Grete Waitz

Legendary Norwegian runner Grete Waitz won a record nine New York City marathons, a gold medal at the 1983 world championships, and a silver at the 1984 Olympics. Sadly, Grete died this month of cancer.  She was 57.   

Three Views of Jormungandr

In Norse mythology, Jormungandr, the world serpent, is one of the three monstrous offspring of the god Loki. Jormungandr's siblings are Hel, the grim goddess of the underworld, and Fenris the wolf, who is so massive that his jaws fully opened stretch from the earth to the vault of the sky. As for Jormungandr, he  lives in the sea and encircles the entire world, biting down on his own tail through the ages. A favorite of mine since I was a child, Jormungandr provides a metaphor central to structure of the Scandinavian 81. I will use his image for the homepage of  the accompanying Wiki (which already enjoys a rudimentary existence), as well as the cover of the book-- if on the off-chances that this thing a.) ever gets finished, and b.) published. (At the rate I'm proceeding, it will require several lifetimes.)

Aesthetically pleasing images of Jormungandr have proved surprisingly difficult to locate online. I like these three, but none of them quite suits my purposes. The first is closest to what I envision. I don't know how old it actually is, but it strikes my eyes as closely modeled, at least, on ancient sources. (It also  reminds me of Tolkien's artwork.) But the third Jormungandr is my favorite. I consider it the most skillfully rendered.  I enjoy particularly how Jormungandr seems less to be biting his tail than spewing it out, as a dragon spews fire: he vomits himself into existence. I don't know whether this is the artist's inspiration or based on some mythological precedent. Either way, I love it.  

The current plan is to commission an artist to create an original image of Jormungandr, based perhaps on some combination of these three. As with most of my plans, I've been negligent about implementing it. 

On a related issue, I'm told I'm running a legal risk by posting images such as this online. I may receive a cease and desist order, along with a bill, if I'm not careful about what I download. Apparently this holds true whether or not my blog makes money (or "is monetized," as they say).  Most of the images so far have been from Wikipedia.  I feel fairly safe about these; surely Wikipedia's images, if anyones, are in the public domain. The only exceptions so far, I believe, are these images of the world serpent, which I got found with a google search.

If I do get sued, expect a series of blog posts about it.

Saxo Gramaticus

Today "The Danish history Books I-IX" by Saxo Grammaticus. His chronicle of the kings of Denmark, as I understand it, is at least as propagandistic as Snorri's of the kings of Norway, but a very different flavor of propaganda. Snorri was a Scandinavian, Grammaticus a European. He wrote in Latin, and aimed to portray the Danish kings as embodying Roman virtues. It should be interesting to compare Grammaticus and Snorri covering the same events.
By the first day of summer, I intend to bid the Viking era a wistful farewell, and to move into the Scandinavian medieval period. It contributed far fewer outstanding individuals to history; and yet and the same time, they are among the most extraordinary of my extraordinary Scandinavians. I'm eager, and daunted, in particular, to tackle the subject of queen Margreta. She united Scandinavia, for the first and only time in history, under her sceptre, as much by popular acclaim as military conquest. I cannot find evidence of a biography about her in English; a Swedish historian claimed that there hasn't been one in Swedish. This amazing woman deserves to be far better known than she is, a situation that I hope, by means of the Scandinavian 81, to do my part to rectify.

two also rans

Victor Borge, "the Clown Prince of Denmark," was a musical prodigy who grew rich and famous by incorporating stand up comedy into his musical performances. He toured Europe in the 1930s, and frequently made the Nazis the target of his humor.  This and the fact that his real last name was "Rosenbaum" encouraged Victor to light out for America when Germany overran Denmark in 1940. He quickly learned English and adapted his routines for an American audience; he grew more successful than ever, and became a naturalized citizen. He continued to perform energetically until he died at the age of 91.

I'd heard of Victor Borge, but only recently discovered that he was Danish. Had I known this at an earlier stage of this project, he would certainly have been a candidate. Now, however, he must suffice with honorable mention.

Another honorable mention, this one dearer to my heart, goes to Hrafnkel, of  Hrafnkel's Saga. Hrafnkel, a 10th century a duelist, was a devotee of Freyr until a crisis of faith led him to renounce the gods. He is one of several men in Norse legend, apparently, who made a point to do so, choosing instead to rely on his own strength and virtue. He has been called an early atheist, but I'm not sure that's quite true. He may have believed in the gods without regarding them as worthy of worship.

