Advent 3: A Swedish Spirit Of Christmas

Most people are aware that the familiar character of Santa Claus got a big boost in popularity after the publication of the poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas”, popularly known by its opening line “Twas the night before Christmas”. More than anything else, this poem cemented the idea that St. Nicholas and Santa Claus are the same character, even though they’re not.

Actually, this Christmas is special for two special reasons. You’ll have to wait until next Sunday for one reason, but the other is that this year is the 200th anniversary of the publication of “A Visit From St. Nicholas” on 23rd December 1823.

In the many nations where Santa Claus and St. Nicholas are not really part of their heritage, there are other gift-givers, as I’ve highlighted a few times in various past Advent series. One of these other gift-givers is the Scandinavian tomte (mentioned briefly last week in relation to modern St. Lucy Day processions).

The Christmas tomte evolved from ancient (probably pagan) house spirits, and every home had/has one. These spirits are known across Scandinavia under various alternative names – in Sweden the name is tomte, but they also use tomtenisse and jultomte (the latter literally means “Yule/Christmas tomte). They often appear like elves at Christmas celebrations helping out Santa or joining in the St. Lucy processions. Modern representations of the gift-giving version follow the 19th century image that resembles a garden gnome. (A big digression here, but the animator who drew the dwarves for the Disney classic “Snow White” was Swedish, so probably based them on the tomte).

Just as Santa Claus became more popular after the publication of “A Visit From St. Nicholas”, so the tomte became popular in Scandinavia through a poem. The poem was called “Tomten”, which is also known by its opening line. The poem was written by a gay folklorist and writer called Viktor Rydberg (1828-1895) and was first published in a weekly newspaper called “Ny Illustrrerad Tidning” (New Illustrated Newspaper) on 19th February 1881. The tomte was illustrated on the front cover (pictured above).

To say “Tomten” is a poem for children would not be entirely accurate, though it is now a family favourite in Sweden at Christmas time. In the poem the tomte is presented as a lone figure on a cold, snowy night, standing by a barn door. He shakes off thoughts about a difficult question he is pondering so he can do his rounds of the farmstead, checking that all doors are closed, and that the farm animals and equipment are safe and secure.

Lastly, he checks that the farm owner and his family are warm in their beds. As he does so he finds that the difficult question comes back into his mind. He has been looking after this family for many generations, but he wonders where all the older generations disappear to. He ponders on the passing of life.

The poem has been labelled an existential comment on the meaning of life and death and the passing of time. I’m sure we all think about how things change in our personal life, and the people who are no longer with us at Christmas. This could be why the adults who read it felt how it resonated with their own thoughts of loved ones missing at Christmas.

Despite the poem “Tomten” becoming such a Christmas favourite, it wasn’t set during that celebration. It was just set during winter. However, Rydberg has quite a strong association with Christmas apart from this poem. Back in 2018 I included him in my Advent series when I mentioned his support for the suggested year of Christ’s birth. Rydberg had already written a Christmas story the previous year called (in English) “Little Vigg’s Adventure on Christmas Eve”. I won’t go into “Little Vigg” today, but I’ll try to include it in next year’s Advent series.

Later editions of both “Little Vigg” and “Tomte” were illustrated by Jenny Nyström (1854-1940). She and Rydberg became close friends. Jenny’s illustrations of the tomte in this and many illustrations and greetings cards, helped to create a standard image of the tomte in much the same way that J. C. Leyendecker did for the modern Santa Claus.

Today, the tomte is everywhere in Sweden. As well as being incorporated into St. Lucy Day processions on 13th December, he appears several weeks before that, giving out presents on the day before Advent. This year that fell on 2nd December. This date is called Lilla Jul, or Little Christmas, and is celebrated mainly by Swedish-speaking Finns. On this day tomte leave little gifts for children.

The popularity of the tomte, in all its names and forms, has spread beyond Scandinavia. In the shops in the UK this year the shelves are stuffed full of “gonks” dressed as tomte as Christmas toys and decorations, replacing the elves that were everywhere last year.Between them, Viktor Rydberg and J. C. Leyendecker, with their tomte and Santa Claus, have made the yuletide gay, as the song goes, in a bigger way than it was before.

Advent 2: Lucy Boys

The participants in a Lucy procession

This coming Wednesday is the feast day of St. Lucy, or St. Lucia. In Scandinavia and parts of Italy and Croatia, this is the day on which children receive Christmas presents. If they’re really lucky they’ll have had presents on St. Nicholas’s Day (Dec. 6th) and will get more on Christmas Day itself.

