Nordiska Museum |

Someday, I’d like to be in Scandinavia for St. Lucia Day. In Norway, Sweden and parts of Finland, Croatia and Italy, December 13 is the feast day of Lucia.

She was an early martyr executed in the reign of Diocletian. Her crime was to carry food to Christians hiding in the dark catacombs of Rome.

Legend has it that she wore a wreath of candles to light the way, all the better to free up her hands to carry as much food as she could.

I love the Nordiska Museum in Stockholm. I’ll spend hours there anytime.

It’s a grand palace built specifically to celebrate all things Swedish.

An enormous wood carving of King Gustaf Vasa, who liberated Sweden from Denmark in the early 1500s, occupies his own dome in the great hall. It’s by Carl Milles, 1925.

Each traditional holiday has its own set of displays.

St. Lucia Day and Christmas are well-known, but how about the uniquely Swedish holiday of the Fermented Herring Festival?

I’m sure my own Swedish ancestors ate plenty of fermented herring. In Minnesota, where many Swedes landed, it survives as “lutefisk,” still made for special occasions and much joked about. So far, I’ve avoided having to actually eat it. (In the fine film “The Emigrants,” a young man hoping to go to America excitedly tells his friend that it is absolutely forbidden to eat herring in the new land. Poor people had their fill of herring in the Old Country).

The Nordiska features the best collection of folk art and furniture that I’ve ever seen.

There’s a large section devoted to the indigenous Sami people, who have their own culture and traditions. In spite of a history of some persecution and exploitation, about 20,000 of them still live in their ancient homelands in northern Scandinavian.

They’ve added tourism and marketing their wonderful crafts to their traditional occupation of reindeer herding.

The last time I was at the Nordiska, I was lucky enough to have family along. My granddaughters had a great time in the interactive kids’ section detailing Swedish country life in earlier times.

Oh, to be in Sweden on St. Lucia Day! I’m adding it to my ever-expanding travel wish list. I’d like to head way north to visit the Sami, too. But I’ll probably skip the herring.

Join me next time for more explorations in the art and history of Europe!

The Nordiska Museum in Stockholm devotes a great deal of space to Swedish courting and wedding customs, for good reason. In Sweden, folk art is still revered.

For centuries, humble rural people in little towns and villages all over Sweden celebrated love and marriage and family using the materials at hand: wood, yarn, thread, and simple fabrics.

A young man courting a young woman used to spend many hours carving an elaborate wooden spoon as proof of his devotion. The woman’s parents would also be interested in the young man’s skills and willingness to work; wood carving was a necessity of life in poor farming communities where most anything had to be made by hand.

After the wedding, the courting spoon was hung on the wall of the new couple’s kitchen, but wood-carving never ended. Country people took inspiration and materials from the natural world around them. The handy little table above incorporated a twisted tree branch as a decorative snake. Did the wood-carver’s wife appreciate having a snake forever in her house? Personally, I’d have relegated the snake table to the guy’s Man Cave. But that’s just me.

I’d have loved the little dog bench, though.

Brides spent many hours making wedding finery which was then passed down through generations. The hours were precious, stolen from housework and farm work.

Material could be precious, too–colorful scraps of silk and cotton lovingly worked into heirlooms.

Wedding finery was carefully packed away for future brides and grooms.

A bride might surprise her groom with a special wedding vest.

I love the handwork on this one, and I’m sure the embroidered designs had special meaning for the couple.

A colorful wedding proclamation was another treasured keepsake, for those who could afford it.

A special tapestry or painted wall hanging might do double duty as a Biblical lesson about Adam and Eve, and a decoration on the wall at the wedding feast.

Then as now, getting married can be tiring work. A mannequin in the museum shows a bride falling asleep in her wedding outfit, maybe during the feast. But I’m sure she’s about to wake up full of energy to start her married life.

Happy Valentine’s Day to lovers, past, present and future!

Join me next time for more explorations in the art and history of Europe!

Tag Archives: Nordiska Museum

St. Lucia, Fermented Herring and the Sami in Sweden

A Swedish Valentine at the Nordiska