Kände ni drottning Karin Månsdotter?

— Kände ni drottning Karin Månsdotter?

— En fattig krigsman, som vandrat mycket omkring, måste väl känna den enda drottning som bott här i landet. Jag kom aldrig den gång till Liuksiala, utan att den välsignade frun lät först undfägna mig på det bästa i folkstugan och sedan kalla mig upp till sig att berätta för henne om forna dagar. Det fanns icke en fattig på många mils avstånd, som icke var dag välsignade henne i sin morgon- och aftonbön, och lika blid 103 var hon mot alla, hög eller låg, vän eller ovän, ja mot själva herr Olof Stenbock, som varit så grym mot kung Erik i tiden. Jag minns nog den dag, när Stenbocken stack sig undan för hertig Karl och blev skjuten som en eländig flykting i skogarna, huru fru Karin då lät uppsöka hans döda kropp och begrava honom i vigd jord, vedergällande ont med gott... Mig var hon synnerligen huld för att jag var en bland kung Eriks bågskyttar i mina unga dagar; det fick jag ofta för henne förtälja. Och för fyra år sedan råkade jag just komma till Liuksiala, när hon låg på sitt yttersta. Jag fick komma till hennes säng och säga farväl åt henne, jag med alla andra av gårdens folk, och hon orkade intet mer tala, men hon gav fru Sigrid ett tecken att läsa för henne Johannes’ första epistel, som är om ljuset och kärleken, och vid fru Sigrid läste mitt i andra kapitlet, förmärkte vi alla, huru den kära gamla fruns ögonlock sakta föllo ihop, och i den samma stunden vart hon saligen döder. Så var det med fru Karin, och dotter hennes, som nu beder i koret, brås uppå mor sin; sonen kände jag inte; han reste världen omkring undan kung Johan. Men dottersonen, unge herr Åke, lärer brås uppå morfadern, varandes en ostadig och hårdsint herre, duktig i slagsmål, såsom ock Tottesläkten hör till de styvare här i landet.

Zacharias Topelius: Ungdomsdrömmar

Winesburg, Ohio

Upon the half decayed veranda of a small frame house that stood near the edge of a ravine near the town of Winesburg, Ohio, a fat little old man walked nervously up and down. Across a long field that had been seeded for clover but that had produced only a dense crop of yellow mustard weeds, he could see the public highway along which went a wagon filled with berry pickers returning from the fields. The berry pickers, youths and maidens, laughed and shouted boisterously. A boy clad in a blue shirt leaped from the wagon and attempted to drag after him one of the maidens, who screamed and protested shrilly. The feet of the boy in the road kicked up a cloud of dust that floated across the face of the departing sun. Over the long field came a thin girlish voice. "Oh, you Wing Biddlebaum, comb your hair, it's falling into your eyes," commanded the voice to the man, who was bald and whose nervous little hands fiddled about the bare white forehead as though arranging a mass of tangled locks.

Sherwood Andersson: Winesburg, Ohio; a group of tales of Ohio small town life

What a delight to any company

A man, named Robertson, once gave exhibitions in Paris, in an old chapel, and at the close of his performances he generally caused a great skeleton figure of Death to appear among the pillars and arches. Many of the audience were often nearly scared to death by this apparition. The more ignorant people of Paris who attended these exhibitions, could not be persuaded, when they saw men, women, and animals walking about in the air between the arches of the chapel, that Robertson was not a magician, although he explained to them that the images were nothing but the effect of a lantern and some glass lenses. When these people could see that the figures were produced on a volume of smoke, they were still more astonished and awed, for they thought that the spirits arose from the fire which caused the smoke.

But Robertson had still other means of exhibiting the tricks of light. Opposite is a picture of the "Dance of Demons."

This delusion is very simple indeed, and is produced by placing a card-figure on a screen, and throwing shadows from this upon another screen, by means of several lights, held by assistants. Thus each light throws its own shadow, and if the candles are moved up and down, and about, the shadows will dance, jump over each other, and do all sorts of wonderful things. Robertson, and other public exhibitors, had quite complicated arrangements of this kind, but they all acted on the same principle. But all of those who exhibit to the public the freaks of light are not as honest as Mr. Robertson. You may have heard of Nostradamus, who also lived in Paris, but long before Robertson, and who pretended to be a magician. Among other things, he asserted that he could show people pictures of their future husbands or wives. Marie de Medicis, a celebrated princess of the time, came to him on this sensible errand, and he, being very anxious to please her, showed her, in a looking-glass, the reflected image of Henry of Navarre, sitting upon the throne of France. This, of course, astonished the princess very much, but it need not astonish us, if we carefully examine the picture of that conjuring scene.

