A butterfly in Haga

Gustav III's summer pavilion. Hagaparken, 16 August 2023.

Om Haga,
dedicerat till herr kaptenen Kirstein

On Haga

Dedication: to Captain Kirstein

1.

C                      G7        C
Fjäriln vingad syns på Haga

            Dm7              G7          C            

mellan dimmors frost och dun

            C        G7       C
sig sitt gröna skjul tillaga

         Dm               G7       C
och i blomman sin paulun.

             Am                  Dm
Minsta kräk i kärr och syra,

              G7                 C
nyss av solens värma väckt,

           C        G7     C
till en ny högtidlig yra

          Dm      G7     C
eldas vid sefirens fläkt.

(Singable translation:)

Wingèd butterfly in Haga

through the fogs and flurries sped,

making in the green its harbour

and within the bloom its bed.

Smallest flies of marsh and mire

new awakened by the sun

come full-charged with high desire

by the gentle Zephyr won.

(Literal translation:)

The wingèd butterfly is seen at Haga

between the mists' frost and snow-flurries (SAOB dun 2b = snöfjun, light snowflakes)

to prepare itself its green refuge

and in the flower its bed.  (SAOB paulun 3, the word (related to "pavilion") most often meant tent but was often extended to the hangings of four-poster bed. )

The least insect in marsh and mire (SAOB syra 3)

just awoken by the sun's warmth

to a new festal enthusiasm

is fired by Zephyr's breath (i.e. the west wind. SAOB fläkt II.1, a gentle breath of wind)

 

  

2.

Haga i ditt sköte röjes
gräsets brodd och gula plan.
Stolt i dina rännlar höjes
gungande den vita svan.
Längst ur skogens glesa kamrar
höras täta återskall
än från den graniten hamrar,
än från yx i björk och tall.

(Singable translation:)

Haga now within your precincts

green grass shoots in yellowed fields.

Proudly on your waters streaming

to and fro the white swan wheels.

From the distant wood's thin chambers 

are repeated echoes heard,

now the granite rung by hammers,

now the axe on birch and fir.

Literal translation:

Haga, in your lap is revealed

the grass's new shoots and yellow field. (SAOB brodd II, the young shoot of a plant esp from seed. NB brodd I means a sharp spike or point i.e. on a tool.  The Swedish word plan is related to both "plain" and "plan". The normal word for a football or cricket pitch.  Also a level area in front of a building, such as a lawn. Presumably yellow after winter snow cover?  "gula plan" is definitive. In modern Swedish it would be "gula planen", and likewise, in the fourth line, "den vita svanen".)

Proudly in your rills is raised (i.e. its neck)

rocking (back and forth) the white swan.

From afar out of the wood's thin chambers (i.e. glades)

are heard repeated echoes

now the granite rung with hammers,

now from axe in birch and pine. (Referring to the king's construction projects at Haga.)

3.

Se Brunnsvikens små najader
höja sina gyllne horn,
och de frusande kaskader
sprutas över Solna torn.
Under skygd av välvda stammar
på den väg man städad ser,
fålen yvs och hjulen dammar —
bonden milt åt Haga ler.

(Singable translation:)

See Brunnsviken's little naiads 

lifting up their golden horns,

and the fountain cascades higher

than the tower of Solna borne.

Underneath the tall trees' arches

on the road so smooth and clean,

striding colt and dust from cartwheels,

Haga makes the farmer beam. 

(Literal translation:)

See Brunnsviken's little naiads (Brunnsviken, lake forming the eastern border of Haga park)

raise their golden horns

and the spouting cascades

flung higher than Solna tower.  (i.e the impressive round tower of Solna church, just to the SW of Haga park)

Under shade of vaulted stems (i.e. tree canopy)

on the neat road one sees

the young horse frolic and the wheels' dust, (SAOB fåle is from the same root as föl (foal), but it means something different: a young horse (up to three years old), as opposed to a fully working horse. The male gender is often implied, so maybe "colt" is a near equivalent in English).

the farmer mildly smiles at Haga.

4.

Vad gudomlig lust att röna
inom en så ljuvlig park,
då man hälsad av sin sköna
ögnas av en mild monark!
Varje blick hans öga skickar,
lockar tacksamhetens tår —
rörd och tjust av dessa blickar,
själv den trumpne glättig går.

(Singable translation:)

What a joy it is that meets me

entered in this lovely place

when my fair one comes to greet me

'neath a kindly monarch's gaze!

Every glance the royal eye sends

draws a tear of gratitude;

moved and charmed by such enticements

even sorrow walks renewed. 

(Literal translation:)

What heavenly happiness to experience

within such a lovely park

when one greeted by his beloved

is overseen by a mild monarch!

Every glance his eye sends

draws gratitude's tear --

moved and charmed by those glances

even the joyless walk with a spring.   (SAOB trumpen, glädtig)

 

 (Fredmans sånger, n:o 64)

Haga Park, location of the never-completed summer palace of Gustaf III (1746 - 1792), in northern Stockholm on the western shore of  Brunnsviken. Designed as an "English" landscape park. 

Carl Michael Bellman (1740 - 1795), Swedish songwriter. This song is from 1791. 

How great it is that the SAOB (Svenska Akademiens Ordbok) is freely accessible to all!(https://www.saob.se/). (Not so the OED. And I discovered this week that Somerset libraries have now "pruned" their subscription to the OED, which I've depended on for years.)

