A Trip to Kalmar: Part I
My great-grandfather Ernest emigrated to Boston from Sweden, but I never knew him. I hardly knew he existed. My grandfather was a quiet man and never told me a single thing about his parents. Sometime in high school was the first time I considered how much I liked the idea that I could trace my last name (and a slice of my genetic makeup) to one particular country. And not just any country, but a country with a claim to two things that delight me: meatballs and vikings.
I don’t need to explain my love for Swedish meatballs. That should go without saying. As for vikings, though I realize they’re basically glorified murderers and thieves, and they raided during a rather short slice of history, one has to admit they evoke a stirring sense of adventure–basically a cross between pirates and Norse mythology. Picture Thor peering into an icy ocean spray as he clings with one hand to the starboard rail and the other to a warhammer. He grips the blade of a dagger between his teeth, snarling in defiance of storm and sea. Some people, when they think of Sweden, think of IKEA and Socialism. I think of warhammers. And meatballs.
Several years ago I was blessed to meet a few guys from Sweden who ended up working really hard to make a way for me to play a few shows there. I called my dad, who was happy to hear I would be singing my songs in the Fatherland. (My grandfather, had he been alive, might have smiled and grunted.) I discovered that my great-grandfather was born in a town called Kalmar. The name was perfect. It sounded like a place in one of the fantasy novels I loved to read when I was a boy, and I promptly changed Tink Igiby’s name. Kalmar Wingfeather was born.
That first visit to Sweden was a joy. I was surprised how much the Swedes were impressed by and interested in my small claim to Swedish blood. They often asked where my roots were, and when I told them “Kalmar” they smiled and nodded because they knew the place–a town on the southeastern coast of their country where stands one of Sweden’s old castles. Their next question was always, “Will you have time to go there?” and my answer was, sadly, no.
Near the end of that first trip I walked through old town Stockholm, the oldest part of the city, where the narrow streets look and feel the way an old European city ought to look and feel: alleyways, cobblestones, arch-topped wooden doors, stone gates, shingles, foot traffic, merchants peddling ice cream and artwork and little collectible vikings. I stumbled on a store that sold old maps and prints. They hung from the walls and bore the names of Swedish provinces and villages: Warberg, Malmo, Gotland–all written in fine Olde Worlde scripts.
It was in this little shop in Stockholm that I first saw Kalmar Castle. I bought two rare prints, one from 1840, the other 1870. Both were finely detailed, softly colored, and depicted a stout, bold castle with its back to the sea. The land around the castle was green and lined with trees and tumbledown stone walls. In one of the pictures a man and woman in 19th century attire stand near a rock wall and converse, probably about harvest time or the fitful weather or the birth of a neighbor’s foal.
Those pictures are now in nice frames and hang in my house in Nashville, little shrines to an old way of life, reminders of the land where my forefathers fought and farmed (and, perhaps, set out to pillage lower Europe). Granted, I have just as much Irish, English, and German roots as Swedish, but not nearly as recent as the late 1800’s, and those other ancestors and I don’t share a surname. So if I had to pick one to get excited about, it would be the Swedish branch.
Last week I finally set foot in Kalmar. It was my fourth tour of Sweden, and this time my friends managed to book me a show in this little town. I was greeted at the airport by two women from the church who drove me to my hotel–but not before pointing out first the library where I’d research town records the next morning, then just a few hundred yards from the street, the castle. For five years I’ve looked at those 150 year old prints of this place, wondering how much had changed, wishing I could run my hands over those ancient walls. I admit, it feels silly to be so drawn to a place to which I have so little claim. But when I saw it I couldn’t deny myself a grin. “Ah, there it is,” I whispered.
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
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Really nice writing, Andrew……your writing has a way of drawing your reader into the depths of your feelings about Kalmar……which is what good writers do.
Keep on keeping on. Your ministry blesses me every day in some way.
Stirring.
You’ve given me a renewed desire to visit Italy someday (despite my own respectable smattering of English/Irish/Dutch/German).