St. Lucy’s Day is celebrated with church processions, family meals, and lots of tradition. In 2021 I looked briefly at the history of the Lucy processions from their origins in boys’ schools. In Scandinavia the original processions were led by a boy, originally portraying the Christkind (Christ Child), but this character evolved into St. Lucy, still played by a boy.

With this in mind it seems strange to historians to hear of several places in Scandinavia where controversy erupts over the portrayal of St. Lucy by boys in modern processions. This is invariably the result of the critics’ collective cultural amnesia and ignorance of its origins. Critics claim to be upholding tradition, when they probably mean that they don’t want their Lucy processions to be corrupted by being led by a boy in drag.

Who knows, perhaps before the internet and social media made it capable of discovering who remote or little villages chose to play their St. Lucy, there were lots of male St. Lucys (who I will refer to as Lucy Boys, as opposed to the Star Boys, which I’ll come to later). There was certainly an increase in the reporting of Lucy Boys after 2008.

There were three cases of protests against teenage Lucy Boys in Swedish schools that year which became prominent headlines. The boys who were the targets of those protests were (with the schools they attended): Freddy Karlberg of Södra School in Mötala, Johan Gustafsson of Erik Dahlberggsgymnasiet in Jönköping, and Nils Wiking Furberg of Lillerud high school.

All three teenagers were elected by their respective schoolmates to play St. Lucy in their school’s annual Lucy procession. However, in two cases the school principals objected to the election. They stated that it is traditional for a girl to be St. Lucy, since the saint herself was female. This was echoed by many parents of other pupils at those schools (no doubt angry that their daughter lost out on being St. Lucy to a boy).

I’m all in favour of tradition, but I also believe that there can be some room for change. We live in an era of greater diversity of representation. Diversity should not always have to create division. As I wrote above, St. Lucy was originally played by boys, so there’s no real alteration in tradition in this case. Again, collective cultural amnesia is the reason, and that can be harmful.

Early Lucy processions comprised of only St. Lucy and a group of girls dressed as “Lucy Brides”. Then Star Boys were introduced. In the last part of the 20th century the processions expanded to include such characters as gingerbread men and tomte (Scandinavian house spirits or elves, which I’ll talk about next Sunday).

In the cases of Freddy and Nils Wiking the school principals said that their decision was taken to protect the boys from abuse. This is quite valid, since they did receive abuse, and it is the responsibility of all teachers to protect their pupils. However, the principals stated that that had no personal objection to a male Lucy, if the procession was just confined to school staff and pupils. The processions were open to the public, with parents and local people present. The Lucy Boys might “upset the pensioners”, the principals also claimed.

There were three different outcomes to the three cases.

Freddy Karlberg was prevented from being a Lucy Boy because of his principal’s decision to not recognise his election. Several students boycotted the Lucy procession in protest.

Nils Wiking Furberg pulled out of the Lucy procession before it took place. His principal had actually backed down and was willing to let him be St. Lucy. What changed the boy’s mind was the amount of online abuse he received on social media.

Johan Gustafsson fared the best out of the three. He was allowed to be St. Lucy – with a twist. The school’s Lucy procession began very “traditionally” with a female Lucy, Veronica Ahlund. Halfway through the traditional St. Lucy’s carol, Veronica invited Johan to take her place. Johan had been playing a Star Boy. He removed his conical Star Boy hat and placed the candle-crown of St. Lucy on his head. Media reports say that the congregation cheered. Credit should also go to the school principal, Stefan Claason, for supporting Johan’s election from the start against much criticism.

Incidents of Lucy Boys being elected and denied their place in processions continue as does the debate over what is or is not considered traditional.

But what about those Star Boys I mentioned? In the Lucy processions they follow the Lucy Brides who walk behind St. Lucy. These boys wear white robes and tall conical hats. They usually also carry a star on a stick (hence Star Boys, obviously).

You’d think that there’s be nothing controversial about Star Boys, but you’d be wrong. In 2012 a 9-year-old girl in a Stockholm school wanted to be a Star Boy. Her school principal refused to let this happen, again citing tradition. Instead he girl was offered the role of a tomte, which the girl accepted.

In 2014, an 11-year-old girl from Skellafteå, high up on Sweden’s Baltic coastline, was told she couldn’t be a tomte in her Lucy procession because only boys can be a tomte. This was strange, because for the previous two or three years she had been one, and now she was told she couldn’t because she was a girl. The school principal’s reason? Again, the girl might scare pensioners who were coming to watch the procession. Happily, the principal changed her mind.

