2012 års Gävlebock gick upp i brand. Igen.

re: 2012 års Gävlebock gick upp i brand. Igen.

Fredrik — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 09:03:57 GMT

Regarding the title, I think "gick upp i lågor" is most appropriate (and also happens to be a literal translation of "went up in flames". It's not the most common expression, but feels better than "gick upp i brand".

re: 2012 års Gävlebock gick upp i brand. Igen.

Andreas Rejbrand — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:40:14 GMT

Trevligt att se att du håller dina svenskkunskaper vid liv.

re: 2012 års Gävlebock gick upp i brand. Igen.

j b — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 11:39:21 GMT

For all I know, this goat-burning may be a well known tradition in Sweden, but through my 50+ years I have been living all over Norway ("Scandinavia" is Sweden, Denmark and Norway), and I have never heard about it before. While Sweden certainly is one of the Scandinavian countries, you probably should consider this a Swedish tradition rather than an (all) Scandinavian one.

Actually, while the Scandinavian countries have very closely related "everyday culture", traditions around celebrations of all kinds vary greatly, from Christmas celebration to midsummer celebration, both in activities, dressing traditions and not the least: Which food is associated with various celebrations. At a Swedish Christmas party, or some other yuletime event in Sweden, I might feel just as strange and misplaced as a person from any other country...

(Don't misunderstand: It can be great fun, and I love some of the Swedish food traditions - they just are not _my_ traditions!)

[I meant that the Yule Goat is a Scandinavian tradition. Goat-burning appears to be a Gävle-specific tradition. -Raymond]

re: 2012 års Gävlebock gick upp i brand. Igen.

Silly — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 05:10:15 GMT

I find the table near the end of the Wikipedia article especially funny: "... - Number of goats burned - Number of goats vandalised - Number of goats run over - Number of goats stolen - ...".

It's just asking for a few new columns.

re: 2012 års Gävlebock gick upp i brand. Igen.

Steve D — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 02:25:01 GMT

Both 'up' and 'down' work in English also. 'Up' in this sense would be interpreted as 'completely consumed'. In Australia, beginning at this time of the year, most of the news concerning burning tends to be about forests; not so trivial to most of us, although there always seems to be a few who look at a forest the way that some look at that goat...

re: 2012 års Gävlebock gick upp i brand. Igen.

JJJ — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:39:54 GMT

This is hilarious. While reading through the list, I was thinking how a ranged attack, like a flaming arrow, would do the trick if you really wanted to burn the goat with observers and guards around. But you'd really have to be obsessed. And then I read about the burning in 2005...

re: 2012 års Gävlebock gick upp i brand. Igen.

JW — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:17:17 GMT

I recall Raymond writing in the past about doing something, and then repeating it and expecting something different to happen. From the point of view of the fake goats surviving, it seems like quite the futile matter. However, when viewing it from the 'how does it get destroyed?' angle, it is actually a quite interesting experiment that deserves repeating!

re: 2012 års Gävlebock gick upp i brand. Igen.

Magnus — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:04:29 GMT

@Rick, heh. Actually, you can say both "brinna upp" and "brinna ner" (up and down, respectively). Both would mean "burn down", but there's an unclear (to me), subtle difference. I'd say things burn up while buildings burn down, and after something burns down, there's just a pile of ashes (as opposed to, say, the metal skeleton of a giant straw goat) left.

re: 2012 års Gävlebock gick upp i brand. Igen.

Rick C — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 18:58:37 GMT

"I'd say "2012 års Gävlebock brann upp" ("burned down"). Perhaps "brändes upp" ("was burned down") would be even better."

TIL that in Swedish, upp is down.

re: 2012 års Gävlebock gick upp i brand. Igen.

Magnus — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 18:55:16 GMT

Mer från svenska petimeter-hörnan:

I've never heard "gick upp i brand" (or "gick upp i eld", both kind of mean "went up in fire"). There really is no literal translation for "went up in flames". ("Gick upp i rök" ("went up in smoke") exists, but means the same thing as the English expression)

I'd say "2012 års Gävlebock brann upp" ("burned down"). Perhaps "brändes upp" ("was burned down") would be even better.