Lunch With Dracula.

DEC

The English countryside is pure history. Every district present its lovely villages and towns. Every settlement has its old church, mostly in different Romanesque architecture like the Normanic ones with their flat tower. Most districts also have their castles or ruined fortresses from ancient times. Everywhere you may admire monuments of ambitions, hard work, and dreams from the past.

     Whenever I am going to England, I try to discover new areas of the country. This time I had chosen the road along the east coast from Harwich to Newcastle. Outside Newcastle I thought to go west along the Hadrian's wall. At Carlisle I would go south along the Cumrian coast down to Wales. In fact I was most eager to some detours into the mountain and lake districts of Cumbria.
     Nevertheless I enjoyed the open countryside here on the east coast. It was rather relaxing, and I had made more than one interesting break this morning. I had left early - even for my hosts at the "B&B" in Hornsea. Still I had lost a lot of hours compared to my planning for the day - mostly because I got carried away at the scenery of Robin Hood's Bay. This old village that used to be a paradise for smugglers, was even a paradise fo me with its attractive jumble of cobbled yards, footworn steps, and houses that seem to cling to the main cliff from above down to a coastal view almost unequalled to all others. The setting was special and peaceful. I almost had the feeling of being an intruder in this little place between Scarborough and Whitby.
     The time spend in Robin Hood's Bay meant I had to drive quite a way northwards to keep up with my plans for the day. Accompagned by some BBC station from my car radio I drove into the main road to Middlesborough. Only to discover that most lorries and tractors in this part of England headed the same way. Since my car was "continental" with the steering wheel at the left, overtake lorries was almost impossible when one is alone in the car. I had no idea of what was coming against us. Trying to put the car out to the right, would bring me in the opposite traffic lane - and put an abrupt end to me as to some innocent persons. In the few minutes when I had a view of what was ahead, naturally we met with a lot of cars driving south.
     Listening to the radio I realized that I rather should have listened to my stomach before leaving Robin Hood's Bay. That was why I left the road when I saw "Whitby" on a sign. At the entrance to the main centre I discovered a huge traffic jam. Another opportunity was a to the right. I chose this alternative road. It went uphill with some sharp bends, and brought me to a ruined church next to a parking space. "Abbey Plain" was an appropriate name on the site. So I understood the ruin had only been a part of a monastery area and no cathedral - although the ruin was rather impressing.

