Day 49-öskudagur

   February 22-Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, signals that the party is over in most places.  But, in Iceland, öskudagur, or ashes day, is treated a little differently.  Kids (and most adults, too) look foreword to the festivities of today as much as they look forward to the "bolla! bolla! bolla!" of bolludagur.  To gain a better perspective, think about the preparations and anticipation that accompanies Halloween in the U.S.  Well, that is essentially what öskudagur is: Halloween in February.

   The kids got themselves up early again today, so they could get their costumes around.  Joslyn donned the fox mask she made in school a couple weeks ago and then used Spencer's coat and an orange plastic bag to complete her arctic fox costume.  Alex and Spencer used costumes we bought at the flea market in Reykjavík two weekends ago.  Alex was a dragon lady and Spencer was a classy skeleton. 

   There is an old tradition here to "beat the cat out of a barrel" on öskudagur.  Everyone assured us that this was not due to there being cats in the barrel now or even in earlier times, but methinks they doth protest too much!  To get an accurate mental picture of this activity, start with a kid hitting a piñata.  Then, replace the piñata with a ten gallon barrel without metal bands, give the kid a full-sized sledgehammer handle, and

take away the blindfold.  Now we have an activity that befits the Icelander's Viking ancestry! 

    Spencer's class worked over a cardboard barrel with a broom handle in the morning, while the Varmaland kids beat the cat out of the barrel in two different groups in the afternoon. Alex's 7th grade class stayed at Varmaland with the older grades to let out some teenage angst on a wooden barrel there.  Meanwhile, Bifröst hosted grades 1-6 for a barrel-beating at 1pm.  I don't imagine you would see this type of organized activity much in America, because any administrator would immediately think 'liability' and 'litigation' and would cancel it forthwith!  Thankfully, that does not appear to be as big of a problem over here.  Instead, the parents and the maintenance staff, who ran the show, kept the kids back and the kids were expected to show some common sense as well. 

   After the maintenace men hung the barrel from a second floor balcony, the Varmaland kids and some of the

kindergartners from Hraunborg lined up in the college courtyard, and the beating commenced!  As you might expect, the little kids didn't do much damage when it was their turn.  Spencer gave it one try, but decided he was too much for him and just watched.  The maintenance staff at Bifröst did a good job of making the barrel this year, because it survived four rounds.  However, the sides slowly began to cave in and finally could no longer hold the bottom, which gave way, pouring the candy out.  Bedlam ensued. 

   In most of Iceland, the kids immediately fan out to businesses, where they are given candy, much like the Main Street celebration in Gunnison around Halloween.  However, since these country kids do not have a concentrated collection of business nearby, they run from residence to residence, collecting candy.  So, kids in costumes go house to house and get candy.  That's why I said that it is essentially Halloween in February.  The big difference is that the kids have to sing at the door to get the candy.  In some towns in Iceland, the kids actually get together weeks ahead of time to practice, and the store owners give out candy based on the quality of the singing.  In any event, I was amazed at how well most of the kids could harmonize and sing the songs.  It was actually a treat to listen to the songs, before handing out the sweets. 

   Joslyn and Spencer joined Joslyn's 5th grade classmate, Sara, running around Bifröst.  Sara arrived at Varmaland a couple weeks ago.  She has an American parent and an Icelandic parent and had lived in America since she was four years old.  It is interesting that there had been no Americans at Varmaland for many years and in quick succession they have now picked up three!  Since Sara obviously knew English songs, they could all three sing the same things, like "twinkle, twinkle, little star."
   The non-Bifröst students, including Sara, departed for Varmaland on the bus at 2:30.  An hour later, the older kids came back on the bus and started roaming the campus, singing for candy.  Alex joined her usual group of Icelandic friends and tried to keep up with singing Icelandic songs.  She did not get as much time running around for candy as she would have liked, but we reminded her that she could do it all over again in eight months.  The kids are essentially going to be able to celebrate Halloweens twice this year!
  Preschoolers get picked up around 4pm and some of them were taken around by their parents.  Ultimately, I think that we ended up having almost all of the kids who were at Bifröst
stop by and sing to us, because word got around that we were handing out American candy.  Remember that huge supply of Valentine's candy we got earlier this week?  Well, it was nearly wiped out by the time the last kid came through a little after 5pm. 
   So, like typical academics, we have asked a number of people where these traditions came from and what they have to do with Ash Wednesday.  It turns out that the costumes are relatively new.  People who are our age told us that when they were young, the old tradition of sneaking up on people and discretely hanging bags of ash on their clothes was still practiced, but it was dying out.  The tradition of costumes and practicing and singing songs as groups was simultaneously developing up north in Akureyri, from which it has spread all over Iceland.  However, no one could tell us how or why this change came about.  I suppose that it happened for the same reason that Halloween has developed its costume and candy traditions over the past 70 years in the States: most people just enjoy it!