In which Zin has pyromaniac tendences.

[zinnith]

Yesterday was Walpurgis Night in Sweden, something that must be acknowledged. It's huge in the village where I grew up, and naturally I had to document the whole thing.



Things you need for a proper Walpurgis Night in Fäggeby, Sweden:

1: A big heap of junk to burn.


2: A sandwich layer cake or two. This one was made by my mother and lovingly decorated by me. Sister #1 thinks I ought to open a café! *is proud of self*


3: A buttload of fireworks.


There, all set! Now, the celebrations can begin! You start by gathering friends and family and eat the cake. Around that time, I'd had a beer or two so the pictures came out a little blurry for some reason. However, when you've stuffed yourself so full you can't possibly eat another bite, it's time to go outside and light the bonfires.



Mum and Dad live by the River Dal and everyone in the village has their own bonfire. It's traditional to compete about who has the largest fire. It's also traditional to complain about the newly moved in neighbour who burns things that shouldn't be burned, like tractor tires and his own lawn.

In any case, it's wildly beautiful with all the fires and torches reflecting in the water.





When it's dark enough, it's time to set off the fireworks. It starts with everyone's private fireworks.


My dad and little brother had a lot of fun.

After that, the communal fireworks begins. The whole village collect money to hire professional pyrotechnics to come and give us a show. Unfortunately, my pictures can't even begin do describe it, but this year's show was something extra.









When the fireworks are over, you go inside and eat the rest of the sandwich cake. The younger generation (sister #1, sister #2 and sister #2:s boyfriend) went off to find a fire with more alcohol culture than ours, while us old ancient things went back inside and have another helping of food.

Today, the side of the river looks like this.



All in all, a very successful celebration. I'd say we managed to scare off all the evil spirits. Now it's spring for real!

Comments

[chebonne.livejournal.com]

I'm not normally much about Vaborgs, but man, last night I got into a major funk. Being alone and poor as a church rat on the holidays sucks hardcore.

Everybody I knew was drinking their faces off, and I, well. Wasn't. Stupid friends living 500km away. >:(

The fireworks up here were pretty fabulous, though.

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the being poor thing. I suppose it's good thing that I'm beginning to get too old to spend every Valborg in a drunken stupor (and that I have a family to feed me because otherwise I would've been feasting on water and bread).

But big YAY for fireworks!

[tarlanx]

Looks like you had a lot of fun!!

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

We did! Though my jacket will smell like smoke for a month...

[tonicollins.livejournal.com]

Nothing says Holiday Fun like fire and fireworks. *g* I love all the bonfires reflecting off the water. Here in the US we only get fireworks on the 4th of July and New Year's eve. And private ones are mostly banned. Not that that stops some people.

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much New Year's and Walpurgis for fireworks over here as well, and I really shouldn't love them so much having studied enough environmental science to know how bad they are... but they're pretty!

[wanted-a-pony.livejournal.com]

Wow, that looks fantastic! It made me chuckle to see how much your description of Walpurgis Night sounds like descriptions of Fourth of July in the USA. Comparing picnic spreads, rowdiness of parties & suitability of fires is the source of untold debate & endless tongue-clucking. Substitute sandwich layer cakes for our cookouts/barbeques & you'd feel right at home! Except around here, rather than set lawns on fire, the stupidest/drunkest ones set the pine barrens on fire.¹ Oh, & for some inexplicable reason, some idiots feel they should fire their guns up in the air when fireworks go off.²

The only folks who really celebrate May Day/Beltane here are pagans & a few thousand die-hard Communists & Wobblies (members of the International Workers of the World). Though the celtic-flavored paganism common in the US holds that Beltane is the end of Spring,³ this is the only place I've lived which is close enough to the Equator that it really feels like the Summer.

By the way, I've never eaten a sandwich layer cake. Do you slice it vertically & eat it in squares or wedges, or do you pick the top garnishes you like & then grab sandwiches from underneath, or....? (Sister #1 is right, you know: it's lovely, & made me soo hungry to look at it closely! :-)

1 Florida is very weird — it has a near-monsoon season & a semi-tropical climate, but the parts which are not actually lakes, rivers, streams or salt marches are wildfires waiting to happen. It's exciting that the same area can flood, burn or suffer a tornado or hurricane all in the same month....

2 In Detroit, Michigan, which was the closest big city to me before I moved to Florida, the same sorts of idiots fired their guns into the air at midnight on New Year's Eve. I hope the two groups are related because I hate to think that evolution produced two such deviations so far below the mean independently.

3 The pagan-ish system holds that the solar holidays — the solstices & equinoxes — mark the middle of their respective seasons. (E.g., the Vernal Equinox marks the middle of Spring.) For everybody else in North America, the solar holidays mark the divisions between the seasons. (I.e., the Vernal Equinox is the beginning of Spring.) Sounds like Sweden still follows the paganish calendar but "turned back" a season, which makes a lot of sense for far-Northern climates!

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

A sandwich cake is eaten like an ordinary cake, only with knife and fork. There are also a lot of badly concealed attempts to get the yummiest toppings (everyone wants the pieces with shrimp and eggs and no-one wants to get stuck with the cucumbers and lemons...)

Traditions are odd things ;) I'm so glad we don't have trigger-happy people over here! As a matter of fact, I'm glad for our gun-control laws, which pretty much prevents trigger-happy people from using their guns on other things than moose.