Tag: Nordic

Discover Some New Nordic Folk With Me – Two Winters, One Midnight Sun

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Several years ago, I experienced what I thought was a major depressive episode, but which turned out to be neurodivergent burnout. My nervous system was shattered, making any sort of stimulation unbearable. When I tried to listen to music, I’d physically recoil, like Nosferatu in a sunbeam, and need to turn it off.  

Almost overnight, creating and consuming art became impossible. I lost the ability to read, to write, to form coherent sentences. My world became so small it was like I barely existed. This deprivation made for the most terrifying time of my life.

I remember slamming my hands against my ears a few seconds into a Wardruna track. Warduna! A band whose live performance had left me sobbing and prompted the purchase of a one-way ticket to Norway.

When I was able to listen to music again, I tried to discover what I’d missed, but was quickly overwhelmed and returned to what was familiar. Curiosity is in my makeup though, and before too long, I was tentatively exploring the ever-rising ocean of musical releases.

It’s been difficult to accept that my capacity isn’t what it used to be, and I get easily frustrated by the sifting required to find something precious. Also, since burning out, it’s been more difficult to listen to music at times when I used to without issue. For instance, I often listened to music while writing, but nowadays mostly need silence. I’m still figuring out how to ‘be in the world’ as a late diagnosed neurodivergent, and what my capacity for everything, including music, looks like.

It’s usually right before going to bed, when I feel the urge to discover something new. Earlier this week, I put Nordic Folk into the Bandcamp search and opened new tab after new tab for promising projects, vowing each I’d give them my attention over the coming days.

But I needed quieter days than I’d thought this week. When I did listen to music, I found myself returning to Two Winters, One Midnight Sun by Triveni, a project of Belgian composer and accordionist Barbara Eva Ardenois. Listening to this shimmering soundscape unearthed from Bandcamp’s Nordic Folk hoard reunited me with something I hadn’t felt in ages – bliss.

In case anyone is wondering, at this moment in time, my three favourite tracks on the album are Call of the High Plains, Twilight and Sirkat.

On her Bandcamp page Ardenois writes: My journey through the Nordic countries began in the autumn of 2021. Over the following seasons, I lived and travelled across Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway, studying traditional music as part of the Nordic Master in Folk Music.

The sound of the kantele, the vast Nordic landscapes, and the stillness of nature left a lasting impression on me. Through dark winters and luminous summer nights, I shaped my musical world where light sparks as a symbol of hope.

In 2023, I created Triveni—named after the confluence of three rivers. In this project, I weave elements of Swedish shepherd music, Karelian kantele improvisations and contemporary classical music, gently blending field recordings and subtle electronics.

My Dreamy Folk Flow draws sonic landscapes for the quiet hours—when light returns or fades—welcoming you to slow down, connect and wonder.

This album is co-created with my two dear friends and fellow musicians, Ingrid Rodebjer (Sweden) and Hanna Ryynänen (Finland). Their improvisations and deep roots in traditional music bring new colours and atmospheric layers to these cross-cultural soundscapes. – Barbara Eva Ardenois

Oh, To Be In Moomin Valley – On Loving Snufkin

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A core childhood memory for me is the ritual of watching Moomin before school, and it took only a couple of episodes before I found myself excited to see one character in particular – the smock-wearing, pipe-puffing, saucer-eyed Snufkin.

I was besotted with the handsome philosophical nomad and his zen demeanour, my little heart fluttering whenever a breeze ruffled his cartoon hair.  

Over two decades later, Snufkin’s appeal hasn’t waned. I know, because I’m a mother to Saga, a seven-year-old who’s similarly smitten with his character. Saga was six when she looked at me shyly from underneath her hair, trying desperately not to break into an embarrassed smile. ‘I love him,’ she said with conviction. Her words had a familiar weight, but Saga’s infatuation went a bit further than mine did, as she went on to draw his portrait, complete with flute, something I’d never even considered doing.  

When, as a little girl, I found out that I wasn’t the only one who liked him, that to crush on Snufkin was actually a common experience, I was devastated! I felt the same devastation when I discovered I wasn’t the only one who fancied Atreyu from The Neverending Story and Madmartigan from Willow.

Now, as a grown adult woman, Snufkin is no longer my favourite character. His rank has been usurped by two characters in equal proportion: Snufkin’s sister Little My (a character I loathed as a child but can now wholly relate to) and the Groke, whom I also, in ways, relate to. Saga remains devoted to Snufkin, though it looks like he might soon be demoted by the more mysterious Hattifatteners.

