Christmas in Lothlorien.

[davywavy]

It was one of those crisp and sunny Decemmber mornings last Saturday; not to cold and rather pleasant, and so the she-David and I wandered off to Borough Market to stock up because in my opinion you really can't ever have too many sausages.
Anyway, wandering past Southwark Cathedral which stands right next to the market it was clear some sort of event was going on inside, and so we wandered in to take a look.
"Sorry", said the chap at the door. "Tickets only."
"Tickets?"
"Yes", he said, slightly apologetically. "They're twenty pounds each."
"Twenty quid?" What's going on?"
"It's a carol concert."
I must have looked at bit disappointed. Only a carol concert. I had been hoping for something a little more thrilling. He must have clocked my expression, because he added in a you-definitely-won't-be-interested sort of tone: "It's in Finnish".
"Finnish?"
"Finnish."
"So... just to be clear, songs like Jingle Bells, but sung in Finnish?"
He nodded.
"Where do I pay?" I asked.

Predictably, the Cathedral was full of high-cheekboned, half inuit-half elfin looking folk which was presumably pretty much the entire Finnish expatriate community of London getting a festive fix in far from home. Some short welcoming speeches were made by the pastor of the Cathedral, and the pastor of the Finnish church in Rotherhythe (if that's not a day out waiting to happen, I don't know what is) and the Finn ambassador (who seemed a jovial sort of chap, and looked a bit like Joss Ackland in a comedy bowtie), and then an unaccompanied choir spent about an hour singing a mixture of jolly Christmas Carols and Finnish folk hymns.

Given that Tolkien based the High Elven language on Finnish, I think the best way I can describe the experience is to suggest you imagine the Lothlorien scenes from the Lord of the Rings films, but instead of singing a lament for Gandalf all the elves were singing Winter Wonderland and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
I'll tell you what, Galadriel wouldn't have been anything like so po-faced if they'd all just had a jolly singsong.

And that was the most interesting thing I did this weekend. What about you?

Comments

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

I had a Finnish encounter as well. We went round the traditional Victorian-English Christmas market in Bedford, and bought Normandy cider, a Peruvian scarf, and an interesting Finnish drinking bowl (I was firmly persuaded that the cuddly lynx could stay where it was). Ate kangaroo burger, and drank German mulled wine.

[(Anonymous)]

What is it with you and Finnland right about now? First the moomons, now this - are you developing some sort of fetish?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

What, for women who don't understand a word I say, and live as far away as possible?

I've always had one of those.

[(Anonymous)]

It's the country where he quite wants to be...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN2ZJBh92SM

[drplokta]

The Finnish church in Rotherhithe has an annual Christmas fair, but you've missed this year's. Conveniently, it runs on the same dates as the Christmas fair at the Norwegian church, just down the road. (There's a Swedish church too, but it doesn't seem to have a fair, probably because there's another Swedish church in London, that does have a fair).

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

Having spent a week in the land of the Finn's on H-moon I can happily say that Finnish is a delightful, bizarre and alien language that I can't get my head around at all. The only word I can speak is 'Thank you': Kiitos, which has both i's pronounced seperately as an 'ee' sound, a K that starts at the back of the throat and an S that sounds slightly lisped.]

Apparently its like Hungarian, but nothing else.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

"Joulu" is Christmas, I can say with some authority.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's also closely related to Estonian -- and technically a gaggle of obscure little languages like Old Livonian that have all of about twenty speakers left each, not that anyone keeps tally -- to the extent that Estonian and Finnish are sort of very vaguely mutually intelligible, at least if the stars are right, and nobody uses any difficult words.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

I painted raw chicken breasts in a mortuary in Walsall last Friday?

I have many Finnish friends, grumpy, dark-humoured feckers the lot of em. SO much fun ^_^

[calligrafiti.livejournal.com]

My dad's family were Finnish immigrants (to the US). He grew up in a small community where the church still had services in Finnish and the paper printed a Finnish edition. So to me Finns were those people who made great pancakes and slipped me a fiver now and then. Not exactly bad associations, mind, but the exoticism's not really there for me.

*wanders off to the nearest mirror to look for signs of elfin inuit-ishness*

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, oh dear me. Hope you don't feel too cheated out of your twenty quid. And is it wrong that on some level the mere fact that there even is a Finnish community in London makes me feel slightly warm and fuzzy inside, especially if it's sufficiently large to potter around town doing random things like this? (Although it's hardly surprising, given that it's, well, London.)