#mumintrollen

Background

Mumintrollet 1969 is a surrealistic live-action satire with Finnish and Swedish coproduction, written by the Jansson siblings and directed by Vivica Bandler. It was produced by Sveriges Radio (SR) and published on the channel TV2 that was new at the time (later owned by SVT). I mistook it being published by Sveriges Television (SVT), another popular state-owned broadcasting service. You can watch the show at SVT's open archive HERE, only if you have a Swedish adress however. Most information behind the scenes are from Emma Klingenberg's Detta är min målarsång 2025.

The themes and elements are inherent from previous theatrical plays like the adult-oriented Clasch! 1962 (the culture clashes, minority conflicts and forced cultural assimilations) and Troll i kulisserna 1959 (removal of the “noses”/heads). Clasch! is written by Lars Jansson and directed by Vivica Bandler with the song writer being Tove Jansson about a village of tailed humanoids (who speaks like a mix between Finnish and Polish-sounding gibberish) much farther away from Mumindalen (NOT inside Mumindalen) getting forced into a civilization program by outsiders. Tove Jansson found this theater play too complicated and hopeless to work with where she had to use so many complex and unusual words in the lyrics which in turn challenging to rhyme (especially Psykofnattvisan where it's a psychoanalytic satires cramping a lot of psychological and psychoanalytic terms). Some songs like Visan om lag och rätt [The song of law and justice] and Si och så-visan [The So-and-so song] was reused for Mumintrollet 1969 although it's different characters singing and verse orders might be rearranged. Si-and-så visan from Clasch! have been renamed into "Civilisation" with some verses removed and some new added. One verse was reused as a separate song with its older name attached. I would write more about the songs and Clasch! in another post.

In Troll i kulisserna 1959 (mostly based on the 5th book Farlig midsommar 1954), Emma the theater director reinforced Mumintrollet to take off his "nose" (costume head) for being "too large", likely a social commentary for beauty standards like Mumintrollet 1969. This play and variants of it is still being played multiple times in local theaters to this day. (In Sweden, seemingly almost every other year there's a theater play of the picture book Vem ska trösta Knyttet?). While Tove Jansson was disappointed that Mumintrollet's parents didn't make appearance of this play (likely for casting constraints) but glad that they could return in Mumintrollet 1969.

Casting

Keep in mind that definition of the Finnish subgroup "Finland-Swedes" is blurred and debated (named after the language, not relation to Sweden. In generally genetically identical to other neighboring coastal Finns regardless of language). Most Finland-Swedes are actually bilingual Finns with Swedish being 1st language. Many Finnish-speakers have knowledge in Swedish (and speaks in Finland-Swedish dialect) and many has Swedish-speaking ancestry and vice versa. I mainly defy Finns as someone who have close relation to the Finnish landscape regardless of language. Some actors here are only known as just "Finnish" which either means they are mixed (such as Lasse Pöysti) or are mainly Finnish-speakers.

Lasse Pöysti 🇫🇮 as Mumintrollet — Finnish actor, director and theater manager who have played Mumintrollet a lot since the theater play Troll i kulisserna 1959 until Sixten Lundberg took over as the common actor of Mumintrollet. He also played various other plays in Lilla teatern such as the paranoid doctor in Clasch! with his song "Psykofnattvisan". He was married to Birgitta Ulfsson who played Muminmamman in this show. The couple were the ones commonly sung the various Mumin songs written by Tove Jansson herself which you can hear a playlist HERE.

Birgitta Ulfsson 🇫🇮 as Muminmamman — Finland-Swedish actor and theater director. She played Hemulen's maternal aunt (which the official site mistook as "Hemulen's mamma" and in Detta är min målarsång incorrectly called "Homsans moster" [Homsan's maternal aunt]) in the first Mumin theater play Mumintrollet och kometen 1949 when she was 21 and Emma in Troll i kulisserna. She was married with Lasse Pöysti who commonly played Mumintrollet.

Nils Brandt 🇫🇮 as Muminpappan — Finland-Swedish actor who's most known to be Rocky the crazy Finn from Jönssonligan (popular Swedish rip-off of the Danish series Olsen-banden however they didn't include a Finn into the gang so ours is better!) who's also one of my favorite character from Jönssonligan!

Elina Salo 🇫🇮 as Lilla My — Finnish actress who have appeared over 50 films and shows. She commonly played as Lilla My in theaters and Lilla My's voice actors in Finnish dubs. I forgot she recently passed away last year and I mistook her for Lilli Sukula-Lindblom, the voice actor for the Finland-Swedish dubs (I have no idea why they just don't reused bilingual actors between the languages).

Gunvor Sandqvist 🇫🇮 as Misan — Finnish actor.

Gustav Wiklund 🇫🇮 as Rådd-djuret [The Muddler] — Finnish actor, director, writer, producer and painter.

Lisa Bergström 🇫🇮 as Filifjonkan— Finland-Swedish actress.

Gösta Ekman 🇸🇪 as Knugen The King — Famous Swedish director and actor, has been a celebrity ever since he was his father's male gamete... (literally, according to himself... and that quote was part of his "early life" section on his Wikipedia article). He's most known to play Sickan from Jönssonligan. LYSANDE!

Marianne Stjernqvist 🇸🇪 as Karlson — Swedish actress who was also known to play as the mother in the adult-oriented Swedish animated Christmas special Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons julafton (story from a collection called "Sagor för barn över 18 år" [Stories for children over 18 years old]).

Bert-Åke Varg 🇸🇪 as the royal detective — Swedish singer and actor.

Grace as Ynk [Sorry-oo] — Just a normal little dog, seemingly a Yorkshire or similar terrier. Rather calm dog despite this rendition of Ynk is supposedly untrained and wild.

Characters

The Mumin Household

The Mumin household — Finland-Swedish-speaking household of 8, content with living their bumbling humble lives as a family while being deemed as a “minority” under the King’s rule. While despite appearing like being excited, oblivious, loyal and uncritical with the King while being very awkward, they don’t really fully buy everything he says. While they enjoy performing for the King, they actually just want to continue with their old lives. Rådd-djuret, Lilla My and Misan are the ones having really dark sense of macabre humor and morbid curiosity.

Mumintrollet — The most intellectual, clever and active one of the family who acts like the family’s spokesperson most of the time despite initially might appear excited and naive. Mumintrollet is the one who tries to handle most of the responsibilities and loves finding creative solutions, even if flawed and strange ones. Apparently Mumintrollet knows literal magic like making things disappear! (Although only shown once.)

Muminpappan — The patriarch of the household who’s rather enthusiastic, oblivious and uncritical in following the King’s duties. He cooperates with the police chief in operating Muminpappan's paternal grandad’s illegal homebrewing machine at the police station.

Muminmamman — The matriarch of the household and akin to Mumintrollet, behind her jolly attitude she’s actually rather skeptical over the King’s societal nonsense and prefers the old ways. Just like her usual depiction, still trying to do her best to make things function decently regardless with high patience and tolerance. Just like the book and comic strips, barely pedantic and strict.

Lilla My — The chaotic mischievous outspoken voice-of-reason foil of the household and the King. Lilla My mentioned once she thinks the family might have adopted her for being the only ones liking spider webs as much as she does. She often carries a bow to shoot at things, especially apples which the family views the arrows through apples as decorative.

Rådd-djuret [the Muddler] — Just like the 4th book, he’s an orphan whose parents got lost in a “storstädning” (like deep cleaning) but unlike the book, he's adopted into the Mumin family alongside My. He's very obsessed with his button collection but also hoards gems like diamonds and jewels akin to Sniff. He’s very absent-minded, clumsy and often spills his button collection. Theaters often depicted Rådd-djuret as Sniff’s replacement ever since the first theater 1949 before his more known book appearance as Sniff’s father.

Misan [Misabel] — The melancholic and dramatic maid of the household which the introduction describes her an “expert on suffering”. She’s a big fan of the King and thinks she’s the one who knows about royalty the most. She tries to be proper and formal for him and tries to lecture the others in the household even if she’s herself very clumsy, sloppy and awkward. She always reminds the Mumintrolls to take off their “noses” for the king.

Ynk [Sorry-oo] — A normal untrained dog without a pedigree (being mentioned by Karlsson of not being pure-bred. He's totally different from his usual depiction) who Mumintrollet brought to Muminhuset where Misan adopted him. Misan often carries him around. Mumintrollet first wanted to name him “Tiger” (with English pronunciation) but Misan named him Ynk. Misan sometimes nicknames him “Ynke-Pynke”. He’s not houseclean and immediately urinated and defecated right when Mumintrollet put him down on the floor (he also did get introduced with urinating/marking territory right when he first shows up in the 1973 calendar show). He’s mischievous with stealing the King’s golden orb and ate his crown jewels before barfing them up. He hides in a bin when being scared in Muminhuset.

Förfadern [the Ancestor] — Described and treated as an old stubborn cranky traditionalist elder who just wants to be left alone living the traditional life of dwelling inside the tiled stove. He bites when he gets disturbed. The characters suspect he’s venomous which the King took very seriously when being bitten by him. He never appears outside the tiled stove but there’s a photo of him taken on a large family reunion 1873. He moved into the family in April.

Other Characters

King Karl Fredrik I — Modern Swedish-style governing king (apparently named after his own ancestor who has the exact same name) who at first trying to maintain himself authoritative, bureaucratic, strict and intolerant for things that’s different from his expectations. He loves order, norms, civilization, modernity and technology. Later he embraces his inner playful child like the Mumin household and befriends them by their quirky carefree charm.

Karlson — The King’s proper strict maid and mostly voice-of-reason foil, being mostly skeptical with the King's unhealthy fixation with a minority household while still intolerant over the family's improper selves. The King admitted to Rådd-djuret that he felt oppressed by Karlson. She later got conjured away through Mumintrollet’s magic but she’s still being mentioned as if she didn’t disappeared.

Filifjonkan — The Mumin family’s only lonely neighbor. She’s also a big fan of the King. Despite her introduction mentioning she rarely disturbs, she keeps silently peeping through the window to witness whatever craziness the family is doing which I thought she was just passing by but she also did the effort of climbing up to peep through the window on second floor.

The court detective - Briefly appeared on the 6th episode where he tries to find the culprit who stole the crown jewels. He delivered the useless report that through the examination from the chemical lab from the Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien [The Royal Academy of Sciences] (might be reference to Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences which had the same name in Swedish) that the paste on the trouser buttons on the crown was of an unfamiliar compound to them so it couldn’t be from the King’s subjects. However when the King examined the paste for himself he realized it was simple wheat flour paste and accused the Mumin family of having stolen the jewels. The detective is willing to imprison them immediately but the King spares them for longer.

Karl Fredrik den Oförliknelige [“Karl Fredrik the Incomparable/Unsettlementer”] - The King’s ancestor who he’s fond of and inherited his crown from. He apparently legislated most laws and settlements most of the time in his “oförlikneliga” way. His name is a very fitting double-meaning pun meaning both the incomparable and the unsettlementer.

Recap of Episodes

 Den lyckliga dalen [The Happy Valley] — Introduction of the characters. This is the only episode using a narrator. After introduction, the household adopts Ynk [Sorry-oo] and the King spies on the household. The King is weirded out with their unusual lifestyle and hates their enlarged noses that he additionally blames his hay fever on. 

Av med näsan! [Off with the Nose!] — The King sent a letter ordering the Mumintrolls to take their iconic “noses” off (their heads), revealing a disproportionally smaller humanlike head underneath. The others are trying to get used with the unexpected horrifying change. Lilla My reacts with gleeful amusement, Rådd-djuret bewildered and finds it awful for losing their recognizable feature, Misan faints by shock and tries to avoid seeing them by staying in her room preventing to be sick.

Fjärilar och hovningningar [Butterflies and Courtings] — The Mumin family is unable to use the stove that exploded from a sothöna (coot bird, literally means “soot hen”) builded a nest inside the chimney that the decided to keep which upsets the King thinking it’s an animal welfare violation. Mumintrollet tries to tame butterflies that he caught with his bug net but is later convinced by Lilla My to release them for dying indoors. The king is still intolerant with their daily life and sends an invitation to meet him at his castle Fredriksro [Peacefulness of Fredrik] for a “civilization program” to “avminoriseras” (to “remove their minority status” through assimilation).

 Guld och sammet [Gold and Velvet] — The Mumin family meet the King at the castle to introduce themselves while the king takes them on a tour around the castle. The king sings about everything has a value called Varje kryp [Every being] (also known as “All tings värde” [Value of everything]).

 Menuett och spaghetti [Menuett and Spaghetti] — The King is trying to teach the family about etiquette, “norms” and “good manners” while trying to lecture them about their “minority” status which they don’t understand. It ends with Menuett which instead ends with Misan’s iconic wild tango with the King.

 Rubinen och byxknappar [The Ruby and Trouser Buttons] — Rådd-djuret has switched the King’s crown jewels with ordinary trouser buttons. The King send out a large investigation around the castle for the culprit until he himself realize the paste is wheat paste and accuses the family is behind this and sends the guard after them into a goofy chase around the castle. The family eventually apologize and hand over the jewels back which the King starts to lecture them about strict laws and what’s wrong and right in clear black and white dilemmas through the song “Lag och rätt” meanwhile the family sings questions and points out subjectivity and grey areas. Mumintrollet mentions a song that his ancestor sang which is “Si och så visan” [The So-and-So Song] where they just live by “känn” (feel/senses, as the case depend) which the King disagrees with. At the end, Rådd-djuret suggests exchanging the King jewels with his buttons which the King initially declines but grows interested in buttons.

 Parad och trolleri [Parade and Magic] — The King graduates the family to their "successful” civilization which they celebrate with a parade and opera in which they are unamused (except Misan). Rådd-djuret and the King gets bored and sneak out to exchange buttons instead. The King reveals that he feels a bit scared of Karlson because she oppresses him which Rådd-djuret reveals Mumintrollet knows magic and can make things disappear. The King requests Mumintrollet to conjure Karlson away which they did. The King has fun with the family without Karlson at the kitchen he’s never been before while the King talks trash about Karlson. The king befriends them and is charmed by their own ways of living. The King also wants to learn magic from Mumintrollet and arrange a meeting at Muminhuset (although this seems to have dropped as he later just wants to inspect everything). The last thing the King said before their departure was hoping the family wouldn't get TOO civilized…

 Kungen kommer! [The King is Comming!] — The family trying to celebrate the King to Muminhuset with fun messy party which the King is unamused, just wanting a serious formal inspection. They are also trying to gift the King the “modern throne” they made for him which is just a rocking chair wrapped with a bunch of plastic (showing how shallow the civilization program actually was). The King got baffled when the family mentions Förfadern dwelling the tiled stove which he suspects some weird elderly abuse going on and tries to discuss sending him to elderly care which angers Förfadern and bites the King. The king feels unwell and he gets sent to the guest room.

