All posts filed under: Danish Traditions

Hygge for Foreigners

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One thing that might surprise foreigners either visiting or working in Denmark is how hard it is to get to know the Danes. If you start a casual small talk with a Dane on the street or in the supermarket line, chances are they will give you an extremely short answer – maybe even just a disapproving look – and hurry on with their day. Generally speaking, Danes don’t small talk. They don’t smile much to strangers either, or at least not when the weather is cold and grey – which is quite often. So, if you are a foreigner visiting or working in Denmark you might start wondering: “How is this possibly one of the happiest countries in the world?” I think the best answer to that is that Danish happiness isn’t the excited kind of happiness like that of your birthday or Christmas but rather it is a feeling of contentment. Danes like to keep to themselves, their closest family and friends. They are nice and social but primarily with people they have …

Danish Midsummer in America

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  We celebrated Sankt Hans Eve (Midsummer’s Eve) last night with a bonfire and bread baked on wooden sticks over hot coals (called “snobroed” in Danish, literally: “twisted bread”). Snobroed is super easy to make. It is a basic bread dough with milk in that rises for about an hour and then you divide it into the number of bread sticks you want, roll them with your hands into long rolls that you then twist around bamboo sticks and bake over the hot coals until golden brown and they sound hollow. Serve with ketchup. Pretty tasty and always a hit with kids around.  

Midsummer Eve Bonfires and Witches

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  Around Summer solstice in late June, Danes celebrate Sankt Hans Evening (St. John’s Eve) with bonfires and sometimes witch dolls! This was originally a pagan celebration of summer solstice and the magical shortest night of the year but after the introduction of Christianity it also became the celebration of John the Baptist’s birthday which is supposedly June 24th. There used to be a lot of superstition related to this night. Evil was was fought away with bonfires and sick people travelled to holy springs hoping their illnesses would be cured on this night where light was stronger than darkness. As a symbol of chasing evil forces away, Danes started burning a hay witch on top of the bonfire in the early 1900! Real humans, believed to be witches, were not burned in Denmark after 1693. Nevertheless, the story goes that on the evening of Sankt Hans: “the witches are being sent off to Brocken” (the highest point of the Herz mountains in Germany). Interestingly, this pagan/Christian tradition is still highly popular in Denmark, although …