     I left the car and had a look downtown. The harbour was crowded with sailing boats, and in the bay a ship was moving under a bascule brigde that had opened. The reason for the traffic jam, I imagined. And Whitby seemed to be a town of some size. Every town of some size used to have a "Kentucky Fried Chicken"... That made me descend some stairs with innumerable steps towards the buildings below.
     My taste-bud was prepared for a fried chicken, although the tast-bud was not the most suitable organ to prepare for a Kentucky Fried Chicken. My empty stomach was more important than some expectation for a culinary meal. Then I did not mind discovering that Whitby was more English than international. This place did not prostitute itself to American pre-coocked food. Here I was offered a decent "Fish'n chips" wraped in the traditional way - in old newspaper.
     I returned with the meal to the plateau where I had parked my car. Unfortunately a biting wind had appeared when I was away down-town. I looked at the ruin area. There was an entrance fee to pay for entering the area, but I imagined I would find better sheltered there than out on the plain. And eating fish and chips soaked in vinegar within my car did not occur as a possibility.
     Behind the fencing I noticed several benches. Exactely something after climbing some thousands steps. So I went for the entrance, payed the fee and had my lunch sheltered for the wind. Completely alone among the ruins.
     "The Danes were responsible for a first demolition of the monastry in the 9th century," said the guy who had sold me the ticket, when I was about to leave. I nodded politely, and he presumed I was keen to listen to the rest of the story. Obviously he had been all alone up there the whole day, and was delighted to have a chat. "Fortunately the Benedictins raised this place after the Norman conquest..." But unfortunately for him, I did not care listening. I wanted to get further to the north. Even with some indigestion for having eaten my fish and chips too fast.
     During the afternoon I managed to get all the way to Hexham by the Hadrian's wall. And then the days passed along the Wall and the westcoast. Until I reached Chester, my favourite English town.
      Strangely enough the main discovery in my favourite town brought me back to Whitby!
     The return to the place where I hardly passed time enough for some food, started in "The Rows". In the charming shopping area of Chester. Where most of the shops are situated on galleries above the street. There - in the crypt at the bottom of "Bookland" - I found an AA-guide to "Country Towns and Villages". I started to look at the places I had passed or stayed at. Always it is possible to realize my ignorance when staying somewhere just by hazard. The desciption of Whitby made me sit down in the middle of the stairs. I was absolutely not the only visitor to "Abbey Plain"! The Irish author Bram Stoker had did the same i the 1890s. Strolling around among the ruins where I did not even care to lsiten to the gatekeeper, Bram Stoker got his inspiration that made him world famous. He wrote "Dracula" when he stayed in Whitby! In a place I only had escaped into for a rapid lunch, completely ignorant for the assosiations of the setting!
     And that was not all! The ruins of this monastry had a special and disputed story to tell. The Synod of Streaneshalc, as Whitby was called in the year 664. When the Celts had to dispose of their version of the Christian belief.
     On the steps in the bookshop I became painfully aware of where I had left some greasy newspapers with the leftovers from my tragicomic lunch in Whitby. In 664 the Pope in Rome wanted to christian The British Iles - although most of the inhabitants already were Christians - or rather, about to realize what it meant to be a Christian. The problem for the Pope was that he had no controll with the way it worked out. The Christianity of the Celts ruled in most of England, Wales and Scotland - not to mention on ireland. This was the gospe of charity and austerity. A gospel that did not apply to the Pope. This way of christtianity derived from Ireland with an origin from the first convents in the Palestinian dessert. Maybe the only influence the British ever have accepted from ireland...
     King Oswy of Northumberland happened to have trouble with his wife around the 660s. She was a product a Catholic tradition in Kent - far to the south and far from the Celtic influence from Ireland. The main problem turned out to be that Oswy used to celebrate Easter according to the Celtic customs, while Queen Eanfled celebrated the Holy week according to her Catholic upbringing. This brought about the Synod of 664. There - in what was later to be called Whitby - the King submitted to the claims from the papal representative who returned victorious to Rome telling his master the British had "agreed in being baptized as supporters of the Catholic faith" as I read on a sign when i returned to Whitby.
     Actually I returned to Whitby directely from "The Rows" in Chester. I simply could not accept that my only aim in Whitby had been putting bits of fish and chips dipped in salt and vinegar into my mouth sheltered from the wind. Without caring about sharing my humble meal with the vampire count Dracula, and the spirits from the Celts thar had to renounce in their belief.
     I also happened to find the balcony in "Cresent House" where Bram Stoker hundred years earlier elaborated his ideas of transylvanien brutality. The ruin on "Abbey Plain" across the harbour had been more extensive in the days of Stoker, but destroyed almost completely by the Germans during the last war, my host in "Crescent House" told me. Because his pension became my whereabouts for the next week. I had no intention of creating a new vampire, but spent a lot of time on the balcony with the view across the harbour to the ruin on "Abbey Plain", while reading about the rites and fate of the Celtic Christianity.
     Sometimes I strolled along the hillside close to the pension. There was another reason for visiting Whitby; the memories of James Cook. His statue is overlooking the bay below. And we had something in common, James Cook and I. He sailed away from Whitby to discover Australia. I went away, finding Whitby - in Chester.


                                                     Yours Thor Thorstensen                     

Lesson from Miletos. 

"Cola! Fanta! Cold drinks..." 