 Kungen blir osynlig [The King Becomes Invisible] — The family tries to nurse the King back to health as the King talks about mortality and heritance. Muminmamman tries to brew a cure through her maternal mother’s traditional medicine which instead turns the King invisible.

Kungen flyger [The King Flies] — The family searches for the invisible King who enjoys pranking the family around the house. After Muminmamman gives him another medicine to make him visible, he instead starts to float. The family decided to chain him in the police station to prevent him from floating away. While there, the King takes the opportunity to inspect the police station through Muminpappan’s nonchalant tour, unintentionally exposing its vulnerability and poor security system. They eventually settled down illegally drinking homebrewing drinks at Muminpappan’s parental grandad’s homebrewing machine while the King complains how messy things are. Mumintrollet sings “Civilization” about being fine living an imperfect messy life where things aren’t strictly black-n-white.

Troll och teater [Troll and Theater] — The King feels better and views his visit as a carefree peaceful vacation instead, chilling at the family’s yard, practicing magic and thinking about philosophy and poetry. Misan gets disappointed with the King not being as he used to be as she thinks he’s not as himself as she misinterprets it as him “suffering” and the family ruined him so she threatens to resign which concerns the family. The family, especially Lilla My and Muminmamman, gets also concerned over nothing happening and things getting boring so Mumintrollet suggests having a theater with Misan as Primadona with Muminpappan as the writer. Muminpappan hasn't written theater plays since his youth but he tries writing a play called “Lejonbrudarna” [The Lion Bribes] (just like the 5th book Farlig midsommar 1954). Misan gets excited since she can express melancholy and suffering how much she wants and dying at the end (with Lilla My wanting to be the one killing her) as all of Muminpappan’s plays have every character die except one. Muminmamman gets assigned as the angry avenging grandma, Rådd-djuret being the stage manager and Ynk plays as the lion.

Rampfeber [Stage Fever] — Muminmamman woke up really not feeling like playing her role and wants Filifjonkan to take over instead. Muminpappan wanted Muminmamman to at least be the one making the lion’s roar which Muminmamman agrees on. The family send Mumintrollet to Filifjonkan’s house to ask her to play Muminmamman’s role which she hesitates a lot for many things, being mad that she was never invited to the King’s visit that they forgot and requested to play as an old grandma but eventually accepted that role just to do everything for the King. Mumintrollet gets so nervous with practicing the lines that he got “stage fever” and starts rambling incoherently and forgetting his role. Filifjonkan gets confused with the incoherent structure and the complex family connections between the roles. Rådd-djuret struggles with cables.

Generalrepetition [General Repetition] — The family and Filifjonkan are doing repetition and the King overhears, finding it amusing and wants to watch it. The King gets frustrated with Muminmamman’s weak roar and tries to demonstrate how to roar more probably. He suddenly took her nose/head that lay on the floor to roar as a lion and realized seeing these large Mumintroll-noses didn’t give him hay fever that he first thought they did from the beginning. The King agreed that the Mumintroll should be allowed to wear their noses again if he is allowed to play as the lion at the theater premiere. The King suddenly receives a message from Karlson from the castle where she announces that the premiere minister plans that Mumindalen will be a green space and conservation area.

Cultural Contextual Analysis

Tove Jansson predicted that Finns will get officially labeled as a minority in Sweden with huge majority of them being actually unaware or puzzled over it. I know many Finns and Swedes with recent Finnish ancestry everywhere who are proud about that but never feel themselves being a part of any minority as Finland for them is recognized mainly as just another Nordic country and found this just weird. The closest thing to oppressions, discrimination and intolerance is around the same level as any other Nordic people and non-standard speakers in Sweden (although I would agree, there are way too many Danes and Scanians here but they also suffers various kinds of oppressions and forced assimilations within Swedish boarders for centuries too). Only few Finns I know embraces this minority status and their institutions struggles with gaining members. Although political institutionalized labels doesn't always make logically sense and they also have bagages of pre-existing historical confirmation biases.

While everyone is equally insane and absurd in Mumintrollet 1969, the show don't actually mock nor point out the Finland-Swedish dialects of the inhabitants of Mumindalen. Because the various distinct characters speaks as they have always done in Finland-Swedish theaters. This is rather unusual since the Swedish media landscape at the time have been very intolerant against non-standard dialects by mocking them as "stupid", "ugly" and very easy lazy way to signal someone being "unintellectual" than everyone else being "normal" and "proper". Instead Mumintrollet 1969 reverted this by depicting Standard-Swedish as exaggeratedly bureaucratic, strict, proper and overdramatic into absurdity. The dialectal contrasts is useful to distinguish between a rural minority just minding their business and an intrusive oppressive urban majority.

The Mumintrolls' nose/head-removal is a clear social commentary of forced cultural assimilation and beauty standard. The show is very explicit with the majority/minority dynamic. At the time, non-standard speakers like most Finland-Swedish-speakers were often pressured into unnecessary language therapies to get more opportunities and access in Swedish societies. Dialects at the time were often medically diagnosed as a "language disorder/disability" as an excuse to "fix" it by "neutralizing" it with turning into Standard-Swedish despite that's what one's own community spoke. Just like when the King labels the Mumin household as a "minority" that needs to get "fixed" through assimilations into the "majority".

However since they never actually call each other through real life ethnicities, nationalities and languages, this show can represent any minority/majority conflict despite heavy "Finnish" and "Swedish" influences of how they speaks and the King and his state is clearly aesthetically Swedish.

Random Trivia

Despite the rest of Mumin in Swedish uses formal speech like the 2nd person “ni/er” pronouns ["you"] as singular to elderly, proper people and people of higher status (even modern adaptations), this is completely absent. The King doesn't seem to be bothered with the characters speaking informally to him and using the du-pronoun (nowadays the default singular "you"). I don’t actually have much knowledge in the real life Swedish royalty but it’s rather rare to use any direct 2nd pronouns to the King and instead just call the King as just “Kungen” [The King] whenever a 2nd pronoun should have normally been. However the Swedish King himself just speaks informally to others just fine. “Ni/er” as singular pronouns are incredibly rare and often discouraged even at formal cases. I have heard it at court cases when referring to a judge. Otherwise it’s far more common to hear it in fiction even if it doesn't make sense like translations where the original languages don’t have such way of speaking formally. The “ni/er” pronouns are almost always plural nowadays.

There's a few cases that “människa” [humans/person] are being mentioned a very few times when other media tend to avoid it and instead calling beings “person” or “folk”. The first book Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen 1945 did refer to humans explicitly in Muminmamman’s backstory. I also searched throughout the rest of the book series and “människa” has been avoided entirely. However, “människa” can also be derogatory a few times in certain phrases in Swedish like “Vad gör du, människa!?” [“What the hell are you doing?!”], “Herregud, människa!” [“Oh my God!”], “Stäng dörren, människa!” [“Shut the damn door, you!”]. The King did this to Misan when he just wanted to be alone on the bed shouting “Tyst, människa! Jag håller på och ta min puls!” [“Quiet, you! I’m about to take my pulse!”]. Likewise did he call Karlson “människa” the same way. Misan does call Karlson a “människa” however that could simply mean a “person”.

While Muminpappans bravader/memoarer was already implied that Rådd-djuret is a Rådd-djur although only doing so with Fredrikson thinking he’s named after his personality with author’s note mention “ett rådd-djur” is an animal that “råddar” (meaning to confuse or mess around). This adaptation directly calls him “ett rådd-djur” many times.

There’s contradiction about how old Muminhuset was such as it was mentioned it was built since 1700s but also mentioned Muminpappan built it (just like in the books) when the King asks why they have the family tree indoors. The introduction of Förfadern mentions that Mumintrolls stopped living inside (or behind, the narrator herself wasn’t sure which) tiled stoves during the 1700s.

“Mumintrollen” is rather common to refer to the whole household even if all of them are not Mumintrolls when including others into their family. As far as I know, this show is the one doing this most often. “Mumintrollen” seems to be their family name rather than just the specific folk group.

What happened to the other characters?

The small casting seems to be due to budget/time constraints as well as there isn't much need for more characters for the story. The Mumin family mentions no one (neighbors) have been lost (as in disappeared) in the valley as if the other characters from elsewhere never existed to begin with here.

Although to be honest, the others likely don't need to appear in the story as there doesn't seem to have much room for more roles which explains their absence. Although cameos would have been nice.

SVT’s own description relied on generalized summary of the usual premise of Mumin but not the weird unusual premise of this particular surrealistic satire:

Original Swedish: "Serie om Muminfamiljen bor i den idylliska Mumindalen som befolkas av bl.a. Lilla My, Snusmumriken, Snorkfröken och Filifjonkan. Dalen hotas ständigt av naturkatastrofer och familjen ger sig ut på olika resor och äventyr." My English Translation: “Series of the Mumin family lives in the idyllic Mumindalen which populates amongst others Lilla My, Snusmumriken, Snorkfröken and Filifjonkan. The valley is threatened constantly by natural disasters and the family goes out on different journeys and adventures.”

However this show did not include Snusmumriken and Snorkfröken which are never mentioned at all. It did not include natural disasters nor any journeys or adventures unless it’s the journey through a bureaucratic political system which is like another new fun exciting adventure and challenge for them. They do discuss adventures however.

I think Mumintrollet doesn't need emotional support and stabilization from Snorkfröken [Snorkmaiden] here nor any personal romantic relationship dramas here..

Snusmumriken [Snufkin] would actually steal the entire show and end the TV series much quicker. Instead, the sceptic role is spread out across the family members like Lilla My have the role to point and call out the King’s nonsense without trying to resolve the situation completely, Muminmamman questioning the King’s decisions meanwhile Mumintrollet often have the proper talk.

Very small part from Snusmumriken’s (or one Snusmumrik’s) scene from the picture book Vem ska trösta Knyttet? did get quietly sung by Mumintrollet to himself after the King sang Varje kryp [Every being] (also known as “All tings värde” [Value of everything]). It contrasted with the King’s song about setting values on everything from the 4th episode.

Original Swedish: “Vem ska trösta honom… … och säga att en sång… … är bättre än en kappsäck… … när vägen är för lång…?” My English Translation: “Who will comfort him… … and to tell that a song… … is better than a bag… …when the road/path is too long…?”

Here “Knyttet” was replaced with “honom” [him] to generalize the text. Mumintrollet didn’t mention anything other than brushing it off that it was just another song when the King asks what he just said.

Gafsan was mentioned at the 12th episode where Filifjonkan had arranged a meeting with her but she never shows up which is also why she agreed to be a part of the theater play with the King instead of just endlessly waiting for someone who never shows up at her home.

Sniff traditionally barely appears in theaters nor live action adaptations. Likely because it requires another full-body costume which might also be the reason why Rådd-djuret started out as Sniff’s replacement for his more human-like appearance in Mumintrollet och kometen 1949 and continues doing so in these mediums despite other mediums depicts him as Muminpappan’s peer. I unfortunately don’t have much documentation right now about Rådd-djuret’s characterization in that first theater but he seems really chill with the comet which you can view HERE.

The name “Rådd-djuret” itself was once used to refer to Sniff in the first comic strips Mumintrollen och jordens undergång 1947 in the first half until changed back to Sniff in the last half portions. “Rådda” is a difficult Finlandism term to translate but it often means something like confusion or messiness. Filifjonkan in Mumintrollet 1969 exclaims “Råddigt! Råddigt! Råddigt!” when she was frustrated with Muminpappan’s theater script being messy, confusing and incoherent like whose grandma she’s supposedly played as. “-djuret” suffix means animal so “rådd-djur” together coincidentally resembles “rådjur” which means roe deer (also common generic term for deer) but with 3 D:s.

Tove Jansson mentioned to Vivica that there was high demands for dolls of Rådd-djuret from Fauni in Sweden when this show ran which Fauni tried to fix it by having their Sniff dolls wearing saucepans on their heads which Tove Jansson think looks like catholic priests before Tove Jansson demanded to design a proper doll design for Rådd-djuret. You can read more about about the dolls HERE.

Later Adaptations

Various local theaters in the Nordic countries have adapted this TV show, often with the title: "Kungen i Mumindalen" [The King in Mumindalen]

There was one premiere of Kungen i Mumindalen 2008 which make the government look more hilariously aesthetically like fascist dictatorship, getting more comically exaggerated with authoritarianism themes. Seemingly it removed the references on the 60s Swedish politics just to criticize authoritarianism, bureaucracy and cultural assimilation in general.

Tove Jansson’s own description of Muminmamman

Muminmamman peacefully sleeping on the warm sand at Hattifnattarna's secret island in the 3rd book Trollkarlens hatt 1948

Original Swedish: “Muminmamman är en person som man kan lita på. Hon vet familjens hemligheter men kan behålla dem. Och hon tar det lugnt ifall man kommer för sent till maten. Mumindalen välkomnar många gäster, somliga stannar kvar. Mamman frågar genast när de har sin födelsedag; det är ju viktigt för på födelsedag får man besämma [sic] efterrätten själv. Nästan allihop vill ha glass. Och det är kanske inte så underligt?” My English translation: “Muminmamman is a person one could trust. She knows the family’s secrets but can keep them. And she takes it easy/calmly in case one comes too late to dinner/food. Mumindalen welcomes many guests, some stay. The mother asks immediately when they have their birthday; it’s you know important since on birthday one can decide dessert oneself. Almost everyone wants ice cream. And that’s maybe not so strange?”

I don’t know if Tove originally had misspelled or Emma Klingenberg accidentally misspelled.

Unlike everyone else, Tove doesn't mention the various complex flawed aspects of Muminmamman as shown above.

This description by Tove Jansson I have taken is from Emma Klingenberg’s Detta är min målarsång 2025. According to Emma Klingenberg, Tove uses these descriptions to instruct collaborators to better understand how these characters basically function in general. There are various versions of these descriptions but most of them are about the same.

