Rättvik Fiddler Pers Hans Olsson at Scandia Festival in February

The San Francisco Bay Area Scandia Festival February 16-18, in Petaluma, will feature Swedish fiddler Pers Hans Olsson from Rättvik. Dance teachers are Stig and Helen Eriksson, accompanied by Stefan Öberg and Kerstin Engels.

Per Hans Olsson ranks among the elite of Swedish fiddlers. He was born in Östbjörka in Rättvik in 1942 into a family of renown fiddlers, which includes his father Pers Erik and his grandfather, Pers Olle. Pers Hans started playing at the age of eight. He learned from his father and some of the older Rättvik fiddlers (Blank Kalle, Börjes Olle, Perols Gudmund, and Jons Far) that his father introduced him to during visits to record their music. Per Hans soon established a name for himself, playing in an “older style” that he came to value under his father’s tutelage. By the time the Swedish “folk music wave” started in the early 70’s, he was already recognized as one of Sweden’s most distinctive fiddlers. His 1970 recording with Björn Ståbi, “Bockfot,” set the standard for the coming generation: “Pers Hans’s playing is melodic and emotionally expressive, with a forceful, extremely characteristic sound which seems to come straight from Hans’s heart like a song. His tone expresses yearning and ardour. He dares to slow down to give important notes extra weight. His music is art that touches our hearts. It’s hard to find a young fiddler who hasn’t been influenced by Pers Hans’s playing. He is a genuine musician who is much admired, a soure of inspiration to many.” In 1993, Pers Hans was awarded the Zorn Gold Medal for “masterly and expressive playing in the Rättvik tradition.” In 1997, the Swedish government awarded him the artist’s lifetime scholarship, an unusual honor in Sweden.

Dance teachers - Stig and Helen Eriksson
Stig and Helen Eriksson will teach some of their favorite Swedish dances during the dance workshops. California dancers will remember them as the popular teachers from Scandia Camp Mendocino in 1997. When they met, Stig was a dancer and Helen played the fiddle. She agreed to learn to dance if he would learn to play (he chose the nyckelharpa). Together as dancers they have won the Hälsingland Hambo contest and have also earned their big silver medals in polska dancing.

Dance musicians - Stefan Öberg and Kerstin Ingels
Stefan Öberg and Kerstin Ingels will provide music for the dance classes. Stefan plays accordion and Kerstin plays cittra. Stefan and Kerstin are members of two performing groups, Klintetten and Nätt o Jämt. Kerstin to play in tradition from her parents in Boda, Dalarna. In addition to making music, they are both dedicated polska dancers and each has earned the big silver medal in polska dancing. Their dancing experience has made their music very danceable.
The music workshops will be in one group at an intermediate/advanced level. The Sunday morning session will be at a site close to Hermann Sons Hall, and, because of space constraints, will need to be divided into two seperate groups. Pers Hans’s wife Yvonne, also a fiddler, will help Hans with his teaching by translating. Part time registration is possible. To register or get information about the music workshops, contact Fred Bialy at (510) 215-5974 or < FredBialy@aol.com>.

The Scandia Festival will take place at Hermanns Sons Hall in Petaluma. In addition to daytime music and dance workshops on Saturday and Sunday, there will be dance parties in the evenings on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The weekend package including two days of workshops and three evening parties costs $80. Pre-registration is required. A good balance of men and women at the dance workshops is attempted. Dance partners will be changed frequently during the dance teaching. To register or get information about the dance workshops, contact Mary Korn at (510) 527-9209 or <wegorn@aol.com>. §