Out of curiosity, I looked on Reddit to see what people said about Snufkin’s appeal. On a thread called ‘Why does everyone have a crush on Snufkin?’ the commenter Bunnything wrote: ‘He’s chill and a good listener and generally has a mature understanding of who he is and what he wants.’ Moneymilk69 simply wrote: ‘Oh, to be in Moominvalley.’

I suspect most of us, whether we once fancied Snufkin or not, have thought the same.

A Delightfully Diabolical Church Ceiling At Borås Museum

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I recently visited Borås Museum with a friend, but due to missed buses and a long overdue catch-up (seven years overdue) in the museum café, we had only minutes to zip around before it closed.

My friend was especially eager to look inside Ramnakyrken. This quint red church had originally stood in Kinnarumma, a village about 15 kilometres from Borås. It was dismantled in 1912 and rebuilt in its current location in 1914. However, our time was up, and the church doors had been locked. An especially considerate museum employee took pity on us and offered to open the church, which she did with a key so gigantic I was, for a moment, convinced it was fake.

While the church was interesting, I kept my camera switched off, that was until we were making our way back out and I looked up. There was only time to snap a few shots of impressively vibrant demons before ducking back outside.  

The ceiling was originally painted, with lesser diabolical depictions, in 1706 by Nicklas Berg. It was painted over (rude) between 1752 and 1753 by a man called Ditlof Ross, though you can still make out ‘echoes’ of Berg’s original work. The ceiling was whitewashed in 1869-70 during a restoration (I’d love to know who ordered that job); however, in 1930, when the church was re-consecrated due to a need for additional church spaces in Borås, the paintings were uncovered and restored. It’s been a popular church for weddings and baptisms ever since. Are you also wondering how many children have been traumatised over the years by innocently looking upwards and making eye contact with these decorative servants of Satan?

In The Forest I Was Never Lost

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I had a beautiful comment left on my last post by a reader called Eivor, who wrote that what I’d said about the forests in Sweden resonated and that trees boost their mood and give them hope. They said they were always struck by how much they missed the trees when they were away from them, something I’m feeling ever more intensely myself these days when all I want to do is be forest wandering from sun up to sun down.

Eivor’s comment made me think of when I was living in Sweden and how lost I’d have been without the forest. I had little clue about anything when I wasn’t among the trees. I was the epitome of anxiety. In the forest, though, rambling, scrambling, slipping amidst the moss and pine, I was empowered, eager, excited. I was different from the fretful woman who would watch through the peephole before going out.

For me, the forest was my workspace and sanctuary. It was more my home than the apartment I’d return to. The forest inspired me, it nourished my exhausted soul, and, of course, it provided hope. It always provided hope.

The forest and its expanse thrilled me. I’d almost always go alone, but on the odd occasion I could show a friend my favourite haunts, I’d be giddy as a child on their birthday.

I took my camera with me most days, and while I mainly created self-portraits, I’d sometimes have a companion to shoot with. In this photo, my friend Martina is captured on a darkening autumn afternoon. Sometime after I shared it online, the Swedish-based artist Alessia Brusco @skogens.rymd.art – who I’d recently struck up a friendship with – contacted me to ask if she could recreate it in a painting.

She recreated this photo, too.

I still remember the day I took this shot and how delightedly I drank up that sunlight and then watched, rooted to the path, as the sun blazed down behind the trees and the evening crept in from all directions.

Roadtrip Around The South Of Iceland : Part Two

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Part Two has been a long time coming. Sorry about that, but, you know, life.

If this is your first time visiting A Nordic Fever, I suggest reading Gallivanting Around The South Of Iceland: Part One before embarking on this post.

Still Day One

One of our last stops on our first day—after realising that we were still four and a half hours away* from the campsite where we were supposed to be spending the night—was a man-made cave which neither of us knew existed until we were sailing on by it.  

*Finnbjörn had said to me, ‘Say stop whenever you want and I will stop…within reason.’ I took advantage of his giving nature, so accepted the blame for the sluggishness of the trip. We ended up not driving to where we were supposed to go and instead wrangled a place in a field in another, much closer, campsite. 

Rútshellir Cave

Not far from Skógafoss, by the Eyjafjöll mountains and literally right off the Ring Road, is one of the largest man-made caves in Iceland. We didn’t have Rútshellir Cave on our itinerary, but it was free and not featured on any tours, so there was only a smattering of other people.