      The voice from the guy walking around Miletos selling cold drinks, was easily heard in the deserted area around the ruins. A lot of elaborated stones, all leftovers from earlier civilisations. Maybe this man is easier heard on the top of the old theatre - where I'm sitting - than for the few people strolling around the old warm stones carved out of marble and other materials thousands of years ago.
     "Soğuk içecekler! Cola! Fanta..."
     At the time when all this slabs of stone was carved, nobody spoke turkish. Not until this place became the desert it is to-day. When these masons were working their stones, a tiny voice of a waterseller would have been difficult to catch among all the other sounds of Miletos. Voices of different origins apart from the local ionian dialect - just talking or advertising their goods as well as our waterman, together with the creaking from different kinds of wagons, and sounds from a variety of animals, More than three thousand years ago Miletos was the largest city in the growing greek area. A stronghold fighting the Hittites and then a meeting point of exchanging goods between caravans from the Inner Asia and the ships from the Mediterrean region.
     In this comopolitan setting Thales (601-546BC) studied the nature and concluded that no gods, divine forces or mythology are dominating our nature. The nature was divine in it-self with the main substance of water. His thinking represents the beginning of greek philosofy, are the evaluations from modern as well as ancient philosofers, like Aristotle. The great Thales of Miletos was also a mathematician, calculating distances by use of geometry. And this impressing surroundings of Miletos gave inspiration to other scientists, as Anaximander (c610-c546BC) who was the first philosofer to write down his ideas. This distinguish him as a potenial first astronomer and the first one to publish a map. Among his students was Pytagoras... Impressing setting, Miletos in those days.
     Even when Athens slowly grew as the most important city in the Aegean area, Miletos continued to be an important ally defending the Ionian part of Lydia against the Persians, although the fighting around the beginning of the 5th century BC turned out to be devasteding for the original Miletos. In 334BC Alexander the Great conquered Miletos. He walled it and created Miletos at its greatest, almost 90 hectares within its walls. He also initiated the expansion of the theatre where I am sitting, up to some 15000 spectators. Not as impressing as the one in Efesos, perhaps, but here in to-days Miletos its the only impressing "survival" from the good old days.  
     The voice of our man selling cold drinks is the only sound heard from my seat on the top of the theatre to the entrance that is shivering in the heat far away behind the few ruins that are still to be notified. Most people coming here after visiting f.ex. Efesos, is disapointed. Is this all that's left from the great thinkings left us by Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes etc.?

      I am afraid it is. Looking down the empty theatre to the columns that mark the royal places, I realize that we might destroy most thing around us. The sad thing is, however, that the Milecians destroyed themselves. After periods of succesful exchange of goods and creating an environment for philosofical improvement, the inhabitants of later Miletos got tired of all these foreigners coming and going - not to say tired of those who would like to settle down inside the walls of Miletos.
       To avoid all these strangers, the locals closed both its gates and its harbour. For the caravans as for the ships. They let the harbour at the river Meander, to silt up. Creating a vast area of marsland and mud, ideal for the mosquitos to nourish and raise their young ones. In their effort to isolate themselves, the people of Miletos had caused their own calamitous destiny. Huge swarms of mosquitos became unbearable. So - the inhabitants of Miletos had to abandon their city.
        That is why I can easily hear the lonely shouting from our man with the cold drinks. That is the only sound left of what used to be the Big Apple of yesterday. Until their inhabitants refused to accept people from other cultures within their community...  
                                                                       
                                                                     Yours Thor Thorstensen

Upplagt kl. 8th October 2013 av Thor Thorstensen

  

GRAMMAR AS THERAPY 

The young fellow at the information office by the market place in Wolfenbüttel was on his way to the telephone directory when I realized my mistake. So I hurried to teIl him that "herr" Justus Georg Schottelius was a "late" Justus Georg Schottelius. He died more that three centuries ago.
      The young one looked at me in a statled way. Surprised or suspicious - but indeed alarmed by my question. So - he turned to a woman further behind a desk in the office. What did they know about "some" Schottelius? Fortunately the woman in her thirties smiled, and made us her company. Not very often someone asked for the late Justus Georg, she said - obviously to calm the frustrated young one. And especially no foreigner. Most people from abroad came to ask for the city's brewery of Jägermeister - and of course where to have a taste or even more than one.
       She did not ask why I was interested in Justus Georg Schottelius, who died here in 1676. Obviously she guessed I was some linguist who wanted to pay my respect to a dear, deceased colleague. In a way the was right. I was a linguist, but not a supporter of the main work of Justus Georg Schottelius. Rather in an invention he made.
       Nobody in the information office could tell me where the late Justus Georg was buried. Only that there was a memorial poster (or what they called it in German) by the gateway of a huge framed house named Statmarkt 5 opposite on the market place. There it said something about the enormous house - not only in the 17th century, but still - as being a gift to Justus Georg from the local duke himself. People with knowledge of German history, know that what is Germany to-day, in the 17th century consisted of a real patchwork of Länder of all dimensions. The duchy of Braunschweig (Brunswick in English) was one of the many, where Wolfenbüttel was growing to be a center of art and culture, owing to people like Justus Georg Schottelius.
       Wolfenbüttel is situated some miles south of Braunschweig, in the middle of Germany - in the zone that was saved from the fighting of the Second World War by Nazi-Germany's surrender. Therefore Wolfen-büttel is still a charming town with a lot interesting old houses around. Justus Georg was actually born 1612 in another, even more charming town called Einbeck further to the south, but had to leave Einbeck to find his studies in different cities around the area - even in Holland. His education did stop in an abrupt manner in Wittenberg because of the Swedes that attacked the city during The Thirty Years War. Schottelius ended up for a while as houseteacher for the most prominent aristocracy in Braunschweig. After surviving another attack from the Swedish army in 1641, he was promoted doctor at the university of Helmstedt. And - his experiences from the war, made him opposed to everything foreign, both in the fysical surroundings on German soil as in the German language. He became what we might call a "nationalist". And he sat down for years in Wolfenbüttel recreating the original German language.
       Back to the information office... this house on the other end of the market place, was this the genuin house from the years when Schottelius lived there? It did not exactely look like a house build in the early 17th century... Sorry, mein Herr, they could not tell. But for this honorable man, writer, poet, teacher, and lecturer at some universities, the magistrates of Wolfenbüttel during three hundred years must have dedicated him a street, an alley...?
      My two allies in the information office looked at each other. Both as ignorant as myself. Until the young one brought a map of Wolfenbüttel to the counter. In the listed streets of the city he found what I had asked for: Schotteliusstrasse. But not in the central part of the Altstadt. Quite a bit away from the city centre. So they gave me the map with a "Good luck, sir!"
      I crossed the market square to Statmarkt 5, but apart from the "poster", this house did not tell me what I was looking for in the life of Justus Georg Schottelius, maybe the small street with his name?
      A taxi brought me there.

