"Tredelt er Nordens stamme – men Roden er dog én"
Randers, 1 April 1340 Nightfall. 48 men force themselves into the house of Gerhard III, alternatively known as "the bald count" (with an 'a', indeed), and find him inside his bedroom. One of the men steps forward and chops the count's head clean off. After chopping down Gerhard's chaplain, a knight, and three soldiers, the... Continue Reading →
Ragnar Lodbrók died in a snake pit, laughing. At least, that is what the sagas tell us. The Danish antiquarian Thomas Bartholin the Younger (1659-90) presented Ragnar's remarkable demise as a prime example of the contempt for death that he deemed typical of the people he called the 'ancient Danes', but whom we would now... Continue Reading →
In these wildly spectacular and simultaneously incredibly boring times, I have come across a lot of speculation concerning life in the after-time. One question I saw raised repeatedly on various social media platforms is the following: Will we ever shake hands again? Suddenly something so mundane as extending your hand to greet someone has become... Continue Reading →
In my previous blog I recounted of Per Adolf Granberg, the poet with the wooden hand. I have been somewhat unkind to him. Although he may be forgotten today, in his own time he was quite successful. His opera Jorund (1812) won a prestigious prize and his piece Freyas högtid (Freya's Feast) was performed at the occasion... Continue Reading →
Is this a blog about failure? The question popped up in my head when I was browsing through my last few posts. I mean, I wrote about the poor Høyer, who owing to his pigheadedness lost his membership of the Royal Art Academy, his workshop, his clientele, and his good name. And I wrote about... Continue Reading →
The Danish-Norwegian naval hero Tordenskjold and the Swedish "Father of Modern Taxonomy" Carl von Linné - perhaps better known as Linnaeus - are connected through the taxidermied remains of a seven-headed hydra. The mysterious beast indirectly caused the young Tordenskjold's death and forced Linnaeus to leave Hamburg in a hurry. Hannover, 9 November 1720 After... Continue Reading →
In my previous blog I cited Jens Johan Vangensten's amusing anecdote about a disastrous attempt at ballooning by a certain Kjerstrup. Today I could not contain my curiosity and tried to find out whether I could dig up some more information about this intriguing character from the comfort of my office chair. No fooling around... Continue Reading →
The Norwegian landowner and politician Jens Johan Vangensten (1766-1837) is not in this database. The poor man would have loved to have been included, of that I am sure, but his poetry never got him anywhere. What is worse, the poetry of others even made him end up in jail - but I will return... Continue Reading →
Writing means killing, killing darlings. My latest journal article - on the afterlives of the naval hero Peter Wessel Tordenskjold - is no exception to this gruesome rule. The article has many a deleted scene. One of the more enjoyable ones is related to Henrik Hertz's play Tordenskjold i Dynekilen from 1844 (see pages 33-37... Continue Reading →
Today a piece about an artwork that is no longer there. The mural Ragnar Lódbrok plundering Paris in Rosendal Palace, Stockholm, was consumed by a fire in 1819. We are left with the above sketch from the inheritance of the artist, Anders Hultgren (1763-1840). The sketch gives us some impression on how the mural most have looked... Continue Reading →
Blog van Jona Lendering
words by r. brantley
February 22- 23, 2019, Berkeley, California
and I had to go
Scandinavism 