Who would have thought that something as seemingly innocent as a St. Lucy’s Day procession could generate so much gender controversy? Changing gender roles in traditional customs should not automatically be taken as an attack on that tradition. History teaches us that Christmastime has always had a large element of switching gender roles, even within Christian tradition (early portrayals of the Virgin Mary in church processions were usually played by young male clerics). True, most of it stems from the historic practice of not allowing women to take part (except that we must not forget girls played the male Christkind since the 17th century). What is important is that all participants and spectators in any traditional custom should be aware that it differs from previous observances, where cultural attitudes and even technology create change. That’s how the modern Christmas has evolved, and Christmas traditions have evolved too.

There are many other modern cases of switched gender roles at Christmas customs that have been accepted. In Spain, where the Three Kings are the dominant gift-bringers and have their own parades, some of the kings have been played by women – some with false beards. There have even been some female Santa Claus’s in the USA since the 1950s, also with beards, and three of them have been inducted into the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame. There are even drag Santas.

Whether you enjoy traditional Christmas parades and processions or not, let’s celebrate them all in their fabulous variety. After all, when you see a Santa or St. Lucy, you shouldn’t see the person playing that character. As some Christmas films often say about Santa – once you put on a Santa suit, you become Santa. This can be said of all benevolent Christmas characters, whether it’s Santa, St. Lucy, the Three Kings, the Christkind, or any of the hundreds of other Christmas characters there are around the world. It’s not cosplay. It’s not playing a historical character, even if it’s based on one. You become a manifestation of a concept that enhances both the secular and religious elements of an ever-evolving Christmas.

Advent 2: How Jesus Became a Bride

Last Sunday we learnt that the Reformation turned the Christ Child (Christkind) into a Christmas gift-bringer and merged with representations of angels to change gender into female. Germans took the female Christkind to America where she merged with another German gift-bringer, the Weihnachtsmann, to become Kris Kringle. By adopting the name of the Dutch colonial Sinterklaas he became our modern Santa Claus (in a children’s book published as Christmas 1821, meaning SANTA CLAUS IS 200 YEARS OLD THIS MONTH! Why aren’t people celebrating?).

The female Christkind merged with other Christmas characters who have been portrayed by both women and men. Let’s begin In Sweden with St. Lucy.

Lucy was a Christian saint martyred during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian at the beginning of the 3rd century. She is said to have secretly visited the Roman catacombs where Christian families were hiding from persecution to bring them food and drink. She lit her way with a candle, which later legends evolved into the crown of candles that St. Lucy is usually depicted wearing.

German missionaries in the 10th century introduced the Nordic lands to Christianity and its saints. St. Lucy’s Day is December 13th, which was around the same time as a traditional Swedish winter solstice celebration called Lussinatta, allegedly named after a pagan goddess called Lussi (of whom there is no evidence). What Lucy and Lussi have in common is the origin of their names from an ancient Indo-European word meaning “light”. Lussinatta is a celebration of light, and St. Lucy is venerated as a bringer of light. The connection between the two is obvious and the reason they became linked.

How St. Lucy became a Christmas gift-bringer took a long time. The Swedes adopted St. Nicholas as a Christmas gift-bringer when Christianity was introduced. As the Reformation spread Sweden adopted Lutheranism and dropped St. Nicholas and adopted the German female Christkind.

The earliest recorded processions on St. Lucy Day, called Luciatåg, took place in schools and universities (male-only at the time) in which a boy was chosen to head the procession as the Christkind or an angel wearing a crown of candles and a white robe. By the 17th century this character had become identified as St. Lucy yet was often still played by a boy. Female roles in church processions in medieval Europe are very rare, and female characters were usually played by men or boys (including the Virgin Mary).

Recent Luciatåg have also occasionally had boys playing St. Lucy, often leading to traditionalists objecting to the change of gender, unaware that it is part of the original tradition. In 2017 the “official” St. Lucy in the celebration in the Nordic Museum was portrayed by an openly gay operatic singer called Rickard Söderberg, a regular soloist in St. Lucy Day concerts. Below is a video of part of that concert.

The first record of St. Lucy as a Christmas gift-bringer appears in a journal written by a Lutheran minister in 1764. While he was working as a tutor in a castle in Västergötland the minister was startled to be awoken on St. Lucy’s morning by a girl dressed as a Christkind bringing him breakfast. This was a tradition in some rural areas, and the idea slowly spread across Sweden. The merging of the Christkind with St. Lucy is dated from this event.

The gift-bringing St. Lucy didn’t become a truly national tradition until the 20th century even though the Luciatåg and Lucy Day celebrations had become popular and widespread much earlier.

