Embarking on the ultimate language project

[@daysandwords]

Don't get attacked by something lurking beneath the surface of your internet browsing! Go to surfshark.com/lamont for 4 extra months of SURFSHARK for an unbeatable price!

[@Marcusianery]

Ah! Our Nordic folklore. We need MORE games and movies like the Witcher but focusing on the Nordic Folklore.

[@glowerworm]

Kinda stretches it but hellblade 1 and 2 are what you want

[@scottmartin3816]

That's pretty badass. I still think of this as language learning content though. You're showing some of the amazing things you might do after learning a second language. For me, this is really motivating.

[@jayy7754]

Yes! Everyone has a theory of language learning, and everyone makes video after video examining theirs. But this is the fresh content we need.

[@nocturne7371]

Swedish folklore have many interesting creatures, besides Näcken you have the sirens called Huldra or Skogsrå, you have the invisible ones that live beside people like Vittra and Tomte and of course the Elves and the Trolls. And probably some others that I forgot. These are the ones I grew up with in the north of Sweden with a grandmother that loved to tell stories.

[@marktubbs8033]

Merry Christmas Lamont.

[@daysandwords]

You too! 🎄

[@dees3179]

Every time you come up with a new idea your family must have their fingers crossed that it doesn’t involve getting yourself to the moon. It seems to me you’d find a way to manage it. Well done on what looks like some lovely cinematic work….looking forward to seeing the finished product when you get there. What a fortunate day it was to find the right singer in the language class.

[@daysandwords]

Haha this is great. To be fair, I probably wouldn't have written the song had I not have run into Louise.

[@-_pi_-]

OMG, Nøkken!! (Norwegian spelling) Never thought I’d see a video on this channel about the guy grandpa used to say would pull me down the toilet if I wasn’t nice 😂 Jättebra video som vanligt! Som alltid, Hilsen fra Norge 🇳🇴

[@samspencer582]

Here in Sweden we have this song called "Song of Horga" and it´s about when the devil was disguised as a violin player and he played the violin to the people who was dancing at the mountain of Hårga/Horga. The people couldn´t stop dancing and they danced till they died and till only the skeletons remained of them. Hårga exists, but I hope this is only a story. Here is the song with English subtitles. kzbin.info/www/bejne/a3LNk4drjsyZnposi=yhRHCrDhayxxsyLe

[@anna7276]

Wow what an amazing idea! And I’m so glad you got to follow through with the idea! Amazing!!!

[@littlered6340]

Oh this is such a cool and inspiring project. Creating a unique piece in a language you are studying must be a fantastic way to grow in the language! It's really inspiring. (I am also a huge fan of folklore from many different cultures so now I want to look up some Swedish folklore!)

[@SilverionX]

Nordic folklore has SO many creatures that do all sort of things. I think some of the reasons is Sweden used to be sparsely populated, difficult to traverse, cold and very, very dark in the winter. I think a lot of people today don't understand how incredibly dark it is outside on a cloudy winters day here without the electrical lights we're used to. That leads to two things, people sit inside and do crafts or repairs a lot, and when they do, they tell stories to each other, and secondly when it's that dark you start to see and hear things out there, and your imagination goes wild. Plus as you pointed out, warning people about genuinely dangerous things.

[@Harrjannk]

A similar story exists in Germany. Actually, we were told it as kids, to which my best friend responded with the incredible stupid idea of "Geil! Da müssen wir hin!" (Awesome, let's go there). He basically dragged me to the nearest river and even suggested going for a swim. At which point I basically ran in terror, as I was sure the monster was about to jump out of the water. So, don't tell your kids stuff like that, they might want to go there even more ;-)

[@daysandwords]

"A similar story exists in Germany." Yep... I mean, I was getting at that with "some of surrounding Europe"... Germany is surrounding Europe, given it borders Denmark. I actually discussed this quite a lot with a Swiss woman, about the origins of the word and everything.

[@Harrjannk]

@@daysandwords I heard you saying that and was actually referring to it when sharing this story

[@daysandwords]

Yeah, sorry... I sometimes read comments quite quickly, and I saw "actually" and "exists in Germany" and thought they were part of the same sentence.

