What Is a Swedish Snaps-Song?
To begin with, to say “Swedish Snaps-Songs” is tautology! All snaps-songs are Swedish. This tradition of writing and singing snaps-songs does not exist outside Sweden and some Swedish-speaking parts of Finland. If you hear a snapsvisa in Denmark or Norway- then you heard a Swedish one or translated from Swedish.
History
The Swedish custom of drinking snaps with a meal is deeply rooted in the souls of Swedes. The tradition goes back to the Middle Age. The Icelandic sagas described how people drank to Oden and other gods. They drank from the same bowl. There were rules describing how the bowl should be passed around, starting with the oldest man. It was very important that everyone had the same quantity to drink, as they passed the vessel all around the table, or around the company= laget om – fagom. From here the Swedish language got its expression “lagom”: not too much, not too little, just right!
A French diplomat visited Sweden in 1634 and wrote about a wedding he attended. Everyone had to stand up and drink toasts for the king of France and the queen. Then they had to deliver a long speech for a table neighbor before the toast passed on. Then people started to quarrel about whether they should repeat everything for the king of Spain. Then they started to throw cups and glasses around.
Throwing the stoup away was a tradition. They were mostly made of tin. But soon people started to drink from glasses. When king Erik the fourteenth in 1563 hosted a Christmas party, 174 glasses were crushed. It did not get any better for his brother king Johan the third, who at a party in 1573 had 375 glasses broken.
How much did they drink?
In the 16th century 3 to 4 liters of beer (one gallon) was absolutely necessary every day. Rich people drank more because they also drank wine.
What did they drink?
Beer was the center of all kinds of events. Wine was a luxury. Water was not a good choice because it was rarely clean. In a book printed in the 18th century a farmer wrote: “Water is drunk by all dumb animals that rarely get anything else to drink”. Coffee and tea did not show up in Sweden until in the end of the 18th century. Alcohol was in the 15th century used only for the manufacturing of gunpowder. But 100 years later it became a luxury beverage, at first as medicine. It was considered good for everything. In the 18th century snaps became more an more common and of course the drunkenness increased and so did the number of restaurants. In 1754 the number of restaurants, inns and taverns in Stockholm was 723, equal to one of every 79 residents. In 1829 5½ gallons alcohol per inhabitants was produced in Sweden – moonshine not included. On the countryside everyone was treated with a so-called morning-bite at 3 am. This breakfast consisted of a piece of bread and a snaps that normally was at least 10 cl – 3.3 ounces. The farmer himself then treated himself with a snaps or two with every meal.
Toasting rituals.
The word “skal” probably came from the Low German language: “enes schale drinken”, which means to drink to someone’s prosperity. It was extremely important to a person to accept a toast that was dedicated to him. Refusing could have ill-fated consequences. A story from the 17th century tells about a man at a restaurant in Stockholm’s Old Town who got killed with a knife after he refused to accept a toast from a
“friend”. Carl von Linne (Linneaus) describes in a book how he, while visiting a farm, had to drink a “welcome toast”, a full drinking-glass that must be emptied. Linne felt like “his stomach was about to burst, his head to crack and the health and all life’s pleasure to say good-bye”.
The singing.
Early Greeks and Romans sang to the toast. Even Swedes have been singing to the toast for 500 years. Many -; songs came from German immigrants who brought manners and customs, such as maypoles and Walpurgis
Night bonfires. But nowhere in the imported songs, not even in Bellman’s production, is the word “snaps” mentioned. That word is to be found for the first time in 1799. Then in the 19th century snaps became Sweden’s favorite beverage and the snaps song was born. And the snaps songs are not only typical Swedishthey are uniquely Swedish. You find them in Sweden and the parts of Finland where Swedish is spoken – but not in Denmark and Norway, other than a few snaps songs translated from Swedish.
In the first half of the 19th century the snapses were numbered, Helan, Halvan, Tersen, Kvarten etc., followed by the expansion of this systematics. Today no less than 20 snapses are numbered and entitled.
The singing of snapsvisor became extremely popular because it increases the atmosphere of the party and has a nice side-effect: You drink less because you are busy singing! So the singing is more important than the drinking. The unwritten rule is that you don’t drink until you have first sung a snaps song. You don’t even touch your glass before the first snaps song is executed!
What makes a good snapsvisa?
There are 5 important components:
- It must be written to a well-known melody so everyone can sing along. No sheet music should be used. Melodies can be: Children’s songs, folk-melodies, popular songs.
- Each syllable must follow the music exactly.
- It should be funny, with a joke, and put into rhyme.
- It must be easy to learn and remember.
- It must be short – the snaps it waiting!
How to toast and how to drink.
There are some, mainly unwritten, rules for how to toast. A foreigner described the Swedish toasting technique in a book in these words: “With your best Sunday-look you lift your glass up to a level of an imaginary third uniform button, while starring the person you are toasting with in the white of his eyes. After doing this you are allowed to drink, but you still have to look straight into the other person’s eyes. Then you can put down the glass. Everything must be with a facial expression of ceremoniously pleasant gravity, that for many foreigners would take years to learn.”
These are some of the rules, actually still strictly followed at formal, full-dress dinners. But otherwise very relaxed, if at all practiced. For instance most women will not hold back toasting with a man.
- DO NOT touch your glass before the host takes hold of his, proposing a welcome toast.
- Men are supposed to toast with the lady on his right.
- DO NOT toast with the host. No one is allowed to toast with the host.
- ” DO NOT toast with the hostess if there are more than 8 at the table.
- Never clink with your glasses!
- A lady never toasts with her cavalier.
Cold and freezing cold beverages effectively kills any taste. If you are having a Budweisser or any other tasteless beer it does not matter, because you are not drinking it for the taste -you could as well drink water. But if you like a good beer, like an ale from a microbrewery, DO NOT chill it too much. It should not be colder than about 55-60 degrees – otherwise it will loose its taste. Same with the snaps – do not serve it colder than about 50-55 degrees, and DO NOT put it in the freezer! If you enjoy a nicely spiced snaps you will effectively loose the taste if you serve it frozen. But if you are drinking a cheap vodka or moonshine then you should serve it as cold as possible.
Of the same reason -the taste – always drink the beer from glasses and not too cold. You never drink wine from the bottle, so why drink beer from the bottle? Microbreweries understand it. If you come to taste their brew they always serve it in glasses.
Finally here is a good snaps-songs, first in Swedish and then in an English, singable translation. The melody is “He’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain”.
//: Du ska fa mitt gamla snapsglas nor jag dor. ://
Nar jag reser mig ur askan
dricker jag direkt ur flaskan.
Du ska fa mitt gamla snapsglas nor jag dor.
//: You’ll inherit my old shot-glass when I die. ://
When my mortal time elapses
I’ll be swigging all my snapses.
You’ll inherit my old shot-glass when I die.
Goran Rygert