After walking through the stone and wood sheepcote, which was built at some point in the 20th century, there are two caves to explore. The first is about twenty metres long and used to store hay and stockfish (fish air-dried on wooden racks outdoors). People may have lived in it at some point. (I like to believe they did.) The second, smaller cave is thought to have been used as a smithy, though there’s also mention of it being a heathen temple. One of the earliest accounts of the cave dates to 1714, and its name is from its alleged first inhabitant, Rutur. Some think Rutur was an evil chieftain or a thief. Others, like me, suspect he was a troll.

We didn’t, but somebody else did and was loudly scolded by their law-abiding child.

Intriguingly, Rútshellir Cave was of great interest to the Nazis, and in 1936, it was thoroughly searched by the SS troops Ahnenerbem who were under the command of Viking fanboy Heinrich Himmler. Fixated on the idea of a pure Nordic race, they were in Iceland looking for evidence of old temples and were convinced that was indeed an advanced heathen temple.

*As I am wont to do, I went down a rabbit hole about the Nazis and their obsession with Iceland. I found an article in the Reykjavik Grapevine where Helgi Hrafn Guðmundsson writes about how Iceland and the Icelandic people disappointed the German diplomat Dr Werner Gerlach.

Day Two

I thought camping in the car was fine because I’m essentially impish in size, but Finnbjörn (whose name translates to polar bear) was too long to be comfortable and so didn’t sleep. So, we agreed to keep going to the Glacier Lagoon and then return to Akranes. The weather was too hot to be comfortable, and I was radically overstimulated. As it turns out, I’d forgotten how wearing road trips could be, considering my last lengthy one was when I was still in my maiden years.

The Glacier Lagoon

This was, undoubtedly, the busiest place on our road trip. Tourism has reached unprecedented heights in Iceland; about a million people visit the lagoon yearly, and we saw many of them on this blistering Monday in June.

The Glacier Lagoon b.1935 is made up of meltwater and at 932 feet, it’s the deepest lake in Iceland. The ice in the lagoon breaks away from the glacier Breiðamerkurjökull, an outlet of Vatnajökull glacier – the largest ice cap in Europe. (It wasn’t until I arrived home that it dawned on me that there are humans alive right now who are older than this body of water.)

I was childishly manic at the lagoon…but famished, so we headed first for the café. Finnbjörn supped at a double espresso, and I, afraid I was somehow going to miss out on seeing the icebergs, wolfed a piece of white bread and pesto marketed as ‘vegan pizza,’ then bounced up and raced on ahead of my weary boyfriend.

I watched the icebergs intently, bewitched by the glassiness and the zingy blue hues conjured by compression and the dance of light and ice crystals. Some stay in the lagoon for up to five years before drifting the short distance to the Atlantic Ocean. When he joined me by the shore, Finnbjörn pointed out a seal. Nobody else noticed it. It was likely sheltering from the scores of orcas that patrol the waters of Southeast Iceland.

Before reluctantly heading back to the car, I Facetimed my daughter Saga. ‘Are you at the North Pole, mummy?’ I told her we weren’t that far away. She asked if I’d seen reindeer or Santa and what the black on the ice was. I told her it was centuries-old ash from a volcano. She said okay and went back to the picture she was drawing.

Optimistically, I thought I’d ride my good feelings all the long way back to Akranes. I rode them for around forty-five minutes of the five-hour drive before losing it with the midnight sun and wrapping my head in a blanket. But the light was relentless and hounded us all the way home.

From Along The Way

A handful of tips if you’re road-tripping in Iceland during Summer:

  • If you’re over 6 feet tall and in your mid-forties, sleeping in the back of a car may be a rough ordeal. I recommend a test run of your sleeping arrangements.
  • Yes, the sun is up all night, and yes, it can be tempting to keep going because time feels infinite but don’t.
  • If you’re driving electric, know where the charging stations are before your trip begins.
  • Always keep an eye on the weather. So many apps exist for this.
  • Watch out for sheep and their lambs as well as oystercatchers and their chicks.
  • Take more water than you think you’ll need.
  • Pack more snacks than you think you’ll need.
  • Be wary of speed cameras.
  • You will need much more time than you think you’ll need. For example, taking a photo of horses with wind-ruffled manes will not take the sixty seconds you imagine it will.
  • Have an itinerary—Finnbjörn made ours using suggestions from Trip Advisor—but make it somewhat flexible.