Kuusela explains, “Success meant that the omen-seeker could acquire knowledge of the following year it was a ritual that sought answers regarding the unbearable uncertainty of being.” And so, on the return trip home, one might receive omens about how next year’s harvest, whether there would be illness or death, or if a budding romance loomed on the horizon. Purposeful walkers might undertake the journey to increase their luck in the coming year or in hopes of learning practical magic. “A year walker was not allowed to laugh, stray from the path, or look back, and he or she needed to be prepared to see things that could seem comical, alarming, or baneful,” reveals Tommy Kuusela, a researcher in Uppsala, Sweden, who has studied 18th-century manuscripts and hundreds of archived records. Finally, the walk usually progressed in a leftwards direction and included circling something-such as a church or other building―a specified number of times. It was done at midnight and must conclude before dawn. In English, the practice can loosely be translated as “year walk.” Not walking for a year, mind you, but rather a walk that was done annually.Īlthough the specific tasks varied widely depending on where and when one lived, there were some constants. Roots of the Årsgång Traditionįolklorists note the heyday of årsgång happened from the 17th century through the early 20th century, most prominently in southern Sweden. Traditionally practiced on the eve of various holidays, it seemed like the perfect New Year’s Eve inspiration for this year-gone-awry. I landed on the practice of årsgång, a ritual intended to unveil what the future might bring. So, I went looking for a new practice that was kinder to my waistline than a Swedish pancake fest and kinder to my wallet than a trip to Ikea. Recently coming across an old photo of her, I decided to recover my Swedish heritage. Before each meal, she would stand and offer a short prayer, “I Jesu namn till bords vi gå, välsigna Gud den mat vi få.” Yet, try as we might, neither my sister nor I could grow that hair or pronounce those words. We also coveted her sing-song accent-which reminded us of the Swedish chef from the Muppets. When visiting her in rural Iowa during my childhood, my sister and I would sneak up her back stairs to watch Aunt Aimee remove a seemingly unending amount of bobby pins each night, unleashing waist-long locks we envied. Yet my Swedish side has always been a bit elusive even to me―especially since my great aunt Aimee died.Īimee Adelaide Möllenhoff was a statuesque woman with dark black hair, always wrapped in a tight bun. Most people rightly guess I’m part Scottish since I wear a tartan kilt for clergy duties and still pull off a reasonable Highland Fling. You’d never know it from my Midwestern-twang-meets-New-York-sass dialect. According to my ancestry report, I’m 29.6 percent Swedish.
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