Frank Richard Stockton: Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy

We attended divine service in the Lutheran church

On Sunday we attended divine service in the Lutheran church, for this is the prevalent religion here as in Sweden : the officiating minister, previous to his concluding prayer, read out to us with an audible voice a list of the births, deaths, and marriages of the preceding week, as we had observed elsewhere to be the usual custom. His succeeding catalogue somewhat surprised us : he recounted the sales of houses made, or about to be made, and then added the directions of the unclaimed letters now lying at the post-office, with some other notices of a similar description : it is a singular practice, but nevertheless one that is infinitely useful in such a country as Finland ; and I must add in compliment to the piety of the Fins, that certainly no other mode of publication would have given these matters an equal chance of notoriety.

John Thomas James: Journal of a tour in Germany, Sweden, Russia, Poland, during ... 1813 and (1819)

How the Children Played in Winter

When the children saw their fathers and mothers go out of doors, they, too, wanted to go. But they had no warm clothing, so their mothers tried to keep them in doors.

Sometimes Fleetfoot and Flaker teased to go out and play in the snow. And when the days were warm enough, Antler let them go out and play. But on very cold days they had to stay in the cave.

The children had good times in the cave. They played many animal games. They played they were grown men and women, and they made believe do all sorts of work. They peeked out of the cave many times each day. They heard their fathers and mothers talk. And they listened to Greybeard’s stories.

And so the children always knew what the men and women were doing. After a heavy fall of snow, they knew they would trap the animals in the drifts. When a hard crust formed, they knew they would dig pitfalls.

Antler often wished that the children might play out doors every day. Greybeard wanted the boys to learn to make pitfalls and traps. But neither Antler nor Greybeard had thought of making clothing for little children.

Katharine Elizabeth Dopp: The Later Cave-Men

THE YOUNG ADVENTURERS, LTD.

"TOMMY, old thing!"

"Tuppence, old bean!"

The two young people greeted each other affectionately, and momentarily blocked the Dover Street Tube exit in doing so. The adjective "old" was misleading. Their united ages would certainly not have totalled forty-five.

"Not seen you for simply centuries," continued the young man.

"Where are you off to? Come and chew a bun with me. We're getting a bit unpopular here--blocking the gangway as it were. Let's get out of it."

The girl assenting, they started walking down Dover Street towards Piccadilly.

"Now then," said Tommy, "where shall we go?"

The very faint anxiety which underlay his tone did not escape the astute ears of Miss Prudence Cowley, known to her intimate friends for some mysterious reason as "Tuppence." She pounced at once.

"Tommy, you're stony!"

"Not a bit of it," declared Tommy unconvincingly. "Rolling in cash."

"You always were a shocking liar," said Tuppence severely, "though you did once persuade Sister Greenbank that the doctor had ordered you beer as a tonic, but forgotten to write it on the
chart. Do you remember?"

Tommy chuckled.

Agatha Christie: Secret Adversary

They drink the votki raw, and in large quantities

That this part of Finland was but little cultivated was too evident, from the scanty and bad quality of the subsistence to be met with in all the villages through which we passed, and in which we were rarely able to procure any other species of provisions than the coarsest brown bread, baked as hard as a sailor's biscuit, or burnt rather to a cinder, which in appearance it pretty much resembled. Add to this a little fish, dried or salted, sour cream, and sometimes, though not always, salted butter — and you have the sum total of what may be expected in a Finnish village. Fortunately we had been informed of this scarcity before starting, and had laid in a tolerably good stock of tongues, chickens, and other good things, together with a small supply of eau de vie, which we thought would have been sufficient, with the addition of any other beverage we might chance to meet with ; but in this we were disappointed; we found nothing whatever but the ardent spirit called Votki : so that when our little stock of brandy was exhausted, we had no alternative but to resort to this native liquor, which we had heard much abused and execrated as a most villanous beverage, but which we did not find to deserve such a character. The flavour is more that of whiskey than any other spirit, is exceedingly fiery, but, when mixed with hot water and sugar, is by no means unpleasant.

John Barrow: Excursions in the North of Europe: Through Parts of Russia, Finland, Sweden and Norway (1835)