The Green Mill Murder - TV vs Book

Phryne

The Green Mill Murder is one of my favourite episodes of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and also turned out to be one of my favourite out of the Phryne Fisher books I have read so far. There are some differences in the plot between the two versions that I intend to talk about here. 
The TV adaptation is loaded with different social topics like interracial marriages and homosexuality. The murder also takes a more central role in the plot there than in the book. The same method is used for the killing of Leonard Stevens (Bernard Stevens in the book. - Seriously, what is up with all the changing of names between the media?!), but things might not have turned out as it was intended in the book. The fact that it also was pretty risky considering how many people could have got in the way is also acknowledged there.

Jack: "I don't know who has the more fanciful imagination. Rodgers for coming up with it or you for working it out."
Phryne: "Jack! Me, obviously!" 

Nerine

The character Nerineis much more awsome in the TV episode where she is already married to Ben Rodgerswhile in the book, she waits for her lost husband to die before commiting herself to him. 

Hugh Collins och Dot William's relationship however, is pretty well established in the book while in the TV episode, Hugh tries to master up the courage to ask her to the Firemen and policemen's ball. 

"As far as I'm concerned, everybody should be allowed to marry whomever they choose. Though personally, I'm not the marrying kind."

~Phryne Fisher

Jack Robinson has a rather more laid back role in the book than on TV and he gets a chance to both worry for Phryne and yell at her. At the end of the TV episode we also get our first more clear indication of what is called phrack by the fans when he looks at the mug shots Hugh takes of her. In the book he is introduced as: "Detective Inspector John 'Call me Jack, Miss Fisher, everyone does' Robinson", but I have to say that I do prefer how he is introduced in the TV episode. The camera is intended to be him and we hear him excuse himself as he walks through the crowd at the jazzclub The Green Mill up to Phryne and the dead body of Leonard Stevens. 

Jack excuses himself through the crowd at the Green Mill

While the TV show focuses on social issues, the book seems much more interested in the First world war (called The War to end War) and the effects it still had, ten years after it was finished on the people involved. (They bring up that homosexuality is a crime, but does not dwell as much into it as the TV episode does.) The character of Victor Freeman gets back from the war shell-shocked (Today we call it Posttraumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD). The TV series does tackle this subject as well. It is a recurrent theme in many episodes and we meet a lot of characters who suffer from it (There are even small hints that Jack might be one of them.) and Victor Freeman does move out into the wilderness because of it. It just does not deal with it so much in this particular episode. The book is far more thorough and Bert and Cec tell Phryne and Dot over dinner about their experiences during the war in both Gallipoli and Pozières. (There is a very good podcast about the former campaign by the Missed in history website.)

Because everyone else does,
I'm not commenting much on
the clothes. However I just
love this outfit!

Besides Phryne, the most interesting characters in the books are the three remaining members of the Freeman family. In the entry about the book, I did proclaim my love for Victor Freeman. He is a far more complex character in the book than on TV, but even though I find his mother horrible and appalling, I find her interesting. 

On TV they are all old friends of Phryne. Victor is an aviator and used to take Phryne up in his airplane. He also told his brother Charles, he was going to teach him how to fly, but then he left for the war and Charles is now trying to sell his plane off to Phryne. Contrary to his brother, book Charles is far more unpleasant. He is one of those people I talked about in my book entry that does not care for the things he has no understandings of or interest in. This has devastating results for himself.

Book Mrs Freeman is an extremely terrible person who abuses both of her sons. It is even hinted by Bobby Sullivan that she takes Charles to bed with her and Charles says that his mother has taken away his ability to love any other person. Neither her nor her husband (who is dead before the beginning of the book) seem to understand the seriousness of Victor's condition and Mrs Freeman also seems to turn both sons against each other. TV's Adele Freeman (I do not remember and have not been able to find any first name for her in the book.) is far nicer. A mild-tempered woman who seems loving, caring and understanding of both of her sons. Just like in the book, however, she does keep the fact that Victor is alive a secret from Charles.

I find certain similarities between Mrs Freeman and the character of Lydia Andrews in Cocaine Blues. They are both women who never have had the chance to live independently and provide for themselves. Mrs Freeman's husband also rather donated all the money to charity than putting his wife in charge of it. Both Lydia and Mrs Freeman feel they can do business better than their husbands and in the end they feel entitled to "go bad" because of it. This also makes them stand in stark contrast to book Eunice Henderson from Murder on the Ballarat train and not least Phryne herself.


The photo of Phryne in her flapper costume was borrowed here.