[@TyphorT38]

Swedish and west-Finnish folklore have Tomten/Tonttu, a "good", spirit and houshold guardian. Tomten is the true owner and ruler of the plot of land that a home is built upon and while he looks like a gnome he's probably the most powerful being in all of Swedish folklore. There are folktales about priests getting in conflict with the Tomten and Tomten wins every time. Swedish folklore have many cases of farmers and priests dealing with spirits and even the devil,. And most of the time spirits and the devil can be defeated very easily. But there are no stories where one "wins" after having wronged the Tomte.

[@windmaze8735]

An interesting observation, in norwegian folklore the music as an aspect of the nøkk isn't very common, but is found very prevalently in the fossegrim, a similar creature that lives under waterfalls and plays the fiddle so well noone can resist dancing to his music. If you bring him fenalår (cured mutton leg) stolen from your neighbor, he will teach you to play by rubbing your fingers against his fiddle until they bleed. However, if you bring him a poor cut of meat he will only teach you to tune the fiddle. That's the version I've heard anyway :-)

[@mariefrenchtutor3180]

That's interesting! Looking at the thumbnail I first thought you went to investigate someone gone missing. I'm glad it turns out to be a happy story. Louise has a very nice voice. I wish your video clip experiment will have a happy ending and get all the attention you both deserve. I'm looking forward to see the end result.

[@daysandwords]

Thanks for your comment. I have a question: I was nervous about this title and thumbnail combo because I thought people might consider it to be clickbait, but I have to balance that with wanting people to actually watch. Even just this video itself took about 3 or 4 weeks nevermind going to Sweden to get the shots. Is there something that you think I could reasonably call it that would make you click on it? And I mean just you personally... don't worry about whether other people would like that title.

[@Doremiefaso]

​@@daysandwordsnot the person above, but to answer the question. I personally like really blunt titles. So I would totally click on something like 'Scandinavian folklore is underrated. I made a song about it.' I think folklore is really cool, and I love music. So that would certainly do the trick for me

[@daysandwords]

Yeah... I have tried that sort of thing before and my data would suggest that if you're not a huge channel that's known for that kind of thing, it doesn't really work.

[@Doremiefaso]

@@daysandwords hmm, that's a shame! I imagine it to be especially tough when it's something different than what you usually post. It's a really cool project tho, let's hope the numbers will be able to reflect that somewhat. I'm learning German myself, and am excited to get to the works of Grimm and things of that nature too!

[@daysandwords]

I might try something like your one soon, since nothing else I've tried has worked! So, thank you!

[@seanmaher3018]

Oh snap when i said you were going for Eurovision, i had no idea you were making your own song! Thats a madness

[@Ceddiez]

Really cool! I'm looking forward to the music video!

[@EvanYeahMe]

That is both a surprise and awesome. I had thought you were going there to meet up with that exchange student that has stayed with you guys several years ago.

[@daysandwords]

Oh Finnish Hanna... she wasn't an exchange student but yeah haha.

[@SnowyFeet]

Nordic folklore is always fascinating.

[@jamesfullerguitar]

As a long time viewer who went to school for music composition and does music professionally, this is a very unexpected but interesting turn! Really interested to see what your music sounds like

[@daysandwords]

Yeah I did composition at uni too, haha. I was discussing in-depth today with a personality assessor person (hard to describe), how one of the biggest drawbacks with my personality type, at least if you're unaware of it, is that you don't get stuff like this done. So I finished 5 years of composition at uni and then did... nothing at all with it. I'm afraid, if I'm being really honest, that my song isn't even that good... I probably wrote much better stuff at uni, but then again, I didn't have it performed by my friends at that same uni, nevermind by a talented singer on the other side of the world.

[@jamesfullerguitar]

@ no way! Sydney con? In your defense, composition is a hard field to do for a living, and maintaining passion for it is something you have to do actively. I struggle with it a lot too, and think we’d have a lot in common in that sense.

[@marlitunks]

I am wanting to start learning Swedish (native English speaker), but really confused where to start, some suggest don’t use Duolingo while others do, and it’s hard to find good recourses on how to learn Swedish and pronounce it. There are also no in person classes near where I live. Any help would be appreciated.

