Telling stories during skumtimme

"I remember sitting around the fire in the evening before electricity came. In Sweden, it takes about an hour to get really dark from when the sun starts going down. That time was called skumtimme, the dusk hour. When it was cold in wintertime, we used to sit around the stove. We had gas lanterns but they weren’t lit until it got really dark. That was saving a little bit. This was when we used to sit and tell stories. Dad had so many stories; he was a good storyteller and so was his brother, Farbror Folke.

This is the spinning wheel that Mom brought home in 1966.
It sat in our living room when we were kids and when we
were tempted to play with the wheel, she told us this story!

I remember Dad telling us about when he was little and either his Farmor or Mormor, I don’t know which right now, but she was sitting spinning, and Thor, Ivar and Folke were watching her. What can three boys think up? They sat there wondering what would happen with the spinning wheel if they put a stick in the wheel. Dad was the oldest so he was chosen to go test it. They found some kind of stick, and he stuck it in the wheel while it was spinning along. The old lady was going full speed with her spinning, and one of the rungs on the wheel broke off. She looked at him and said, “Look now what you did. I’m not going to have this fixed so that every time you look at it, you can remember what you did.” He said that was worse than if she had scolded or spanked him. That spinning wheel was still there when we were home in 1966, dividing things up after our parents had passed away.

Another story they used to tell was about Victor and Mina, the old couple who lived down by the school. Victor was such a miser. In the fall, he bought a whole keg of salt sill and then they could eat on that all winter long; that was cheap food. Well one year, Victor came into the store and was going to buy his salt sill, there were a few boys from Misterfall there. These were kind of ornery guys and they said, “Oh yeah I heard that this sill was caught where the Titanic sank.” Victor went to the boys and said, “Please don’t tell Mina that. She won’t eat it.”

Thor Boberg, 1912

Dad loved to tell about when he was in the military and they were shipped up to the north of Sweden on a train and they stopped in a place named Bräcke. There they ate Bräckkorv; that was some kind of sausage they had there. None of the kids had been so far away from home at that time; Folke hadn’t been to Mongolia yet. Dad liked to describe all about the guys on that train.

He used to tell about Ragnar who was kind of small and scrawny when he was growing up. They used to say the military made a man out of him because when he came home from the military, Ragnar had grown so much that he couldn’t fit into his clothes.

Another story they used to tell was about when Ivar first took a job. He was going to be a dräng or hired man in Misterfall. Coming from a big family, Ivar was lonely where he was. Every evening Farmor would go out by the gate to hagen, and Ivar would go out to the top of the hill at Misterfall, and they would wave white handkerchiefs at each other. I don’t know how old Ivar was then, but he was the second to oldest, so he probably went out to work pretty early.

Then there was the story about the man who was known for being kind of lazy. He was laying on the köksofa and somebody told him to go to bed. He said, “I have to rest a while before I go to bed.”

This is an example of a 

köksofa or kitchen sofa.

Another story that Dad used to tell was about one time when he was pretty small, and Farfar was going to sell a cow, so he and little Thor walked the cow to Kisa. Farfar wanted to get rid of this cow because she couldn’t hold her milk. When her udder started to get full, she leaked. Well, they had certain days once a month or so when you could bring in any animal to this place in Kisa where they bought and sold animals. A man came who was really interested in this cow. She was a nice looking cow, and she was very gentle, and he really liked her. He looked at the udder and asked, “She’s not leaking is she?” And Farfar said, “Oh no no.” Well, Papa was a little guy about 5 years old then, and he popped up and said, “But she does leak at other times! I’ve seen it!” So there was no sale there. I think they had to just take the cow back home. Dad used to say that Farfar taught him a lesson that day!

Dad used to tell about a man who was so sick and people kept telling him that he should go to the doctor. This man always answered, “No, I can’t go now. I have to get a little better before I go to the doctor.”

All these stories were fun for kids. These are only the few that I remember right now. I know there were many, many more."

Sitting here, left to right, are Johan August, Hildegard, Midi, Linnea, and Adela.
Standing, left to right, are Folke, Ragnar, Elin, Thor, Gunnar and Ivar.