Next time you go to Kalmar, maybe you can ask to spend a day at the elementary school there to see what your life would have been like had your descendants stayed. We did that in Germany, and it was very interesting. We didn’t know the language well, but about halfway into one particular block of instruction we recognized, “Samuel, Samuel!” “Heir bin Ich!”…At a public school in Germany, the children were being taught the bible for 11/2 hours. For English class, the instructor played, “In the Jungle” while a child flipped a spiral notebook to a photo of choice, an animal in which the children were to put the name of it into the song as they sang it with the English pronunciation, and then they played “Simon Says”- woe be unto the poor soul who didn’t know his English well and was left sitting at his desk while the others stood on their chairs with their left elbows skyward. No lined paper there- only graph paper, and even the longest division problems were done without the writing of remainders on the chalkboard (the children use their fingers to keep track of them.) And yet, some things were delightfully similar on the other side of the planet. There were two little boys in the back of the room, for example, who would watch for the moment their teacher would turn their back to write for a while on the chalkboard, and out came their hands under the table… playing rock, paper, scissors.
Good for you Andrew, what a great priviledge to do that.
Sorry AP, the Norwegians make a much better meatball. But despite that, it sounds like an awesome trip. I wish I had some kind of clear tie to my history, but I’m just a Dutch/German mutt.
AP, have you read Lars Walker’s The Year of the Warrior? If you’re a Viking afficianado, you’ll almost certainly like it.
I have a feeling that we’re getting an insight into the future picture of the ruins of Anniera in an upcoming Wingfeather Saga book…a ruined castle facing the sea…yeah….
Beautiful. Both the sentiment and the castle. I like how you took the picture above from the same view as the painting. Nicely done. I’ve often thought about tracing my Belgian roots to see if I’m related to Jean Claude Van Damme. But then I realize that no matter what the outcome of the research, I’d probably be disappointed.
Great blog, son! I’m looking fwd to our being able to get caught up with you about your trip to Kalmar and to the library for some research. I still correspond a little with Samuel on FB. He seems like a great guy!
If you like vikings and thoughtful stories, I would recommend the Icelandic saga “Njal’s Saga.” I’m not sure there is a lot of Swedish stuff there, but it may be indirectly related.
Tis a great read about law and wisdom and viking action… and in a surprise move, about halfway through, all of Iceland comes to Christ at once at their yearly Althing. Seriously. A Viking Missionary comes out of nowhere to kick some butt and preach the gospel, it is fantastic.
Lots of action and romance and courtroom drama and intrigue. Just blow by the names with 17 letters without a vowel and you’ll be fine.
In the end, it is a story about change and redemption. It makes me sad that almost no one in our school system has ever even heard of Njal, or Flosi the saga’s unlikely hero, or Gunnar (who could jump as far backward as he could forward). In an axe fight, that might be a bigger deal than you think.
Sure, it isn’t as much fun as The Grapes of Wrath, but if you like vikings and want a page turner, Njal has the stuff.
While Viking does mean pirate, those coming from Sweden are known primarily for trade established in the area now known as the Ukraine. The tribe of Vikings that settled in the region were known as The Rus and they largely originated in what is now known as Sweden. From them the nation of Russia got its name.
What’s more, the Russian royal dynasty comes from this group of interlopers. The descendants of Vladimir the Great, a Norman-Rus illegitimate son to the ruler of Kiev, ruled the Russian empire in an unbroken line for six centuries.
Vladimir is also credited with determining the direction of Christianity in the region through his conversion to the Eastern Orthodox faith. There are some interesting stories regarding martyrs that led to his conversion, but it was probably mostly about politics and power.
But you have to hand it to those Vikes. They may have started as thieves and plunderers, but they were amazing explorers and played an integral role in the establishment of two major European empires (the British one being the other).
If walls could talk, I imagine that castle would tell some stories… Thanks for telling us your stories in the Wingfeather Saga.
Andrew,
Thanks for sharing this story about your family history.
I grew up in Minnesota, the land of 10 million Swedish mosquitoes, so I know the wonder and delectabiltiy of Swedish meatballs.
Looking forward to hearing more…
-Robert