Andrew Lloyd Webber - Phantom of the Opera

Yesterday, I went to see the Swedish production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's famous musical Phantom of the Opera at the teather  The musical is based on the book Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux which was first published in 1910.

It tells the story of the opera in Paris in the 19th century where the young preformer Christine has been given song lessons by a mysterious figure for quite some time before the show starts.  As it turns out, the mysterious figure is the opera's notorious phantom who wants to replace the opera's star Carlotta with Christine.

The opera gets new owners and one of them turns out to be Christine's childhood friend Raoul, vicomte de Chagny. They fall in love and a love triangle occurs which more or less turns into a destruction for the opera and more or less everyone working there.

I find both the love story and the character of the phantom wonderfully complex.

He is an abused child and it is said not even his mother wanted anything to do with him. She only gave him a mask to cover up his deformed face. He was then trapped in a cage and was forced to travel around being shown of to people just because he was defigured. This aspect of him is what I find to be the main theme of the show. What happens to someone who has been abused his whole life?

I know there has been an increasing number of pop-cultural expressions in recent years that says that we always have a choice how to act and this is true to a certain extent. You can always choose to treat people badly. However, as for someone who has been abused his whole life, I do think it is important to actually think of it from another perspective. The phantom has always been mistreated. No one has ever been close to him and no one has probably ever loved him. The society at the time was extremely nasty to people who did not fit into the norms. His only lasting relationships seem to be the one he has with the ballet teacher Madame Giry and Christine. What is also important to know about the Phantom is that he does seem happy to keep a distance towards Christine. Loving her from afar so to speak. Christine also seems to trust him completely, believing he is the angel of music her dead father has promised would come to her. This, I would say, indicates that they have had at least a fairly good relationship up until the point where Raoul shows up.

Raoul at first seems to be a better choise than Phantom. He is confident and handsome. He is rich and has a title. He and Christine also has a history, but one that is further back in history when they were children. This is actually part of the problem I see with their relationship. It is actually explained by Raouls part in the song Think of me and the Swedish translation I would say captures it much better. The original is: "Long ago. It seems so long ago. How young and innocent we were. She may not remember me, but I remember her." The Swedish translation however is: "Vad hon ändrats. Hon är inte mer, den barndoms vän som lekt' med mig. Vi har inte setts på länge. Men nog minns jag dig." ("How she has changed. She is no longer the childhood friend who played with me. We have not seen each other for long, but I do remember you.") This I think is the main problem! They did know each other as children (and probably also had some feelings for each other back then). However, they have grown up now and as our identities change with experience and time, we are never the same people as adults as we were as children. Since there is literally no time for them to form trust and get to know each other (like Christine has with the Phantom), I do think they are more in love with the memory of the child version of each other than of each other.

The second problem I have with Raoul and Christine's relationship is the fact that he neither listens to her and feels himself entitled to decide everything for her. This shows an extreme amount of disrespect and is not a quality that establishes trust in a relationship. This too is very well exemplified by their first meeting in the show. She has just preformed and also seems to have made herself ready for bed when Raoul shows up. She tells her of her mysterious song teacher, but he is not at all interested in what she says. Instead he tells her that she has two minutes to get ready because they will go out. The same goes for when Raoul tells of his plan to capture (and kill) the Phantom during the performance of his Don Juan. She says she will not preform it, probably both because she knows it will not work and because it is obvious she cares for the Phantom. However, Raoul more or less forces her to do so.

The Phantom, on the other hand, does show a great matter more respect for her. As I said above, he is really content watching and loving her from afar. However, as he realises that Raoul is a big threat for Christine's attention, he is triggered to show himself to her. The main problem is that he does not know how to handle other people. This is why it all goes downhill. But the only time he hurts her physically, he also shows remorse afterwards. This is important and why I do feel like the Phantom is a far better partner for Christine than Raoul.

The photo of the programme was taken by myself before the show. The other was borrowed from here.

Fröken Frimans krig

Fröken Frimans krig (The War of Miss Friman) is a Swedish TV series written by Pernilla Oljelund and it has been sort of a christmas tradition. It tells the story of Dagmar Friman at the beginning of the 20th century. Together with her friends Kinna, Alma, Emmy and her sister-in-law Lottie she starts up the female cooperation Svenska hem (Swedish homes) selling groceries. They want to teach women about food and in the long run propagate for their right to vote.The third season has just been broadcasted and dwells a into the problem of prostitution and that prostituted women got to take all the blame for the spreading of sexually transmitted diseases.

Vad är det som är så skrämmande med tanken på att en kvinna kan ha ett värde och rättigheter precis som en man? (What is so scary about the thought of a woman having value and rights just like a man?)