Who's Scandinavian

There was a nineteenth century political movement to unify Scandinavia. Popular with idealists in all of the Nordic countries, it paralleled the contemporary, and ultimately more successful, nationalistic movements in Germany and Italy. The projected Nordic Union was to be based on "a shared cultural heritage, a common Nordic mythology, and a common linguistic root in Old Norse." The movement was called "Scandinavianism." 

I. Shared cultural heritage

II. Common Nordic mythology

III. Common linguistic root in Old Norse

By these criteria, which seem reasonable, Danes, Icelanders, Norwegians, and Swedes are Scandinavian. I'm aware, of course, that Finland is often called a Scandinavian country. And obviously, Scandinavian and Finnish political and cultural history are immemorially intertwined (usually to the regret of the Finns). But so are Scandinavian and Irish, and English, and German, and Russian history. All of these countries share a much closer linguistic affinity to Old Norse. Some of them, particularly Germany, share closely-related mythologies. You have to draw the line somewhere. Therefore: no Finns.  

Except Linus Torvalds. The inventor of the Linux kernal, and was born and raised in Finland; I presume he remains a citizen. Why is he an exception? Because Linus Torvalds was born into Finland's Swedish-speaking minority; Swedish is his first language. It's a safe bet that there have always been close cultural contacts between Sweden and the Swedish-Finnish populace. Finland was a Swedish imperial possession for centuries. We can usefully call native Swedish-speaking Finns ethnic Swedes.   

And yet... and yet I excluded, on ethnic grounds, Thorstein Veblen, author of the famous and influential Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). Veblen was born in these United States but, as the son of recent immigrants, his first language was Norwegian.  But he began learning English at an early age. He wrote in English. Norwegians in America, of necessity, quickly assimilated. They have been speaking native Swedish in Finland for centuries.

Does including Torvalds but excluding Veblen seem arbitrary? 

A further complication: The early modern monarchs of Denmark and Sweden. A strong case can be made that they were really, by my linguistic criteria, Germans. German was the language of the royal court at Copenhagen, and the language in the five year old princess Christina wrote letters to her father, King Gustav Adolf. Was Gustav Adolf's first language German? It might have been; his mother was.

It may be that Thorstein Veblen, born in Wisconsin, can be as usefully called a Scandinavian as Gustavus Adolphus, born in Stockholm. 

Tolland Man

Tolland Man's only known achievement was to accidentally become one of the most perfectly mumified human beings from ancient Scandinavia. He was apparently strangled to death circa 400 B.C., perhaps sacrificed to the gods, and then dumped in a peat bog, which so remarkablly preserved him that in the 1950s, when he was finally discovered, Tolland Man was assumed to be a recent murder victim. His body rapidly deteriorated after being lifted from the bog, but his head, at least was well preserved and is on display in a museum in Denmark. When I get to Scandinavia in 2012, I will make a special point of visiting Tolland Man. 

Nobel prize winning Irish poet Seamus Heany, who perceived a resemblance between Tolland Man and his uncle, wrote a poem about him.  Here it is:     

I Some day I will go to Aarhus To see his peat-brown head, The mild pods of his eye-lids, His pointed skin cap. In the flat country near by Where they dug him out, His last gruel of winter seeds Caked in his stomach, Naked except for The cap, noose and girdle, I will stand a long time. Bridegroom to the goddess, She tightened her torc on him And opened her fen, Those dark juices working Him to a saint's kept body, Trove of the turfcutters' Honeycombed workings. Now his stained face Reposes at Aarhus.

II I could risk blasphemy, Consecrate the cauldron bog Our holy ground and pray Him to make germinate The scattered, ambushed Flesh of labourers, Stockinged corpses Laid out in the farmyards, Tell-tale skin and teeth Flecking the sleepers Of four young brothers, trailed For miles along the lines. III Something of his sad freedom As he rode the tumbril Should come to me, driving, Saying the names Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard, Watching the pointing hands Of country people, Not knowing their tongue. Out here in Jutland In the old man-killing parishes I will feel lost, Unhappy and at home.