          Schotteliusstrasse was a short "cul-de-sac" as the French call a street that does not take you more than to its end - and you have to return. On the signpost you may still read:  "Justus Georg Schottelius - der Vater der deutschen Grammatik." Quite a responsibility to be the founder (father, in fact) of the German grammar. Why put his name and reputation on a small street with no way out, in the outskirts of his town. One might regard it as a symbol of the struggle he made for us who had to learn German as a foreign language with his "aus, bei, mit nach, seit, von, zu" and all the rest of the nonsense words that is vital for the Germans themselves. Well, to-day, Schotteliusstasse is no longer a "cul-the-sac". Now you can walk all the way through to Reuß bäkerei and relax there.
        When I went there more than twenty years ago, there were no other option than walking back to the railway station in the centre. But I had finaly discovered a small part of my beloved Justus Georg Schottelius.
        Why so? Beloved? I, that almost hated the trouble of learning German at school. I, who was afraid of pronouncing my first phrase in German, fearing I might say a wrong grammatical case or tense - or even put the few words I knew in the wrong order...
       In spite of my - and other foreign students - anxiety-ridden problems for speaking the language of Schiller, Goethe etc, Justus Georg Schottelius made an invention that is almost passing as unnoticed as the knowlegde of himself as the father of the german grammar. Justus Georg Schottelius invented the semi-colon!
       Some might say - and then what? But to me, I realize that this was of great significance to mankind. The world had its period, its comma, its colon. The colon represented what was to come or what to be, the comma marked a short break in life - as leaving the mobilphone at home for a change, and the period was the final end of one's life. Then Justus Georg Schottelius gave us the gift of the semi-colon: To tell us how to survive experiences of life when we might think everything is at its end. When we think it is time to set the period! End of life - for whatever purpose we are trying to survive or let go. An experience too depressing for being represented by a short span of a comma - continuing after a small break. Whatever the sorrow or dispair, there is maybe still a sparkling trace of life to be found within you. That is when you should remind yourself of the semi-colon of Justus Georg Schottelius. Not to choose the end - the period; but...
    
                                                     Yours Thor Thorstensen
    
  
       

Upplagt kl. 12th November 2013 av Thor Thorstensen

  

Visiting a Place that Do Not Exist.

2. Visiting a place that does not exist. 

   My family spended often its holidays around Europe. In the early eighties my sons would like to visit a place that did not exist. Not the mythological Atlantis or the dream of some El Dorado. Or a Tartessos that most scientists would like to rediscover. We were going to a place that did not exist because it was to be forgotten: Alesia. But my sons knew were it was! In Astérix! In the comic that is called "Le bouclier Arverne" (The Shield from Arverne). This pamphlet tells the sad story - for the French - how Cesar conquered Gaul in 52BC.
   