Värmland Fiddlers Mats Berglund and Karin Olsson in Bay Area this April

Plans are underway for a weekend of music and dance from Värmland April 21-22, 2001. Fiddlers Mats Berglund and Karin Olsson will be making a stop in the Bay Area as part of a three weekend West Coast tour that also includes stops in Los Angeles and Seattle (for Northwest Springdans).
Mats Berglund was born in Värmland in 1956. He learned to play the violin at junior school in Käla, but even then tried his hand at folk-fiddle, thanks to his teacher, Ola Jonasson. Mats was keen on all sorts of tunes, even those of Lapp-Nils from Jämtland and tricky ones from Hälsingland like the Ranungpolskas. In his late teens, Mats thought of becoming a music teacher, with violin as his chosen instrument, but failed the entrance exam. Instead, he spent 10 years working in a sawmill and a foundry, but in his spare time became increasingly interested in and enthusiastic about the music of the Jässe district of western Värmland (near the border with Norway) where he grew up. Like an orienteerer, Mats Berglund has crisscrossed the borderlands between Sweden and Norway, seeking new “check-points” in his quest for musical discoveries. His search has taken him literally along both winding country lanes and dusty archive shelves. Mats has been seeking a musical form, or rather a style of fiddle playing, that he believes was commonplace in the old days in his home district. Mats’s playing can be heard on a 1993 solo recording (GCD-19) for the GIGA label. Mats works as a musician and teaches folkmusic at the College of Music in Ingesund, Arvika. This trip will be Mats’s first to the West Coast. He will be travelling with his wife and two school aged children.

Karin Olsson is a familiar face to the local Scandinavian music and dance community from the 1999 Scandia Festival. She’s also taught at Scandia Camp Mendocino, in Seattle, and on the East Coast. Karin recently completed her studies in music and will pursue a musical career in the footsteps of her parents, Gert and Ann-Marie Ohlsson.

Tentative plans are for fiddle workshops all day on Saturday, April 21, with a review by local teachers of dances from Värmland during an afternoon dance workshop. Mats and Karin, along with local musicians, will then play music for dancing at the evening’s Nordic Footnotes (third saturday, South Bay) Dance. A house concert featuring Mats and Karin playing solo material as well as playing together, is planned for Sunday evening, April 22. As details are firmed up, more information will be made public. For information, contact Fred Bialy at (510) 215-5974 or
< FredBialy@aol.com>. §

THE TOMTE

by Wes Ludemann, edited by Carolyn Hunt, illustrated by Ginny Lee

Note: text in this font is a translation by Wes from an original source.
 

We spent Christmas of 1988 with friends in Finland. From here on, though, I’ll use the more appropriate term jul for the winter festival that celebrates the return of the sun. Jul is, of course the term by the Scandinavian language family, while the Finns call it joulu. On the eve of joulu, I got the honor of being the joulupukki, or the joulu goat (buck), the otherworldly being that delivers presents at this time of year. In Sweden he is called the julbock, and the person delivering presents often wears a goat-like disguise. Ever since Tor (Thor) rode in his chariot drawn by two giant, magical bucks, the goat has been important in Scandic folklore. Even today the straw goat is an important jul decoration.

I didn’t have to use a disguise, but I made my excuses to get out of the living area, picked up the hidden sack of presents, and knocked on the front door. My job was to ask each person whether he or she had been bad or good that year. If I had any doubts, I asked that person to pay a penalty, such as to sing a song. Since my Finnish was limited, I was handicapped in my questioning, but the festivities went well.

Scandinavia has perhaps more than its fair share of supernatural beings from pagan times, or is at least more aware of this cultural heritage. The beings best known to most Americans are the troll, the huldra or skogsrå, the näck and the tomte. These beings vary in their amiability toward mankind; the closer they live to humans, the more friendly they are. The being best disposed toward people is the household tomte. Tomte (Swedish plural tomtar) is probably the elided form of a compound word derived from the noun tomt, meaning a plot of land, and a second component meaning some kind of nature being. In parts of the south of Sweden he is called nisse, derived from the name Nikolas. In Norway and Denmark he is called nisse or tusse.

All of these supernatural beings are able to help or hinder humankind. In contrast with the troll and skogsrå, the tomte is basically beneficial unless crossed, and actually shares the farm with humans. He works hard to maintain a farm’s prosperity and punishes human actions that work against such prosperity. His standards are usually those prevailing in the community, so he is a force for correct behavior.

