Tag Archives: Valdres Samband

Bookselling, Reading, The Press

The Labors of Lars (plus a personal appearance)

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I look like this, according to legend, when I lecture.

From time to time, events in what’s laughingly known as my working life mean I have to alter my habits on this blog.

Or, to put it less pompously, I’ve got work (some of it even for money) that may – occasionally – keep me from posting here, without notice, for a while.

This Thursday, at 7:00 p.m., for instance, I’ll be speaking on Viking Legacy to Sagatun Lodge of the Sons of Norway, Brainerd, Minnesota. I think they meet at Trinity Lutheran Church, though such information is surprisingly difficult to learn from online sources. (The reason I don’t have the address myself is because someone’s generously taking me to dinner beforehand, and we’ll drive from there. But I think it’s Trinity Lutheran.)

I expect that if you’re in the area you’ll be welcome, even if you’re not a member of the lodge. Or Norwegian. Or all that good-looking.

What else am I doing? Oh yes, I have an agreement to write an article on the new Norwegian Nobel Laureate for Literature, Jon Fosse. It’s for a periodical which I will not name at this point, in case they don’t want to be publicly associated with me. But I have to read Fosse’s Septology, which is a very long book. I have no idea what I’ll blog about while I’m working my way through that unusual (but fascinating) work. We’ll see.

Also, I have to learn how to use Adobe Live Desk so I can produce a newsletter for the Valdres Samband’s (an organization of descendants of immigrants from the Norwegian region of Valdres) newsletter. Also a paying job.

And I have some translation to do for the Georg Sverdrup Society. They don’t pay money, but I think I go to Hell if I don’t deliver.

I’ve been loafing all summer, trying to drum up work, and now the stuff is falling on my head in the manner of Burt Bacharach’s raindrops. I just translated 11 pages of Norwegian for an author on a two-day deadline, and I got paid for that too.

And someday, like King Arthur, the script translation work may return from Avalon.

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Lag-rolling

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Your humble correspondent is at loose ends tonight. Haven’t finished reading my next book for reviewing. Tomorrow I’m driving up to Fargo, so I can speak to the Flere Lag Stevne (Several Society Gathering). It’s an assembly of bygdelags, which are organizations of descendants of immigrants from particular regions of Norway. They do genealogy and try to preserve traditions. Every lag holds a stevne annually, but some now pitch in and do their stevnes together. This group used to be the Tre (Three) Lag Stevne, but others have joined in this year, so now it’s the Flere Lag Stevne. And I’ll be giving a lecture on my trip to Norway last year to visit the Hafrsfjord Jubilee. It’s the third time I’ve lectured for them.

And, oh yes, I’ll be selling books.

Actually, I’ve just been hired as the editor of the magazine of the Valdres Samband – which is a lag, but not one of the lags at this particular stevne. But I expect I’ll be attending their stevne in the future. They’re the oldest lag in America. Being their editor won’t make me rich but it pays a little, and it’s work I believe I can do decently.

Above, a short video showcasing the work of the Norwegian painter Adolph Tidemand (1814-1876), who is famed for romanticizing the lives of Norwegian peasants. It seems a little sentimental to us today, but at the time it was a social breakthrough – poor people were acquiring some dignity in the eyes of the world. The Haugean movement, of which I wrote recently, had a lot to do with that.

Tidemand’s most famous painting is the one in this video where a man stands on a stool, preaching to a group in a house. It’s called “The Haugeans,” and the preacher seems to be Hauge himself.

You’ll note several paintings featuring young women in bunads (national folk costumes) with golden crowns. These are bridal crowns, a Norwegian tradition. Every bride got to be a queen for a day in Norway.

Probably less so for the remainder of her life.