[@daysandwords]

Don't use Duolingo. Get Storytel (audiobook subscription) and start listening to Harry Potter or something that you've read before in Swedish. Keep listening. Look up a list of the 500 most common words. Start learning them. Keep listening. Keep learning words. Read books. Keep listening. Keep learning words. Keep reading books. Keep listening. Keep reading. Keep watching TV series. Keep listening.

[@marlitunks]

@ Thank you so much

[@87advil]

This is cool! I had no idea where the foreshadowing in previous videos was going. (Weirdly this video is the first time I've heard "videoclip" from an English speaker, I only knew it as a loanword in Spanish)

[@daysandwords]

It was probably the Swedish influencing me... when I was growing up it was "film clip".

[@NoumenonAndPhenomenon]

The Nordics and Scandinavia have always had more then one foot in folklore. Even during the most religious fanatical times of Christianity people literally believed in elves, trolls and the spirit of the forest. Probably more than they feared of god tbh. There has always been a resistance to Christianity and it mainly took shape in the form of storytelling of spirits and creatures of the forest that awaited children who wandered off. I believe that's there's even surveys conducted all the way to the the middle of the 20th century when a majority of people genuinely believed in forest spirits. Even today with Sweden being one of the most irreligious places on earth about 40% of Swedes believe in the supernatural. Paradoxically it's also a culture that have among the highest trust in science in the world. Remember that Scandinavia and the Baltics was the last places in Europe to Christianize and you had people worship Odin and the Aesir all trough Catholicism until the Protest reformation in the 1500's. Poland never made this change hence explains why people tend to be more favorable to Christianity there, as it simply have had a much longer unaltered institutionalized status. Just a couple generations after the protestant reformations you had the enlightenment revolution so it's safe to say that organized Christianity never really got a grip of this region like it did with the rest of Europe.

[@daysandwords]

"I believe that's there's even surveys conducted all the way to the the middle of the 20th century when a majority of people genuinely believed in forest spirits." Yeah I read somewhere that still today, about 30% of Icelanders believe in fairies or something... can't remember if it was fairies but something like that. And that show Katla, set and shot in Iceland, is a good example of that kind of thing.

[@reginamndii]

I really enjoy this kind of content ! Pls make more

[@butterfliesandmoths]

Ser fram emot er tolkning! Dia Psalma har en låt om det vid namn "Balladen om lilla Elsa" 😅

[@m4rt_]

ah, lol, it's Nøkken. Good old folklore I thought this was going to be about some unsolved crime or something, but no, it's just a story used to scare kids. There are some other fictional creatures from Scandinavia: Draugen, Huldra, Jutul, Nisse, etc. There are also more popular ones like Trolls, Dwarves, and Elves. Kittelsen has some good paintings/drawings of some of these creatures.

[@hofforange5430]

Näcken has many variations, sometimes a violin playing incredibly beautiful forest man - alluringly slender but muscular and shyly luring you. Myths often mix here - violin playing devil and Bäckahästen - a beautiful white horse luring children to ride him - drowning the children violently. Näcken shapeshifts into Bäckahästen or a raft sometimes.

[@daysandwords]

Yep, I'm aware. This video is a simplification, for obvious reasons.

[@FaithLikeAMustardSeed]

I think you'll be interested in a book by Paul Stobbs, title "The Nephilim Looked like Clowns"

[@rymdkapseln]

Har du hört Hårgalåten, den gillar jag. 😅

[@clairejoy1053]

Still waiting for it 😁

[@Sonya54675]

Awesome. Молодець) Looking forward to one day watching the video!

[@j5679]

1:36 rendering bug?

[@daysandwords]

Yeah. I noticed it but because of some of the effects, it was taking quite a while to render every time and there was a possibility of bugs every time... and since I was actually talking about the male at that moment, and the GUY showed up fine... I just left it. Plus it's an ICA ad so like... kinda silly thing to worry to much about haha. The first render attempt literally crashed on that shot at 1:00 because it's a 6K shot, and I slowed it down and did "speed warp", which is where it invents the frames in between each existing frame... I think it was all that detailed shrub stuff and the focus pull, because lots of shots had something similar (6K and speed warp), but that one struggled all the way through the edit.

[@BrunUgle]

Haha! I thought it was intentional because it was supposed to be all mysterious and spooky and dreamlike.

[@daysandwords]

That's another reason I let it slide but no... it's from an ICA ad haha.

