-skoghall-tre-trallande-jantor . The only thing I could find out about Åke Skoghäll is that he taught art at Hagaskolen in Kumla (south of Örebro), approximately in the 1980s.]

Tre trallande jäntor 

Där gingo tre jäntor i solen
på vägen vid Lindane Le,
de svängde, de svepte med kjolen,
de trallade, alla de tre.

Och gingo i takt som soldater
och sedan så valsade de,
och "Udden är så later"
de trallade, alla de tre.

Men när som de kommo till kröken
av vägen vid Lindane Le,
de ropade alla: "Hör göken!"
sen skvätte och tystnade de.

Och tego så tyst som de döda
och rodnade, alla de tre.
Men varföre blevo de röda
och varföre tystnade de?

Jo!

Det stod tre studenter vid grinden,
och därför så tystnade de
och blevo så röda om kinden,
de trallande jäntorna tre.

Det stod tre studenter vid kröken
och flinade, alla de tre,
och härmde och skreko: "Hör göken!"
och alla så trallade de.

Poem by Gustaf Fröding (1860 - 1911), published in Nya dikter (1894) . 

Three carolling maidens

There walked three girls in the sunshine

On the way to Lindane Le,

They swung, they swept their skirts,

And they carolled all three.

And first they marched like soldiers

Then waltzing about went they,

And "Udden is so lazy!"

Thus they carolled all three.

But when they got to the turning

Of the road to Lindane Le

They all cried "Hear the cuckoo!"

Then suddenly quietened they.

And they stood still as the dead

And they blushed, all three.

But why did they turn so red

And why so quiet fell they?

Aha!

Three students stood at the gate

And hence so quiet fell they

And their cheeks became so red,

The carolling maidens three.

Three students stood at the turning

And they were grinning, all three,

And mockingly cried "Hear the cuckoo!"

And so they carolled all they.

The poem is supposed to have been based on a real event, as reported by Siri Fröding-Torgny in her 1953 book Min kusin Gustaf Fröding. She herself was one of the three girls, along with her cousins Ulla and Fina Warodell. They were on their way from Mangskog rectory to the local shop. The three students were Gustaf and Rudolf Warodell and Gustaf Fröding. 

Fröding, who grew up in Karlstad and Kristinehamn, was a regular visitor to rural Mangskog (north of Arvika, in inner Värmland). Some sources say he lived there for about a year in 1880-1881, when he was twenty. (https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tre_trallande_j%C3%A4ntor .) 

Gustaf Fröding is one of those writers who is basically only available to Swedish speakers. I didn't put a lot of effort into my English version, because, what's the point? How can you ever do justice to even such a commonplace line as "de trallade, alla de tre," where every syllable rhymes?

But if you want to read more Fröding in English, then I expect Charles Wharton Stork's 1916 selection is the place to go: 

https://archive.org/details/selectedpoems00storgoog/mode/2up .

Trallande. Singing happily e.g while walking along, typically with a few remembered words and lots of tra-la-la-ing.

Lindane Le. It isn't the "Linden Lea" of William Barnes (and Vaughan Williams' beautiful setting), though Charles Wharton Stork couldn't resist the happy coincidence. 

I think it's said to be an actual spot in Mangskog, perhaps where a fence-opening (SAOB led sb 3, see illustration!) leads to a lime-tree avenue (lindallé). But descriptions are a bit vague: if you happen to visit Mangskog yourself, post a photo online!  

https://varmlandsbygden.se/arvika/froding-blickade-mot-lindane-le/

https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC4KN9V

https://filer.hembygd.se/karlstads-hembygdsf-rening/uploads/files/2021/08/05/Bladet2000_2.pdf [PDF]

"Udden är så later" . The quote comes from a semi-nonsensical game-in-a-ring or children's chant. See the discussion in the comments here: https://tidenstecken.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/hagenbecks/ . It seems to mean "Udden is so lazy" (SAOB lat adj. 1). "Udden" normally means "the point", e.g a projecting piece of land, or the point of a knife, but here it seems to be someone's name, though I have never heard of any such name. 

skvätte. Dialect word. It means they got scared, had a fright. Discussed here: https://www.flashback.org/t752147p2 .

*

The catchy music everyone knows is by Felix Körling (1864 - 1937) who added the "Tralalalalala" choruses. 

The version in Sjung Svenska Folk! omits stanza 5. On the other hand, pop renderings by the Delta Rhythm Boys (1951) Sven Ingvars (1971) and the Hebbe Sisters (2022) omit stanza 2. 

Here's the version by Sven Ingvars:

Körling's tune became very popular and in 1909 it was heard by the Turkish educator Selim Sırrı Tarcan while studying physical education in Sweden. With new words by Ali Ulvi Elöve it became "Gençlik Marşı" (The March of the Youth), a patriotic song of the Atatürk era, as in the clip below:

Jean Sibelius also wrote music for Tre trallande jäntor in 1915 but it's lost; maybe he didn't think much of it.