My Norwegian husband Ivan was born in Sweden in the village of Onn (Ånn). A boundless village with such a short name. And so in 2016 we had such an opportunity to go to a meeting with relatives in this village. Ivan prepared carefully for this meeting. Over the course of a year he compiled a family tree of all the relatives, starting from 1600! What luck! All records of people’s births are preserved in the church books! And all this is scanned on the computer!
Ivan’s mother, her name was Daga, was the eldest of ten children. To this day seven of the “children” are still alive. Well, and they already have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In the village live only the youngest children — twins, brother and sister. They are already 68. And their children and grandchildren. 100 people came to the meeting: 85 adults and 15 children.
We travelled by car for two days, since we stopped in Lillehammer. This city is famous for the winter olympics, and we also made a stop in Trondheim — one of the largest cities in Norway (and in all Norway there are 4 large cities, but not one of them “reaches” a million inhabitants). Well, and then we drove only 4 hours and found ourselves in the remote village of Onn.
In Trondheim we received an SMS from Ivan’s aunt, that we should not forget to buy at IKEA bedding, since we would live in a hostel, and a stock of food from the supermarket, since the nearest supermarket from the village is 20 km. We crossed a weakly marked border and found ourselves in Sweden. On the first day everyone gathered by the parental house. No one lives there now, but inside the modest interior of past summers is preserved.
I long tried to get the translation from my husband. He says it is a joking expression in rhyme. I understood that in this house they will always feed you and give you to drink!
to be continued….