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Okay so! Finally got around to writing this. This might be a long post, but oh well. Obvious spoiler warning.
For those who don’t know, I’m a Swede, born and raised in Sweden, having celebrated Midsummer every year that I’ve been on this earth. So needless to say - I would dare to say I know a bit about Midsummer. BUT I will admit that I may not be the very most knowledgable about how it was celebrated in the past and the exact origins about it. But I’ll try my best.
SO IMPORTANT TO KNOW BEFORE WE START TALKING ABOUT HOW THEY HANDLED MY CULTURE IN THE MOVIE.
Midsummer (in Swedish Midsommar) is the celebration of the fertilization of the earth, or the world being reborn anew. The celebration is to ask the gods/spirits to bless us with a good year of harvest and to keep our animals healthy. And thats the rough explanation of it.
So lets get into the movie stuff and see what they got accurate, no?
When our main cast arrive in Sweden and get to... I forgot the name of the place they went to-- I have relatives who come from there. Anyway, they are greeted with people doing drugs, drinking mushroom tea (also drugs) and being greeted by the multiple day celebration and preparation for Midsummer.
I don’t know how it is in other countries, but yes some people do make tea on special mushrooms here, and you do get high on it. You get these mushrooms from cow or horse shit, cause they grow in that, and then you make tea of it. It causes mostly hallucinations. I have friends who do it and I’ve been offered it a few times as well.
I don’t really know how every single person in this country spends their days before Midsummer, some may very well be hanging out doing drugs. But thats not really something majority of people do (surprise surprise).
When it comes to celebrating for a longer time.
It depends on where you are in the country. Some people make a huge thing out of it, celebrating sometimes the entire month, while others (like me) only spend like two days preparing and one day celebrating. It really depends on the people, how many are attending each separate celebration, and if its a local community centre (hembygdsgård in Swedish) thats holding the celebration.
What you do during this preparing time is things like building the majstång (dunno the translation tbh), make the food, depending on where you are make the special clothes for each participant, and a lot of girls pick flowers (we’ll get into that later).
So.. The clothes?
Yes! So we see people wearing these special clothes in the movie, and in this case they’re completely white and have runes on them. Again this depends on where you are and how you celebrate Midsummer if you actually wear these clothes.
Many hembygdsgårdar have them, and a lot of people do wear these clothes. But they come in many variants!
As you can probably tell, we don’t wear just plain white, but dress pretty colourful for the occasion!
You’d also probably wear a flower crown if you celebrated. Me and my mom always used to make flowercrowns for Midsummer when I was a kid, although they always came out very bad lmfao
So the midsommarstång or majstång?
Ah yes, can’t forget the main piece of the event! And I’m so glad they got it accurate in the movie! Or... Accurate with minor changes lmfao
(I couldn’t find a better picture I’m sorry)
So in the other two images that are not from the movie, we also have this centre piece I guess I could call it. This is the most important thing in our celebration, and it comes in two variant. The classic symbolism one (I will explain don’t worry) and one thats just a leafy pole with ribbons coming from the top.
The version we see in the movie however is the most common and has huge symbolism. What they did change about it though is that they put runes in the rings, which to my knowledge no one has ever done in this day and age, nor in the past.
BUT ANYWAY THE SYMBOLISM, DAMN I GET OFF TRACK FAST.
Remember how I said Midsummer is the celebration of the rebirth of the earth? The majstång symbolises a penis and a vagina, going into the ground to fertilize the earth and give life anew. Yes. We dance around a massive dick and coochie, what do you do during your summer?
The majstång is made of wood and leafy branches and a lot of the time is held together with steel wire or other sticks that are more bendable. And in my opinion? They nailed it in the movie.
I mentioned the girls picking flowers.
Okay so the day before Midsummer (I’m pretty sure at least) the girls would go out to pick flowers. But you have to do it in a certain way (which I don’t remember honestly) and you have to pick seven types of flowers. You have to walk backwards, and climb and walk a roof, and jump a gärdsgård (type of fence), and... Thats about what I remember.
What you do with these flowers after that is you put them beneath your pillow, and go to sleep before midnight, and then you’ll dream of your future lover.
Did I do this even though I’m a guy? Yes. Did it ever work? Hm... Not sure.
So what do the guys do? I honestly don’t really remember. I’m pretty sure you just go about your day as normal and help with chores and stuff. I might be wrong though.
They do this weird thing with their hands...
So throughout the movie you see the Swedes doing jazz hands I guess you could describe it the best. I’ve given it some thought, and I’m pretty sure what they’re doing is doing a forest clap, or a silent clap. I don’t know how it is in other countries but-
So basically when you’re out in nature you don’t want to disturb it, or you just don’t want to make a lot of noise, you can clap your hands like that. It means the same thing.
How do I know? Cause we got to learn two types of forest claps in school when I was a kid when we were out looking at rocks that got fucked when the great ice moved across the land.
So it might look weird, and I do admit it IS weird, but they are essentially just clapping their hands at things.
Okay, so how about the runes and learning runes?
In the movie they talk about how all the kids learn runes and how they write in runes. This is not something we do, obviously. But we do learn runes in school! Believe it or not, there was a time when I could write fluent runes and translate Swedish into runes.
They also talk about the runes having a great power. And this is actually interesting!
Back in the days of the Vikings, when we wrote in runes for real, they believed that the runes had powers and that if you etched the runes in with a weapon, either the rune got power of the weapon did (don’t remember which one). Thats why the runes do not have curved lines, because it was both difficult to make curves with something you slash at a rock or piece of wood, and you wouldn’t get as much power out of the rune/weapon.
Some runes have specific meanings, but majority of runes you’ll learn or see are just plain out letter you use to create words.