If you look at the video above again you’ll see the procession of teenagers carrying candles. The boys represent "star boys", a tradition dating back to early medieval church pageants. The girls represent bridesmaids, and give us a clue to the next gender-switching element of the Christkind.

The costumes of both St. Lucy and her bridesmaids are influenced by the lussebrud. This name came to be rendered as Lucy-bride though it is more accurately translated as Light-bride. She was a character in winter solstice celebrations like the Lussinatta. Going back into folk tradition in Europe we find other “brides” – May brides, Spring brides, Summer brides. Their presence provided playful gender reversal roles. Men played the brides, disguised and masked, who danced though the pageants dragging men and women out of the crowds to dance with them.

These traditional male brides link into the Christkind through modern Christmas gift-bringers in eastern and central Europe.

In the ethnic communities of the Sorbs (also called Wends and Lusatians) where Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic meet, there is a bridal Christmas gift-bringer. In German she is called the Bescherkind, meaning “gift child”. In Sorbian she is called Dzěćetko, which means “child”. In Polish she is called Barborka. They are all basically the same character.

One of these characters has a double gender identity. In the Czech Republic, the Sorbian Dzěćetko is called Dzieciątko (also called Ježíšek, Baby Jesus). The Czech Dzieciątko is depicted as the traditional boy Christ Child, while the Sorbian Dzěćetko is depicted as a female bride.

The Polish Barborka is not named after the Christ Child but St. Barbara. She is said to have lived at about the same time as St. Lucy and was also martyred. Skipping ahead to modern times, St. Barbara is a minor Christmas gift-bringer in Limburg in the Netherlands where she was once considered to be the wife of St Nicholas. As with St. Lucy, the Limburg St. Barbara was often played by a man in pre-modern times.

Barbara’s bridal connection comes in an old folk custom based on a legend that she had a cherry tree branch with her in her prison. On the morning that it blossomed Barbara was led away and beheaded. This legend merged with the old winter bride customs in which unmarried girls would break off small cherry branches on St. Barbara’s Day, December 4th, and hope that they will blossom by Christmas. If they did, it was a sign that the girl will marry in the coming year. Similar customs are associated with other saints on other days of the year. Over time this custom became a tradition in which a local girls were selected to portray St. Barbara as a bride with her bridesmaids, travelling around their villages handing out nuts, sweets and biscuits. Thus the main bride became the Christmas gift-bringer Barborka.

This custom was modified in Sorbia where the Christkind was already established as a gift-bringer, and the Barborka merged with the Christkind to become the Bescherkind and Dzěćetko. The cherry branch custom and the Christmas gift-bringing traditions eventually separated, so that today where both customs exist the winter brides are still portrayed by girls while the Christmas gift-bringing brides are often portrayed by men with veiled faces. In the 20th century the Christmas brides have increasingly been portrayed by girls and women, and very often without the veils that were traditionally worn to hide their identity.

Over 400 miles away in the Swiss town of Hallwil there is another isolated case of a female gift-bringing bride named after the male Christ Child – Wienachts-Chindli.

And there we have it – the male Christ Child of Eastern Europe merged with traditional winter solstice brides to become the modern female Christmas gift-bringers St. Lucy, Barborka, Bescherkind and Dzěćetko, characters played by both men and women.

Next Sunday, if I can get the design right, I’ll present a pictorial family tree of all the characters mentioned in this and the previous Advent article. Otherwise, I’ll be writing about more gender switching characters that are encountered during Christmas.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 20) Swedish Legacies

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 53) Narses (c.478-c.568), one of the greatest military commanders of the Byzantine Empire, was open about his gender variance, unlike the “Father of the American Cavalry”, recently discovered to have been intersex, 54) Casimir Pulaski (1745-1779), a descendant of the same noble family as mathematician 55) Sofya Kovalevskaya (1850-1891).

 

55) Sofya Kovalevskaya was born Sofya Korvin-Krakovskaya in Moscow. Her father was a direct descendant of the Korwin family, as was 54) Casimir Pulaski. Some genealogists doubt her father’s descent from the Korwins but his unchallenged use of the Korwin coat of arms in his lifetime by the Russian Imperial Heroldmeister (Master Herald) strongly suggests that he was.

 

As a female in Russia at that time the only way Sofya would have obtained a university education was by studying outside the country, and she needed written permission from either her father of her husband to do so. To this end in 1868 she married a radical young palaeontology student called Vladimir Kovalevsij, thus becoming Sofya Kovalevskaya. The marriage was “fake” and both parties were aware it was only made to allow Sofya to study abroad.