You notice that Muminmamman’s description, just like absolutely everyone else, never mentions any named character. Not even family members are tying themselves to each other in descriptions despite family (alongside the rare platonic-type friendship) are the most explicitly mentioned relationships in the mainline literature. The only character who names another character in descriptions is Snusmumriken who almost always starts with “Snusmumriken, Mumintrollets vän,” (can also been seen in Tove’s own synopsis of the opera), very much reflect how Tove Jansson specialize platonic friendship in her literature as the only exception from her usual show-don’t-tell style for non-family relationship (even romance) where there’s linguistically heavy constant emphasis in friendship (very much like how Tove dedicated to her own best friends Eva Konikoff and Maya Vanni in letters).

Muminmamman’s Design History

The very last scene of Kometjakten 1946 on the last page not existing in its revisited version Kometen kommer 1968 where Mumintrollet gifting the largest pearl to Muminmamman he fished up at the start after gifting all his pearl collection to Snorkfröken [Snorkmaiden].

Since the start in the 40s to early-50s, Muminmamman and Muminpappan looked identical with the only differentiation was that Muminmamman almost always have her famous handy handbag majority of the time. Even back then male and female characters don’t have much typically visible stereotypically dimorphism in by themselves such as the tiresome trope that females must universally have eyelashes/make-up as if being their biological anatomy while males allow to be neutral. There was not even much size/shape differences like making the females smaller or slimmer either.

The diorama dolls by Tuulikki Pietilä does have dimorphism between Mumintrollet & Snorkfröken and Muminpappan & Muminmamman when being together where the females are being shorter and slimmer than their male counterparts although still very much inconsistent where there are scenes of Muminpappan being much tinier than Muminmamman. Tove Jansson noted at a 80s marketing journal to the dioramas that Muminmamman can't physically enter the lantern room of the lighthouse diorama for being too fat, so seemingly she's larger than Muminpappan there.

Muminmamman's Apron

The 8th comic strip arc Mumin börjar ett nytt liv / Moomin Begins a New Life 1956 of angry Muminmamman getting briefly tired of her old family life to live free time off alone by herself in the middle of a cult conflict!

Despite Tove Jansson did change most images of the characters’ designs in revisited versions to get more aligned to their recent designs, she still chooses to leave out Muminpappan’s signature top hat (except the new cover art of the 4th book Muminpappans memoarer) and Muminmamman’s signature striped apron. Anyway, around the early years they very few times wore some clothing to differentiate them two. Only once did Muminmamman wear a striped apron in Kometjakten (removed in Kometen kommer ironically enough) and once in Farlig midsommar. The 2st comic strip arc Muminfamiljen / Moomin and family life 1955, Muminpappan’s famous top hat and Muminmamman’s famous apron are getting standardized (although Muminpappan already wore a top hat throughout the 5th book Farlig midsommar 1954). According to the official Moomin website (seen HERE), the publisher Charles Sutton at Associated Newspapers requested Tove Jansson to have Muminmamman an apron to distinguish herself from the rest of the Mumin family. Likely I think Sutton noticed the earlier images of Muminmamman wearing an apron a few times and suggests she could always wear it to make her more distinct rather than just the idea being random or for stereotypical reasons.

However the color of Muminmamman’s striped apron is never mentioned in neither the book nor the comic strips themselves (her apron is still very rarely mentioned in the books when I was using the search engine). Most of the merch however around that time already commonly colorized her apron white and red stripes which carries over in colorized audio-visual adaptations. Ironically enough despite her very few first depictions of wearing an apron were already striped, her first appearance with the apron in a consistent standardized form in the 6th book Trollvinter 1957 lacks any patterns and continues being like that in the rest of the book series. Likewise for the comic strips, the stripes of Muminmamman’s apron suddenly disappeared in the 11th arc Mumin och marsmänniskorna / Moomin and the Martians 1957 and gone since that. In the picture book Den farliga resan 1977, Muminmamman’s dress is striped however was purely white without the red stripes. Otherwise her apron was much commonly having the red stripes elsewhere. Lars Jansson’s style-guide for the 90s anime wrote that Muminmamman’s apron must be either purely white or white with red stripes as seen on the image below.

Some merch and prints like colorized versions of the comic strips sometimes include other colors like Muminmamman wearing purely red aprons and other colors.

Generalized Design History

Lars Jansson’s style-guide for the 90s anime as seen from Skatter från Mumindalen 2024. I know the page was bent and poorly taken but I will take a better photo next local library visit.

Skatter från Mumindalen 2024 describe Mumintrollet’s parents became more “childlike” in revisited versions however I think they just became more abstract, stylized, rounder and minimalistic in general as well as making their age gap with their son appear more noticeable closer by making each family member more similar to each other (such as the proportion). Although looking at the original illustrations from Kometjakten, they had always looked rather similar to each other except more size differences. 

I think Mumintrollet might have originally meant to be a literal child in the first two books consider the larger size difference however even in Kometjakten was already treated as an older youth like elsewhere (such as drinking wine at parties casually).

Most of their final base design started to form in the 3rd book Trollkarlens hatt where Mumintrollet and his parents started to get less different from each other. Their mouths however got de-emphasized, shrunk and fused with their enormous noses while their exaggerated noses merged with their jawlines which is a very common cartoon stylization technique for many humanoids (they are just often mistaken as animals due to the pointed ears and tails however that makes them more like kemonomimis of the cartoon caricature world). Their tiny mouths are normally not visible except very few instances (often during specific strong expressions or certain angles underneath or the side of their huge noses). Now they very often can't rely on their mouths to express most emotions such as happiness so their eyes, eyebrows and body language must do the heavy lifting.

Many of John Bauer’s fairy-tale trolls (not considered traditional folkloric trolls by institutions since trolls in actual Swedish-speaking folkloric trolls are more often "less dramatic" of almost visually identical to humans except few “off” features akin to Snusmumriken) also have this stylization feature where their humanoid noses just happens to just look like animal snouts or beaks at first glance. John Bauer was one of various works that Tove Jansson credits inspiring her own works even if the typically literary monstrous fairy-tale troll imagery themselves didn’t absorb into her trolls. Instead she relied on the vast diversity of the actual Swedish-speaking folkloric memories of trolls being a spectrum of behaviors, alignments, lifestyles and appearances (more specifically various variants of the common troll type of Småtroll, tiny trolls, which the 1st book is named after, even if the art style is abstract and individual folk groups themselves are her own).

At the time Tove Jansson grew up, Nordic oral tradition was still very much alive independently from mainstream media such as literature. Tove Jansson had various interests and knowledge in many things which include Nordic culture, folklore and art history. Förfadern [the Ancestor] and the “common troll” description mentioned at the English-exclusive bonus material of Muminmamman’s written letter are very clearly based on the distinct Finnish Peikko (which is odd since that’s not the ones English-readers are familiar with). While nowadays Peikko is just a generic term for troll in Finnish, visual depiction of Peikko in early-1900s in Finland can be something highly abstract, stylized and even bizarre that it’s difficult to know what they are supposed to be, akin to Tove Jansson’s abstract troll designs. You can look a little bit more about the troll designs at my 80th anniversary post HERE.

Size Relation to Age

Two separated panels from the 2nd comic strip arc Muminfamiljen / Moomin and Family Life 1955 showcasing the common design trope of size visually signaling the age of young adults, middle-aged adults and elderly adults. This can also be individual size variations amongst adult characters seen in various folk groups in Mumin.

The books does refer Mumintrollet and his peers as “ungdomar” (youths as in teens and young adults) and explicitly young adults in the Muminserien comic strips and Mumindalen 2019-2025 while only very few characters (Mumintrollet’s parents and elders but never narration) allow them to call them children affectionately few times (but never literally) however they are basically treated the same as any non-elderly adults where their age are not significant, playfulness is a cultural communal aspect in Mumindalen (even Filifjonkan and Mumintrollet's parents play alone without the youths!) and everyone regardless of age share various unique sets of childlike and adult aspects. Actual children and elders however are rare and more constantly defined by their age groups. Other adaptations like the 90s anime have heavily distorted how age functions in the original works (especially the awful casting of the Jap/Eng dub). More about how age groups are treated in future posts.

Mumintrollet being slightly shorter than his parents is a typical classic visual trope of technically physically grown characters still being shorter than older grown characters with elders sometimes being even the largest. You can notice the same with Moster Jenni [Aunt Jane] being slightly bigger than both of Mumintrollet’s parents. You can see such trope with Spongebob and his parents, Remy from Ratatouille and his brother Emile with their father Django. All these examples of young adult youths shorter than their parents to visualize being their offspring which doesn't mean they are literally children.

Mumintrollet might also just be a naturally short than average individual as various adult individuals of the same folk group such as Hemuls and Mymlor [Mymbles] have wildly different size variations.

Mumintrollet seems to be the only one of his generation to still live with his own parents. In most renditions it seems like it’s for out of habit, preferences and loneliness. In Muminserien comic strips, Mumintrollet used to live alone in two houses but was overwhelmed with responsibilities. Mumindalen 2019-2025 Mumintrollet did have brief anxieties of his parents expecting him to move out soon which they reassure he can move out wherever he feels ready for. Comic strips have additional reasons that implies a housing crisis as he used to live alone there before losing both his two homes. Rather relevant with today's real life struggles with youths.

Mumintrollet living with his parents most of the time might reflect Tove Jansson's strong lifelong close bond with her own family when the social expectation thinks adults should move on from their families to form their own.

In the books, Mumintrollet does often look up or seek reassurance with his parents which likely reflects his insecurities. Other adult characters do shows some kind of dependencies or fondness with older family members such as various Hemuls with their maternal aunts.

Muminmamman’s backstory and family

In the 1st book Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen 1945, Muminmamman grew up in human's tiled stoves like this.

Keep in mind that Mumin, even between the books themselves, doesn't have any fixed consistent “canon/lore” but instead more like independent stories. We don’t know much about Muminmamman’s complete backstory and family history just like most of the characters.

In the first Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen 1945, full of discontinued early installment weirdness, Mumimmamman told that she and the other Mumintrolls used to live behind the human’s tiled stoves amongst the house trolls which was loosely referred in Kometjakten 1946 (but removed such connection to the revisited Kometen kommer 1968). Due to the real life recent decline of tiled stoves at homes at the time and replaced with radiators that Mumintrollen dislikes, they have to be forced to live elsewhere. You can find a glimpse of it at the 80th anniversary post HERE. Keep in mind this backstory will never reappear again but instead their ancestors like Förfadern (either 1000 years old in Trollvinter or 300 years old in Sent i november) used to dwell in tiled stoves.

Many adaptations such as Mumintrollet 1969 also depict Muminhuset as being many centuries old and inherent through generations rather than newly built by Muminpappan (for Mumintrollet 1969, it’s a satirical analogy of 60s Swedish governmental conflicts with minorities). Muminpappan’s orphan backstory is also inconsistent as his parents or family is sometimes mentioned (such as Mumintrollet 1969 mentions Muminpappan’s paternal grandfather although you could interpret he later found his biological family at some point).

In the Muminserien comic strips in Swedish, it’s implied that Moster Jenni [Aunt Jane] is from Muminmamman’s side considering she’s referred to as “moster” [maternal aunt] (although everyone called her that). In the 90s anime she’s changed into “Faster Jenni” (“faster” means paternal aunt) which made her being from Muminpappan’s side for the plot about him inheriting her wealth (with Muminpappan there being bizarrely scared of money when he’s originally highly materialistic opportunist and would really love that inheritance cash just to immediately waste on impractical expensive stuff like tons of cigars, and was only lying that he was scared of money for accidentally stole her cash in the 2nd comic strip arc just to not anger her). Again that made it contradicting when the 90s anime did have episodes adapting the revisited version of Muminpappans memoarer where he's an orphan unless he's... let's not think too deep with implications, it's very likely an oversight for plot convenience for the anime (the best fanwank interpretation would be he was simply just lost and later).

At the 7th anthology book Det osynliga barnet [The Invisible Child] with the short story of the same name, Muminmamman uses her maternal grandmother’s traditional medicines to cure invisibilities. This detail was brought up again in the satirical live action show Mumintrollet 1969 when she tries to heal the King from his bite from Förfadern [the Ancestor] (when he tried to discuss about institutionalize the little old fluffy cranky man to an elderly home with him) which instead backfires with multiple wacky curses like floating and invisibility (which includes the whole Mumin household pinning him in the floor just to prevent from floating with Filifjonkan passing by with priceless silent reaction as it looks like they just assaulted a monarch without context and then later chained him at the prison).

Muminmamman’s parents were mentioned briefly at the 9th book Pappan och havet where Muminpappan searches for the key for the lighthouse and tries to remember what his parents-in-laws did when searching for lost things. Both of them were noted for being really forgetful and bumbling ironically enough.

Muminpappan's memoirs in Muminpappans memoarer/bravader 1950 ends right with Muminmamman and Muminpappan first met where she was washed ashore at Muminpappan's colony. However what happens next and her backstory before this is intentionally unclear. Although I think why the book ends with Muminmamman instead of continue exploring her youths, backstory or introduce her earlier is maybe due to naming complications as I will explain later. It could also be that the book was meant to explore and satirizing performative "masculinity" as well as time/length constraints. However throughout the series and adaptations they two will rather frequently mention their youths that hints they had frequently went on wild adventures together before settling down for family formation.

There's a scrapped early-60s musical pilot scrip for a stop-motion movie with Vivica Bandler as the director, about Mumintrollet's full backstory mentioned in Emma Klingenberg's Detta är min målarsång where it's like a blend between Muminpappans memoarer/bravader and the 2nd comic strip arc Muminfamiljen / Moomin and Family Life. Snusmumriken [Snufkin] is the narrator explaining how Mumintrollet became lost as a baby and later reunited with his family. Muminmamman made a bark boat for him as a baby but the boat accidentally floated away so Mumintrollet became lost. More about this manuscript in future post.

The swamp scene of Muminmamman rescuing Mumintrollet while Sniff watches. The text itself however wasn't this dramatically but Mumintrollet just sinking his foot into the mud while walking near Muminmamman that made her put him on a water lily pad.

What’s Muminmamman’s “Real” Name?

Muminmamman’s full proper name is just Muminmamman (sometimes spelled Mumin-mamman in certain sources) since she’s the matriarch of the Mumin household (and houseowner of Muminhuset and maybe landowner of Mumindalen), just like Muminpappan is the patriarch of the household.