[@Adam-MonkeyIsNull]

At the start is this video I thought you were going a completely different direction. I was concerned we had lost you down the cryptozoologist hole - I was like: Ohno, he’s a goner 😂 Phew!

[@apelsin19]

Some say that the crossroads myth is actually from Sweden. You could actually learn to play the violin from Näcken if you showed up at a crossroad three nights in a row. He would appear and ask you if he should tune the violin after your fingers or the fingers after your violin. Choosing the wrong option would obviously be very painful. You had to take certain steps to secure that the tunes he taught you wasn't magical or you could end up as the story of Hårgalåten. Any how Swedish emigrants brought the violin to America and the story of Näcken which over time got changed to the devil or the crossroads demon.

[@daysandwords]

Yeah I was wondering about that too. I thought it was interesting that one of the films that I had to go to in order to get "footage" of Sirens was O Brother Where Art Thou, which also includes the guy selling his soul to the devil in exchange for playing the guitar...

[@Z3r0XoL]

during the witch trials many talented musicians were burned because they believed the music enthralled people

[@daysandwords]

As a not-so-talented musician myself, I can agree that ridiculously good musicians and freakin' dangerous. Emiliana Torrini is terrible for my productivity... that Icelandic Siren seduces me with her tones haha.

[@cannonballbob6949]

Bramble: the Mountain King is a good game

[@donnie1725]

💯💯

[@TheAxhol]

This is so random but funny 😂

[@BrunUgle]

Wow!

[@izabellnemilindfors2566]

Love too her the song ❤❤❤

[@CALLE92JOHANSSON]

Coolt! Första gången jag tror jag såg något om näcken som barn var i en film om Barnen i Bullerybyn, baserad på böcker av Astrid Lindgren. kzbin.info/www/bejne/aH-5dGuDjbOqftksi=Nqm0gz_fsmiNPzZS

[@Aidan_Au]

Please go to Oslo Norway too

[@daysandwords]

Sorry what's this got to do with anything? Never said I was taking requests for my destinations...

[@HowlsHipHippo]

Did I hear it right that you wrote it as the singer is the VICTIM? How did you not write the song from the point of view of the Siren? That singer is the LITERAL siren here! She got you to go to the other side of the world, her voice was that enchanting... and I can see why. Also... I can't be the only one thinking that she's kind of easy on the eyes too. Me thinks I might be going to Sweden soon. 😄

[@daysandwords]

Haha, I honestly don't think it ever crossed my mind to write it as Louise being a siren... not sure what she'd think of that... Also before you book your plane to Sweden, you might want to know she's married...

[@joob40]

30 seconds in and it's obvious that you're smarter and waaaay classier. That was a trash party over there. Oh and yeah you two look similar, but you're beautiful ands she's a 🐴face. Not that I would usually stoop to personal insults, but just responding to the invitation.

[@daysandwords]

I have literally no idea what you're talking about.

[@joob40]

​@@daysandwordsSorry! My app is glitchy and posted this to my next video in queue while I was commenting on the previous one. Very different subject!

[@daysandwords]

LOL thanks for explaining. This was genuinely baffling to me. What's scary is that is KIND of made sense... in that by "you", you could have meant me, obviously... and by "she's a horse face", you would have meant Louise... which would have been mean, of course... but also I was like "You're know we're BOTH married right... we're not dating, what are you even talking about? Also how can I be classier than someone whom you didn't even hear speak?" It was odd for me to be so worried about a comment that seemed to be painting me as the good guy haha.

[@joob40]

@daysandwords 😂😂😂 so sorry for the emotional roller coaster

[@joob40]

@@daysandwords * posted, not outdated. I just can't tonight. 😂

[@matshjalmarsson3008]

Perhaps of interest, a punk band song about Näcken kzbin.info/www/bejne/a2O8XoCojKaZeK8

[@daysandwords]

Cheers. Links get blocked, just for future reference. On bigger channels, they will probably never see the light of day.

[@matshjalmarsson3008]

@@daysandwords OK you may search for "sagan om lilla Elsa" to find it

[@daysandwords]

Sorry... the link is there NOW... because I approved it... but on big channels where they don't look at the filtered section and probably don't approve anything with links anyway...