~ Lottie

The plot is a fictional version of the real suffragette movement in Sweden and Svenska hem was a real all-female cooperation founded in 1905 and connected to this. Dagmar is a fictive version of one of its founder Anna Whitlock and among the stock owners was famous Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf. A lot of wholesalers during this period cheated, selling bad meat, milk and such to a better price which led to diseases being spread among the people in town.

This year, there was also a documentary made about the real Swedish suffragette women. Signe Bergman, Karolina Widerström, Ann Margret Holmgren, Frigga Carlberg and of course Anna Whitlock and broadcasted in connection to the show. All these women deserve blog entries in their own right, because they have such interesting stories and were all so very important. Therefore I cannot not recommend anyone understanding Swedish not to see it (The same goes for the TV series too.). However, how the production team have treated the scholars is appaling! They have not been mentioned at all and the production team does not really seem to understand the big problem with this. There is a Swedish proverb saying äras den som äras bör (honour the one who should be honoured) that seems fitting due to the situation.

Swedish land-owning women did actually have the right to vote between 1718 and 1772, but then we had to wait longer than any of our Nordic neighbours. The decision was made in the parliament on the 24th of May 1919. The first election where they could vote was therefore the one in 1921. So we might have been the last Nordic country to give women the right to vote, but we were the first one to get a professorial chair in Women's history and the first one to get it was fittingly enough Gunhild Kyle, the mother of the actress Sissela Kyle who plays Dagmar Friman.




Pictures were borrowed from here.

Terry Hayes - I am Pilgrim

I cannot recall anytime when I have been as confused by what to feel about a book as I was about I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes (I read the Swedish translation by Örjan Sjögren.).

The plot surrounds "the Pilgrim". He is a super rich white American secret agent traveling the world catching bad guys. His "archenemy" is an islamist that he has to capture. Both of their backgrounds are explored in detail. I mean, there are even backstories to the backstories!

I had a teacher once who had worked as a taxi driver. He sometimes told us anecdots about the clients he had had during those days and what he had learned about people from them. One of them, reagarding male and female conversation did I find particularly interesting for a description of the writing in I am Pilgrim.

My teacher said that, based on conversations he had overheard from the backseat of the taxi as he was driving people around he could decipher two types of conversations. One could generally be ascribed to men and the other to women. The male one can be seen as a pretty straight line (one topic). It might from time to time deviate from it, but always got back to that first line pretty soon afterwards. The female conversation however is rather unstructured, meaning women tend to jump much more between topics and might also be discussing many topics together at the same time. If ever they do go back to the original topic, it can take quite awhile, when every other subject has been discussed. Since he told my class this, I have thought about it watching others have conversations and often find it to be true. What is interesting about I am Pilgrim is that it is written rather much like a female conversation. There are a lot of different anecdots from different times in the main character and his archenemy's lives, not always told in chronological order and after a while you start wondering when it is ever going to return to the bathroom with the dead girl that opens up the entire book.

One of the back stories within the backstories turned out to be the most interesting part of the book for me. It is when the Pilgrim tells us a story of how he and his adoptive father visited a lesser known concentration camp, Natzweider-Struthof, on the border between France and Germany in his youth. The Pilgrim talks about how emotional he got by a photo of a mother and her children as they walk to the gas chambers and I think we can all relate to that. Photos of the Holocast tend to leave a sense of horror and emotions in most of us. As an archaeologist however, I find his adoptive father's reaction to the pile of everyday items even more intriguing. The adoptive father says something about he never knowing how powerful simple things can be (Because I read the Swedish translation of the book I won't quote it because as can be seen by Google Translate Sings on Youtube, translation back to the original language might not work so well.).

Archaeology is all about researching how people are interaction with materialities. We have always interacted through them and we continue to do so. They are history in physical form. They make us remember. They make us reflect. They make us feel emotions. They can even make history more human and close! In a word that turns digital and immaterial more and more by the minute, I think it is important that materialities are used to keep us grounded in "the real world". I am not against digitalization. I think there are a lot of benefits. However it happens too quickly and unreflectively. I rarely blog about my profession, but this is something I think even non-archaeologists should be aware of and reflect upon from time to time.

But back to I am Pilgrim. Even though it got me hooked, I still cannot shake the fact that it is very much a tale about a white man written by a white man. Even the title indicates as much! It is good that Hayes tries to make him more "human" by having him react to a photo of Holocaust victims and he says he has no problems with female being the hitmen and he shows sympathy for the Romani people (Because I read the Swedish version I have no idea if the more degrading term for them was used in the original book as it was in the Swedish.). Hayes also give the islamistic sort of "archenemy" a (too) well-described backstory with a thoroughly explored motivation for going all extremist. It felt refreshing against the all too normal Hollywood "because they are evil"-approach. However as he describes himself as a super rich, super intelligent, super competent super secret super agent who makes a lot of mistakes (seriously every other chapter ends with him telling about a new one), but who people still think is the best at his job and who is the youngest boss the super secret super agent bureau has ever heard of, I cannot help thinking he would be completely dismissed as a Mary Sue character had he been a woman.