 

Sofya travelled around Europe with Vladimir, attending various universities and learned men. By her early 20s Sofya had earned her doctorate. She was a pioneer female mathematician and the first woman in Europe to earn a modern doctorate in maths (from the University of Göttingen in 1874). Sofya was also one of the first women to be appointed a professor (Stockholm University).

 

Sofya’s mathematical papers and theories influenced later generations and includes everything from differential equations (the Cauchy-Kovalevskaya theorem is partly named after her) to the rings of Saturn.

 

She and Vladimir spent their final years in Sweden. Following the death of Vladimir, from whom she had separated, Sofya became professor of maths at Stockholm University. Sofya died in Stockholm at the young age of 41 from flu and pneumonia. She is buried in Norra Begraviningsplaten, the “Northern Cemetery”, where several notable Swedes were buried, including Alfred Nobel, whose prize for literature with crop up later.

 

Among the famous Swedes buried in Norra Bergaviningspalten is a film director who helped to bring a rising star to Hollywood. That director was called 56) Mauritz Schiller (1883-1928).

 

Mauritz was a pioneer of the early Swedish film industry. In 1912 he wrote and acted in his first film, a short silent film. The silent film industry was beginning to boom around the world and there was an eager audience everywhere. Mauritz appeared in another four films in 1912, also directing three of them. He went on to direct and write another 45 short and feature-length films before being invited to Hollywood by MGM Studios in 1925. Mauritz took with him a young actress he had talent-spotted and featured in one of his recent films, an actress called Greta Garbo.

 

Mauritz Stiller never became a big Hollywood legend himself like his protégé. He was often at odds with the bosses at MGM and Paramount and he returned to Sweden in 1927. He was eventually honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

 

Although many of his film scripts were original Mauritz also adapted plays and novels. One of these was his 1916 film “Vingarme” (Wings), one of the earliest gay love stories ever made. It was adapted from a novel by gay Danish writer Herman Bangs.

 

uritz wrote and directed several films by the same author including the film in which he gave Greta Garbo her first screen role in 1924. The author of the original novel on which the film was based was 57) Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940).

 

In 1919 Selma Lagerlöf sold all the film rights to any yet to be published works to the Swedish Cinema Theatre and Mauritz Stiller was one of several Swedish film-makers to adapt Selma’s novels for the screen.

 

Selma was already a famous novelist by 1919. Her first novel was “Gosta Berling’s Saga”, published in 1891, and was the basis of the film Mauritz made just before going to Hollywood. Selma’s works became very popular in Sweden and she was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904. She didn’t win, though the Swedish Academy who award her their gold medal.

 

Selma was nominated again for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905. Again she didn’t win. She was further nominated in 1906, 1907, 1908 and 1909. Selma finally won in 1909, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1914 she also became the first woman to be elected to the Swedish Academy and in 1924 she was a judge in the literature contests at the Olympic Games in Paris.

 

A well as being nominated and awarded a Nobel Prize Selma Lagerlöf also twice nominated names herself as a member of the Swedish Academy. In both 1920 and 1922 she nominated Danish writer Georg Brandes. His 1922 nomination lost to 58) Jacinto Benevente (1866-1954).

 

Next time on “80 More Gays”:  We sweep across the Spanish stage and bank on the Rothschilds to follow in their theatrical footsteps before living life in the fast lane.

Game of Gay Thrones 4: Lyncestis, Byzantium, Sweden and Hawaii

What began as a one-off article has turned into a series of its own, and today I’m able to include the first women among the queer wannabe monarchs who have emerged from under the dust-sheets of history.

As before, all of the people below either claimed a throne, were nominated for a throne, or were recognised as heirs. Also, as before, I don’t include anyone who was already a monarch.

1) The Lyncestian Brothers (4th century BC): heirs to the throne of Lyncestis.
This is the first time I’ve included siblings as queer claimants. They were Heromenes, Arrhabeaus and Alexander. They were coheirs to the dynasty that ruled the little kingdom of Lyncestis in northern Greece before it was annexed to Macedonia by King Philip II of Macedonia.

The Lyncestian brothers were were involved in the assassination of King Philip II in 336 BC. Or, at least, that is what Philip’s son, Alexander the Great, believed and he wasted no time in executing all of the conspirators – except Alexander of Lyncestis. He was spared because he was the first to proclaim Alexander the Great as king.

It is believed that the brothers took part in the plot in the hope of regaining their throne. The leader of the plot didn’t have this in mind – it was about the abuse he experienced from Philip II after he had dumped him for another lover. The whole story behind it is full of twists and too long to go into today.

