Längtan till Landet – Saturday Song

Längtan till Landet sung by Oscar Fredriks Vocalis and Cecilia choir. Recorded live in Oscar Fredriks church, 7 maj 2014.

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Time for a Saturday Song and tonight you’ll get a Swedish song from 1838. It’s one of the most iconic spring songs, and traditionally sung as we gather round the Walpurgis Night bonfires.

So I’ve been humming this for a couple of days. And miss hearing it sung by a choir as we once again did not gather for the fires due to the pandemic.

The song is titled “Longing for the country”.

I couldn’t find any translations of either text or title. And I don’t have the time tonight to translate it myself. That will have to be a project for another time as something so well known and loved, and written as poetry will take much thought and time to translate.

Let me just say it’s about how winter’s rage is done, spring has come and now we long for the countryside.

Facts and text can be read in Swedish on Wikipedia and Wikisource.
On the Wikipedia page you can hear an instrumental phonograph recording from 1913.

I hope you can feel the relieved happiness over spring’s return even if it’s in Swedish.

Enjoy!

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Walpurgis Night Bonfire (Valborgsbrasa)
Picture by David Castor. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Walpurgis Night 2021

Photo by Kyle Peyton on Unsplash

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As fickle April turns to green May
Winter’s cold, dark and snow are finally gone
We light bonfires to celebrate the returning sun
Rejoice in the lengthening hours of Nordic days

To the Goddess within we give our trust
In joy filled hymns we our voices raise
Green springs abundant fertility praise
As our hearts fill with awakened lust

©RedCat

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Last years Witches Walpurgis Night Preparation.

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Cherry Blossoms ©RedCat

A Beltane Song

Photo by Nathan Lindahl on Unsplash

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We must celebrate spring,
we must dance and sing

We must gather and bring,
bone-dry kindling for burning

For tonight we go feasting,
Dance together and sing

Songs of Beltane and spring,
songs of weaving to bring

Our sweet Goddess her King,
to their seasonal wedding

We raise our voices to sing,
rejoice the rebirth of spring

©RedCat

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Written for tonight’s MTB – Hopscotch with Anapestic tetrameter at dVerse. Anapestic tetrameter is by far the hardest meter I’ve tried so far, but maybe I just haven’t gotten into the rhythm yet. I chose to break the 12 syllable lines in two to get in an extra internal rhyme.

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Read more poems with witches here.

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Daniel Gardner [Public domain]

Valborg 2020

Public domain

This year, only the weather is as it use to be. So instead of a big fire, a walk in the twilight woods, listening to birds singing.

Content in the knowledge that I managed to achieve a goal, even if depression still rules my life. I’ve written 30 poems in 30 days during GloPoWriMo. Even though I published a bit less other pieces I’ve still managed to write way more this month than I have before.

Going forward I will set up time to rest and not write unless inspiration strikes, but will keep pushing myself to write something all other days, to keep chipping away at those ten thousand hours you need.

I see no way the world can just resume as it was, and anyhow my world where already going trough seismic changes, so I’m grateful for this push to restart positively with a months writing challenge, building my confidence, that maybe I can do this. Instead of sinking deep in all the misery around.

May you be happy!

May you be healthy!

May you be inspired!

May you be safe!

May you be at peace!

Loving Kindness Meditation

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Witches Walpurgis Night Preparation

Daniel Gardner [Public domain]

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In preparation for tonight
When we bask in warm firelight
Celebrating the return of spring
Releasing old patterns within
We scrub and clean fresh
House and yard, mind and flesh
So when we light the fire tonight
We offer our old self to the light
Rejuvenating in the energies of spring
Manifesting what we keep deep within
Restarting life afresh
United heart, soul, mind and flesh.

© REDCAT

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Tonight is Beltane, for my three Nordic Witches it’s Walpurgis Night, when finally spring has arrived. Another Christian celebration hiding a much older history. It’s usually also the last cold period before balmier temperatures reach this far north.

I wrote this before reading today’s GloPoWriMo prompt, but no surprised the return of the three lead me directly on prompt with something that returns yearly.

Here you can read more about The Three Witches.

Public domain

GloPoWriMo 2020

DAY 1 – Build a New Start
DAY 2 – Beloved Bookstore
DAY 3 – Sunshine and Hail
DAY 4 – Isolation Dating
DAY 5 –Staring out a Windowpane
DAY 6 – Casanova Comes Closer
DAY 7 – Swirling Colors of my Mind
DAY 8 – White – Red – Black
DAY 9 – Different World After
DAY 10 – Spring Hay(na)ku
DAY 11 – Love – Hay(na)ku
DAY 12 – Make Art – Triolet inspired
by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell
DAY 13 – What did you think would happen
to a child left on my doorstep?
DAY 14 – Ballad of the Lost Poet
DAY 15 – Writer’s class – Hay(na)ku
DAY 16 – What is a Nomad without a Tribe?
DAY 17 – Pale Spring, Here Again, Nature Awake
DAY 18 – Spring Day in the Garden
DAY 19 – Close Couplets
DAY 20 – Lost in Love’s First Flush
DAY 21 – She Tasted Like Memory
DAY 22 – Struggling Mind
DAY 23 – Written in the book of dust
DAY 24 – At the end of every week, Friday-Cozy!
DAY 25 – Slip, Crack, Shatter
DAY 26 – Humans Really Don’t Know
DAY 27 – April Rain
DAY 28 – Greeting the Watch Horse
DAY 29 – Letter of Hope
DAY 30 – Witches Walpurgis Night Preparation