        Cesar would like to impose his will on the Gauls by using the shield captured from their leader, Vercingétorix, at Alesia. Astérix and his friend Obélix are getting involved in the struggle to obstruct the Romans from recovering the shield. But - during their struggle, everybody got angry being asked about Alesia. There was - and will never be a place called Alesia...
   

         So far that is exactely what happened. Alesia was forgotten. The place where Cesar defeated the Celts by building a fortress around Alesia, defying every effort of the isolated population of Alesia from breaking out. This population included the army of Vercingétorix consisting of Celtic tribes. At the same time the Romans were obstructing other tribes to provide supplies to the encircled village. The Romans had catapults and some German tribes as allies. The people of Alesia had only thirst and hunger. 

         I leave the carnage to Cesar's "De bello gallico", but historians are calculating the losses of Celts during Cesar's campaign, to a number of five-six ciphers. Figures I did not tell my sons. They only knew that Vercingétorix had to lay down his weapon at the feet of Cesar. Although in the comic of Astérix, he drops his weapons upon the toes of the conqueror - a small revenge from posterity... Never-the-less, the defeated Gaul had to spend six years as a piece of museum in Rome before being executed. And Alesia disappeared from the maps as from the celtic language.

        At last - more than 1950 years later - after puttting an end to Muslim advancing at Poitiers in 732, after a Charlemagne, a "successful" war during hundred years against the English, after Versailles and 18 kinds of Louis, Age of Enlightenment and  the Revolution of 1789, a Napoleon that conquered most of Europe - did the French venture the humiliating defeat at Alesia, a notion Cesar had made immotal, but of which the French had disposed. 

        I brought my boys to Alise-Sainte-Reine, a small hamlet of seven hundred inhabitants not far from Dijon in the Côte d'Or in the North-East of France. There were a lot of fragments from equipment and arms used by the Romans and the ones belonging to Celtic warfare - and a lot of remains of horses. That is why scholars centered their interest on Alise-Sainte-Reine when they during the reign of Napoleon III finaly started the search for Alesia. 

        Alesia - Alise... Homogenous, but jumping to conclusions is a famous - and sometimes erratic sport. Places change names. The old Nicea is to-day called Iznik, Austerlitz is Slavkov, Stalingrad Volgograd... But my boys were delighted and quite certain of the choise I had made: On the hill of Auxois above Alise-Sainte-Reine they met with the very Vercingétorix! 

   

         The French finaly decided to raise a statue of the old warrior upon the mountain of Auxois close by Alise-Sainte-Reine 1865. My boys immediately recognized Vercingétorix from their story of Astérix - or was it the opposite?! Besides - the fellow on the pedestal had no shield! Their heroes in "Le bouclier Arverne" had taken care of this memorable item. They were convinced that their father had found the place that do not exist. 

        The battle of Alesia did not end with the statue on the Auxois mountain. From being a plce that did not exist, Alesia turned into a phenomenon that emerged in a lot of places. During the last hundred years, archelogists have discovered several sites that might be the one and only Alesia. Not so strange, regarding all the fighting between the Romans and the Celts in Gallia. One of the more interesting battlegrounds is situated outside Champagnole in the Jura, close to the Swiss border. Another one is called "L'archéodrome", southeast of Beaune in Bourgogne, in a huge area of recreation along the southbound part of Autoroute sud or "E 15". There is a model of the wall Cesar built around Alesia. In these surroundings a lot of remains of Roman and Celtic weaponry are found. Maybe this is created as a compromise between Alise-Sainte-Reine and Champagnole?

         My boys were satisfied. They had found the place that do not exist - regardless of where it really exist. The statue of Vercingétorix was their evidence. On the top of his pidestal I guess the old chief is listening to the discussions from the scientists - and enjoy the memory of the children that found their place that do not exist...

                                                    

                                                         Yours Thor Thorstensen

   Upplagt kl. 14th November 2013 av Thor Thorstensen

     

   0
   

   Add a comment

3.            
4. 
   
5. 
   
6.   
7. 
   

   NOV

   12

   
   

   GRAMMAR AS THERAPY 
   
   

NOV

28

Even stones can lie. 

Scientists are investigating old stones, informing us about their interpretation of age, usage, origin, and whatever a stone may tell them - and us. Some stones are like monuments, and monuments can be "living" lessons for everyone. If we care.
     But there are even stones that tells us a lie...
 