While there’s no written record of any of the Lyncestian brothers having a male sex partner the assumption that they did is virtually certain. They were all living in a society where princes were required to be soldiers, and their training would have included taking younger trainees as regular sex partners. I’ve written about this many time on this blog.

The last surviving brother, Alexander, became a leading military commander. However, years later he was implicated in a plot to assassinate Alexander the Great and deprived of his command and held in custody. Three years later yet another assassination plot was uncovered. Even though Alexander the Lyncestian wasn’t involved, Alexander the Great thought it best to have him removed permanently and had him executed.

2) Eleutherius of Ravenna (d.620): claimant to the Byzantine Empire.
Eleutherius was a Greek eunuch. Our modern used of this word covers several male gender types that were described in the Byzantine Empire. I’ll write about them in more detail later in the year, but for now we’ll just say that these eunuch types referred to men who were either castrated, had deformed or crushed genitals, or were intersex. We don’t know which type applied to Eleutherius.

Eleutherius was one of the court chamberlains to Emperor Heraclius. His official job title was “cubicularius”, which was only given to eunuchs. It made Eleutherius one of the most trusted and close officials in the emperor’s personal retinue.

At this time the Byzantine Empire was in conflict with the Persian Empire to the east. Taking advantage of this the western province of Ravenna in Italy revolted against its Byzantine ruler (called an exarch) in 616 and killed him. Eleutherius was despatched to quell the revolt, which he did, and he became the new exarch.

There were other rebellions in Italy which Eleutherius believed were the result of the shift towards the Persians and that the emperor wasn’t doing enough. So Eleutherius declared himself emperor in 619. He hoped that the Pope would confirm his claim, but on the way to see him in Rome Eleutherius was assassinated by his own troops who were loyal to Heraclius – they sent him Eleutherius’s severed head as a trophy.

3) Anna Eleonor Ekelöf (c.1745-after 1765): posed as Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden.
No-one knows who Anna Eleonor Ekelöf really was. There is a Swedish noble family called Ekelöf but she doesn’t match any female in the family tree.

Virtually the only information we know about Anna comes from her trial in 1765. She claimed that she was a sea captain’s daughter and had run away from home to marry her boyfriend. Whether the boyfriend existed isn’t known; she certainly didn’t get married.

Anna went to live near the Norwegian border and assumed the identity of “Count Carl Ekeblad”. She assembled a small retinue which included a police officer’s wife to “amuse” herself with, as stated at her trial. Not long after that Anna was claiming to be Crown Prince Gustav of Sweden in disguise. She was apparently well-educated and had apparent knowledge of what the real Crown Prince looked like, as she was very similar in age and build.

At her trial Anna claimed that she only said she was the Crown Prince because she was drunk, but it was taken seriously by the authorities. Anna was firstly arrested by the Danish-Norwegian authorities, during which her true gender was revealed. This seemed to be enough for the authorities to disregard her claim and released her. However, the Swedish authorities didn’t like this imposer prince and arrested her in 1765.

Her trial revealed that Anna was a serial imposter, posing as many people over the years. Whatever the trial’s verdict Anna wasn’t around to hear it. She managed to escape from custody and hide out on a farm, again posing as the Crown Prince. With the help of a speedy horse provided by the gullible farmer Anna rode away and was never heard of again.

4) Abigail Kawānanakoa (b.1926): coheir to the throne of Hawaii.
In 2017 many news agencies reported the marriage of Abigail Kawānanakoa, a millionaire heiress, to her long-time partner Veronica Gail Worth.

There are a couple of people who are considered heir apparent to the Hawaiian throne. Abigail is the last surviving member of the family to be specifically designated as heir, though the bloodline heirs are the son of her first cousin and his children.

As a child Abigail was adopted by her grandmother, Princess Abigail Campbell Kawānanakoa with the intention of placing the young child as heir to the throne should it be restored.

Homohoax : The City of Lesbians

It’s April Fool’s Day again, and here’s another hoax in the lgbt community.

This particular homohoax originated ten years ago. A report published by the Xinhau news agency told of a city in Sweden called Shakebao (translated into English as Chako Paul) which was inhabited solely by lesbians.

It’s not really clear whether the report was a deliberate hoax. It may have been just a misinterpretation of an actual location, or an elaboration of an urban legend. Given the origin of this “hoax” is in China we may never know for sure, the Chinese media are not known for being open about their sources. As far as people in Sweden were concerned the presence of a lesbian city was news to them.