The most common ways to adressing Muminmamman in the original books

In the books themselves majority of the time Muminmamman is far more commonly just called “mamman” [the mother] (notice the “n” suffix) by both dialogue and narration. She’s also very commonly known as just “Mumintrollets mamma” [Mumintrollet’s mother], “hans/sin mamma” [his mother] or “trollets mamma” [the troll’s mother] (apparently Mumintrollet’s actual shorten nickname is “trollet” [the troll] in the books based on the usual suffix nickname pattern like “Mumrik” for “Snusmumriken” instead of “Mumin” like elsewhere despite most characters are technically a form of troll. Sentences like “mamman och trollet” just means “Muminmamman och Mumintrollet” even if it literally means “the mother and the troll”). In the books her full name is incredibly rarely mentioned. All these patterns are also the same for Muminpappan. Although, “Mumintrollets mamma” seems to also be her alternative full proper title at certain formal contexts. Such as the forewords of 4th book Muminpappans memoarer, Muminpappan starts with addressing himself as “Mumintrollets pappa” [father of Mumintrollet] rather than Muminpappan (that his memoirs themselves are even named after). There's a possible interpretation that Tove uses the trope of everything centered around the protagonist.

Mumintrollet is the only one just calling her directly “mamma” [mom/mother] (without the “n” at the end that’s like “the” in English as will explained below) because she’s his mother just like him calling Muminpappan “pappa” for being his father.

Other languages like Finnish do the same with Mumintrollet calling his parents “isä” [dad/father] and “äiti” [mom/mother]. 

During dialogue with Mumintrollet, Muminmamman and Muminpappan are understandably mostly called “din mamma/pappa” [your mother/father] or just sometimes “mamma/pappa” by other characters which is just common way to speak directly to someone about the person’s parents. Although this seems to be more commonly by Muminmamman and Muminmamman referring to each other when speaking to Mumintrollet.

Outside the books, Mumintrollet’s parents’ full names are more likely to be used but the other ways to refer to them from the books are often left out.

I notice in some non-Swedish language adaptations Muminmamman and Muminpappan are always used their full names at all times, even by Mumintrollet (this is also seen in the Swedish translation of new Japanese/Norwegian Moomintroll game 2026). Some languages such as Japanese they are often nicknamed as just “パパ“ [”Papa”] and “ママ” [“Mama”] by everyone regardless of context which is just weird to me. Although Dutch also seems to do this as well.

The 1st book Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen 1945 uses different more simplified language use more similar to a typical fairy-tale rather than Tove Jansson’s more distinct poetic writing and specific vocabulary (which started in the next book Kometjakten 1946). The names Muminmamman and Muminpappan were never used. Mumintrollet’s name was also in lower case “mumintrollet” (this is sometimes used in outside materials like written Swedish-language interview articles) which means his name would actually be translated as “the Mumintroll” in English here. Capital letters are used much more sparely in Swedish but almost never used for someone’s kind such as ethnicity, nationality or language.

Also, Tove Jansson was one of various people starting to transition into the du-reform early (where what was considered “informal” becomes “formal” and the Swedish language becomes much looser) which was said to be properly established by 3th July 1967. She and her works often default to addressing people with the “du” (singular “you" which was considered informal in the past unless used for people you knew well) with “ni” (nowadays used as the plural “you” which was the default but nowadays not recommended to use singular anymore of most context) being secondary as singular for certain social groups (like elders, proper people and certain people of higher status). Although I saw older transcripts of folk memories from the 1800s amongst Swedish-speakers in both Finland and Sweden, rural people already commonly spoke like that. Tove Jansson rarely uses the older “far/fader” and “mor/moder” for referring to other people’s father and mother but often instead defaults in “pappa” and “mamma” just like today. Småtrollen 1945 shows early du-form transition where “ni” is used first but very quickly turns into “du” for certain characters such as Tulippa’s introduction meanwhile pappa/mamma is the default words for parents. This ni/du speech was quickly discontinued in the very next books where “du” became the default at all times (alongside Tove Jansson’s very distinct vocabulary is getting more established).

First arrival to the stone island in Pappan och havet 1965

Speculations of Other Possible Names/Titles

It’s unlikely Muminmamman was born with that name just like when Muminpappan wasn’t born with his current name. Although in Sweden and Norway you can name newborn baby girls the really strange name “Lillemor” which means “little mother” (might have started as an affectionate nickname and it was newer than it sounds like starting from early 1900s) long before they even can become mothers or never became one (although might refer to caring or nurturing parentlike nature to others like younger children or dolls rather than just future mothers. Although as explained beloved, motherhood might also refer to authority, matriarchy, leadership and ownership rather than being a literal parent to a child just like fatherhood).

If that wasn’t her birth name then we never get to know what name Muminmamman previously might have had before that title. Muminpappan and Muminmamman do tell a lot about what they did as youths however in Muminpappans bravader/memoarer ends with Muminpappan rescuing Muminmamman without much dialogue. She was simply noted as “ett litet kvinnlig Mumintroll” [a small female Mumintroll]. Apparently the second only time “kvinnlig” [female/womanly] was used in the entire book series (however “manlig” [male/manly] does appear mostly in critical/satirical/ironic way but still also very rare) which also entirely avoids the common gender terms “kvinna” [woman/female], “pojke” [boy], “flicka” [girl] and “man/män” [man/male/men] (as noun). Muminpappan noted that Muminmamman is small as youth when most illustrations show them being the same size or sometimes even slightly larger than him. Or maybe she was slightly younger than him by that point before reaching his size (few diorama dolls do depict Muminmamman and Snorkfröken shorter than their male counterparts sometimes however few times they are depicted larger than them).

Previously Muminmamman might have been named something else like Fru Mumin(troll) [Lady/Mrs. Mumintroll] (still sometimes called that in Muminserien, the comic strips) once married or became property owner or reached certain age (keep in mind that “fru” does not necessarily mean married woman just like the standard German word for woman “frau” although nowadays it mostly just means wife in Swedish even if society got more feminist ironically enough. That also explains why “jungfru” [maiden] has the suffix “-fru” since it literally just means “young lady”, NOT “young wife”).

Although she might have be named “Muminmamma” already once married or just became property owner since “husfru” (literally translated as “house lady/wife” however should NOT be confused with “hemmafru” which does mean the same as housewife in English), “matmor” (literally means “food mother”, also means female pet owner) and “husmor” (literally means “house mother”, and just like “husfru” is the female counterpart of the male title “husfar” which literally means “house father”) all means the female owner/ruler over a property regardless of parental/marital statuses. Parental titles without referring to actual biological parenting is metaphorical for responsible authority over something such as the title Pope derived from “papa” (like Le Grand Schtroumpf’s English name Papa Smurf).

While young/unmarried she might theoretically have been called “Muminfröken” (literally means [The Mumin maiden/Miss]) akin to Snorkfröken (literally means [The Snork Maiden/Miss]) although Snorkfröken got later recognized as a Mumintroll (with distinct personal name which does make sense when “snork” is a real word meaning something like arrogance so her name literally means “the arrogant maiden/miss”) or ambiguous rather than a Snork (seemingly Snorks as distinct folk group depiction was just isolated independent story instances). This wild speculation of mine of Muminmamman’s possible maiden name is also never confirmed and should be really cautious (more like a slight possibility but I personally think is unlikely). 

There’s another possibility Muminmamman was just known as “Mumintrollet” while young, the default name of her folk group, just like Muminpappan did in his youth. That’s just common naming convention to be named after one’s kind that would be very confusing if multiple characters with the same name were in the same scene in an individualistic way which rarely happens. Often such characters are named after their professions, role, family associations or physical characteristics if they appeared together (that might be situationally temporary such as “den lilla hemulen” [the little hemul] was named that to distinguish from her cousin police chief in the 5th book Farlig midsommar). This is very similar to typical folkloric naming convention.

Muminmammans visa/song [Muminmamman’s song]

The Swedish publisher Birgitta Westin had an idea for a song collection about various songs from Mumindalen that Erna Tauro could compose. Including giving new songs for characters that never got songs on their own like Muminmamman.

Original Swedish: Min stora väska har jag med mig överallt, där finns kompass och ståltråd, lite salt – ifall familjen fiskar på ett öde skär – och varma strumpor för en frusen resenär och karameller ifall det går rent på tok och magpulver, en trevlig pocketbok och mycket annat som man kunde ha men också utan klarar vi oss bra! My English translation: I have my large bag with me everywhere, There is compass and steel wire, little salt — in case the family fish on a desolate skerry – and warm socks for a frozen traveler and candies in case if goes completely crazy/bad and stomach powder, a nice paperback book and much more one could have But also without we’re doing well!

Unfortunately Erna Tauro passed away before finishing composing the music book but Visor från Mumindalen did manage to get released for the first time in 1993.

Most other songs originates from theaters and concerts that reflect the characters’ inner monologues about their personal subjective psyches, current mental state, worldview, philosophies, etc, very much like the subjective 3rd person POV narration except in 1st person POV. The ones with the most psychological themes are Filifjonkan and Misan.

You can hear Muminmamman’s song by Johanna Grüssner from the 2003 album Moomin Voices HERE.

Muminmamman’s multi-dimensional influences

Source from Official Moomin website HERE. Self-portrait of Signe Hammarsten-Jansson with young 4-years old Tove 1917 called "Husmor i Helsingfors"

Muminmamman as Tove Jansson’s mother Signe Hammarsten Jansson.

Tove Jansson claims in public that Muminmamman is one of the ONLY two characters being a portrait of another person other than Tove Jansson herself which is her own mother Signe Hammarsten Jansson, also nicknamed as “Ham” for short by both family and scholars. The other character being Tooticki as a portrait of Tove’s lifelong girlfriend Tuulikki Pietilä. Tove Jansson was rather strict with that claim. There are very few additional characters being confirmed privately by Tove herself being based on others which are Muminpappan being based on her father Viktor Jansson (even if really defensively denying that to a fan letter although I think she don’t want her private personal life end up inside some random teenager’s school essay) and Vifslan being based on her really complicated ex-girlfriend Vivica Bandler.

Signe Hammarsten-Jansson (1882-1970) was an illustrator from a priest family from Sweden. When she was young she was very free spirited and adventurous just like Tove Jansson herself and the rest of their family. She have done many things in her life yet struggles with various historical societal obstacles for being a woman. She's trying to balance her artistic work with her family life. You can read more about her HERE.

The characteristics of Muminmamman keeping others’ secrets, being very willing to listen and recognizing people’s individuality seems to be inherent from Signe. Signe was one of the most trusted ones Tove Jansson could share her most private personal experiences with which does include her same-gender attraction and sexuality. Seemingly Signe was the few ones alongside Tove’s brother Lars Jansson not having any initial negative reaction to Tove’s reveal that she was attracted to other women shortly after dating Vivica except her concern to lose contact with Atos Wirtanen which Signe personally enjoyed his company. What many biographers often forget, most of the people Tove Jansson first revealed her orientation to did eventually become tolerant and supportive as Tove continued discussing her attraction and sexuality while also thanking their ability to listen.

Other characters based on Signe is the grandmother from Sommarboken 1972. Sommarboken was a suggestion by Signe Hammarsten-Jansson that Tove Jansson had in mind for a long time. The granddaughter is based on Signe's grandmother Sophia Jansson who's Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove Jansson's niece.

Rosa’s mother in the short story Den stora resan from the anthology book Dockskåpet 1978 is also based on Signe. That short story was based on one brief break up between Tove and Tuulikki over Signe in 1963 that was quickly resolved; however unlike real life, Rosa chooses her mother over her girlfriend Elena in Den stora resan instead of value both. There's a 2005 adaptation you can view in YLE HERE.

Why Mumintrollet is the only one of his generation still living with his parents might reflect Tove’s own continuous strong attachment to her parents and family. Tuulikki, akin to Elena from Den stora resan, seems to think Tove was being too clingy with Signe that they broke up very briefly around 1963. Tove eventually noted that Tuulikki and Signe became friends again 1965.

Muminmamman as Tove Jansson herself

Source from Official Moomin website HERE. Muminmamman (left) and Muminmamman (right) sawing their frustrations away!

Just like most other characters being fragments of Tove Jansson (which is incredibly common creative aspect amongst creators, more so than literally trying to trace the cast on real life people based on just actually generic universal vibes alone), Muminmamman is also based on Tove Jansson herself. The abstracted fragmented “auto-biographical inspiration model” was actually confirmed in public interviews by Tove Jansson herself which should be the primary default approach to trace where influences originate (also very common creative method by creators) alongside explicit confirmations by Tove and highly specific parallels with unusual personal traits/events with no much possible alternative explanations (with vibe-based connections should follow these 3 secondarily but not the main sole base but if someone else resembles a character just for universally generic vibes alone with no confirmation then it’s just coincidences).

Muminmamman is one of characters Tove confirms being also based on herself she relates to in interviews. It’s often her gentleness she seems to relate to. Additionally I think she also relates to Muminmamman’s resilience (sisu!) and occasionally hot-tempered and struggles with frustrations with stress, pressure and burnouts (especially the stone island and throughout the Muminserien comic strips).

One of Tove Jansson’s common public nicknames is “Muminmamman” which in interviews like the one from 1984 she said she was proud of which you could view HERE. (Her nickname “Muminmamman” was also mentioned in the report of her death HERE)

Even late-40s, Tove Jansson seemed to like being nicknamed “Muminmamman”. In December 1949, a person which Tove Jansson had complicated relationship with that she calls “old enemy” started to “turvis” (either means “in turn” or “luckely”) call her “Muminmamman” which Tove saw as “försoningsbevis” (something like “reconciliation certification” or “evidence of reconciliation”).

This was meant to be a part of my previous post about my literary analysis of how Tove Jansson depicts various kinds of love and the non-hierarchical love philosophy in literature after Valentines day to celebrate Sweden's Alla hjärtans dag [All hearts' dag] (includes any close relationships) and Finland's Vändagen/Ystävänpäivä [The friend day] (exclusively for friends) but the post became already too long so this becomes more of a series.

This post of the 1st part will cover an overview of the relationship dynamics between Mumintrollet [Moomintroll] and Snusmumriken [Snufkin], Kometjakten/Kometen kommer 1946 [2st book] and Trollkarlens hatt 1948 [3rd book].