I was driving on the Swiss Highway 2 towards Luzern to see a Norwegian friend in Luzern. Since it was still early afternoon, and we had arranged to meet in the evening, I left the highway at Sempach a few miles ahead of Luzern for a lunch.
     Sempach has its charme, and I parked next to one of the two impressing main gateways. Coloured, with a narrow passage now only suitable for pedestrians. I walked along the short main street, passing by some old builings - even one build in and upon another - until I reached the second gateway with its watchtower on top. There I found what I was looking for - a place to eat. At a small square in front of the gateway was the Stattkeller.
      I found a table outside in the shadow, close to a huge column with a lion on its top. After having ordered a meal, I looked at the column. It was raised 1886 in honour of some Arnold von Winkelried who then lived five hundred years ago. This made me thinking about Scandinavians. For the most of us, Switzerland is just a "place" we are driving through - or passing above - on our way to sunny Italy. That is why we are more common with the nature - and the tunnels, than with its history and the charming villages around. Some are familiar with names as Wilhelm Tell and Calvin, and have made acquaintance of Swiss chocolade and the Pope's Swiss guard.    
      Curious as I am, I made contact with a family of three at a neighbouring table. I wished them "Gute Appetit" and asked if they might tell me why this Winkelried had been honoured with such a huge memorial?
     All three looked at me, astonished? Even the little girl remained with her mouth open after having tried to decide what was her favourite dessert. The grown-ups looked surprised at eachother and I realized how silly it was, not to ask them if they spoke German... in fact Switzerland has three different languages. And who could they be having lunch out in Sempach, if not turists as my self? But - it soon turned out that they knew German. Very well, indeed. It was their mother tongue, at least the swiss kind of German. And they lived three blocks away. Their house was integrated in the old wall that once surrounded Sempach. They gave me quite a lesson...
      Their young daughter of eight or nine informed me of my complete ignorance by not knowing the life and dead of Arnold von Winkelried. To her, he was as familiar as Donald Duck, but more precious. The name of Arnold became immortal here at Sempach - except for some ignorant stranger...

Memorial of Winkelried

The very Arnold von Winkelried did not come to Sempach as a turist. He had joined the Swiss army, before anything was called Swiss or Switzerland. At the time of Winkelried this "army" consisted of a bunch of more or less volunteers being summoned to defend the four cantons south of the Vierwaldstättersee. These cantons had proclaimed their independence at the end of the 13th Century. In 1386 six more cantons had joined the four independent Waldstätter. The Austrians did not support this push from Swiss cantons towards liberty. A tendency that would keep the income from customs and other cunning taxes from travellers through the Swiss valleys within the cantons, and then threaten Austrian expectations and economy.
     If the cantonal wishes for freedom had generated some sympathy, it ended abrupt when residents from Luzern destroyed the Austrian custom office at Rothenburg outside their town. The cantons had to be punished, and Duke Leopold III of Austria was appointed to execute the retaliation and reopen the economic income to the Austrian castles. The Duke put together an expeditionary army of knights and mercenary troops in 1386 to punish both the people of Luzern and to crush the tendency of secessions.
      The independent cantons were commited by oath to mutual support if threatened, intimidated or being attacked. This treaty sent Arnold von Winkelried and other assosiates to the fields of Sempach. Farmers, carpenters, fishermen - they all found whatever they might call a weapon and walked away to fight the Austrians.
       The Duke's army happened to confront the confederate peasants from the Waldstätter at the hills outside Sempach on the 9th of July 1386. The local band had hoped for a cavalry attack on the fields full of treacherous rabbit holes which would make the horses stumble and their horsemen thrown to the ground and easy to kill. The Duke, however, realized that the terrain did not seem suitable for a cavalry attack, and let his knights dismount their horses. The knights - consisting of Austrian noblemen - saw that the confederates from the Swiss valleys were much outnumbered compared to themselves. As a result, they did not want the mercenary troops in front, fearing they would miss the honour of winning the battle. They formed themselves a wide front with their pikes and lances pointing against the attacking confederates. The locals had few and too short weapons to force the iron ring of armour and pikes. Their arrows and spears bounced off the armoured knights without doing any harm. The rank of armour and pikes tightened in and threatened to surround them.
      The first four Eidsgenossen had been able to defend themselves in narrow valleys with rivers, but their new collegues lived in open spaces like the one at Sempach. The old tactics did not work out in the open. Their situation seemed so bad that the Duke calculated on an easy and devastating victory. Then he ordered the knights to surround the peasants. The confederates confronted total slaughter or to escape. Both options would have as a result that their newborn independence was lost.
      Then the confederates heared the voice of Arnold von Winkelried crying out something like "Take care of my wife and my children, dear friends, and I'll make a passage for you". According to my young informer at the neighbouring table.
      Arnold von Winkelried threw himself onto the pikes, making a breach in the armoured "wall", by bringing down pikes and lances with his body. Before the Austrians managed to free the long pikes from his dying body, the confederates attacked through the opening.