Let’s see if we can get to the root of the story. First of all, the report was published in August 2009 by Xinhau, the official state news agency. This is a translation of part of their report:

“In Sweden there is a place that is respectful of women’s love, ... This is Shakebao. The town holds around 25,000 women, all from around Europe. If men transgress into the forbidden city they will be beaten half to death. The citizens of Shakebao are mostly engaged in the forest industry, … Some go into nearby cities to work and return to Shakebao by night. Shakebao’s tourism industry is increasingly prosperous, with hotels and restaurants everywhere that cater specifically to women around the world.”

It wasn’t long before the story was picked up other Chinese news agencies. The story’s impact produced a flood of internet searches, reported later to have all been by men though I expect some Chinese women were just as interested, causing an effect that was described as “crippling the nation’s data network”. Swedish tourist organisations were also inundated with requests from China for more information.

If anybody knew of Shakebao’s existence it would be the Swedes, right? Not so. Claes Bertilsson, a spokesman for the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, had never heard of it, nor of any other settlement populated by 25,000 women. For Sweden that’s a major-sized city – someone would have noticed it. Even the tourist office for the area in which the city was supposed to be located couldn’t find it.

The plot thickened after another report appeared, this time from the Harbin news agency, of a Chinese woman who had actually been there. The woman, identified as Niu Xiaoyu from Shangdong, was a student at a Swedish university (the report doesn’t say which one). At university she fell in love with a male college teaching assistant. When Xiaoyu came back to their shared apartment with another male Chinese student the boyfriend went into a jealous rage. Xiaoyu broke off their relationship and determined to end all contact with men.

Stories of Shakebao must have been going around the university because Xiaoyu decided to move there. At first she tried to fit in and follow the common activities. She found lumberjacking (lumberjilling?) too hard and strenuous, and nothing else seemed to suit her temperament. To make matters worse in her eyes was that the city stores didn’t stock many cosmetics.

After a few weeks Xiaoyu’s Swedish ex-boyfriend arrives, disguised as a woman tourist, to apologise and he tried to persuade her to come back with him. But Xiaoyu was adamant and stayed. The boyfriend then returned back to university.

It should have become apparent to Xiaoyu that she was obviously in the wrong place. It was only after another woman tried to seduce her that she realised she had made the wrong decision in coming here and she made a hasty return back to her ex-boyfriend.

Now, given that this lesbian city was an invention of imaginative Chinese journalists it seems obvious that the story of Nui Xioayu was false as well. When I first read this story I was immediately struck by its similarity to many old folk tales. As well as being a fan of legends and mythology I’m acquainted with the Perry and Aarne-Thompson indexes of folk motifs. These are lists of hundreds of story and plot elements from all the folk-tales and legends from around the world grouped together by related themes.

The story of Nui Xiaoyu can easily be placed into the same folk motif group as “The Country mouse and the City Mouse”. In essence this group inclludes the story of an individual who goes to a place where he/she hopes to find a better life or to escape some bad situation. However, disappointment and/or abuse leads the individual to yearn for home and he/she leaves to do so, realising that things weren’t really as bad as they had thought. There are several old Chinese folk-tales which are virtually identical to the story of Nui Xiaoyu, leading me to believe that her story was as fake as the city of Shakeboa itself.

Above is a screenshot of the top part of the Xinhau report. It includes a photo of an impressive castle. This is implied as being the entrance to the city, but in fact it is a building in Scotland called Taymouth Castle. Further down the article was a photo of a scantily clad young woman in a seductive pose. Obviously, both images were grabbed off the internet and included to add some credence to the story.

As I said at the beginning the story of a lesbian city may not have been a deliberate hoax, but seems more like sloppy journalism. Whether the Chinese state-run media want to admit to reporting what is no more than a modern spin on an old urban legend or folk motif or not, the fact that the did has only elevated its status and profile.

Out Of His Tree: Dag Hammarskjold

The United Nations has helped to keep the countries of the world talking to each other since 1945. Whereas diplomats and ambassadors keep dialogue open between one nation and another the UN is where each nation comes together.

The second Secretary General of the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961), was the highest ranking lgbt official in the organisation, though his sexuality was private. Several years ago I produced a hypothetical heraldic achievement for Dag Hammarskjöld based on his family coat of arms. Today we look at his ancestry to discover how significant his family background and ancestry was in determining his career.

Most of Dag Hammarskjöld’s ancestry takes us back to late medieval Sweden and many noble families and military leaders. His father, Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862-1953), had perhaps the biggest influence on Dag. Hjalmar served as Prime Minister of Sweden during World War I. He became involved in international diplomacy in 1904 when he was appointed to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, one of the first organisations which oversaw disputes between nations in an attempt to find a peaceful resolution. It still exists, though much of its work is overshadowed by the UN.