Kerry Greenwood - The Green Mill Murder

'Ah dear, this is going to be one of those cases', said Detective Inspector Robinson resignedly. 'They always are when you are involved Miss Fisher.'

First of all I do have a confession to make: I am totally in love with Victor Freeman!

The Green Mill Murder is the 5th book about Phryne Fisher and together with Cocaine Blues probably my favourite one yet. Not really so much for the murder itself, but for the side-plot of Phryne bringing out her flying skills yet again.

Bernard Stevens is mysteriously murdered during a dance competition at the jazz club The Green Mill which Phryne attend with Charles Freeman. He seems to have been stabbed, but there was no one around to see what happened.

I will, as usual, get more into similarities/differences between the TV episode and the book in a later post, but already now I think I need to comment on the hatpin. In the TV episode, Phryne walks straight into the autopsy room. The pathologist is rather appalled by this, proclaiming that he has never seen a woman there before. Jack Robinson, reluctantly, says she can stay if she remains quiet. Phryne's presence however, turns out to be good since she is the only one thinking the murder weapon might be a hatpin. Because she has promised not to utter a word, however, she simply pick out one of her own and puts it above the stabbing wound.

From the TV version of The Green Mill Murder

This is one of my favourite scenes in the TV episode. Therefore I was pleased to see it in the book although in a slightly different setting. In the book Phryne and Jack have a rather different relationship than in the TV series and while he in the TV series still remain reluctant to let her participate in the investigations at this point, he is totally fine and seems to rather enjoy having her around in the book. Therefore the hatpin is brought up when he is at her house, talking to her about the case.

'I can think of one way that it could have been carried out', observed Phryne. 'And I bet you missed it.'
'How?'
'Hatpin', said Phryne shortly. Robinson inspected his fingernails and groped for his pipe.
'Oh lord, a hatpin. Could there be one long enough?'
'Dot? Can you bring down a bunch of the long hatpins?'

The reason why I have always loved the scene in the TV episode and why I love that it is in the book as well is how it shows that Phryne brings something new into Jack's murder investigations. It is obvious that a man, not even someone like Jack, would care to think that the murder weapon might be something as simple and feminine as a hatpin. It is actually a little like Voldemort's biggest flaw in the Harry Potter books. He does not care for the things he has no use for, which gives Harry Potter a great advantage. And the lack of knowledge and understandings about others who are not exactly like themselves is actually also a general problem among people today, not least among Westerners (particularly white men). This leads to an underestimation of others and of knowledge and understandings about the world and humans in general.

The Green Mill Murder has an interesting take on science, which stands in stark contrast to the perspective in Anna Lihammer's book Medan mörkret faller set in Sweden in the middle of the 1930's. In that book, the plots surrounds scientists getting drunk with the power they held in early 20th century Sweden due to the scientific racism institute and the law of compulsory sterilization put in place in 1934. This made some scientists think they were the new deities and could decide over people's life, death and procreation.

In The Green Mill Murders however, the view of science is much more humanistic. Two of the members of the jazz band is connected to medicine. Iris Jordan is a physical culture teacher and Hugh Anderson studies medicine to become a gynaecologist.

'... I think Iris has a point about medicine, you know. We tend to treat the disease, not the whole person. And she gets amazing results. Science isn't everything, though don't tell any of my lecturers that I said so...'

I find this point of view extremely interesting and very true even today. A disease is not an entire person and if we start seeing it like that, we lose grip of the person's identity entirely. It would be like trapping the person inside of the disease.

This is also shown later on in the book when Phryne meets Victor Freeman, a man who returned from the first world war shell-shocked (or with PTSD as we call it today). In the beginning of the book he is depicted as having changed because of the war and that he more or less got mad. However, as Phryne finally finds him, she does not meet a broken man. She meets a man who is rather comfortable living alone in the mountains. His disease prevents him from living with other people. The rest of him is completely lovely, so I am going to repeat myself: I am so in love with Victor Freeman!

One last thing maybe someone can enlighten me on because Iris says it is part of her job and it comes up a lot in English-speaking films, books and TV shows: Why is it called Swedish massage in English? We do not call it that over here in Sweden and I have always wondered how that name came about. What is so Swedish about it?