                

         
       Heavy armour and the long pikes made it difficult for the Austrians to turn around. They also formed a line so close to each other that this blocked their ability to draw their swords. This made it easy for the local peasants to attack and kill the knights from behind. The austrian certainty of victory turned rapidly into dismay and despair. Duke Leopold sensed the mortal fear among his troops, and set into the battle with his whole staff to encourage the men. But soon he was as dead as Arnold von Winkelried...

       Since I did not want this little girl to describe more bloodshed, I thanked her for enlightening me. Her parents let me pay her an extra dessert while I concentrated on my food that was about to get cold. They left, and so did I an hour later. I did not leave Sempach, but went to the area where the battle was fought. A small chapell built in the area are equiped with remains from the battle, and the modern Swiss army do now inaugurate their standards on the premises. Another monument of Arnold von Winkelried also mark the site, and his prayers became real. His family was taken care of, and when someone to-day looses his life while serving in the Swiss army, his family still has support from a foundation having the name of Winkelried.
       I left the hills of Sempach and entered the highway with more piety than when I entered Sempach. The small town was no longer just a "lunch-break", but the very symbol of how Switzerland became Switzerland
       until I met my friend. He could tell me the doubt of modern scholars. That this heroic sacrifice of Arnold von Winkelried was no more a fact than Wilhelm Tell shooting an apple from his son's head. These stories were made for inflickting proud in the new nation, he said.
      I enjoyed the story and the way I learned about it. Therefore I keep to the true reason for creating memorial stones. I do not like the idea that old stones can tell a lie...    

                                                Yours Thor Thorstensen
      

Upplagt kl. 28th November 2013 av Thor Thorstensen

DEC

17

Angels Don't Do Politics Any More. 

DEC

     

DEC

17

Angels Don't Do Politics Any More.

At the end of the 19th century politics opened for both fanatics, angels and idealists. The establishment was attacked from an irresponsible left, they said - since right had always been right. The ideas from the French Revolution emerged into claims for social liberty, equality and fraternity in the European neighbourhood. Not everywhere, and not among all humans. Only among men. Women still had to suffer from the teachings of Augustin fifteen hundred years ago. But the female part of the northwest European societies fought a battle to gain equality to what men had accomplished. Well, some of the female angels struggled, while the rest just got their rights as a result of the battle.
     There were many angels fighting for human rights in the beginning of the previous century - mostly against the "right". As the century got along, politics changed. From presenting solutions for solving problems of living conditions into fighting with businesslike slogans. Politicians started to sell their face and their political party in front of the next election. To stay put in power, and sitting calmly on their parlamentary chairs. Politics became the art of illusionary festival talks. And, sadly enough, in some countries it turned into political terror. Controll of the human mind. Not only in dictatorships by threat and seductive promises, but also in democratic countries by pretending that a lie could be the very truth.
    The last angel died in South-Africa. His name was Nelson Mandela. I am not another one to tell the story and wonders of this last angel. Neither to predict if the next one may come in Asia. My intention is to put the survey on how modern politicians can make fools of their voters, not by the acts of bribery or creating human agony such as those presented as catastofs on the media front pages. Simply show the small, decent ways of creating local delusion - and disappointment...
      I will not focus on well known places or ways of international fraud, but visit a small and local event only known to a few - and long ago almost forgotten, just left in photos I was presented when visiting a village called Sørumsand in the southeast of democratic and peaceful Norway. 
       At the east entrance of Sørumsand you have to cross the longest river in Norway, Glomma. Before 1980 there were two bridges for the crossing to and from a little island i the middle of a strong current. A minor one like most bridges, and a white suspension bridge, both build in the 1920s.  

Bingsfoss before 1980, copied from Aasnes.

