Hej – and welcome to your weekly ScandiKitchen lesson.
Yesterday (23rd March) was World Bear Day. Did you know that there are over 4000 brown bears in the Nordics? (None in Denmark; they never get any of the fun stuff).
Every week, we give a little lesson on how to be a bit more Scandinavian in your everyday life. If you’d like the full-length version of these lessons direct into your inbox every Friday morning, simply click here to sign up.
Angry bear
The Finns don’t say someone is cranky… they say they are like a bear shot in the ass (kuin perseeseen ammuttu karhu).
Shooting bears
Across Scandinavia, we don’t care about chickens hatching – instead, we say: Don’t sell the skin before the bear is shot (Inte sälja skinnet förrän björnen är skjuten)
Blueberry Bear
A brown bear can eat around 180,000 bilberries (wild blueberries) in a day. They really are busy bears with little time for chit chat.
Bear favour
If a Scandinavian does you a bear favour (bjørnetjeneste), it means a favour that will not help you in the long run (although in Denmark, some think this means a big favour, which is confusing).
Drunk bear
To have a bear on (have en bjørn på) in Danish is a way of saying someone is drunk.
Hello bear
The name Björn means ‘bear’ – a common Scandinavian first name.
Tax bear
In Finnish, a tax bear is a negative term for a tax collector (verokarhu)
Crazy bear
Bears were sacred to Vikings. ‘Berserker’ comes from Norse words “bear shirt/skin.” The berserker took on bear’s spirit and became a bear in battle, wearing bear skin instead of armour.
