Since discovering my Norwegian roots, I’ve been on the lookout for news from my ancestral hjemland (that’s “homeland” in Norwegian. It appears that all that’s required to dominate Norwegian is adding a “j” somewhere in a normal English word, and swapping out a vowel.)
Interestingly enough, Norway was recently in the news. They just had an election, as a matter of fact. And apparently if I had any illusions of returning to the land of my Viking forefathers, well, I can just dritt og dra!
According to the Globe:
An anti-immigrant populist party laid claim to a major role in oil-rich Norway’s government for the first time on Tuesday after a centre-right alliance won a landslide general election victory to oust a Labour administration.
Anti-immigrant, you say? Hmmm. That doesn’t sound too good. Luckily:
In immigration, Norway’s hands are tied by international treaties, which limit its room for manoeuvre. The economy needs new workers as unemployment is less than 3 percent and a steady influx of migrants keeps the labour market from overheating.
Whew. Thank the Norse god Loki for those international treaties, ja?
I also came across this infectious little gem of a head scratcher by a pair of Norwegian variety show brothers, Bård and Vegard Ylvisåker.
Now, I know that this has been all over the Interwebs in the past week, but let’s be real: it isn’t really a thing unless I’ve commented on it. Am I right? High five! No? Leaving me hanging, huh? That’s fair.
Anyway, I love, love, love this video. All of it – the production values, the choreography, the costumes, the lyrics. The bit about the talking to the horse in morse code sends me into giggles. “An angel in disguise?” Peals of hysteria.
But I admit, the video made me pause and wonder: what the hell does a fox sound like?
Several years ago, my personal landlord-lover XFE and I actually lived in an apartment adjacent to a nature preserve. And there were indeed foxes in that preserve. We could sit on our tiny third-floor balcony and see them scurrying in the brush below us. It was a regular Jack Hanna: Northern Virginia edition up there. Probably don’t even need go on safari to Africa next year after all.
Sometimes, late at night, especially in the spring, we would hear, ahem, certain fox-friendliness noises, if you know what I mean. That noise was definitely canine-like.
But mostly they were pretty quiet and considerate neighbors. No “Wa-po-po-po-po-po-pow.” Maybe that’s because they weren’t Norwegian foxes.
Man, I hope insanity isn’t an ancestral Norwegian trait that maybe skips four generations or something.
And prior to Norway, your ancestors were from Germany, “Arentz” (or its original spelling) is supposedly German for Doctor, or something, and family stories say that two doctors immigrated to Norway from Germany during a plague, to help the citizens, and at least one stayed and married a Norwegian,,,,,, thus us