The Coolidge examiner., 1935-12-13

| Prepared by National Geographic Society.
| Washington, d. C.-WNU Service.
kkTHIS is Sweden" says the
peasant of Dalarna dale
L carlia), as he looks out up
on the rolling pastures and birch
clad hills of the province dear to
him as life. Our ways are chang
ing. of course. The good old days
are no more. But you may still
find handful of us Dalecarlians
who go on living as our fathers
lived, tilling the same soil, hewing
timber in the forests for our houses,
spinning wool and flax for our
clothes, hammering out copper and
iron from our mines for utensils
and tools"
With quiet dignity he towers in
the doorway of his hame. into
which his gracious "Nalkommen"
bids strangers enter. The wind
plays with the wide brim that gives
his black hat a quantity solemn
Puritan air. But against the
weathered gray Of log walls he Is
a vivid figure in his long. single
breasted blue coat, his yellow buck
skin breeches, redwood stockings
tasseled at the knee, low handmade
shoes adorned with cleaning steel
buckles.
Overhead, slender blades of grass
of apple-green lightness shoot up
from the sod of his thatched roof.
Behind, framing the scene, stand
silver trunks of stately birches, the
graceful white ladies" of the for
ests of central Sweden.
ave are a proud and independ-
ent people," he continues. "Swe-
den. as you know, has never sub
mitted to alien rule. Only once, for
a brief century and a quarter, Swe-
den Joined Denmark and Norway in
experimenting with joint sover-
eighty. But we do not like the
iron hand of our Danish kinsmen.
"In the Stockholm Blood Bath
of 1920, King Christian II of Den
mark beheaded more than so Swed-
ish mobiles, Herewith sealing his
own destiny. 1t was that act of
tyranny which led young Gustavus
Vasa, later king for 81 years, to
rouse the strong men of Dalecarlia
to the country's defense. SO one of
the most illustrious chapters of
Swedish history has been written
here"
The blue eyes glow with the fer
vor of conviction. There is a chal-
Ienging ring in the sure. soft
spoken words. know Dalecarlia
and you will know the very heart
of Sweden"
But the landowner of Skone goes
step further. Within view of
crumbling fortress or surviving
splendor of medieval chateau. where
lazy swans swim fOrgetfully in the
encircling moat. he halts in the
shade of the wide-spreading beeches
that line his fields of sugar beets
or grain.
Traces Of Ancient Civilization.
"The ice sheet slipped off this
southern tip of the Scandinavian
peninsula ten or fifteen thousand
years ago." he begins. "Our sci
entists find traces Of civilization
not unlike our own running back
through seventy centuries and
more. Our rune stones are not all
deciphered; some Of our Viking
mounds are still unexplOred. Not
! long ago we unearthed grave
from the Bronze age. Here in
, Skone"-lovingly he slurs the long
sound of the vowel Awe turn
J up thousand-year-old traditions with
our very plowshares
Were it not for his imperturbable
poise, he might be off, at a signal,
to search for the cradle, or one of
the cradles of the human race. But
quietly he turns instead to hiStOr-
ical fact, as he would like to read
1t: "Once Skone was an independ-
ent kingdom in itself" He
checks his flow of words and,
chuckling, adds: 'KnOw SkOne and
= you really do not need to know the
, rest of Swedenr'
In Stockholm the city-dweller,
born into an atmosphere of Old
world leisure and acquiring by
= choice the ultra-mOdern cOnyen-
= fences that mechanical genius con-
= trives to our age, wanders out to
enjoy the lustrous tranquility Of
one of the white nights of the
northern summer.
t He passes the magnificent willows
Of Kings gardens and halts on NOrr-
bro (nOrth bridge) to listen to the