Summer Has Ended? Really?

If Rip Van Winkle had just recently awakened from his lengthy sleep and viewed our Midwestern surroundings, he might be very unsure of which 2013 month  he has just re-entered. Temperatures have been varying constantly while the expected parched grass remains summer-lush. However, the calendar states that summer-time has ended and it is time to prepare for a long winter. It has been an unusual and almost amazing summer for it’s variety of weather, fires, droughts and floods. It will end with preparations for winter.

The winter season in Norway is lengthy and careful preparations are necessary for comfort and survival. Norwegian farmers must harvest sufficient hay and feed for their  livestock and farming land is limited.The total landscapes of Norway are dominated by mountains, forests, and grasslands. Only about three percent  of the land surface is suitable for cultivation or even arable farming. Because the majority of  farmers had to keep their animals indoors half of the year, it was necessary for them to utilize as much  land as possible in the summer  in order to raise winter feed for their cattle. Instead of having livestock graze lowland grass, the animals were sent into remote upland areas of the farm for the summer.

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 The practice of summer farming has been widespread over most of the country.  In general,
the upper pastures were only accessible from mid- June to mid- September due to the snow cover. The proper summer farms were normally situated so far away from the major settlement of the farm that people (mostly young women) had to stay there in small cabins to look after the livestock, milk the cows and process cheese and butter. These products were regularly transported back to the settlement at the farm or to the village. The farmers were then  able to cultivate fodder for the winter feedings as well as needed garden products in the lowlands, while  the animals were producing milk for the production of cereals, meat, butter and cheese. The animals were free to roam and feed off the mountain-grasses.

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Every evening, the cows were summoned to the mountain farm-yard to be milked. Individual herds were accustomed to the calls of the milkers who spent their time in small cabins during the summer, caring for their herds.

 Cattle-calls of these young farm-girls began to be widely used in a manner that began known as kulning, a high-pitched vocal tone we may associate with yodeling. This vocal style was also used by Sami herders to call their reindeer.

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This vocal style also served  to scare away mountain predators as well as having the singers enjoy the echoing sounds of the
mountain songs during the long days and evenings.It also served as a method of communication.
Other means of communication and herding-calls included fashioning pipes of reed or hollowing branches.

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A wooden trumpet , called a “Lur” was played in Scandinavia by shepherds, with the shepherd's instruments being held together with strips of birch bark instead of willow bands . It is believed that the lur was considered a musical instrument as well as an instrument of communication during the Viking Age. A lur similar to the Viking war instruments has been played by farmers and milk maids in Nordic
countries since at least the Middle Ages (probably longer). In Norway these lurs are called Neverlur (Birch bark lur).
These  instruments are still used, however, the practice of “summer farming” has ceased importance to Scandinavian farming practices today. Still being heard is the singing style of the girls and young women  tending the herds  in modern song-forms, while the pipes and horns have evolved into modern-day instruments. One such instrument combined a number of hollow reeds or hollowed wood of different lengths strapped together.

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The lur is still in use today in the folk music tradition. Egil Storbekken who died in 2002 was famous for his work with the lur. Other variations included an instrument of several hollowed reeds or wood of different lengths strapped together to form an instrument we know as panpipes. Several modern musicians have recorded musical selections utilizing this instrument based on Greek legends of a creature resembling a goat.

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In Greek mythology, Pam was the god of the shepherds and their flocks in mountain wilds and hills. He was

believed to be a  man with horns, a tail and legs of a goat who had fashioned a clumps of reeds into the famous Panpipes while  tempting the girls in the mountain farms with the sound of his pipes.

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Although, the god Pan is not a modern issue and the practice of “Summer Farming” has been altered by modern motor vehicles, the music remains. To salute the closing of our unusual summer season, we might stretch our imagination as a musician performs on panpipes. The mountains might be the mountain farm areas as the herds come home from the mountain pastures at the end of summer. Click on the link. Skip the ad and enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy3h6--fMBA

It has been an amazing summer!