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Norse script
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Listen
Garrison Keillor: Today we are celebrating Norwegian Independence, the hundredth anniversary of it, May 1905. Norwegians of course have always been independent people, going back to the time when they discovered America — (SHIP RIGGING, BIG WAVES, TR VIKING SHOUT, COW HORN BLAST) — Leif Erikson — long before Christopher Columbus and his publicity machine set sail from Genoa with no idea of where they were going and stumbled onto some islands in the Caribbean — long before that Leif Erikson sailed along the shore of Canada and New England (Tim Russell VIKING TALK) and went back to Norway to recite his long saga about the trip... (TR VIKING RECITATION) —- in which he said that the New World was okay, not that bad, could have been worse, which discouraged emigration for eight-hundred years.
How did the Norwegians come under Swedish control? Well, they had been under Danish control, and compared to that, Swedish control didn't seem so bad. The Danes were cruel and arrogant, because they were under the illusion that they were really French. They were unbearable when they were drunk, which was most of the time. The Swedes were a large and slow-moving people who liked to count things (TR SWEDISH COUNTING) and organize their closets and organize committees and so they didn't have time to be oppressive. And so the Norwegians continued doing what they wanted to do, catching herring (SHIPS RIGGING, GULLS, TR NORSE SHOUTS) and playing the fiddle (Peter Ostroushko FIDDLE) and dancing and herding goats (GOATS) and skiing (TR NORSE, SKIING) until they woke up one day and said, Who are these foreigners with the lingonberries? Who invited them in? (TR NORSE BEWILDERMENT)
So the Norwegians spoke to God, who of course understands Norwegian and speaks it beautifully, and God sent down plagues upon the Swedes — he sent frogs (SFX) and flies (SFX) and then he gave them Strindberg and when that wasn't enough he gave them Ingmar Bergman — black and white movies in which people sit and do not communicate— (TR & Sue Scott SERIES OF SWEDISH MUTTERINGS) and finally, the Swedes let the Norwegians free — and the Norwegians hired an unemployed Danish prince to come up and be King because no Norwegian would ever want to be in that position — this is a decent and modest people, a good people, and we salute them on the anniversary of their Independence. Even as we thank the Swedes for oppressing them, which motivated so many Norwegians to come to America. They are in our midst, one of the very few ethnic groups in the country that enjoys jokes about itself. And so they are a treasure. Three cheers for Norway!
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