Next 2st part post will cover the rest of the book series, the mutual admiration and longing between them two. 3rd part is about the adaptations. I have also worked with the literary analysis of Snorkfröken [Snorkmaiden] herself, her evolution and her relationship with Mumintrollet (she doesn't get an analytic series since their relationship is mostly about constant cuddling and non-verbal synced dynamics in the books, very typical characteristic for young romantic couples not found in other relationships in the Mumin novel series. I'm poor with analyzing comic strips but more interested in her characterization in 2st book and comic strips however visual media like the comic strips are ironically enough paradoxically more difficult to analyze and keep tracks on than textual for me because you can't use search tools through the content despite me preferring visual media in general. It's really not my intent to be bias when throwing all-in-one there.). These upcoming parts were built from the cut content from the Valentine post.

The relationship between Mumintrollet and Snusmumriken is incredibly mutual. Poetically might represent Tove Jansson's inner monologues of two overlapping sides coexisting in peace, explaining their mutual longing for each other being two parts belonging to the same person consider they are the characters most similar to herself (see the full article of my Valentines post where I covered this).

Their relationships also resembles various close ones, such as Tove Jansson's own platonic best friend Eva Konikoff which she wrote almost everything to that a huge chunk about what we knew about Tove Jansson's private life came from their letter exchanges alongside Maya Vanni (her other best friend), Tuulikki Pietilä (her actual lifelong partner) and Signe Hammarsten (her mother) who she also wrote everything to. While Tove express longing to many people in various different ways, tensity and reasons, so far Eva is the one she's most desperate for expressing longing to as she moved to US throughout 40s-50s (although their friendship became weaker due to the distance in the 60s but her friendship with Maya remains strong), follow by Tuulikki, Signe and Vivica (when she dated her) meanwhile the rest she express much milder, calmer and "happier" with much better patience (as she called them as, especially for her male exes she experimented with who she didn't really had much genuine romantic attraction to due to her actual orientation that was fully established in the 1952 letter to Eva from years of uncertainties/insecurities nor was she much open and honest to them due to pressure from societal expectations/norms at the time).

Although Tove in interviews say there are ONLY two characters who are direct portraits of real people other than herself which is her mother Signe Hammarsten Jansson being inspiration for Muminmamman and her romantic life partner Tuulikki Pietilä being inspiration to Tooticki. In private materials reveals Muminpappan is mainly based on her own father Viktor Jansson (despite defensively denying it to a Swedish-speaking blogger asking that as a 17-years old in a letter for an essay but likely Tove doesn't want her private life randomly end up inside a teen's school essay) and Vifslan based on Vivica Bandler (80s review articles does mention Vifslan is being based on Vivica but I'm unsure if that's an actual public reveal by Tove herself or rumor at the time that turns out to be true. Tove told a dream to Vivica during production of Trollkarlens hatt being asked in interviews who's Vifslan which she replied just a Mumin character without revealing it's Vivica). Others might maybe REMIND of other people but not really entirely based or solely based on one single other person (I'm very cautious about written interviews by non-Swedish speakers unless it's video/audio recordings since they tends to be much more cryptic and rather bizarre and inconsistent, likely for being originally written down in the interviewers' own language with much fewer quotes from Tove herself that dosen't match her very distinct language/expressions use due to lost in translation or mostly reflect the interviewers' own writing. Swedish-language interviews from Swedish-speakers are far more detailed, consistent and clearer when distinguish Tove's own voice from their own. In case you were wondering, Tove's 1st language was Finland-Swedish, Finnish as 2st).

She does confirms in various interviews (both confirms and denies that her work reflect herself in Mumin och havet 1968, still paradoxically list out that various characters are based on herself such as Snusmumriken, Mumintrollet and Lilla My) most characters are fragments of herself and Snusmumriken is the one most based on herself she relates the most as her absolute favorite character which is very consistently repeated everywhere (seemingly even more so than Mumintrollet). That's just a very common method of inspirations by creators that should be prioritized rather than trying to map out other people onto these creations based on universally generic vibes alone. Tove seems to view Mumintrollet & Snusmumriken's relationship as her vision of an ideal platonic friendship akin to Mumintrollet & Snorkfröken as well as Tofslan & Vifslan (these two bonds shares many unusually paralleled commonalities alongside Sniff's parents, seemingly characteristics of young couples in her works despite heavy emphasis on distinct individualism amongst other bonds) as her vision of ideal romance in the books.

Two halves of the same person (general overview of their dynamics)

Admiration and longing

The next part of the literary analysis will cover about the admiration and longing for both in detail through actual passages.

It's well known that Mumintrollet admires and misses Snusmumriken a lot however people also forget Snusmumriken feels the same. While due to extensive show-don't-tell minimalist style of the books, there are only two instances where the term "beundran" [admiration] was used between them: one from Mumintrollet in the Vårvisan short story [The spring song] and one from Snusmumriken in Den sista draken short story [The last dragon]. However what they admire about each other is never mentioned but I guess it's mutually about loyalty, respect, availability and understanding akin to Tove Jansson's declaration of admiration to Eva for thanking her emotional availability to talk about everything to. Tove Jansson admire many people throughout her life in a mature way, often the ones closest to her. Keep in mind that admiration doesn't mean dependencies, fixation, idolization or having a crush as it's very universal and seems to be more closely related to appreciation. Tove also thinks you can admire something you don't like such as an abstract painting.

For Mumintrollet it seems to implied he admire Snusmumriken's knowledge but I think that's not the only thing he admire him for. Tove does very frequently express deep admiration various people's intelligence, likely referring to intellectual availability and capable to engage with her intellectual discussions with rather than being more knowledgeable than herself. For example, Tove admires Vivica for her intellect despite Vivica wrote in her own diaries she doesn't consider herself a good theorist. Although that instance Mumintrollet seems to admire Snusmumriken's knowledge in Farlig midsommar (see part 2) is actually unclear consider structure and generalized pronoun usage which implies more like general introduction of Snusmumriken. Snusmumriken's bio by Tove Jansson only mentions small beings admire his knowledge, not mentioning Mumintrollet and their friends. Ti-ti-too is the only one explicitly admires Snusmumriken's intelligence.

Snusmumriken's longing for Mumintrollet is expressed in Farlig missommar, Vårvisan (explicitly) and Sent i november (heavily implied as his main arc/motivation). He seems to also express bittersweetness during his first departure in Trollkarlens hatt as covered below.

Solitude

Throughout the books and most of Tove Jansson's philosophy, solitude and loneness are one of the most significant themes in her works. Solitude and loneness is like an interconnected scale due to how Nordic languages only uses context-sensitive terms rather than two clear binaries that English have (that makes Nordic solitude/loneness terms untranslatable in English during context that's intentionally ambiguous or mixed such as Ensliga bergen [solitude/lonely mountains] have multiple symbolism). I'm going to cover solitude and loneness in future post.

Snusmumriken is the one most furthest on the solitude side unable to feel lonely when being alone (I have a Swedish double-pun that fits him which is "ensamhet utan ensamhet" [solitude without loneness]). Mårran is the one most furthest the loneness side almost always feeling alone due to almost everyone avoids her that makes her always seek company and warmth. Mumintrollet in the center leaning around these two points while most other characters are scattered all over the spectrum.

Tove Jansson confirms that Mumintrollet often wants to be alone which is one of the aspects she related most with him in the documentary Mumin och havet 1968. This does frequently shown in the books where he desires solitude akin to Snusmumriken however unlike Snusmumriken often fall into loneness due to unable to balance his social needs, akin to Filifjonkan (the book version who's totally opposite of that nagging bossy confrontational comic relief one often used in adaptation). Mumintrollet and Filifjonkan reflects how Tove Jansson desires solitude while still simultaneously suffers from loneness and social uncertainties. Snusmumriken meanwhile seems like Tove Jansson's ideal self when it comes to getting in peace and confidence with solitude. Snusmumriken don't need much socialization yet do seek company if he want to (especially for Mumintrollet). Seemingly both Mumintrollet and Snusmumriken exclude each other's solitude and tolerate each other's presence even if they actually want to be alone. Although if you look closely in the comic strips you will see that Snusmumriken is often the one seeking/begging for Mumintrollet's company/attention while Mumintrollet wants to be alone broody/troubled with something or just distracted, disinterested or busy at the moment rather than other way around.

Despite Mumintrollet suffered from loneness and miss his family throughout the 6th book Trollvinter 1957, he became so happy at the end that he wanted to be alone in peaceful solitude ironically enough when his family finally woken up in spring.

According to some interviews with Tove Jansson, she consider Snusmumriken's solitude as "selfish". I think when she calls her characters "selfish" in interviews is either reflection of her own insecurities at the moment (she had odd recollection in Mumin och havet 1968 that Snusmumriken don't always treat his friends nicely despite he have never really been mean or rude outward without feeling remorse such as against Ti-ti-oo. Although he does few time kick his friends like Sniff and Hemulen the collector on the shin to signal them to shut up which some other characters also do such as Muminpappan to Joxare or Mymlan to Hemulen the skier. It's not clear how hard he kicks but Sniff screamed from it although that could be because Sniff's so sensitive) or Tove's definition of "selfishness" is different and not necessary negative.

You will see throughout my posts Mumintrollet has mature high respect of Snusmumriken's solitude throughout Tove Jansson's original works which I think is due to both norms, loyalty and Mumintrollet personally relate to solitude.

Politeness

Both Snusmumriken and Mumintrollet have difficulties with declining, rejection and refusal with things as well as set personal boundaries just like Tove Jansson (and me) which is rather common amongst Nordic people in general. I think often this insecurity around rejection is due to fear of emotionally hurting someone and reject someone else's wants/wishes as it feels like you deny a person's being (which most of the time you actually don't). According to Tove Jansson also thinks this fear of rejection is a form of selfishness in Mumin och havet 1968. Likely I think she thinks it might be dishonest and rooted in fear of possible humiliate oneself.

Mumintrollet's struggle with politeness and rejections was seen throughout Trollvinter, Pappan och havet and the comic strips despite also being emotionally messy with bitterness and breakdowns. Especially to people he don't know well while being much more open with those he knew such as Sniff and Lilla My. Snusmumriken is shown to struggle with politeness and rejections in Vårvisan (he did become unintentionally rude with trying to reject Ti-ti-oo after long discomfort by the critter invading his personal space but start overthink and feel overly remorse over it) and throughout Sent i november.

Also you will notice that Snusmumriken NEVER declined Mumintrollet from following south since Mumintrollet himself NEVER asked him to join at all due to caution and awareness of Snusmumriken's needs.

(And Snusmumriken is consistently polite while attempting to murder Förfadern with exploding saucepan full of gunpowder as well so politeness doesn't seem to prevent murder and explosives that you can view by clicking this blue text)

Playfulness

Both Snusmumriken and Mumintrollet are mischievous and playful however this is rather universally shared trait across almost everyone who's not an elder in the valley. This seems like a cultural aspect in Mumindalen where various forms of play is treated like shared communal activities regardless of age (you can even see Mumintrollet's parents, Hemulen and Filifjonkan play without the youths. I will have a separate post about how age groups works). Mumintrollet and his peers seems to be less playful in later works which many scholars interpret them "growing up" into teens or young adults (alongside they no longer being affectionately called "barn" ["child(ren)"] by Mumintrollet's parents and elders) without notice that the characters have already always called "ungdomar" (youths as in teens or young adults) by narration (also in Pappan och havet, Muminmamman is mentioned "playing" for herself so their culture of playfulness didn't disappear). Tove did confirms Sniff being a teen which is an important anchor since he's considered the youngest peer in the books which implies the others are either older teens or young adults. However I think the reason why they became less playful is due to narration where there's no much room for play and they were in generally getting more miserable (akin to earlier books they constantly worry over natural disasters) while Tove has more interest in the more adult-oriented books.

Snusmumriken happens to be one of the characters laughing the most and will always laugh in every appearance (even Sent i november where he's the most lowest) except Muminpappans bravader/memoarer 1950/1968 where he had limited appearance (but instead his father Joxaren was noted to laugh the most). Snusmumriken does like playfully teases others rather frequently while often having deadpan dry humor (his sense of humor is very similar to the Jansson siblings'). While Mumintrollet was initially very unsure and suspicious with Tooticki's dry deadpan humor in Trollvinter for not knowing her well at the start, he seems fine when Snusmumriken does it (seen in Den sista draken short story and the comic strips). In one early short story version of the park destruction chapter in Farlig midsommar (5th book) I found in archives (I'm currently working on a post of scanning and translating this one), Snusmumriken knows his conflict with the park keeper was unnecessary but just loves to troll him for fun and mischief (which is still implied with the final book).

Insecurity and confidence

One of the more noticeable contrast between Mumintrollet and Snusmumriken is that normally Mumintrollet is in generally more insecure while Snusmumriken is in generally more confident with most things. Of course it variates depending on situations. Mumintrollet often grows gradually more confident over time throughout the books while not fully grown out his insecurities (most noticeable is Småtrollen, Trollvinter, Papppan och havet as well as the comic strips in different ways). Snusmumriken is seen more insecure and unsure than usual when in bad mood as seen in Vårvisan and Sent i november where he's having unresolved internal conflict with himself regarding his feelings with Mumintrollet while still trying to be polite and gets remorse over it. All characters and their subjective 3rd POV gets far more bitter about everything than usual during bad mood such as anxieties and frustrations which was frequently seen with Mumintrollet (especially Trollvinter) and Muminmamman (most noticeable in Pappan och havet). Often it's Snusmumriken cheering Mumintrollet up and provide advice when he felt troubled and melancholic like a peer would rather than a mentor (resemble a lot between me and my own best friend actually and Tove Jansson with various people).

Philosophies

Mumintrollet and most characters are very thoughtful and philosophical on their own. Snusmumriken is one of characters who has built a specific lifestyle around philosophical values he has taught himself (and possibly his mother’s paternal aunt as his role model whom he inherited his golden harmonica from at the Cedric short story). While he’s the one most consistent and confident with the minimalist non-materialistic and non-possessive philosophy for freedom and independence he has developed for himself, still struggles with contradictions and internal conflicts like everyone else such as his emotional attachment to Mumintrollet. Snusmumriken is very transparent where his knowledge comes by listening from various people during travel (for example the comet) or when he was a child (for example about Trollkarlen). He's not a mystic sage whose knowledge unexplainably appears out of nowhere underneath his hat like a vacuum. He sometime share advices to Mumintrollet like an equal peer would do (like me and my best friend or Tove with many close ones like Eva and Maya) rather than a mentor.

