Midsommardagen

Last Friday was a day celebrated all over Sweden with strawberries, soused herring, boiled eggs and potatoes, lots of drinking and dancing around pagan fertility statues;  there was no exception at Bataholm.  The men started the day by tromping through the forest with a chainsaw, hacking down small birch trees and saplings while the women collected wildflowers from the fields.  Some of the trees were implanted along the main drive leading to the house, giving it a sacred-grove feel. 

  Around two in the afternoon, Bonde’s sister and  brother-in-law came by to begin construction of the midsummer’s pole.  They had in tow a pail of Fläderpunsch, a lovely midday cocktail of white wine, elderflowers, sugar, strawberries and pineapple pieces.

  A few neighbors arrived soon after and we commenced drinking and decoration of a large crucifix and two bicycle rims with birch branches and wildflowers.  Again, the work was gender specific; the men trimmed the birch branches to the appropriate sizes while the women tied them to the pole and added blooms for color. 

 Once all was in place the pole was hoisted overhead and paraded to its hallowed home in the middle of the yard.  All the while everyone sang or hummed a midsummer song; these would prove to be numerous and frequent as the day went on.  The traditional lyrics became more obscured as the songs became less familiar and the singers more intoxicated.  Once the pole was raised, we did some dances around it, holding hands and singing.

  I think we were singing about the summer fauna but we might have been hopping like frogs for the simple enjoyment of our fellow dancers.  After so much activity, a snack was in order.  

 The festival moved onto the veranda for coffee and three kinds of cake.  After the final strawberry meringue, the snaps began.  “Snaps” is the grand Swedish tradition of drinking half-shots of hard liquor while toasting and singing songs about drinking snaps.  Thus was our introduction to Grammel Dansk, a dark, bitter elixir somewhere between Jägermeister and Cynar.

  

  After coffee we had a break before going to dinner which was filled with beer and kubb.  At six-thirty we mounted our bicycles and began the short ride down the dusky country road to dinner.  On the way we stopped by Bonde’s visiting nephew’s cottage to meet his friends and have a quick snaps of Hallands Fläder, an elderflower-flavored akvavit.  On down the road, we rejoined the neighbors at their house for dinner.  We were greeted with an aperitif of a bright green sugary punch of unknown origin.  We made our introductions to friends and family of our hosts and were seated before a table filled with myriad akvavits, both store-bought and homemade.

  

  Dinner followed in the traditional way; soused herring is much better than I had anticipated.  The taste is more like gravlax made of whitefish and is excellent with plenty of dill and sour cream.

 

Many more snaps were had with cheery jingles such as “Drink it all, drink it all! If you can’t drink it all then you can’t have any more.” and “Now we drink, now we drink. Now we drink, now we drink…”  These many and merry drinks were of flavors local and imported, aged and freshly prepared.  Some of my favorites included Bësk, a local product made with wyrmwood and plain spirit; Fläder, the aforementioned elderflower brew; OSB, an aged caraway akvavit deliciously reminiscent of Irish whiskey; and homemade vanilla snaps, made simply of whole vanilla beans steeped in vodka.  All this drinking of course inspired great conversation.  Topics included local wildlife and whether or not reindeer existed so far south, the differences in northern and southern Swedish dialects, the pejorative Danish, the Swedish elite attending the local tennis tournament, and travel in southeast Asia.  At the end of the night we were asked back for the upcoming “neighbor party” and wished a happy midsummer and a safe bike ride home.