    In the 1960s prices in the property marked started to raise in Oslo and its nearest suburbs. People started to look around in the area for more reasonable living. Most of them looked to the west of Oslo, but those who went to the east of the capital discovered both cheaper lodging and surprising scenery. One of the most intriguing discoveries happened at the central town in Sørumcommunity, called Sørumsand because of its sandy beaches along Glomma. To cross the river, the visitors had to pass two old bridges, and nobody remained untouched by the view of the white suspension bridge among the green trees at its both ends. A lot of the turists parked to admire the bridge and the scenery of the swift current under the bridges. Some even decided to settle at Sørumsand because of this charming setting.
      During the next years quite a few people settled, not only at Sørumsand, but also in the rural area around the river. A lot of the new settlers worked in Oslo or some of the other bigger places in the area. There were also quite a few that worked in the factories of Sørumsand, but did not live there. More and more people got a car and started to use it for work. After a while this created trafic problems on the two old and narrow bridges build for some horsedriven wagons and the few cars that existed in the 1920s. Two cars could not meet on the bridges, and trafic jam became all too common at the river crossing. 
       Cars became more and more important. Together with lost minutes in waiting to cross the narrow bridge, the scenery at Bingsfoss lost in competition. The politicians decided to build two new bridges, and tear down the old ones. A cry of protests was the result. The old suspension bridge was almost as the symbol of Sørumsand, and the reason for many to establish themselves in the area. Nobody - not even a politician - could eliminate this marvellous sight, admired by everyone!
        The political elite assambled a massmeeting. The ones in position told the agitaded audience that they had checked all technical and legal concerns, and had ended up with this fatal decision. The ones in opposition did like Pilatus, twisted their hands informing their belief in the consideration of their fellow politicians. Nobody was calmed by their promises. A politician know when to search for alternatives when their position is threatened. Therefore one side soon changed from telling about all the effort to investigate the matter, into praising the local initiative. Naturally, the opposite group felt they were losing the grip of their future voters and started to talk of a possible referendum. Then others tried to sell their party even better, reminding there fellow politicians of democratic will. So - this horse-trading ended with the promise that the suspension bridge should survive as a pedestrian crossing. This behaviour from the politicians as cheerful toastmasters made the protests disappered. Everyone might have been happy. Since nobody pointed to the fact I have written in a book of mine ("Til kompost kan du bli", you might end up as compost). That politicians often let the bureaucrats do the dirty work. And the bureaucracy do not behave like toastmasters. When you ask a bureaucrat a question, you will have an answer that brings you out in the wildernes, where you are left...
        Both bridges disappeared when the new ones were there. 
      Protests were again met by logical explanations. Not by the fact that the voters had been fooled. Now they were told about the necessity for the salmon to enter from the lower part of the river to the higher level by an arrangement built to allow the fish to achieve this, they had to tear down the beloved suspension bridge. At the other stream, where the minor bridge had been, was now a power plant. The only place to create the salmon "stairs", was in the current below the suspension bridge, and a combination was impossible according to legal and technical matters - or whatever the citizens were told this time. 
        Obiously there were nobody able to contradict this, and everyone had become conscience of the effort to protect environment. The fish had precedence to sceneries. And the bridge was gone. Nothing to do, other than admire the photos I was shown of what had been.
     Nothing more for me, either, but to leave what had been. And fortunately I chose to drive into Sørumsand. Fortunately, because I had to stop by the railway station - or rather at the railway stations. This tiny town happened to have two stations. One main station for the local trains and the ones passing between Oslo and Stockholm. There was also a new station apart from this main one. New, but old in a way. It was the station for a steam train used decades ago. This veteran train could bring you for a moment into the past - and return. But I was not impressed by the old locomotive. What got my attention was a statue by the station. A statue of some military fellow with a long nose. Some children told me this was a comic figure familiar to every Norwegian, 91 Stomperud, who in the comic was said to live in Sørum - although the original was Swedish.          
       I did not care where this comic caracter had been created. It was more obious to me why he had been placed on a pedestal. Someone had wanted to tell the locals something. In Norwegian "getting a long nose" means that you had been left very disappointed, almost taken by the nose... Maybe this Stomperud was to remind the people of Sørumsand what to expect next time their politicians promised something. If so, this statue could have been errected in a numerous places around the world... if the angels do not return.

        
                                                     Yours Thor Thorstensen

     

Upplagt kl. 17th December 2013 av Thor Thorstensen