The tomte’s influence was still evident in the 12th century, when St. Birgitta complained that Swedes didn’t go to church, but instead worshiped and honored their tomte gods. She related that people had the custom of setting out food and drink for them. In Sweden it is not so far from heathen times to the atomic age.

At the end of the 15th century Archbishop Swebelius listed in his explanation of the catechism things that one may not worship. Foremost were the troll, the skogsrå, the tomtegubbe and such. Since this was shortly after the Reformation, angels and saints were also on his list.

Tomtar vary in size from very small to the size of small boys. They wear red caps, and are usually quite shabby. They are very strong, so it is good not to cross them. They can be a help if you treat them well. But if you swear, get into fights, drink too much, or mistreat your cattle, they may give you a strong box on the ear. Thus they function as a sort of folk conscience, to see that household duties are carried out correctly and that social proprieties are not abused. Their origins trace back to the household gods that are found in most older religions.

A woman on Öland who worked as a serving girl in her youth relates: "One day I was supposed to scrub the kitchen shelf. At that time I saw with my own eyes a tomte come climbing down from that shelf with his arms around his little bed." This tomte was said not to have done much for the household, but belief that he liked an absolutely clean house provided an incentive for zealous housework.

In general the tomte could be quite helpful, though its help could be at the expense of the neighbors. I don’t believe that the majority of tomtar were like that; however, most of the collected legends deal with a tomte helping one farmer at the expense of another. These make the best stories, and they also can be an excuse for you not being as good a farmer as your neighbor. Blame it on the tomte!

One of the farmers in Simris in Skåne had a nisse. The man relating the story tells that he saw the nisse one morning cleaning out the farmer’s barn. The nisse’s wheelbarrow was so wide that he had to hold his arms straight out to the sides in order to push it. It could be seen in more than one way who the farmer’s helper was. If you walked though the village when the grain was ripe, you could see how all the grain flew from the neighbor’s patches into his. When the others harvested, they had only straw to put into their barns. It was the same with liquor. It was drawn from the other farmers to the distillery where the nisse was in charge, and you could practically smell it as it flew by through the air. The neighbors had to make do with the dregs after the mashing.

It was unwise to hurt the tomte’s feelings. A farmer in Värmland went out to his field to bring in the rye for threshing. A little tomte went along to help, and followed the farmer back carrying a single straw. Back at the barn, the farmer threw his heavy load in first. Then the tomte came in, threw down his single straw and heaved a deep sigh of relief. The farmer said "that load is hardly heavy enough to sigh over." The tomte said "Well, if it’s nothing to sigh over, then you won’t get anything to sigh over" and took back his straw and dragged it away. After that he took from the farmer, who became poor. No matter how hard he worked, the tomte dragged it all away.

A variation on this story is from Norway. A farmer named Lavrans in Meås Valley saw a tusse boy struggling uphill with a single stalk of grain on his back. He was groaning and panting, as if he was carrying a terribly heavy burden. "What are you huffing and puffing about?" shouted Lavrans. "Your load isn’t all that heavy." "If I’m going to carry as much from you as I have carried to you, you’ll realize the burden is heavy enough!" answered the tusse. And he turned around and carried his load over to the neighboring farm, which was called Bakken. But when Lavrans looked at him from the rear, he saw the tusse was hauling a huge load of grain. Before then the tusse had carried both hay and food stuffs from Bakken so that there was nothing but hardship and poverty there. But after he returned everything from Meås to Bakken there was great wealth there. After that they had little luck on Meås. Lavrans died a violent death and his family vanished.

Sometimes the tomte’s help went a little awry. A legend from Blekinge relates that a servant girl was baking when the tomte came to help her. She lay down on the kitchen bench and went to sleep while he baked. He took all the dough and swept it into the oven in a single mass. When the maid saw what the tomte had done, she began to cry. He was so anguished that he left. Inside of two hours he was back with two baskets full of fine new-baked bread — taken from some else, of course.

The tomte often had a favorite cow or horse that he gave especially good care to. A farmer in Österbotten, Finland had been away on Sunday, and it was late on Monday morning when he went into the stable to give some hay to the horse. He went up into the loft, but as he bent over the hay, someone grabbed him by the arms and carried him down the stairs so that his feet did not even touch the ground. He was set down in the middle of the stable floor. Now the horse was eating, even though the farmer had not given it anything. Every morning thereafter when he came into the stable, the horse was already groomed and fed, and he never needed to take care of it.

The tomte was protective of his favorites. A farmer in Bohuslän came home drunk one evening. He had two horses, one was always sleek and well-fed, the other always thin and bony. He had been riding the thin one. When he came into the stall, the fat one kicked at him. He started to lash it. At that moment the tomte told him to leave the sleek horse, Pålle, alone, and then hit the farmer so hard it knocked him out. After that he never again dared to go into the stall when it was dark. And Pålle was always fat and the other horse always thin.

What happens if two adjoining farms each have a tomte? A tinker related the following tale. He was sleeping in a hayloft at Vreim in Bø. A tusse boy came in, gathered up a large armful of hay, bundled it on his back, and left. But outside on the barn ramp, he met another tusse from the neighboring farm, carrying a load of hay to the barn at Vreim. Now a fight started, as you can well imagine. Both of them were mad as hell and they tore into each other like two fighting cocks. Hay was flying about thick as fog on the barn's ramp and in the yard. It did not take long before both loads of hay were spread to the wind. Then the two tusser disappeared in opposite directions.

Still in all, most tomtar worked long and diligently to make their farm a success. Sometimes they were rewarded by more than the usual bowl of porridge and a measure of respect. A farmer in Västergötland had a tomte who would carry flour for him and pour it into a vat. As usual, the tomte was shabby and dressed in rags. The farmer said: "since you come and carry flour for me, it would make sense for me to get you some nicer clothes." He had a coat sewn for the tomte, and left it hanging on the flour bin. But after that the tomte did not come with any more flour. The farmer met him and asked, "How is it that you no longer bring me any flour?" "This little dandy doesn't want to get flour all over himself," said the tomte.

What if you didn't get along with your tomte? A man in Värmland got no peace from the tomte where he lived. He decided to move and packed up a cart-load of possessions and started on his way. He met someone along the road who asked him what he was doing. "I'm moving," he said, "for I get no peace from the tomte." Just then the tomte stuck his head up from among the tubs on the load, and said, "We're moving today, we're moving today!"

The most usual reward for the tomte is a bowl of porridge, especially on jul eve, and the porridge must have a sizable lump of butter in it. An exceedingly popular tale throughout Scandinavia is the following:
There was a farm around here where they had a tomte. Porridge was left out for him on julafton (the eve of jul). But when he arrived, he saw no butter. He was so outraged that he went out to the barn and killed the best milk cow they had. After he killed the cow, he ate up the porridge and discovered that the butter was there, under the porridge. He was mortified. But there was a cow at the Skårby farm that looked exactly like the one he had killed. He had a busy julafton. He dragged the dead cow to Skårby and led home the living one. It all worked out well. But in the summer, when the cows were out on grass, the Skårby cow wanted to cross the river to eat the grass back at Skårby. Then the tomte had to stand in the river and make waves so that the cow could not cross and get back home.

A few legends deal with exorcising the tomte or nisse. A typical one concerns the old woman whose son was studying for the ministry.
She was quite well off, for she had a nisse who lived on the property. But the son disapproved of her having any contact with non-Christian monsters. He wanted to drive away the nisse, but the nisse didn't want to leave. The son spoke with him and asked, "Why do you need milk and porridge?"
"Well, all the porridge I've got from you mother, I intend to have with me on Judgement Day, so I can prove I've been in her service." (Then the woman would be damned, he thought.) The boy read the scripture over him and the nisse had to leave.
As he left, the nisse said, "Now I will take away from the farm just as much as I brought here in the first place." And he did. The woman fell into total poverty.

The church frowned on the relationship between farmer and tomte. Since the supernatural beings of Scandinavia had no place in the Christian pantheon, they were mostly equated with the devil or his imps. A boy studying for the ministry is the most usual protagonist in these legends, but one also encounters ministers and bishops. Casting out the tomte makes clear that he shares certain features with the devil.

Thus there was a clash between the organized Christian faith imposed from above, and the conservative traditions of folk belief. Churchly legends remain in the minority, however, for the reason that belief in the tomte served the community well.

In spite of his authority, the minister is often treated as an ambiguous figure in legend and folktale. He was rarely born in the parish in which he served and he remained an outsider by virtue of his social background and education. After the Reformation, the minister's university education was frequently rendered as proof that he had been trained at the Black School at Wittenberg, (the town of Martin Luther), and that he possessed the Black Book which gave him magical power. It was believed that he could not only exorcise the devil but could also employ the devil's services for his own purposes, such as travel through the air. The minister at times appears as the defender of the people, one who dupes and defeats Satan, but he is often treated as a buffoon, or as one wielding equivocal powers.

The national-romantic movements in Europe during the 1800's created interest in sagas, beliefs, and customs, but it was a story by Viktor Rydberg, serialized in the newspaper in 1871, that helped create the jultomte and displaced the julbock as the bringer of jul presents. In "Lille Viggs äventyr på julafton" we get a tomte who is not only protective, but also friendly. When the newspaper story came out in book form, it was illustrated by Jenny Nyström. Her depictions in newspapers and books told us what the tomte looked like. She began reproducing greeting cards illustrated with the gnomes. Figuratively speaking, she became Sweden's tomte mother.

Her figures were a tremendous success and soon the tomte had assumed a role comparable to that of the various Santa Claus figures in other countries. He is believed to come with presents. In many households nowadays someone disguised as a tomte, with a big sack of presents over his or her shoulder, appears on the doorstep sometime after dinner on julafton.

Originally the tomte was thought to live under the floorboards of the estate's house of barn. That's obviously not suitable habitat for such an elevated being as the jultomte, however. We know that our American jultomte, Santa Claus, lives at the North Pole. Europeans know that he lives either at the North Pole or in Lappland. All Sweden knows that he lives in Sweden, with various opinions as to where. Norwegians are certain that he lives in Drøbak, and Finns have placed him in Rovaniemi.

I use the term "placed," because traditionally the joulupukki lives on Korvatunturi, a mountain in Finnish Lappland. But Korvatunturi, fortunately or unfortunately, wasn't very accessible to tourists, so Santa Claus International Ltd. moved him, workshop, elves, reindeer, and all, to Santa Claus Village just outside Rovaniemi.

A Norwegian royal visit to Finland promised to create an international crisis at the highest level when the royal couple visited the joulupukki, now called Santa Claus, at Rovaniemi's Santa Claus Village. Front page headlines in the Norwegian press read "Nisse upprør mot Kongeparet." An extensive worldwide marketing campaign had been planned to promote Drøbak as the nisse's home, and the royal visit seemed to have knocked the legs from under the campaign. The Nisse-general in Drøbak went into a state of shock and Santa Clause International Ltd. celebrated. However, the several meetings between the royal couple and the Finnish joulupukki appeared not to have been an official state visit, and the nisse-uproar quieted down.

This Christmas Eve, if your house and barn are clean and neat, and if you've taken good care of your livestock, perhaps the jultomte will knock on your door. §
 
 

Announcements

Scandia Camp Mendocino,
June 15 - 22, 2001

Teaching the music and dance of Telemark
Hauk Buen & Anne Hytta, hardingfele
Arnhild Brennesvik & Ole Kristian Torjussen, dance

Teaching the music of Dalarna
Anders Almlöf & Jonny Soling, fiddle

Teaching dances from Dalarna and reviewing dances previously taught at camp
Nobi Kurotori & Roo Lester

Additional music staff
Sarah Kirton - assisting with hardingele
Peter Michaelsen - leading Allspel
Bruce Sagan - teaching nyckelharpa

Enjoy dance and music instruction, concerts and culture sessions, and parties every evening. Our location in the northern California redwoods is the perfect place to greet old friends, make new friends who share your interests, and eat very well! For information, contact Roo Lester: (630) 985-7192 (Central Time) or email: <DancingRoo@aol.com>; Kay Loughman: (510) 841-7428 (Pacific Time) or email: <kayloughman@attglobal.net>.

--------------------------------------------
Nordic Heritage Symposium
January 19 - 20, 2001
7 pm Friday - 4:30 pm Saturday
360 Kings Village Road, Scotts Valley
Exit Hwy 17 at Mt. Hermon Rd into Scotts Valley, turn right onto Kings Village Rd.
(by Kings Village Shopping Center), go to end of street.

Prices vary for events, ages, members/non-members, Tickets are $5 less if you pre-register.
Contact Scandinavian Cultural Center of Santa Cruz, PO Box 2411, Santa Cruz, CA 95063 - 2411,
or call (831) 438-4307 or (831) 464-3310, Fax: ( 831) 438-1051

Friday Evening 7 pm , Rolf Kristian Stang portrays “Hans Christian Andersen, Danish Storyteller”
Nordahl Grieg Leikarring presents folk dancing with audience participation

Saturday Morning, 9am - noon, Jean Kaldahl presents “Lutefisk” and “Ladies Aid”
Dorothy McCall presents “Karl & Karen Larsson, Swedish Artists”
Rolf Kristian Stang portrays “Edvard Grieg, Norwegian Composer”

Saturday Afternoon, 1pm - 4:30 pm, Phil Maxon portrays “King Christian III of Denmark,”
Olaf Engve is a “Modern Day Seagoing Viking”
Rolf Kristian Stang portrays “Leif Eriksson”

Saturday Evening at Holy Cross Church, 8 pm
Luther College Nordic Choir of Decorah, Iowa

This event is supported by a grant from the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County

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Folkedans Stevne at Camp Norge, near Alta, CA
March 30 - April 1, 2001

Rune & Signa Marie Bjerke, teaching
Lancier, kontradans, and other dances

Also Bill Likens teaching torader, accordion and ensemble playing,

For more information call: Zena Corcoran at (415) 355-3752

e-mail: < ZMCorcoran@aol.com>

Send registration form to: Zena Corcoran, 1547 Valdez Way, Pacifica, CA. 94044 §

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Norrlandia Camp in Hälsingland, Sweden, July 22 - 28, 2001

Join some of Sweden's best known dancers and musicians for classes in traditional dance and music at the Swedish Dance and Music Week at Harsagården, Järvsö, Hälsingland, Sweden
See full announcement in summer/fall issue of the Spelmanslag news

Registration:
Norrlandia Camp is limited to 50 dancers and 10 fiddlers. Send registration & deposit by January 15 to Bengt Jonsson, Eriknäsbo 4913, S-821 93 A0 Bollnäs, SWEDEN, (postgiro 427 86 01-2) or
Roo Lester, 1320 Harleyford Road, IL 60517 USA
For further info contact:
Bengt Jonsson: Telephone: (from U.S.) 011 46 278 31016, from Sweden 0278-31016 email: <bengt.jonsson@mbox327.swipnet.se>
or Roo Lester: Telephone: 630 985-7192 (CST) e-mail: <DancingRoo@aol.com>
Norrlandia Camp's web page: <home.swipnet.se/~w-84416/norrlandia.html>
A registration form is also available on the
NCS Webpages at: <members.aol.com/jglittle/ncs.html> §
 
 

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Karelian Folk Music Ensemble in Bay Area

The Karelians, an engaging trio from Russia, are well versed in the traditional songs and music of Karelia (the region overlapping the Finnish/
Russian border.) They sing in Finnish, Karelian and Russian as well as perform instrumental music on accordions, mandolin, kanteles, wooden flutes, shepherd's horn, bowed lyre (jouhikko) and scythe.