Shortly after Hjalmar became Prime Minister in 1914 World War I broke out. However, Hjalmar was accused of being too “friendly” towards Germany and caused a split between himself and his Foreign Minister, leading to his resignation in 1917.

Hjalmar became Chairman of the Nobel Foundation from 1929 to 1947. His son Dag would be awarded a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize. Hjalmar died several months after Dag became Secretary General of the UN.

The known origins of the Hammarskjöld family go back five hundred years. The founder of the dynasty was Peder Mikaelsson (c.1560-1646). Peder was a career soldier who fought in the army of the king of Poland and later the king of Sweden. In 1610 the king of Sweden knighted him and this was when he adopted the family name of Hammarskjöld. Peder was later given lands in Kalmar county in Sweden, some of which are still held by his descendants.

Peder Mikaelsson Hammarskjöld married twice. Descendants of both marriages have provided Sweden with many soldiers, layers and diplomats. Dag Hammarskjöld descends from Peder’s second marriage to Kristina Stjerna, a cousin of his first wife. It is through Kristina that we find the first of Dag Hammarskjöld’s royal bloodlines. Kristina is descended from the 10th and 11th century kings of Sweden, Denmark and France. Through them and the other kings I’ll mention later Dag is descended from the semi-legendary “Peace Kings of Uppsala”, the Ynglings, a sacred pagan dynasty that stretches back into the so-called Dark Ages.

Among Dag’s Scandinavian kingly ancestors was King Harald Blåtand “Bluetooth” (911-986). It is Harald’s name that was given to the modern technological device that many people possess today. The name was chosen because King Harald united several tribes into a united nation.

Once Peder Mikaelsson Hammarskjöld had become a landowning knight with an aristocratic wife he was officially aristocratic himself. His direct descendants married into other aristocratic families. Peder’s great-great-grandson Carl Gustaf Hammarskjöld (1729-1797) rose to become Swedish court Chamberlain. His aristocratic wife was Catharina Breitholtz (1748-1812).

The Brietholtz family can be traced back to the 13th century. They became leading families in what could be regarded as a medieval version of the European Union, the Hanseatic League. This was a network of city states and merchant guilds from around the Baltic and North Seas who travelled and traded all over Europe. They were a dominant economic entity for several centuries and had ports and trading posts in many other European cities, often accompanied by a consulate.

Catharina Brietholtz’s mother, Baroness Eleanore Koskull (1797-1781), has two illegitimate lines of descent from King Erik XIV Gustaf Vasa of Sweden (1533-1577).

Moving onto Dag Hammarskjöld’s mother we find fewer distinguished ancestors but they, none-the-less, still have influential links.

Dag’s maternal grandfather was Gustaf Fridoltz Almqvist (1814-1886). He was a senior lawyer and judge of the Swedish Court of Appeal. He was also a leader in the reform of prisons and the treatment of prisoners. In 1867 he was appointed the Director General of the Prison Care Authority. Among his achievements was the halt to the unnecessary humiliating treatment generally given to prisoners, and in the setting up of education and vocational courses in prisons.

It is Gustaf Almqvist’s wife who provides Dag Hammarskjöld with a really interesting family connection. Gustaf’s wife was Maria “Mina” Grandin. The Grandin family had a very modest background compared to the Almqvists. Mina’s father, or alleged father, if the family legend turns out to be true, was a tailor. However, the identity of Mina’s mother is certain – Maria Blomberg, a maid.

What the family legend says, which Dag Hammarskjöld himself knew about, was that Mina Grandin was the illegitimate daughter of Crown Prince Oskar (later King Oskar II) of Sweden (1829-1907). Oskar was well-known as a womaniser and had several mistresses and known illegitimate children. Both the Almqvist and Hammarskjöld families have done extensive research into the legend and haven’t come up with any proof. The circumstantial evidence of Crown Prince Oskar and Mina’s mother being in the same location nine months before Mina’s birth does nothing to disprove the legend either.

It is known that Crown Prince Oskar knew Gustaf Almqvist and shared his views on prison reform. The fact that Gustaf, a high-flying lawyer and friend of royalty would marry Mina, a former restaurant waitress and daughter of a maid only adds more circumstantial evidence that Mina may have more to her family background than at first appears.

Even without this family legend that Dag’s great-grandfather could have been King Oskar II there’s much in his ancestry to show a family tradition of service to the crown and country. From the Peace Kings of Uppsala, the unifying King Harald Bluetooth, the international Hanseatic League, to the Premiership of Sweden and Chair of the Nobel Foundation, Dag Hammarskjöld’s ancestry led him to the United Nations and his Nobel Peace Prize.