Still bored
Sep. 1st, 2002 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cdybedahlStill bored. The beeper has beeped once, when one of the RADIUS servers hiccuped. And it fixed itself before I even had time to log in. Which took about ten seconds, since I was already sitting in front of the computer. Oh well.
So let's blather on about something else. Like, this questionnaire thingy I found a few weeks back in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
twinkledru's journal. Because it was so USAcentric. So I shall attempt to answer it.
1. What is your lineage? Where are your ancestors from?
Three quarters Swedish peasants, one quarter Norwegian peasants. Being from, respectively, Sweden and Norway. One small bit in the middle of Sweden and another small bit in the south of Norway, specifically.
2. Of those countries, which would you most like to visit?
Um... I live in one, so Norway is the only one I can visit, really. And I've been there lots of times to see relatives.
3. Which would you least like to visit? Why?
With a whopping one to chose from, it's pretty much has to be Norway.
4. Do you do anything during the year to celebrate or recognize your heritage?
Nope. In fact, the very concept of "celebrating your heritage" feels highly bizarre to me.
5. Who were the first ancestors to move to your present country (parents, grandparents, etc)?
Now that is a tricky question!
I know, from genealogical studies my father and mother's father have made, that all my ancestors back to early 17th century were the aforementioned peasants from the aforementioned two bits of Sweden and Norway. Since they were about as far from nobility as you could get, the records stop there. The earliest are from 1625 CE, if I recall correctly.
But we can guess at what came before. Since the areas in question were, respectively, way deep into the forests and way deep into a mountain valley, population movements were -- to put it mildly -- limited. There was a small amount of immigration from Finland to that part of Sweden in the middle of the 15th century, so there may be a bit of Finn in our blood from then. The Black Death hit the Norwegian part sometime around 1350 CE, but the place was so sparsely populated that it didn't get very bad. We know that the Swedish part was inhabited as far back as 900 CE, since they had contact with the Viking trade center of Birka (which was situated only a couple of miles from where I live now). There was probably some new blood brought into the area then, in the form of slaves captured from what is today Russia (the Swedish vikings went east, the Norwegian and Danish ones went west and south).
Before that, I'm afraid the traces of my ancestors vanish into the mists of time. The original settlers of those two bits of lands were the hunter-gatherers that followed the receding glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age. Which puts the date of when my first ancestors got here at something like ten thousand years ago.
When I was a kid, my grandmother once took me to see the farm where she was born and grew up. It's a small one, with a single house for the people and a handful for livestock and equipment. It's still there today. Grandmother was born in its kitchen, as was most of her siblings. We walked up on one the forested hills that surround the farm, until we got high enough up that we could see the yet higher hill behind it. She pointed at a clearing with an almost invisible house near the top of it, and said that that was where she and her sister used to take the family's cows for summer pasture. She still remembered the names of all the cows. She showed me the stones where the Little People lived, and told me about the time when her grandmother went where she shouldn't and was laid low with back pain until she put out milk to them as an apology.
Walking that hill, I could feel the land. I could feel the echo of the steps of all my ancestors who had walked those paths. I could feel how it, the earth beneath my feet and the trees around me and the water in the streams, was all in my blood. It was a strange and powerful experience.
And it was one of a fairly small number of experiences that kicked me towards a wiccan priesthood, but that's another story.
So let's blather on about something else. Like, this questionnaire thingy I found a few weeks back in
twinkledru's journal. Because it was so USAcentric. So I shall attempt to answer it.1. What is your lineage? Where are your ancestors from?
Three quarters Swedish peasants, one quarter Norwegian peasants. Being from, respectively, Sweden and Norway. One small bit in the middle of Sweden and another small bit in the south of Norway, specifically.
2. Of those countries, which would you most like to visit?
Um... I live in one, so Norway is the only one I can visit, really. And I've been there lots of times to see relatives.
3. Which would you least like to visit? Why?
With a whopping one to chose from, it's pretty much has to be Norway.
4. Do you do anything during the year to celebrate or recognize your heritage?
Nope. In fact, the very concept of "celebrating your heritage" feels highly bizarre to me.
5. Who were the first ancestors to move to your present country (parents, grandparents, etc)?
Now that is a tricky question!
I know, from genealogical studies my father and mother's father have made, that all my ancestors back to early 17th century were the aforementioned peasants from the aforementioned two bits of Sweden and Norway. Since they were about as far from nobility as you could get, the records stop there. The earliest are from 1625 CE, if I recall correctly.
But we can guess at what came before. Since the areas in question were, respectively, way deep into the forests and way deep into a mountain valley, population movements were -- to put it mildly -- limited. There was a small amount of immigration from Finland to that part of Sweden in the middle of the 15th century, so there may be a bit of Finn in our blood from then. The Black Death hit the Norwegian part sometime around 1350 CE, but the place was so sparsely populated that it didn't get very bad. We know that the Swedish part was inhabited as far back as 900 CE, since they had contact with the Viking trade center of Birka (which was situated only a couple of miles from where I live now). There was probably some new blood brought into the area then, in the form of slaves captured from what is today Russia (the Swedish vikings went east, the Norwegian and Danish ones went west and south).
Before that, I'm afraid the traces of my ancestors vanish into the mists of time. The original settlers of those two bits of lands were the hunter-gatherers that followed the receding glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age. Which puts the date of when my first ancestors got here at something like ten thousand years ago.
When I was a kid, my grandmother once took me to see the farm where she was born and grew up. It's a small one, with a single house for the people and a handful for livestock and equipment. It's still there today. Grandmother was born in its kitchen, as was most of her siblings. We walked up on one the forested hills that surround the farm, until we got high enough up that we could see the yet higher hill behind it. She pointed at a clearing with an almost invisible house near the top of it, and said that that was where she and her sister used to take the family's cows for summer pasture. She still remembered the names of all the cows. She showed me the stones where the Little People lived, and told me about the time when her grandmother went where she shouldn't and was laid low with back pain until she put out milk to them as an apology.
Walking that hill, I could feel the land. I could feel the echo of the steps of all my ancestors who had walked those paths. I could feel how it, the earth beneath my feet and the trees around me and the water in the streams, was all in my blood. It was a strange and powerful experience.
And it was one of a fairly small number of experiences that kicked me towards a wiccan priesthood, but that's another story.
