SPAELIMENNINIR: Music and Stories from Scandinavia

Performed: October 21, 2003

From Viking history to Lapland landscape a dynamic presentation of Nordic music and culture. Explore the oral traditions and the collections of indigenous cultural expressions. Based in the Faeroe Islands between Iceland and Norway, Spaelimenninir ("the folk musicians") -- a native Faeroese, a Swede, two Americans, and two Danes -- perform traditional and contemporary folk music and song from Scandinavia.

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READING LIST:

General

• Zhong Meichun, Finland. Milwaukee: Gareth Stevens Publishing, 2001.
  Overview of Finnish geography, politics, and culture.
  4th grade and up.

Fiction

• William Durbin, The Journal of Otto Peltonen. New York: Scholastic, 2000.
  The story of a boy who migrates with this family from Finland to Minnesota.
  5th grade and up.

Folktales and Legend

• Lone Thygesen Blecher, ed., Swedish Folktales and Legends. New York: Pantheon Books, 1995.
• Chris Conover, The Wizard’s Daughter: A Viking Legend. Boston: Little, Brown, 1984.
  Retelling of a Danish folktale.
• Tony De Gerez, Louhi, Witch of North Farm: A Story from Finnland’s Epic Poem, the Kalevala. New York: Viking Kestrel, 1986.
• Virginia Haviland, Favorite Fairy Tales Told in Denmark. New York: Beech Tree Books, 1995.
• Anita Lobel, King Rooster, Queen Hen. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1975.
  Danish folktale for beginning readers.
• Margaret Read MacDonald, Fat Cat: A Danish Folktale. Little Rock, Ark.: August House, 2001.
• Ann McGovern and Nola Langner, Half a Kingdom: An Icelandic Folktale. New York: Viking Press, 1997.
• Aaron Shepard, The Princess Mouse: A Tale of Finland. New York: Antheneum Books for Young Readers, 2003.
  Retelling of a Finnish Folktale.
• Clara Stroebe, ed., The Magic Hat and other Danish Fairy Tales. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1999.
• ____, The Maiden of Northland: A Hero Tale of Finland. New York: Antheneum Books for Young Readers, 1996.
  Retelling of a portion of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic.