Brides of Midsummer

The Spring

So you’ve returned to me, Anders Eriksson, old spelman! Here with me, you shall remain. You have become one of the rested. Did you handle yourself well or poorly while in the world? Were you a good and decent sort or brutish and evil? Were you neither? A little of both maybe? These questions are not asked here. Here with me, there are no questions asked and no answers given. Here, you may hope for no restitution; there is no reward to look forward to, neither is there any punishment to fear. I know of no one who is evil and no one who is good. I know my people only, and with me, all are equal. Whether my people leave this world pleading or cursing is of no importance to me. They come in tears, they come swearing, but come they will. You are one of mine, Anders Eriksson, and you are back where you belong: that is all. You must admit that you were treated gently. You might have been dealt a long period of suffering; you knew that many must endure pain for a long time. But you were spared the realization of what was happening to you. As far as you knew, you felt your  the spring ^&  The Brides of Midsummer pain begin to ease and pass, and at once, you believed it was all over. You were right, weren’t you? It is all over now. Now, you have passed through. Now, you will never again be playing in this world. From now on, you will participate in the vigil of the rested. No one can boot you out from that watch—from here, no one shall ever run you off. But now, let someone else ascend the spelman’s throne and take over the playing. See, here comes a young spelman. He is a relative of yours. He is your immediate predecessor as spelman in your family, and he was here a long time before you came. Here, you will meet all the spelmen in your family. Here with me, you will meet all your predecessors. Here, you will keep your own spelmen’s vigil. Your relative who is now approaching is much younger than you are; he is only twenty-five years old. He is dressed like no other man you met in this world. He is wearing a rough homespun jacket, very short in the back, wide breeches ending at the knees, where handsome red tassels dangle. His shirt is ruffled and shirred at the neck. On his head, he wears a tall hat with black ribbons hanging from it. Under the hat, you see his bright, yellow hair, bowl cut; you have never met anyone, relative or other, with hair such as his. And the likes of the musical mechanism lying in his lap, you never saw. Neither did you ever hear anyone play such an instrument . You see strings stretched taut over a piece of wood that was cut from a fir tree, and in the spelman’s hand, you see a bow made of horsehair. Can you hear, as the bow glides over the strings, can you hear a fine, delicate sound? You could almost liken it to the sound of my running water flowing beneath the hill. the spring  Listen now, Anders Eriksson, to your immediate predecessor! Hear him work his instrument as he played once upon a time, in his world, a world which is, like yours, past and left behind. Now, another sits on the spelman’s throne on the oak hill: it is Anders, Erik’s Son, playing his lira* on Midsummer’s Night. * See fela, page . CF. key harp.—Tr. ...