Nomad notes: Valborg night at Karlbergsgård. // Stockholm-Gnesta.

Valborg night at Karlbergsgård. 

Stockholm-Gnesta. 

My first Valborg night in Sweden happened at Karlbergsgård, a place which later became close to my heart, my home, my family. After the crazy fun and colourful Love parade (Fred-och Kärlek tåget) event in Stockholm, hitchhiked out to Karlbergsgård. I still remember this as one of the heaviest hitchhikes, because my backpack was loaded with 20x1l beers from Latvia! When I took the ferry back to Sweden, in late April, I saw that one of the best Latvian beers was sold in a huge box for 20euros and as I knew I am coming to celebrate Valborg here, couldn't refuse to not buy as a guest's gift. It was a good idea, but bad in logistics... :D Two beers exploded on the way to the farm... :)

Valborg night seemed calm, I liked the idea that it was as a "working day", people were helping out with different garden/farm errands and then in the evening, it was music, beer, food, chat and laughter, and the big campfire!

It is a very old Swedish tradition, which is still celebrated until this day, but it's not only Swedish. It's also in Baltic countries, in Latvia, too, but only Swedish really have kept it as an event. In Latvia, it's often the big clean-up day (or few days before), and perhaps may be very folk-culture related groups of people celebrate it, but like in Sweden when it's so popular, itäs not anywhere else that way, indeed. 

Tradition's meaning used to be all about scaring away witches and bad spirits through lighting big fires (majbrasor - bonfires) for protection and making a lot of sounds to scare off evil forces. Currently, not really this happens, but maybe the Lund Valborg night has a lot of screaming happening:) In Lund is the biggest and the messiest, I have never gone there because of the loud, drunken crowd. Only celebrated when I was in farms. So, perhaps, currently we celebrate the Valborg as "the spring has arrived" which Swedish also does when it's Easter, but the actual Spring has arrived celebration is 20th March, well, nowadays mostly people have no idea what for and why they celebrate something, let's just have fun and enjoy, right? :)

Text is written in 2019 April, photos and event are from 2013 April.