PRE-AW Alfred Johansson's Reminiscences

Collection

Identifier: OPVSIE_mss217

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This document contains two pages of reminiscences and one page of information about the area, buildings, and owners of the St. Svenstorp home.

Dates

1930

Creator

Johansson, Alfred (Person)

Biographical / Historical

Alfred Johansson was born in 1863 in Stora Svenstorp, Sweden. In 1930 he shared memories about his childhood and family with his grandson. He remembered Christmas traditions such as special foods as compared to the daily diet, going to church, and also burial rituals and surrounding superstitions of individuals who die by suicide. He talks about common farming superstitions, citing an anecdote of changing the placement of an axe to bring luck to the dairy calf in hope of receiving milk. His mother helped out with the sowing of the fields in spring and it was tradition to bring out special Christmas bread to mark the beginning of the sowing season. The family did threshing on the farm with flails.

Extent

Three Sheets

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

A description of farm life in Sweden in the late 1800s as told by Alfred Johansson (born 1863). He recalls Christmas, St. Knut's Day (January 13) and St. Erik's Day (May 18), funeral customs, and accounts of various traditions and superstitions observed by people in rural Sweden. These included putting a snake into the cowshed for luck, and crossing the shafts of the ploughs, etc. used to work the fields in order to ward off witchcraft.