Runes are not inherently connected with Midsummer in the sense they want it to in the movie.
They made two old people jump off a cliff and die.
Okay so me being ever so slightly uncultured didn’t really know what this was either until I watched the movie, however my mom did.
Ättestupa was a way of punishing people, more specifically criminals. Once sentenced to have committed a crime, you could be thrown off this cliff and people would gather around to watch this. Think beheading in France, but instead you throw someone off a cliff.
That’s what my mom knows about it, and we actually live pretty close to one of these spots. However I’m a bit unsure if that was the only thing, as Google wants to tell me otherwise. They may very well have made old people jump, or them deciding themselves to jump.
But I can guarantee this has absolutely nothing to do with Midsummer.
So... THAT scene...
You know what I’m talking about. That one scene that got the entire audience to laugh uncontrollably in my case.
First thing I have to mention about this is that they state she’s Byxmynding, which they did explain as of legal age to have sex in the movie. And thats exactly what it is. Its the age of consent, or rather when you turn the age of consent. You become Byxmynding.
This age is 15 here in Sweden, and it is not legal for someone above the age of 18 to have sex with someone who is 15.
I just wanted to throw that out there.
Now obviously here’s where we step away from what is true and what is fiction and just horror. But I will also say that I’m pretty sure somewhere I’ve read that in the past that during Midsummer there would be orgies to celebrate the rebirth of the earth.
Don’t take my word for it, I may be wrong. But I’m pretty sure that was a thing.
Nowadays a lot of new age people in this country do that however.
The dude hanging from the ceiling with his lungs out his back.
This was a way of torture during the Viking age. You could either do this from the chest or from the back, but the intention was to make it look like you had wings as you were slowly dying.
The dancing around the majstång and the food.
This is something we do, we do dance around the majstång to music. As for the whole dance until you can’t stand anymore because myth of girls dancing to their death thing, I can’t confirm it and I can’t deny it. Its probably something pretty accurate, and I want to remember actually hearing that as a kid when we celebrated in school.
When we dance, depending on where, the people, etc etc, you may have a live band playing things like the fiddle, accordion, guitar, flute, things like that. Or you may just put on a recording of Små Grodorna and jump around to that.
We dance around for a while to the music, maybe play games during it, and then we finish to go eat with our family/friends/other people (Depending how you celebrate)
What we eat is things like herring, surströmming, boiled potatoes, eggs, knäckebröd... Maybe other things too. Personally I’m no big fan of the fish thats served and I usually just eat smoked salmon that I brought myself so I won’t starve.
So... What are my final thoughts about this movie?
I actually really enjoyed it! I could tell they put in good amount of research to make this, and thats always appreciated. Of course Midsummer as a normal thing here is not scary or horrific like in the movie. What I would describe what we see in the movie is cultish, and almost mixed with new age in a way.
They did a great job of depicting it as something strange and twisted, even to an audience who has been raised with this celebration.
I also really appreciate that they hired Swedish actors and actually spoke real Swedish!! It did so much for the movie to me, unlike other films set in Sweden (cough cough The Ritual fuck you thats not Swedish). I don’t know if English speaking who don’t know Swedish get English subtitles on the parts they speak Swedish, but it still does so much. And the dialogue didn’t feel forced or strangely translated, it felt... Natural. Even in a creepy way. But I will admit that a lot of the line delivery was very stiff and robotic.
I enjoyed it. As strange as it is, I enjoyed it.
Oh also the singing you hear throughout I’m pretty sure is a weird mix of Joik, which isn’t inherently Swedish, but eh who cares at this point
Imagine an elf is given a job to do at a human institution. The humans think elves don’t need bathroom breaks, since they know they can hold it for days, but this elf has been traveling to reach their job, and has already been holding it to the point they are in pain. They ask for a break, but their job is important and time sensitive, so they admit they can still hold it when asked. After a full day of work, the elf tries to reach the bathroom in time, but they were never told where it is.
who gave you permission to be somehow even more incoherent than me--
Is this a question or a statement??? What is this story??? What was the point??? Why do you think about pissing elves?????
Anon I need answers, I can’t sleep. Ever since I read this in my inbox I have been sleepless. What does it m e a n ?
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
So I may or may not have mentioned that yesterday we went and fixed the exhaust on the car, I.E changed the entire pipe from the catalyst
Only that the old pipe was so rusted that we couldn’t pick it apart, so we decided to cut it in pieces instead
Me and dad are definitely dumb and dumber™ sometimes
I still have red spots all over my back and neck because I had to run out from beneath the car because he forgot to give me the headsup of “Hey if you stand there there’s a 99% chance that all sparks get directly on you”
I think we were on vacation, but we were traveling and living in two cars. But at some point we had stopped by a lake in the forest (I think it was by a lake I grew up near), and I had been walking around in the forest and attracted these really big beetle like flies that stuck to my arms and were literally eating my flesh.
When I ran back to my friends by the cars no one cared what had happened to me or what was happening at all, and I was still freaking out and these bugs were still on me. No matter how hard I pulled at them they would not release from my skin.
So I walked down to the water and submerged both my arms and started rubbing at them with my hands and only then did the insects fall off and die. When I had gotten all of them off and looked at the damage there were dozens of decently deep holes in my skin and I was bleeding really badly, like there was blood dripping down from my fingers kinda badly.
I ran back to the cars, and NOW someone cared at least a little and told me that I’d be fine and it’d probably heal, but I wanted out of there so I got into the drivers seat of one of the cars to attempt to drive away from there. But I don’t have a license, and didn’t have it in the dream either, so I couldn’t drive at all and ended up hitting at least three people and killing them with the car accidentally.
