Content warning:
Blood, bodily harm
My maternal grandfather, Klas, wrote a lot about his childhood when he got older, and in recent years, I’ve gone back and read his notes many times. There is a wealth of interesting, nitty-gritty details about everyday life in inland, northern, rural Sweden at the beginning of the twentieth century in those notes, but the stories about my great-grandfather Roland are special. One thing that has always fascinated me about those stories is the sense of an older, veiled, mostly forgotten knowledge (that is now completely lost to us) lurking just out of sight, just beneath the surface of the ordinary world.
It’s 1918. Örträsk, northern Sweden. He is three years old, sitting on the firewood storage bench in the kitchen, watching Mother Olivia cutting up a slaughtered calf, or maybe it’s part of a full-grown cow or steer. The table is full of meat and bones. Mother’s big butcher knife, the one they call buffel-oxen—heavy, sharpened, honed—is on the table.
He slides down from the bench, walks to the table, and reaches for buffel-oxen. The table is so high, he can’t see it, but he knows where it is. Groping, he pulls the knife down and it falls, tip first, onto his ankle, piercing an artery. Olivia picks him up and shouts for his father, Roland. Blood gushes from the wound. Roland comes running from outside, and the blood stops flowing the moment he reaches the threshold.
• • • •
Years later, he will put his finger there, touching the scar, feeling his pulse beating beneath the skin.
• • • •
There once was a piece of paper and written on it was a secret.
There once was a piece of paper, and written on it was a secret, but a woman threw it in the fire.
There once was a piece of paper and written on it was a secret, but a woman threw it in the fire because what was written there was un-Christian.
“Doesn’t matter,” her husband said. “I’ve already committed the knowledge to memory.”
• • • •
Roland, my great-grandfather on my mother’s side, could “stä blod,” staunch bleeding wounds. Not with any medical knowledge or herbal remedies. He would do it simply by making it so. It’s impossible of course. Yet my grandfather Klas, who wrote down what he remembered of his early life years later, mentions Roland’s ability several times.
• • • •
It’s 1900, the year Olivia and Roland get married. Or maybe it’s a couple of years later when their first children have been born.
One night, Roland is out late drinking with Höglund, a neighbour. Höglund is a farmer like most everyone around those parts, known far and wide for his ability to treat ailments and stä blod, in people and cattle. Roland comes home that night with a piece of paper in his pocket. Drunk though he might be, he carefully places the paper on a shelf above the bedroom door. In the morning, Olivia finds the paper. After reading it, she immediately throws it in the fire.
• • • •
Roland and Olivia’s small farm is east of the lake, north of the river. Funne-myren, their small parcel of land, is farther away, on the southside of the lake. Eight kilometers away if you’re walking, five kilometers as the magpie flies.
It’s 1910. Haying time. Roland is at Funne-myren, cutting hay. Two of Roland and Olivia’s daughters are there. They are ten and five. The oldest grabs a scythe, tells her sister she’ll show her how Father uses it. Swinging the scythe, she catches the five-year-old with it just below the kneecap. There’s blood everywhere. They are far away from home, from anyone. Roland ties a scarf around the wound, runs with the girls down to the lake, puts them in the rowboat and rows across the water to the village where the midwife, the only one with any medical training in the community, lives. It’s 300 meters to run from the field to the lake. Five kilometers to row with the girls in the boat, that scarf tied tight around the wound.
At the midwife’s, the scarf is removed. There’s barely a drop of blood on it. It takes five stitches to close the cut. There’s no anesthetic. Roland’s daughter chews on a chunk of sugar while the midwife wields the needle.
• • • •
It’s 1930. Late one night, Roland’s brother comes to the house. He lives a ways off and has walked, maybe run, the whole way. His wife has had a severe nosebleed for most of the day. He’s not sure she’ll make it through the night. Roland says no when he’s asked to come. Says he won’t help anyone outside his own household. The children watch and listen while Roland and his brother argue, voices quiet but animated. Religious concerns are raised. Finally, Roland gives in and goes with his brother. When they’re still a good distance from his brother’s house, Roland stops. “If it’s going to help, it’s already happened,” he says and heads home.
The children don’t ask what happened. Their aunt goes on to live many more years.
• • • •
Roland never tells anyone what he learned from Höglund. Never reveals what was written on that piece of paper. Olivia never tells anyone what it said, either. My grandfather prods Roland with questions many times, but Roland steadfastly refuses to speak of it. When asked why, he says it’s because it involves calling on powers no Christian should tangle with.
• • • •
It makes a good story, that she burned the paper.
It makes a good story that he refused to speak of it.
It makes a good story that he was reluctant to wield the power.
• • • •
What do I think, over a century later?
I think about Örträsk as it was when my grandfather grew up. A small community of people, eking out a living. No phones, no electricity, no radio or television, no running water, no cars.
I think about Olivia who gave birth to nine children in nineteen years, including one boy who died when he was only a few months old. I think about her, shoving that paper into the fire, making sure the flames took it.
I think about how late Christianity came to northern Sweden. How strong that religion eventually became once it took root. And I think about how things may seem strong on the surface, like lake-ice in winter, and yet be thin and brittle in places, hiding untold depths beneath.
• • • •
What do I think? my grandfather writes in the notes he left behind. I don’t know. I just put a finger on the scar and feel my pulse beating.