Gott nytt år! - Happy New Year!



Picture of second cover from here.

Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol

There is a lot to say about the christmas traditions and their history and I could spend this Christmas Eve post on talking about how the Scandinavian languages have word for Christmas that derive from one of Odin's many names Jólnir. How the earliest known celebration of the birth of Jesus in the Coptic church in Egypt in the 3rd century AD was in the beginning of May and how the celebration was moved to it's current place in December due to Pagan celebrations of the winter solstice, when Christianity gained power in the Roman Empire.

I could also talk about weird Swedish traditions like eating the pagan pig Särimner every christmas. Or that we are all watching the Disney christmas special originally called From all of us, but which we call Kalle Anka (Donald Duck) at three o'clock every Christmas Eve. Or what a total uproar it becomes if Disney or SVT tries changing even one second of that show...

But I am not going to do so. This because I find it better and more important nowadays to talk about Charles Dickens's classical book A Christmas Carol. The book was published in 1843 but its message is still important to reflect upon.

A Christmas Carol tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a greedy and selfish buisness man.

Oh, but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner. Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips bue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry ching. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days, and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty.

Scrooge's selfishness is clear in the description of him in the first stave (as the chapters are called in the book. An influence from the music world like the title of the novella itself also is.). He does not care for anyone or anything and is too trapped in himself that not even the weather can affect him. His cold inner nature is also clearly demonstrated by his outer one. He is mean and uncaring to everyone.

One Christmas night, he is visited by the ghost of his 7-years-dead buisness partner Jacob Marley. Marley tells him that he will be visited by three ghosts that will try to make him change his ways so he will not be doomed to haunt around the world regretting his choice not to care about others after death like himself.

'Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask', said Scrooge looking intently at the Spirit's robe, 'but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?'
'It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it', was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. 'Look here!'
From the foldings of its robe it brought two children, wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
'O man! look here! Look, look down here!' exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish, but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched thm with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared outo menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half as horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
'Spirit! are they yours?' Scrooge could say no more.
'They are Man's' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. (---)' 

The three ghosts turns out to be: The ghost of Christmas past, The ghost of Christmas present and The ghost of Christmas yet to come. They have a different lesson to teach Scrooge about the importance of self-reflection, of empathy and compassion and of long-term thinking. In a world where people strives to live in the present, not reflecting on memories of the past nor of what consequences their action will have on the future, A Christmas Carol is just as an important lesson today, when the boy and girl accompanying The ghost of Christmas present grows ever stronger and when the sake of goodness, empathy and compassion are seen as something naive and bad. But there is hope. Like Scrooge, one always deserves a second chance to correct ones way of living.


God Jul! Merry Christmas!

Nathan's Swedish Name day

Nathan Page as Jack Robinson in Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

In the Swedish calendar almost all days have at least one name which celebrate its so called Name Day. Apparently this is a Greek-Orthodox and Roman-Catholic tradition going back to their tradition with Saint's days. Why it is left in Sweden which has been a protestant country since the 16th century, I have no idea.

Anyway, today the calendar says Natanael, which is a Swedish version of the name Nathan and of course I was thinking about Nathan Page who plays Jack Robinson in Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. So I wanted to celebrate him with this post.

Apparently the name is Hebrew and means Gift from God.

Phryne, Freja and the winter/summer solstice

From Murder in the Dark

According to King Memses's Curse, today is Phryne Fisher's birthday. It is also the winter solstice over here (summer solstice in the southern hemisphere).

Phryne: My birthday party 
Jack: Summer solstice 
Phryne: Help me to celebrate.

~ King Memses's Curse 

The episode is the last one of the first series of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. It tells the story of the solution to the overarching plot line of season 1: The kidnapping and murder of Phryne's little sister Jane. It is also Phryne's last encounter with Murdoch Foyle who was set up kind of like an archenemy to her. His birthday is also the 21st of December. As is the fictive Egyptian pharaoh Memses who Foyle becomes obsessed with, thinking he is the reincarnation of him.

The episode is stuffed with Ancient Egyptian references, sort of the peak of the running Anthony and Cleopatra theme established in Ruddy Gore. Ancient Egypt also pops up as a theme in the Phryne Fisher book Flying to High. Even the song in the last scene, I am sailing on a sunbeam can be said to have Egyptian references since in Egyptian mythology, the sun god Re is said to sail across the sky in a boat. In this entry however, I will move a bit through time and space to Viking Age Scandinavia and talk about a different mythology and a different goddess than the Egyptian ones. Together with the Norse god Odin, she was associated with the (for Scandinavia) winter solstice: Freja. (I have wondered for awhile how much of the cultic activities surrounding Freja at the winter solstice that went into the Lucia celebration.)