Tove has always been intellectual and developed her appeal and philosophy for existentialism, solitude, independence and melancholy since she was a teenager that consistently stayed and developed throughout the rest of her life. She had always rather great knowledge in human psychology and social dynamics as almost all her original works has psychological themes, especially in Mumin where the characters are highly dynamic, subjective, multidimensional and flawed/imperfect/paradoxical of contradiction and cognitive limitations in a rather realistic, sophicated and relatable way (often downplayed and removed in foreign translation and adaptation). I think she has mostly read a lot and educated herself for these interests with various different forms of insights from others as she about those a lot rather than being just mainly influenced by mentors.

About my selected passages

I'm going to highlight almost every instance where Snusmumriken and Mumintrollet are alone together or referencing each other with analytic commentary in between. In this 1st part cover Kometjakten/Kometen kommer 1946/1968 (2st book) and Trollkarlens hatt 1948 (3rd book) . Keep in mind these are actually small snippets of key-parts of the scenes even if they look a lot.

I covered less about Kometjakten/Kometen kommer since Mumintrollet and Snusmumriken rarely interacted alone but with company of others which makes sense, that story was more about group survival. The character Mumintrollet explored one-to-one dynamic with there was Snorkfröken.

I have estimated my passages taken from Trollkarlens hatt 1948 in this post is only about ~3% of Trollkarlens hatt 1948 so I'm sure I don't leak much.

The introduction chapter was short and I'm very confident I only covered less than >10% through marking.

About ~56% of the 1st chapter is about Mumintrollet and Snusmumriken being alone. About ~10% of that scene I have covered (it was mostly about the environment or details of individual actions).

About ~27% of the 2st chapter is about the night walks. About ~28% of the night walk scene I have covered (most is about the general night environment and the hat itself).

I covered about ~18% of the last chapter. About ~12% of the last chapter is about Snusmumriken's departure. About ~72% of Snusmumriken's departure scene was covered in this post. About half (~48%) within my selected covered passages from the last chapter is about Snusmumriken's departure, rest I have covered is about how Mumintrollet deals with his emotions for Snusmumriken.

Method of my estimated calculation

Of course unable to copy and paste e-books for obvious reason with my calculation. What I did instead, I enlarged the font size to maximum with the virtual page mode, counted that 35 characters (including punctuations and spaces) was displayed while the app automatically calculated the adjusted page count in Apple Books. From there I can take a page range and multiply it with 35 to get estimated character count as estimated length. Images and content tables not actually part of the text itself don't have much affect in estimating percentage as I have tested out even if they got their own pages when set the font size to max (they correspond about 100 "characters" together which is small in proportion with rest of the book become almost 5 thousands characters in total).

The Beginning

First illustration of Kometen kommer (2st book). Kometjakten had minor differences with the nose droops downwards and shorter rounder ears.

Snusmumriken's kind ("Snusmumrikar", the plural form) amongst others was already mentioned in Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (1945) when the tower boy lists folk groups visiting his tower.

Swedish original: Folk från alla världens hörn. Snusmumrikar, sjöspöken, småkryp och storfolk, snorkar och hemuler. My English translation: Folks from all corners of the world. Snusmumrikar, sea-ghosts, small critters/beings/bugs and giant folks, snorks and hemuls.

"Småkryp" normally means bug/insect in Swedish, it often refers to any small beings in Mumin since it was also used for Ti-ti-oo and the baby dragon.

Snusmumriken's actual first appearance is in Kometjakten 1946 which is no longer available in its original language since it was replaced with Tove's revisited version Kometen kommer 1968 which is like a completely different book. I don't have Kometjakten yet but I do have a 1956 edition called Mumintrollet på kometjakt that's more similar to the original Kometjakten but at the same time not quiet. I still refer to this version as “Kometjakten 1945” when some might be changed in this 1956 edition. Unlike Muminpappans bravader 1950 vs. Muminpappans 1968 memoarer, Kometen kommer (at least the e-book version, I'm still investigating on it) do seems like being more minimalistic and more stoic in general where the characters are less chatty and has more silent beats.

Snusmumriken's first introduction 

My coloration of Snusmumriken's introduction scene. Kometjakten 1946 had more information of the colorations removed in Kometen kommer 1968 such as the sail was red, flag was blue, tent was yellowish, landscape grey, draft greyish from the illumination and mountains purple-red.

Kometjakten took much longer time to reach to Snusmumriken's introduction as it spent more time with Mumintrollet being alone with Sniff which got heavily reduced in Kometen kommer where we almost immediately introduced to Snusmumriken much earlier on at the start of their journey to the observatory. We also see one illustration of Sniff and Mumintrollet fry pancakes at the start of their journey in Kometjakten which got moved later in Kometen kommer with Snusmumriken drawn to the scene.

The introduction scene’s structure is very different that makes it difficult to compare between the versions. While Snusmumriken is still very jolly, his solitude are much more emphasized in Kometen kommer. Kometjakten called him “en snusmumrik” like he’s always referred to most of the time throughout the book series (continued used in Sent i november and interviews like Mumin och havet 1968) and never introduced his name meanwhile Kometen kommer called him “en mumrik” (actually the diminutive shorten form for his kind). Snusmumriken admiring the lonesome environment in the introduction scene in Kometjakten which have been removed and instead spread across the book in Kometen kommer as a coping mechanism of trying to find wonder in the decaying environment while still being melancholic and anxious.

The scene of discussing about the comet shortly after Snusmumriken's introduction have been switched where the original Kometjakten have Mumintrollet explain about the comet to Snusmumriken while Kometen kommer it have been reversed where Sniff asks Snusmumriken about comets while Mumintrollet question where Snusmumriken got his knowledge (from hearing a lot from other people).

Since the book mainly focus on the group as a whole, there's no much exclusive interaction between Snusmumriken and Mumintrollet. There was one brief dispute (the only conflict between them it seems in Tove Jansson's works) where Mumintrollet got upset over Snusmumriken's assumptions that he might be related to the Snorks where there the Snork siblings were first mentioned (I will cover this scene later with my future post about Snorkfröken).

Mumintrollet comforts Snusmumriken’s despair over the disappearance of the sea

During the journey back home, we get so see one of the rare cases where Snusmumriken cries and Mumintrollet comforting him when they notice the sea disappeared due to the comet.

Original Swedish: Men Snusmumriken satte sig ner med huvudet i tassarna och ropade: Det vackra havet! Alldeles borta! Ingen segling mer, ingen simning, inga stora gäddor! Inga väldiga stormar, inga genomskinliga isar! Månen kommer aldrig mer att kunna spegla sig! Och stranden är ingen strand längre, den är ingenting alls! Mumintrollet satte sig bredvid honom och sa: Det kommer tillbaka. Alltihop kommer tillbaka när kometen har farit sin väg. Tror du inte det? Men Snusmumriken svarade inte My English translation: But Snusmumriken sat himself down with the head in hands and shouted/cried: The beautiful ocean! Completely gone! No more sailing, no more swimming, no large pikes! No more enormous storms, no transparent ice! The moon will never be able to reflect itself! And the beach is no longer a beach anymore, it’s nothing at all! Mumintrollet sat himself beside him and said: It will come back. Everything will come back when the comet have traveled its way. Don’t you think? But Snusmumriken didn’t answer.

While “tass(ar)” in Swedish normally means “paw(s)”, it’s used universally across all beings in Mumin while almost totally avoiding “hand/händer” [“hand(s)”] and “fot/fötter” [“foot/feet”]. English localizations of the books tends to selectively choose “paws” to the abstract trolls to make them appear more “animalistic” while “hands/feet” for the humanlike trolls to create species-like distinctions. I translate them as “hands” or “feet” since the Jansson siblings themselves do that for Muminserien (comic strips) where they never translate “tass(ar)” into “paws” in English. Other Swedish fan translators often translate them as “paws” universally for everyone regardless which is fine so long you aren't selective. This is the same with “nos” normally means animal noses as in “snouts” but used for all beings which is interchangeable with the humanoid nose “näsa” for any trolls but both always translated as “nose” by Jansson siblings in Muminserien that official website also uses while the old domesticated book localization selectively uses “snout” for the abstract-styled trolls. Although this language use is sometimes used in other folkloric humanoid beings in local Swedish rural regions such as for Näcken as I found on databases like Isof’s Sägenkartan map with my favorite example can be found HERE (Swedish).

So far it seems like the Finnish-Polish stop motion adaptation was the only one depicting this scene.

Kometjakten however didn’t include Mumintrollet comforting Snusmumriken.

Original Swedish: Men Snusmumriken satte sig ner med huvudet i tassarna och klagade: — Det vackra havet! Borta! Förlorad! Ingen segling mer, ingen simning, inga stora gäddor! Inga väldiga stormar, inga genomskinliga isar, inga blanka nattliga vatten där stjärnorna speglar sig. Och han lutade huvudet mot knäna och ville inte titta upp vidare. My English translation: But Snusmumriken sat himself down with the head in hands and complained: — The beautiful ocean! Gone! Lost! No more sailing, no more swimming, no large pikes! No more enormous storms, no transparent ice, no blank nightly water where the stars reflect themselves! And he leaned his head against the knees and don’t want to look up further.

Mumintrollet’s first introduction to Snusmumriken to his parents

During the end of their journey and arrival home, Mumintrollet introduced the new acquaintances he met from during the journey to his parents. Mumintrollet introduce Snusmumriken as his best friend after introduce Snorkfröken (and Snorken in Kometen kommer who was very brief but missing in Kometjakten).

Original Swedish (Kometjakten): Och här är min bäste vän Snusmumriken. My English translation: And this is my best friend Snusmumriken. Original Swedish (Kometen kommer): Det här är Snusmumriken som är min bästa vän. My English translation: This is Snusmumriken who is my best friend.

You notice that in Swedish, "-e" suffix as in "bäste" was "masculine" in the past and default for men however nowadays starting from mid-1900s it became mostly neutral but the already neutral "-a" as in "bästa" became the default most of the time regardless of gender. The particular phrasing "bäste vän" is almost no longer used today no matter it's your best bro, you would instead just say "bästa vän" as seen in this shift between the versions in Swedish. It seems like it's reversed in Norwegian and Danish where they chose to end adjectives with "-e" most of the time or Swedish just prefer ending adjectives with "-a" over "-e" in general.

It's unknown if Mumintrollet ever saw Sniff as his best friend or just any friend by that point (just like most non-family relationship statuses it's never labeled) however Snusmumriken was the second one Mumintrollet had closest bond out of the group so far that shared most chemistry considering Snorken just being self-centered, bitter and insults everyone meanwhile Hemulen just care about his collection more than anyone else. Tove Jansson wasn't really fond of Sniff and said he wasn't much of a "vacker" (something like "fine/beautiful/lovely") character. He functions more like a really dependent whiny unpleasant little brother of the group kept having disputes with Mumintrollet throughout the journey.

Interestingly enough in the book series, Snusmumriken & Mumintrollet, together with Muminpappa & Fredrikson and Förfadern & Onkelskruttet are the only characters where "sin vän" ["his/her/their/its friend"], "hans vän" ["his friend"], "min vän" ["my friend"] (constantly), "vänskap" ["friendship"] and "vänskaplig" (["friendly"] although more specifically refer to in relation of friendship unlike the more common term "vänlig" which is often used to mean treating something with gentleness in Tove Jansson's literatures) were used between them which happens very frequently. In other words, the only ones where direct use of friend in singular-form were used in narration and dialogue. Others are only referred in context of plural group of friends which are actually also rare. However all other non-family relationship statuses, including unmarried romantic ones, almost never refer to each other anything direct and explicit. Only two instances where Mumintrollet refers others beyond Snusmumriken as especially friends (or any other non-family relationship statuses for that matter) which are Lilla My as "en av mina äldsta vänner" ["one of my oldest friends"] to Filifjonkan in Trollvinter 1957 (6st book) and Snorkfröken as "en vän med pannlugg" ["a friend with fringe"] (almost all romantic couples across Tove Jansson's literatures uses these explicit friendship-related terms once or twice regardless of gender which is technically more than ordinary close friendship but far less than platonic friendship) to Sjöhästarna [The seahorses] in Pappan och havet 1965 (8th book) (the ONLY reference of Snorkfröken there and she wasn't even named) however it was towards a 3rd person.

Another rare use of "vän" is wishing to befriending someone. However most of the time it's just described through other means that someone wants to get closer and know someone better. Otherwise, friendship just happens naturally through shared experiences and reactions without being explicitly called "friends".

Very few characters have a speech pattern to call everyone "min vän" in Tove Jansson's literature, likely to show friendliness. In Mumin, this is not really a consistent pattern but situational like trying to comfort who's upset or scared such as Muminmamman with Tofslan & Viflsan in Trollkarlens hatt and Snusmumriken with Sniff in Kometjakten/Kometen kommer. This is still very rare however in the Mumin book series but more common elsewhere.

If being extremely literal based on what's frequently consistently mentioned explicitly then it hilariously looks like Mumintrollet has one mom, one dad, one strange ancestor dwelling inside the tiled stove, one single friend while rest are ambiguous acquaintances and/or strangers and one acquaintance/stranger he happens to cuddle a lot.

Kometen kommer's ending replaces Snorkfröken's romance with Snusmumriken's friendship

Even if Kometen kommer still emphasis more of Mumintrollet's romantic bond with Snorkfröken although in a more constrained romance than Kometjakten, at the end of the book he's having a dialogue about the comet with Snusmumriken instead of him snuggling Snorkfröken. Kometen kommer's ending is shorter and more emphasis on the comet itself rather than the community bonding.

I just realize in the revisited Kometen kommer, Tove Jansson does extend Mumintrollet's interaction with Snusmumriken within the passages.

(This section was about details I forgot so I was recently added for this post)

When Mumintrollet and Snusmumriken were roommates

One of the most complete maps of Mumindalen [the Moomin valley] used in Trollkarlens hatt 1948 that was also used multiple times in the doll house in Tempere museum as decorative map despite the old house layout with the each of the community's rooms visible in the bottom. Including their room "Snusmumrikens och Mumintrollets rum". See more info below. Despite the texts always mention Ensliga bergen [Lonely/Solitude Mountains] and the bridge is leading to south, every map like this I see it's positioned northeast from Muminhuset although it's often an empty unknown void underneath Muminhuset which is shown to be a huge lake in the map seen in Sent i november where their neighbors like Filifjonkan lives at the coastline leading south so you have to take a detour through the bridge through Ensliga bergen at northeast to get south from Muminhuset.