The chords are just for guidance. I sing it in Eb, so chords as above but with the capo at the third fret. 

One of Bellman's best-known songs. Here's how it goes, in a beautiful rendition by Elina:

I think this was the version played on Radio 3 Breakfast on 6 June 2023, in celebration of Sweden's National Day (and 500 years of independence). Elina sings all four verses, but the last verse is often left out, e.g. in the popular songbook Sjung Svenska Folk! (In this last verse the original purpose of the song shows through: royal flattery aimed at procuring a job at Haga for Bellman's wife.)

Here's my own rendition. Not as beautiful as Elina's, but I was pleased to have managed it at all!

michaelpeverett · Fjäriln Vingad Syns På Haga

Lime avenue at Hagaparken, 16 August 2023.

Stora pelousen (The Great Lawn) at Hagaparken. An English-style gently sloping lawn that required a lot of re-engineering of the natural landscape. 16 August 2023.

Small Balsam (Impatiens parviflora, Sw: Blekbalsamin). Hagaparken, 16 August 2023.

A sometimes troublesome weed in Sweden, this is about as far north as it gets.

The balsam species in Sweden: https://www.natursidan.se/nyheter/arets-vaxter-en-ovanlig-en-besvarlig-och-en-invasiv/ .

 

Stinkhorns (Phallus impudicus). Hagaparken, 16 August 2023.

Dancing in the Temple of the Echo. Hagaparken, 16 August 2023.

The temple of the echo (Ekotemplet), built in 1790. Our voices boomed back and forth, but even more impressive was the machine-gun rattle when we stamped sharply on the floor. I wonder if it suggested the "täta återskall" in Verse 2 of Bellman's song.

easter yellow

Easter drink and card

I'm not sure when yellow became the brand colour of Easter. I suppose it owes a lot to chicks and daffodils.


Or is it the colour of resurrection, as in Tom Clark's poem?


and your childish mind would be ever alive, wondering
what kind of lounge furniture do they have in heaven
a cloud, awash in a soft spray of golden
yellowish light... God-light... perhaps extending a hand
or more likely ignoring your presence
as though you hadn't really died
yet, but were just being treated to a brief
preview of the festivities, which for that
matter didn't really appear to have anything festive in them
certainly no creaturely joy or solid colour or sweet wild song
for without the material world, how
throw together a halfway decent festivity?
Is there no change of death in paradise?

When they roll away the stone, does light pour in?
Are there, like... snacks? 
The idea of death
in the mind of a child
is an idea wasted on an unformed mind
way back when, in the pre-world
before imagination died
God would be there, in that spray of golden
yellowish light
coming out of a bright mist of cloud
through which one might walk
or fall...  that wide water
without sound
but for the soft calls of the wood doves
beside a pool in Palestine
along the Perkiomen,
the deer coming down to water, ...


From "Easter Lilies"
http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/thomas-wyatt-there-was-never-ffile.html


In East Somerset, Mells Daffodil Festival (commonly shortened to "Mells")  is an important event in the calendar. It always takes place on Easter Monday.


But Easter and the blooming of daffodils are both moveable feasts. This year Easter came late and the daffs exceptionally early, so their yellow was just a distant memory by the time of Mells.


But in spring yellow keeps on coming ... waves of dandelions (once again, very early compared to St George's Day (April 23), the traditional day for gathering dandelions), celandines, forsythia, buttercups and laburnum. The latter two are really May sights, but not this year....

Laburnum, Swindon 24th April 2017 08:45

Cadbury Mini Eggs Easter Egg

Chair for sale

Ring around the moon, Swindon, 10th April 2017 23:14



The physics behind these fairly common 22 degree rings around the sun and moon is lucidly explained here:


http://turningmirrors.com/22-halo




The ring indicates that there are icy cirrus or cirrostratus clouds in the upper atmosphere, which could presage a change in the weather. And certainly this proved to be the end of the summery heat that had been building for a month since mid-March -- the cause of all that early flowering. But the rest of April, though colder, has carried on being almost bone dry. April showers? What are those?

oil painting by Christer Caramon

[Image source: https://myspace.com/christer.caramon/mixes/profilemix-355677/photo/78478976]




Just before this post hastens to its close, here's a portal to the multi-talented enigma Christer Caramon, outsider artist and musician with a glorious singing voice.




https://soundcloud.com/christer-caramon


Two of my favourite tracks. "Greetings dear Mollberg" is an eighteenth-century song by Carl Michael Bellman, relating the unfortunate experience of a musician who insisted on playing "polskas" during a time of anti-Polish hysteria. [Actually, the "polska" - despite its name - seems to be an entirely Swedish dance tradition. -- It is not the same thing as a polka, by the way.]


Text of Bellman's song Tjenare Mollberg, hur är det fatt? (Fredmans Epistel No. 45)
https://www.anacreon.de/se/bellman/fredmans-epistlar/fe45.php


[No longer available on Soundcloud, unfortunately...!]



The second, "Cecilia Lind", is a song by Cornelis Vreeswijk (1937 - 1987), Dutch-born but an immigrant to Sweden at the age of 12. He went on to become one of Sweden's best-loved troubadours.



And here's a whole 20-track playlist of Swedish songs in English...


[No longer available on Soundcloud, unfortunately!]