Brooch probably depicting Freja.
from Aska, Östergötland, Sweden

I talked about Freja in the entry about Johanne Hildebrandt's book Saga från Valhalla, but there might be need for a recap.

Freja is the most prominent and well-known of the Norse goddesses (who are all often rather vaguely portrayed). She is the sister of Frej and generally rather dismissively described only as his "seductive sister". However this is an extremely reducing epithet of such an important goddess.

She and her brother are mainly fertility deities (In Sweden, Frej has also been called Frö, which is the Swedish word for seed.) and they are also the personifications of female (Freja) and male (Frej) sexuality. Freja also cares for pregnant women.

But there are more aspects than fertility to Freja! When you study her, you realise that she is not only "the love goddess". She is actually but pretty badass. She is also a war goddess and head of the valkyries.

The valkyries are female warrior spirits/deities dressed in chainmail and helmets adorned by swan feathers and with spears ready to fight. They were said to descend on the battle field on the backs of their ethereal horses, but never participate in the wars of mortals. 

Instead their duty is to pick out the fallen warrior and bring them to the afterlife. Traditionally it is said that Odin is the one who wants them in his home Valhalla to train them for the last battle when the world was supposed to end at Ragnarök, but this is only part of the truth. In fact, Freja was just as involved in this as Odin. She and Odin actually split the fallen warriors in between them. And she got to pick first, meaning she took the best warriors to her home, Folkvang.

So what has this got to do with Phryne Fisher? Well, there names sound similar and I think there are a lot of similarities between her and Freja's personalities. Phryne is powerful and independent just like Freja. She is also connected to death through all the murders that occur in close proximity to her (or someone she knows).

Hugh: Miss Fisher's gone on holiday again Sir.
Jack: Hm, anyone dead yet?
Hugh: Only one so far Sir.

~ Murder under the Mistletoe

There is also a tendency among certain viewers to discredit the series and Phryne based solely on Phryne's many sexual encounters with men. (For a discussion about this including comments by Essie Davis who plays her, you can look here.) This is also something she has in common with Freja who was seriously discredited among the male 19th century scholars who set out to interpret the Norse saga material and other written sources to the general public. They had serious problems with a goddess who was so popular as Freja seems to have been. Not least because of her many sexual adventures (She was a goddess of fertility and female sexuality after all.) She was worshipped throughout Scandinavia and a favourite among the female priestesses known as völvur. The matter of a liberal sexuality, esepcially in women, was also something the male scholars of the 19th century did not look foundly upon and because Freja is still mainly described as Frej's seductive sister or love goddess, it has worked and still works as a way to reduce her power and influence.

Egyptian tomb painting

There is also the matter of some of Phryne's headdresses. Even though the Cleopatra one she wears in the photo from Murder in the Dark above clearly is meant to look like the one from the Egyptian tomb painting above, I think it looks like a valkyrie helmet.

From Ruddy Gore

Phryne also wears a headband in both Ruddy Gore and Blood and Money that is probably some kind of laurel wreath, but those leaves could easily be consider feathers as well.

This rant might make little sense, but after my entry about ways to compare Phryne to other pop-cultural figures, I figured I might as well give some more alternatives to compare Phryne too and this day seems to be special for both of them.

Happy Birthday Phryne! Even though you are fictional, I love you!

Picture of valkyrie helmet was borrowed here, the Egyptian crown was found here and the photo of the Freja brooch from Aska in Östergötland in Sweden was taken by Gabriel Hildebrand at SHMM

Julkalender 1996 - Mysteriet på Greveholm

Mysteriet på Greveholm (The Mystery at Greveholm) from 1996 is probably the most beloved of SVT's julkalendrar. It is also the only one who has got a sequel (Grevens återkomst from 2012). In my personal opinion, that one is as bad as the original one was good, so this entry will only be about that.

"Är det redan vinter? Det var ju sommar nyss! Vart har hösten tagit vägen? Tänk, snart är det vår!" ("Is it winter already? It was summer just the other day! Where have the autumn gone? Soon it is spring!")

 ~ Leif

I have come to realise that describe the plots to my favourite julkalendrar might make them seem pretty strange. Sunes Jul seems probably pretty uncomplicated with Sune and his family celebrating christmas, but the rest. Tomtemaskinen tells the story about an old man building a mechanical Santa Claus to his cat and Jul i Kapernaum is about a star trapped by a king underneath a town and two children going down to free it.