It's a rather forgotten fact that Snusmumriken let himself be Mumintrollet's roommate in Trollkarlens hatt 1948. In Trollkarlens hatt, the new characters introduced from Kometjakten/Kometen kommer moved into Muminhuset [The Moomin House] which includes Snusmumriken. Muminhuset becomes more like an informal apartment complex or community home. Tove Jansson famously coined the term "vimmelhus" for Muminhuset that could translated as a crowded house.

While if you think about it, despite the comet didn't hit earth it still created devastated environmental impact such as disappearing sea (temporary) and dying flora/ecosystem. I have speculated that makes Trollkarlens hatt and maybe later books of the book series possibly post-apocalyptic. The other characters might become homeless due to that so Muminhuset became a temporary refugee camp. It becomes strange that Snusmumriken still decides to live with them and undergo hibernation when he already has a "home", his tent. There could be possible explanation such as the environment is not completely safe for living alone after the comet, he want to experiment living indoors or just really enjoy Mumintrollet's company and closeness as his new best friend until his wander lust hits him at the end. Again that's just my speculation (a book theory!) so don't treat this as an absolute fact since the books never explain much about this.

Likely the actual reason the whole community living together in Trollkarlens hatt is to focus on the close community dynamic itself that unexplainably disappeared in later books where Tove Jansson focus more about the Mumin family dynamic themselves. Hemulen the collector, Snorken, Bisamråttan [The Muskrat], Tofslan & Vifslan (later moved in in Trollkarlens hatt) are never shown again in later books and Sniff only appeared in Muminpappans bravader/memoarer and the Cedric short story with no much explanation of where he's doing right now there.

The room assignment and shared hibernation.

The introduction chapter is about Muminmamman assigning rooms before preparing for hibernation. She originally intended that Mumintrollet should share room with Sniff. However Mumintrollet really don't want to share room with Sniff for snoring so horribly and wants to share room with Snusmumriken.

Original Swedish: Men Sniff snarkar så förskräcklig, sa Mumintrollet. Kunde jag inte få sova med Snusmumriken i stället? My English translation: But Sniff snores so terribly, said Mumintrollet. Couldn't I sleep with Snusmumriken instead?

So Sniff just get his own room and no one complains about anything about the room assignment. Not even Snusmumriken who's just oddly enthusiastic with hibernation and convince Mumintrollet to look forward for it despite his habit of traveling south each winter as opportunity for solitude and exploration. The text just continues with the community prepare themselves for hibernation. (That bizarre English localization had an absurd pronoun issues where they often defaults most gender-neutral pronouns into male pronouns such as that common plural pronoun "de/dem/deras" ["they/them/their"] such as used in this introduction chapter. Some Swedes does that when they default to male pronouns as generalize or plural pronouns just like this English localization however Tove Jansson never does that at all in her writing/speech.)

Original Swedish: Men Mumintrollet suckade lite och sa: Vi förlorar en hel massa tid i alla fall! Inte! sa Snusmumriken. Vi drömmer. Och när vi vaknar igen är det vår... My English translation: But Mumintrollet sighed a little and said: We lose a whole lot of time anyway! Don't! said Snusmumriken. We dream. And when we wake up again it's spring...

Voice recordings of Tove Jansson's readings are very useful hints that added another dimension on how she imagine the text is played out. Such as Snusmumriken suddenly say "Inte!" sounds abrupt and harsh at first glance since the text never mentioned in what way and tone Snusmumriken deliver it. In audio recording, Tove Jansson choses to voice Snusmumriken with a calm mellow voice that's meant to be soothing and comforting. You can hear it at YLE Areena for free HERE (Swedish).

Tove Jansson's voice recordings of the Swedish revisited Muminpappans memoarer (which is like a totally different book from Muminpappans bravader 1950 that the English only very partially revisited) also hints how rude and dismissive Muminpappan actually was to Snusmumriken (alongside Swedish grammar and Snusmumriken's new reaction of frustration and hesitation to it) surrounding his mother where in this revision in the original language, his mother is no longer explicitly confirmed to be the Mymla mother which makes sense, Muminpappan don't actually know his mother as Snusmumriken was born after Joxaren broke contact with him. Almost all romantic implications between Joxaren and the Mymla mother is removed and Joxaren's seemingly admiration or surprise of the Mymla mother's enormous size is delivered neutrally by Tove Jansson's expressive voice recording rather than having a crush on her. Information that the Mymla mother is his mother is outdated.

The first spring day together

Mumintrollet and Snusmumriken enjoying the first spring together. Likely the end of the scene where Snusmumriken withdrew his harmonica after playing his favorite song.

Snusmumriken becomes the first one waking up in early morning during spring, follow by Mumintrollet who notice his bed is empty.

Original Swedish: Men när han snurrade runt för att hitta en ny trevlig sovställning fick han syn på nånting som gjorde honom alldeles klarvaken. Snusmumrikens säng var tom. Mumintrollet satte sig upp. Jo, Snusmumrikens hatt var också borta. Det var det värsta. sa Mumintrollet. My English translation: But when he turned around to find a new nice sleeping position he saw something that made him completely wide awake. Snusmumriken's bed was empty. Mumintrollet sat up. Indeed, Snusumriken's hat was also gone. How about that, said Mumintrollet.

"Det var det värsta" literally translate as "that was the worst" however it's just a common non-literal expression of surprise that's usually not necessary negative depending on context and tone. This time it isn't negative. I'm unsure what to translate that so I picked the English idiom with the closest vibe even if it doesn't feel quiet right to me. That's a common translation challenges with idioms being so flexible and non-literal that often there's no counterparts across other languages. It will always risk some loss in translation.

So apparently Snusmumriken doesn't sleep with his hat on. Mumintrollet tries to track his footprints that's all over the place and he can see that Snusmumriken did a happy dance doing somersaults and skips in overjoy for the spring. Suddenly he hears Snusmumriken plays his favorite song "Alla smådjur slår rosett på sin svans" ["All/every small critters/animals ties bows on their tails"] and runs towards him.

Original Swedish: Nere vid floden träffade han på Snusmumriken som satt på broräcket med benen dinglande över floden och sin gamla hatt neddragen över öronen. Hej, sa Mumintrollet och satte sig bredvid honom. Hej, hej, sa Snusmumriken, och spelade vidare. My English translation: Down by the river he met Snusmumriken who sat on the bridge railing with the legs dangle over the river and his old hat pulled down over the ears. Hey, said Mumintrollet and sat next to him. Hey hey, said Snusmumriken, and played on.

"Hej hej" means both hello and goodbye in Swedish which seems like Snusmumriken's signature default greeting and farewell phrase. He does that much more often and consistent than other characters. "Hej hej" often indicates personal enthusiasm during greeting. Nowadays it's common for adults to say "Hej" or "Hej hej" when ending a phone call for some reason. I decided to make them greet more casual and informal which might not translate the feel accurately but it resembles Swedish phrases (but there will not be as consistent with the later departure scene). I think they greeted "hullo" in English localizations.

Original Swedish: Solen hade nätt och jämnt hunnit över skogstopparna och lyste dem rakt i ansiktet. De kisade på henne och svängde med benen över de blanka rinnande vattnet och kände sig obekymrade och vänskapliga. My English translation: The sun had just barely managed to get over the treetops and shines straight into their faces. They squinted at her and swung their legs over the shiny running water, feeling carefree and friendly.

Again, one of many frequent instances where the books explicitly heavily emphasis on their friendships which is almost non-existent for other friendships that heavily uses show-don't-tell.

Snusmumriken invites Mumintrollet for a night walk

Mumintrollet retrieving Trollkarlen's hat during the night walk scene with Snusmumriken.

After Mumintrollet's parents threw Trollkarlen's hat down the river for being potentially dangerous after multiple sequences of incidences, Mumintrollet and Snusmumriken later found the hat and decided to keep it as a secret for more experimentations with it. Very much like any youths would do with secretly hiding risky fireworks from their parents or sneaking out in the middle of the night partying at the downtown pub (or performing some secretive satanist rituals in the woods). They said they mostly wanted to summon the five small clouds, assumingly for them and their friends again.

Original Swedish: Snusmumriken hade inte kommit hem än. Såna här nätter vandrade han ofta omkring ensam med sig själv och sin munharmonika. Men i natt hördes inga visor. Han var nog på upptäcktsfärd. Snart skulle han slå upp sitt tält vid flodstranden och vägra sova inomhus... Mumintrollet suckade. Han kände sig ledsen utan att ha nånting att sörja över. My English translation: Snusmumriken haven't returned home yet. Such nights he often wanders around alone by himself and his harmonica. But tonight no songs were heard. He were probably on expeditions. Soon he would pitch his tent at the riverbank and refuse to sleep indoors... Mumintrollet sighed. He felt sad without having anything to grieve over.

Here seems to first time Mumintrollet felt some kind of sorrow, melancholy and longing for Snusmumriken not sleeping at their room anymore however without being aware about it yet. At some points of summer, Snusmumriken would chose to live with his tent most of the time alone rather indoors.

But suddenly, Snusmumriken appears underneath the window whistling their secret whistling signals the second time (the first time was with waking up Sniff from hibernation). Their secretive whistling system (seemingly shared with Sniff) either mirror childlike nostalgia of keeping things exclusively secretive between certain friend club or common practice sharing personal privacy between trusted close ones that any ages does.

Original Swedish: Just då hördes en svag vissling under fönstret. Mumintrollets hjärta hoppade till av fröjd och han smög sakta fram till fönstret och tittade ut. Visslingen hade betytt: Hemligheter! Snusmumriken väntade under repstegen. Kan du bevara en hemlighet? viskade han när Mumintrollet klev ner i gräset. Mumintrollet nickade ivrigt. Snusmumriken lutade sig fram och viskade ännu lägre: Hatten har flutit iland på en sandbank en bit neråt floden. Mumintrollets ögon började lysa. Vill du? frågade Snusmumriken med ögonbrynen. Om! svarade Mumintrollet med en liten öronviftning. My English translation: Just then hears a weak whistling under the window. Mumintrollet's heart jumped in delight and he sneaked slowly forwards to the window and looked out. Indeed the whistling had meant: Secrets! Snusmumriken waited under the rope-ladder. Can you keep a secret? he whispered when Mumintrollet stepped down into the grass. Mumintrollet nodded eagerly. Snusmumriken leaned himself forward and whispered even lower: The hat have floated ashore on a sandbank a bit down the river. Mumintrollet's eyes start to shine/lighten. Do you want? asked Snusmumriken with the eyebrows. If! answered Mumintrollet with a little ear waving.

After agree on joining a night walk date with Snusmumriken to retrieve Trollkarlen's hat, Mumintrollet feels proud and happy, being thrilled for both his bro friend and the fireworks hat.

Original Swedish: Han kände sig stolt och glad att gå så här med Snusmumriken mitt i natten. Tidigare hade Snusmumriken alltid varit ensam på sina nattvandringar. My English translation: He felt proud and happy to go like this with Snusmumriken in the middle of the night. Previously Snusmumriken had always been alone on his night walks.

After retrieving the hat they decided to hide it in Sniff's cave. It's ambiguous if they invite Sniff with their secret of keeping the hat beyond just discussion. Mumintrollet said they couldn't hide the hat inside nor nearby Muminhuset which Snusmumriken suggests Sniff's cave. Mumintrollet told Snusmumriken they had to invite Sniff for their secret which Snusmumriken agrees but also mention that Sniff might not be as good with keeping such large secrets. Mumintrollet told Snusmumriken this is the first time he ever kept secrets from his parents.

Snusmumriken's first departure

The start of the last chapter mirrors the start of the first chapter with Mumintrollet noticing Snusmumriken's bed is empty early in the morning while the other still sleeps and they hang out at the bridge at dawn. This time Snusmumriken whistle to Mumintrollet to hang out the last time with reed boats before departure with the atmosphere is more melancholic and bittersweet.

Original Swedish: Så vände han på huvudet och såg att Snusmumrikens säng var tom. Och i detsamma hörde han den hemliga signalen under fönstret, en lång vissling och två korta vilket betyder: Och vad har du för planer idag? Mumintrollet hoppade ur sängen och tittade ut. Trädgården låg ännu i skugga och det var svalt. Och där stod Snusmumriken och väntade. Jo-ho, ropade Mumintrollet, men mycket sakta för att inte väcka nån, och så klättrade han nerför repstegen. Hej, sa han. Hej, hej, sa Snusmumriken. My English translation: Then he turned his head and saw that Snusmumriken's bed was empty And at the same time he heard the secret signal underneath the window, a long whistle and two short ones which means: And what have you for plans today? Mumintrollet jumped out of the bed and looked outside. The garden was still in the shade and it was cool. And there stod Snusmumriken and waited. Jo-ho, called Mumintrollet, but very slowly to not wake anyone, and then he climbed down the rope-ladder. Hey, he said. Hey, hey, said Snusmumriken.

Apparently, Snusmumriken continue sleeping at their room at the end of summer for a while. As mentioned above during the night walks he was never ever intended to sleep indoors anymore during that part of summer. However that could just be Mumintrollet's subjective thoughts again as the shifting dynamic 3rd person narration are often unreliable and reflects the characters' subjective psyche, mood and worldview. He might felt like Snusmumriken wouldn't return to their room when he start preferring sleeping outdoors with his tent during start or mid-summer. Snusmumriken returned to sleep at their room when the community felt threatened by Mårran.

Original Swedish: Just så här satt vi våras. Vi hade vaknat ur vintersömnen och det var den första dan. Alla de andra sov än. Snusmumriken nickade. My English translation: It was just like this we sat at spring. We had woken up from our winter slumber and it was the first day. Everyone else were still asleep. Snusmumriken nodded.

As mentioned before, the autumn departure scene resembles the spring awakening scene which Mumintrollet pointed out here.

Original Swedish: Snusmumriken suckade. Du talade om planer? sa Mumintrollet. Har du själv? Ja, sa Snusmumriken. Jag har en plan. Men det är en av de ensamma, du vet. Mumintrollet tittade mycket länge på honom. Sen sa han: Du tänker ge dig av. Snusmumriken nickade. My English translation: Snusmumriken sighed. You talked about plans? said Mumintrollet. Do you have it yourself? Yeah, said Snusmumriken. I have one plan. But it's about the lonely ones, you know. Mumintrollet looked at him for a very long time. Then he said: You are about to depart. Snusmumriken nodded.