February 21, 2001 , Wednesday, 8 pm,
Karelian Folk Music Ensemble
Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse
For information,
<www.freightandsalvage.com >
or call l 510/548-1761

February 22, 2001, Thursday, 8:00 pm.
Karelian Folk Music Ensemble
House Concert in Mountain View
For reservations & directions email <dss@batnet.com> or phone (650) 947-9669

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Tentative
Karelian Folk Music Ensemble Concert
Feb. 23 , Friday, 7 pm,
360 Kings Village Rd, Scotts Valley.
Sponsored by the
Scandinavian Cultural Center of Santa Cruz.
Call Ellen at (8310 724-1139 for info.
 

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Scandidans - Thursday East Bay Class
announces two special events
during the holiday season

Thursday, December 28th
Scandidans will host a small class party, with live music by Joe Finn and Leslie Bonnett.

Thursday, January 4th, Alix Cordray will be a guest teacher and will probably also play music with her friend, a fiddler/farmer from Roros.
 

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American Scandinavian Music Sites:

The Northern California Spelmanslag:
<members.aol.com/jglittle/ncs.html>

Nordahl Grieg Leikarring & Spelemannslag
<home.att.net/~williamlikens/ngls/ngls.html>

The American Nyckelharpa Association:
<www.nyckelharpa.org>

Bruce Sagan’s Scandinavian Web Site:
<www.math.msu.edu/~sagan/Folk/sources.html>

The Hardangar Fiddle Association of America
<www.hfaa.org/>

The Skandia Folkdance Society (Seattle):
<www.Skandia-Folkdance.org>
-----------------------------

About the Calendar

A (somewhat) more detailed and up-to-date calendar can be found on the NCS Webpage at

<members.aol.com/jglittle/ncs.html>
Web and Newsletter calendar submissions should be sent to Jim Little at 321 McKendry, Menlo Park, CA, 94025, email: <jlittle@unix.sri.com>, phone: (650) 323-2256 or Sarah Kirton at 330 Sierra Vista Ave. #1, Mt. View, CA, 94043, email: <sekirton@ix.netcom.com>, phone: (650) 968-3126. Suggestions for what to include in a calendar submission are found below and will eventually be on our web page. The web page calendar is updated when new material is received. §

-----------------------------

Submission of Newsletter and Web Page Calendar Items

The following are suggestions for those submitting calendar items for publication in the Newsletter or on the NCS Web Page. In general, the web page may contain more details than the newsletter, because of space/mailing weight considerations. For those without email - no, we're not putting less in the newsletter calendar, we're just expanding it on the web page. (Jim and Sarah’s addresses can be found above.)

1) if we ask for a contact method, always include a phone number, not everyone has email.
2) time & place of the event.
3) location of event, directions to get there if needed, or how to obtain directions (who to phone, email, etc).
4) cost of event - we haven't always been including this, we hope to begin to.
5) special schedules around holidays, summertime, etc.
6) tell us if there’s a change in time (or location, price, etc) - for two reasons - so that we don’t say - “oh yes, that’s the same group as before” and miss changing the time, and so we can put in in bold to alert our readers to a change.
7) registration deadline, where to get registration forms, etc, if applicable.
8) if it's a special event, include a brief description, or a even a paragraph we could publish if the timing's right and space allows. Our primary emphasis is folk music and dance, but paragraphs (or very occasionally whole stories!) on other Scandinavian cultural events are more than welcome depending on space and timing. (see below for publication schedule)
9) contact people for info for those reading calendar (eg, phone #, address, regularly read email - if you read it only every 2-4 days, warn folks, if only once every week or so - probably best to forget it!)
10) Contact people for we who create the calendar - you can specify not to publish this particular information - it's just for us to check to see that our info is ok or if you want to update anything when the next publication date rolls around. Again - specify phone #, email, etc.
11) Any other pertinent information.

We hope & attempt to publish on the following rough schedule:
Vol. 12, No. 1 late February, early March
Vol. 12, No. 2 late May - early June
Vol. 12, No. 3 late August - early September
Vol. 12, No. 4 late November - early December §