Mysteriet på Greveholm is no exception to this. It is about the Olsson family with a father who is a scientist and who has managed to move a satellite so no one can watch TV. They move into a castle called Greveholm to celebrate christmas. In the castle live the two ghosts Jean and Staffan. An evil skeleton of Greven von Dy (the earl von Dy - usually called Greven) has captured a princess from outer space called Dioda in the tower and the children (Lillan, Ivar and Melitta) has to save her. Dioda also has a robot called Sprak who Lillan plays with. There is also two thieves who want to steal the treasures of the castle, a news paper delivery boy called Måns who Melitta falls in love with and Santa Claus and his elves.

I love this julkalender very much, but I still cannot help thinking it to be somewhat overrated. There are rather lot of plot holes and the acting is not always very good. In fact the acting (mostly by the children) is better in both Sunes Jul and Jul i Kapernaum than in Mysteriet på Greveholm. What is redeeming is the interesting world it creates and the loveable characters that you can relate to. This is actually what makes this julkalender work and not its sequel.



Pictures borrowed from here.

My first Essie-versary!

One year ago today I saw The Babadook for the first time and Essie Davis became my favourite actress. And what a year it has been! Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries I found through looking up what Essie had done more in late February this year. The rest is history so to speak.

Essie is such a great actress! I love her so much! She is my real superhero!




If you want to use my collage: PLEASE ask me and credit me! I am proud of something I have made for once!

Lucia

So, today is known as the Lucia day in Sweden. Of course I could tell you how we celebrate it, but that is much better explained in this video

Every year on social media, this tradition is said to be under threat. From what is often quite unclear, but it has been a decline in interest for public Lucia competitions and I have a theory as to why. But first I feel a need to talk about the history of the tradition.

"Sankta Lucia. Ljusklara hägring. Sprid i vår vinternatt, glans av din fägring " (Saint Lucia, Bright mirage. Spread in our winter's night, gloss of your beauty.)

~ Sankta Lucia

Lucia is a variation of the Latin word Lux which means light and in the Julian calendar, 13th of December was the winter solstice and therefore the night was the longest one of the year. According to folklore, a lot of bad spirits were roaming around during this night and legend tells of a demon-like woman called Lussi or Lussekärringen (in the province Västergötland the legend instead speaks of  man called Lussegubben though) who came riding together with her followers called lussiferda. It was also a night when the animals started to talk. 

Everyone can be a lucia!

Lucia is a Sicilian saint in the Roman-Catholic church who lived in Syracuse during the 4th century AD. However, the Swedish Lucia celebration (which today has spread to the Finno-Swedish population of Finland, Norway and Denmark) has little to do with her. The celebration is actually a mix of both Christian and Pagan traditions. Lucia marked the beginning of the christmas celebrations and in the past it was thought that the preparations needed to be finished by then. Swedes celebrated this by eating and drinking a little extra. The 13th of December was also the day when Swedes slaughtered the so called christmas pig to make the ham which is one of the major dishes in the Swedish christmas dinner. The christmas pig is thought of as to symbolise the pig Särimner from Norse mythology. Särimner is the pig who gets slaughtered every evening in Odin's hall Valhalla, but resurrects every morning just to get slaughtered (and eaten) again by the dead warriors.

The modern Lucia celebration is thought to have its origin in Western Sweden (in the regions kring the lake Vänern in the provinces Dalsland, Bohuslän, Västergötland and Värmland). From there, male students (since there were no female ones at that time) spread it to Uppsala and Lund where they went to university in the late 18th and early 19th century. There they held Lucia performances for their professors. Yes, traditionally it has been common with a male Lucia!

Lussekatter

Saffron buns called lussekatter (translated directly it is "lusse cats") are served during Lucia. This is a German tradition dating back to the 17th century where a legend said that the devil (sometimes refered to as Lucifer) went around as a cat spanking children. At the same time, Jesus went around offering buns to the children. They were stuffed with saffron to ward off the devil from the light colour.

"Staffan var en stalledräng. Vi tackom nu så gärna. Han vattna' sina fålar fem. Allt för den ljusa stjärna. Ingen dager synes än. Stjärnorna på himmelen de blänka." (Staffan was a stable boy. We gladly thank how now. He watered his five horses. Everything for the bright star. No day can yet be seen. The stars in the sky they glitter.)

~ Sankta Lucia

Stjärngossar

Except for Lucia, there are a, traditionally male, character in the Lucia celebration called stjärngosse (star boy). The tradition with this character is actually related to dramatized versions of the birth of Jesus during Twelth Night when the Three Wise Men reach the stable where Jesus is supposed to have been born. Since Twelth Night has losts its importance in Sweden, we have somehow chosen to put stjärngossarna into the Lucia celebration instead. Unfortunatelly, I have not been able to find any answer to the question why this change occured or why they sing the Medieval ballad about king Herod's stable boy Stefanus: Staffan var en stalledräng, but I guess it is just one of those things that happened when traditions adapts to a new reality.

