SWEDISH VILLAGERS

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4010, 28 July 1931, Page 7

SWEDISH VILLAGERS

ANCIENT CUSTOM STILL HOLDS That a three-century-old custom still prevails in the vicinity of Stockholm, and has been able to triumph over all modern inventions, such as post, telephone, and telegraph, was recently discovered (writes a correspondent of the ‘Christian Science Monitor’). In the village of Kungsberga, near Stockholm, a medieval stick called, in Swedish, ‘ budkavlo ” and analogous to the Scottish fiery cross, is still used to summon the villagers to community meetings. The budkavle was in olden times used everywhere in Sweden to assemble the members of a community to meetings, and h..s the form of a stick with a writ fastened around its centre. It was circulated among the inhabitants of flic village, the arish, or the province, and everyone who receive 1 it had to carry it to ids nearest neighbour after reading the message. With the introduction of .he post, the newspapers, the telegraph, and the telephone, the budkavle lost its importance, and was retained only in the most remote and inaccessible parts of the country. To discover, therefore, that one is still used in the immediate vicinity of the capital seemed incredible. One of the villagers of Kungsberga told a reporter that they elect annually an alderman, who has the budkavle in his keeping. When there are public questions to be discussed, the alderman sends out the stick with an announcement and the list of names giving the order in which it is to be circulated among the villagers. The alderman brings the stick to his nearest neighbour, who after having read the paper forwards it to the next name on the list, and so it is circulated. The last person on the list has to reutrn it to the alderman.

The .Cnngsberga villagers insist that it is much surer than any advertisements, postcards, or telephone calls. In this way they study more earnestly the subject to be discussed. There is a fine of five kroner for the one who keeps the stick too long or who neglects to forward it.