I think Snusmumriken here sighs for having mixed feelings about the departure. He's restless with wander lust so he really desperately wants to wander alone as he used to do but at the same time going to miss Mumintrollet, the others and his home Mumindalen. That was seen in later books.

It also appears that Mumintrollet and Snusmumriken had discussed about this before off-page or Mumintrollet being really great at knowing what his best friend wants and about to do.

Original Swedish: När far du? frågade Mumintrollet. Nu genast! sa Snusmumriken och slängde alla vassbåtarna i vattnet på en gång. My English translation: When are you traveling/leaving? asked Mumintrollet. Now immediately! said Snusumriken and threw all reed boats into the water at once.

Snusmumriken here is very desperate but also seems to not wanting much discussion about the departure. Mumintrollet seems to have notice it and therefore being cautious since that's something emotionally sensitive to Snusmumriken. As mentioned when regarding to letters in later books (that next part will cover), Snusmumriken has a very specific preference in how they should express during departure of keeping things simplistic, factual, optimistic and fun with no visible sorrow which Mumintrollet fully respect. Being clingy would just be bothersome to Snusmumriken. Ironically enough, Mumintrollet's dedication, loyalty and respect to Snusmumriken paradoxically makes Snusmumriken miss him more and have internal conflict with himself and his non-attachment values. Tove Jansson many times states that Snusmumriken only returns so long you don't push him too much.

Original Swedish: Mumintrollet stod och tittade på medan Snusmumriken packade ihop tältet. Stannar du länge borta? frågade han. Nej, sa Snusmumriken. Första vårdag är jag här igen och visslar under fönstret. Ett år går så fort! Ja, sa Mumintrollet. Hej då. Hej, hej, sa Snusmumriken. Mumintrollet stannade kvar på bron. Han såg Snusmumriken bli mindre och mindre och slutligen försvinna bland björkar och äppelträd. Men om en stund hörde han munharmonikan. Snusmumriken spelade »Alla små djur slår rosett på sin svans». Nu är han glad, tänkte Mumintrollet. Musiken blev allt svagare och till slut var det alldeles tyst. My English translation: Mumintrollet stod and watched while Snusmumriken packed up the tent. Will you be gone for long? he asked. No, said Snusmumriken. First spring day I'm here again and whistle underneath the window. One year goes so fast! Yeah, said Mumintrollet. Goodbye. Bye, bye, said Snusmumriken. Mumintrollet stayed on the bridge. He saw Snusmumriken become smaller and smaller and eventually disappeared amongst birches and apple trees. But in a moment he heard the harmonica. Snusmumriken played »All small animals ties bows on their tails». Now he's happy, Mumintrollet thought. The music became weaker and eventually it was completely quiet.

You notice that Mumintrollet only asks simple practical questions like when Snusmumriken will depart and if Snusmumriken will be gone for long while recognizing Snusmumriken's happiness at the end.

Mumintrollet's longing and emotional modesty around others

Tofslan trying to comfort Mumintrollet while he trying to hold back his sorrow when announcing Snusmumriken's first departure to Tofslan & Vifslan.

(When I mean "modesty" in this context, I meant the Oxford and Wiktionary definition that includes self-discipline/control of constraint to show what's considered "excessive/exaggerated" emotions/expressions/behaviors, not just physical appearances. Various cultures and individuals have different views on this form of modesty. In generally, East Asia and Europe might be less looser than in America. In the past it's often stricter. Adults, especially men, in general have often higher stricter expectation of emotional modesty in most cultures).

After Snusmumriken's departure, Mumintrollet kept expressing melancholy despite knowing better believing it's for his best. He denies his sadness or frame it as just minor that he doesn't want to mention while still ironically explains it immediately afterwards. This is rather common response for unwanted emotions or trying to constrain vulnerability for modesty and not focus too much negativity or put much attention to it but still show it anyway since you deep down still want to let it be known to others. Mumintrollet also do this rather frequently for other things so it's not only for Snusmumriken.

He start first with meeting Tofslan and Vifslan [F you with your bizarre English names turning Tove's avatar into male!] who are huddled together under the sun for warmth (aww!). They noticing Mumintrollet being sad and Toflsan suggest Mumintrollet to kiss Tofslan's nose to cheer him up which is the first instance of a nose-kiss in the whole book series (a friendly gesture exclusively used between friends and families often used for comfort, joy, ceremonies or departure).

Swedish original: Har du gråtslat? frågade Vifslan. Äsch, sa Mumintrollet. Snusmumriken har gett sig av. Så tråksligt, sa Tofslan medlidsamt. Kan det grädsla dig lite om du får pussla Tofslan på noslan? Mumintrollet pussade Tofslan vänligt på nosen men inte såg han gladare ut för det. My English translation: Have you been cryin'-sla? asked Vifslan. Nah, said Mumintrollet. Snusmumriken has left. So sad-sla, said Tofslan compassionately. Would it cheer-sla you a little if you kiss-sla Tofslan on the nose-sla? Mumintrollet kissed Tofslan on the nose but he dosen't look happier for it.

Afterwards, Tofslan and Vifslan decided instead to invite Mumintrollet their hideout at the hedge with ambiguously "found" (or stolen) lost items. There they finally show the secret of what's inside their suitcase the whole time which is Kungsrubinen [The King Ruby]. Mumintrollet wishes that Snusmumriken was there to experience the moment together.

After exiting the hedge, Snorkfröken [Snorkmaiden] playfully sneaks up to Mumintrollet to surprise him. She shows her new hair that have grown out after previous one got burnt from Hattifnattarna at their island. However Mumintrollet is too low to react much which Snorkfröken asked what's the matter. (More info about the scene can be found at my Valentines post linked above)

Swedish original: Du tänker på nånting annat, sa Snorksystern. Till exempel vad? Min morgonros, det kan jag inte tala om, sa Mumintrollet. Men min hjärta är tungt i mig, för Snusmumriken har rest sin väg. My English translation: You're thinking about something else, said Snorksystern. For example what? My morning rose, I couldn't tell you about it, said Mumintrollet. But my heart is heavy inside me, because Snusmumrilen have traveled away.

Snorkfröken was surprise that Snusmumriken departed while Mumintrollet explained further that Snusmumriken woke up no other than him to say farewell.

Afterwards they sat silently for a while until Snorken and Sniff appears.

Swedish original: Hallå, sa Snorkfröken. Vet ni att Snusmumriken har rest söderut? Utan mig! sa Sniff upprörd. Man måste vara ensam ibland, sa Mumintrollet. Du är för liten att förstå det än. My English translation: Hey, said Snorkfröken. Did you know that Snusmumriken is traveling south? Without me! said Sniff upsettingly. One must be alone sometimes, said Mumintrollet. You're too little/young to understand it yet.

Sniff is one of the few characters not understanding solitude when most characters do (as a norm). If it was normal children's book, they would explain more about solitude (already really challenging topic to teach young children about as they would more likely understand the more negative literal physical loneness) but Mumintrollet just dismisses with telling Sniff he's too little (Tove Jansson frequently stating just really hates teaching clear easy morals to kids. Her books were originally intended for none other but herself, likely to progress her adult thoughts in a nostalgic way).

From longing to expectation

Mumintrollet making a speech in honor of Snusmumriken at the party.

The community threw a party inviting the entire valley (no, not the entire main cast as more than half of them haven't been introduced yet) to celebrating Tofslan and Vifslan for finding Muminmamman's bag. Mumintrollet makes a speech in honor of Snusmumriken wishing his wellbeing and happiness.

Original Swedish: Nu utbringar jag skålen för Snusmumriken som i natt vandrar söderut, ensam, men säkert lika lycklig som vi. Låt oss önska honom en god tältplats och ett lätt hjärta! Och på nytt höjde hela dalen sina glas. Du talade bra, sa Snorkfröken när Mumintrollet hade satt sig igen. Javars, sa Mumintrollet blygsam. Men jag hade tänkt ut det på förhand! My English translation: Now I raise a toast for Snusmumriken who tonight wander south, alone, but probably equally happy as we. Let us wish him a good tent site and a light heart! You spoke well, said Snorkfröken when Mumintrollet sat down again. Well, Mumintrollet said shyly. But I had thought about it beforehand!

After Tofslan & Vifslan shown Kungsrubinen at the party, the other characters remembers memories from previous events of the book. Mumintrollet thought about the night walks with Snusmumriken.

During the scene of Trollkarlen granting wishes, Trollkarlen suggest that Muminmamman begin.

Original Swedish: Mumintrollets mamma tvekade lite. Ska det vara saker som syns? frågade hon, eller ideér. Ifall herrn förstår vad jag menar. Jovisst, sa Trollkarlen. Saker är lättare förstås men det går nog med ideér också. Då skulle jag bra gärna vilja att Mumintrollet inte sörjde efter Snusmumriken längre, sa Muminmamman. Jag visste inte att det syntes på mig, sa Mumintrollet och blev röd om nosen. Men Trollkarlen viftade ett slag med sin mantel och strax flög melankolin ut ur Mumintrollets hjärta. Hans längtan blev bara förväntan och det kändes mycket bättre. My English translation: Mumintrollet's mother hesitate a bit. Should it be things that are visible? she asked, or ideas. In case mister understand what I mean. Indeed, said Trollkarlen. Things are easier of course but ideas probably works too. Then I would gladly want Mumintrollet not mourn over Snusmumriken anymore, said Muminmamman. I didn't knew it was visible on me, said Mumintrollet and became red around the nose. But Trollkarlen waved a bit with his mantle and soon flew the melancholy out of Mumintrollet's heart. His longing becomes just expectation and it felt much better.

I think that Mumintrollet blushes because of surprise and a bit embarrassment that his emotions or sorrow were visible to Muminmamman and/or anyone else, not that he's having strong emotions for Snusmumriken itself. As mentioned above, it's more about modesty around one's emotional vulnerability. He dosen't want to show that he's actually depressed all the time however the others like Muminmamman still notice. Trollkarlen turned Mumintrollet's melancholy (Tove Jansson's absolute favorite word) into more hopeful expectation and maturer anticipation to look forward to the next spring with more patience. It's likely temporary since Mumintrollet still feels sorrow and longing for Snusmumriken traveling south in later books.

The dinner table flying away to Snusmumriken as a gift from Mumintrollet by Trollkarlen's magic.

Immediately after, Mumintrollet wants to send the whole freaking dinning table at Snusmumriken as his wish.

Original Swedish: Jag har en idé! ropade Mumintrollet. Snälla Trollkarl, låt hela matbordet med allt vad där är flyga iväg till Snusmumriken, var han än finns nu! My English translation: I have an idea! called Mumintrollet. Please Trollkarl, let the whole dinning table with everything there is fly away to Snusmumriken, wherever he is now!

It seems like Mumintrollet couldn't think much what to gift Snusmumriken so he decide to gift the whole table so that Snusmumriken could have a feast.

Mumin just is full of intentionally incomplete non-resolved instances like this. I could now imagine Snusmumriken would be scared shitless seeing a large flying table flying towards him. Or maybe he just got knocked over and woke up at the hospital with only Bisamråttan's meaningless book that came with it becoming Mumintrollet's only "gift" left by accident to survive hospital boredom. (I did made a satirical follow-up but I don't want to show in this post).

The fate of Snusmumriken's bed and the discontinuation of the books

Farlig Midsommar is abrupt discontinuation and the community that lived in Muminhuset, Hemulen the collector, Snorken, Tofslan & Vifslan and Bisamråttan never makes appearance ever again with no explanation.

It was hinted in the next book Muminpappans bravader 1950 that Snusmumriken continued to at least live in Muminhuset as Muminpappan gifts Snusmumriken the shark tooth on Snusmumriken's bed that his father Joxaren loved. The whole shark tooth scene have been heavily altered in the extended revisited Muminpappans memoarer 1968 (too much to cover here) and mention of Snusmumriken's bed was removed so that Muminpappan gifts Snusmumriken the shark tooth directly after accidentally making Snusmumriken upset. Snusmumriken's bed is one of the hints that Tove Jansson initially intended the book series should have consistent worldbuilding as the four first books had references to each other however immediately discontinued with Farlig midsommar (as briefly discussed in my Valentine post), later books and especially the revisited versions. Now the book series are independent stories with no specific connection between them just like Super Mario, Donald Duck comics and The Smurfs. Hell, not even the short stories within the anthology book Det osynliga barnet (the 7st book) have clear continuities. The only later books that have clear connection were the two last ones happening at the same time as each other.

So far I have only seen the Polish stop-motion series and that cursed Soviet cut-out adaptation of Trollkarlens hatt depicting them as roommates but there might be more less-known adaptations of Trollkarlens hatt.

Unfortunately we never see them being roommates anymore. In vårvisan short story, Snusmumriken told Ti-ti-oo that he would visit Mumintrollet. Mumindalen however is still recognized as his home that explains why he spend time there rest of the year.

My workload

Draft used when designing the scene above while experimenting with digital tools like watercolor for the background and pastels for the bridge.

I'm awful at planing (has about 20 drafts and 2 documents with over 27 000 words). I have also delayed a lot for still feeling very weak and easily exhausted from surgery that made me sleep a lot and difficult to think. I always want to make artworks for my posts that also take time (one of the main reason for finished written drafts to not be released beside polish the presentations).

I'm also start drafting a lot such as a literary analysis of Tooticki's role in Trollvinter 1957 and her close friendship with Mumintrollet. Also start drafting comparison of the stoned island in Pappan och havet with Klovharun (just discover parallels with the relationships and disputes over the islands between Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä and Muminpappan & Muminmamman). Almost finished translating Tove Jansson's entire personal love song collection for Vivica Bandler called "Till min dam" as found in Detta är min målarsång 2025 (working right now with analysis and artwork for these).

But of course I have been really busy with various other things unrelated to Mumin. I also run a separate account for various other works on Instagram like animation but I don't want to associate Mumin with my normal account really, or at least not yet.

I really enjoy depict Mumintrollet and Snusmumriken together so I want to depict more artwork and divide this post into smaller ones in the future with artwork attached.

View the part 2 of my literary analysis HERE!