I think it is very important that we actually study from where traditions like the Lucia celebrations come and even more to see how it has changed over time. I have talked about my view on culture as always ongoing negotiatons of sociability before in my entries about the Samish hat adorned with Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and chess. Considering all the memes and discussion there is every christmas about the "threatened" Lucia tradition I think Lucia is actually a great illustration for this. The Lucia celebration will change with time. That thing is clear! Every tradition does and it is totally natural. The celebration still has social value though. It is still extremely popular in schools and work places and such all over Sweden. There has been a decline in "official" Lucia competitions however, but I would not say that this has anything to do with Lucia celebration itself. Instead I think it has to do with the similarities between Lucia competitions and beauty pageants. The latter seems to have lost its social value in Sweden in later years which I think actually is something that we should be happy about.

Lucia celebration, the cat version

Picture of the lussekatter was borrowed from here.

Julkalender 1995 - Jul i Kapernaum

Jul i Kapernaum (Christmas in Kapernaum) was SVT:s julkalender 1995 and twice as long as the rest of them. The second half of it is devoted to puppet sketches. We get to visit Magister Munter at the school (who teaches the children that the English sentence I buy pink sheets is funny to a Swede), see short films at the cinema at Bio Rio and hear about when Fru Dito time travelled in her shower. (I might get back to those in later entries to this blog, but for this one, I want to focus on the main plot.)

Legend has it that a star came to rest on the place where the town Kapernaum later was built. Many thousands of years later, the evil king Sirius in his hunt for treasure, found it and trapped it underground. He killed everone, but a young man managed to flee and tell everyone. Sirius was locked up and the man left Kapernaum, only to return when it was time to release the star.
  

När tiden är inne,                         When time has come,
för lugn i sinne.                             For peace in mind
När staden skälver                        When the town is shaking
och jorden gnäller.                        And the ground whines
För julefrid,                                   For christmas peace,
öppna porten i tid.                         Open the gate in time.
Den som ingen sakna,                   The one no one misses,
hämta stjärna som vakna           Collects the wakening star

~ Jul i Kapernaum

1000 years later, the 10 years old orphan girl Amanda lives in an abandoned circus wagon in the middle of Tittutgränd in Kapernaum. She is sometimes lonely, but often plays around with the mayor Klopstock and Krampus. Besides them, Krampus has an aunt named Innocentia and there is also a lady who owns the café called Rosa. In Kapernaum also lives Assar Skoog who owns a pawnshop.

Skoog in many aspects resembles Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dicken's book A Christmas Carol. His brother died and Assar drove away his wife and newborn baby. Assar is extremely greedy and loves to make people pawn their most valuable things. He also mutters "Humbug!" from time to time.

Viktor, is the heir of the young man who fled king Sirius and he suddenly shows up in Kapernaum, scaring the life out of Skoog (like the three ghosts of christmas do to Scrooge). Amanda finds the gate to the underground and Viktor sets after her. They free the star and ride off for new adventures at the end. The battle against king Sirius and his troll guard is a little forced and lame, but the actors (even the children) are all good and the characters loveable.

Jul i Kapernaum belongs in the fantasy genre, but it is also a musical of sort. I have always been pretty sad that they never released the music on a cd because there were some pretty good ones in this. It felt even stranger when SVT chose to release the soundtrack of Mysteriet på Greveholm the following year even though it only contained instrumental music. (Snälla SVT, kan ni inte åtminstone lägga upp sångerna på Spotify nu?!) I remember having to rewind the VHS over and over because I wanted to listen to the music.To this day, I still remember Amanda's song (and no, it is not mainly due to her and I sharing first name!)

This calendar is sadly forgotten, but the Swedes voted for it to be part of the julkalender classics that SVT puts on their Öppet Arkiv site every christmas. Rewatching this now, made me think that it is actually even more relevant today. The awakening star creates havoc with the climate, making the town hot and everyone wonder what has happened to the weather. It is also worth mentioning Klopstock's line from the last episode: "Igår var Kapernaum nära sin undergång. Minnet av det som skett den här julen får aldrig blekna. Om historien hålls vid liv finns det möjlighet att inte upprepa misstagen (Yesterday, Kapernaum was close to its destruction. The memory of what has occured this christmas must never fade. If history is kept alive, there is a possibility to not recreate the misstakes.)" Definitely something to think about...


Picture was borrowed from here.