Räven raskar över isen

Räven raskar över isen is an old folksong performed as a singing game when dancing around the Christmas tree and the midsummer pole. The opening verses are often "flickornas visa" (the "girls' song", where the participants curtsey) or "pojkarnas visa" (the "boys' song", where the participants bow). After that, the verses may vary. However, the songs of Grin-Olle and Skratt-Olle are common.

According to the Olaus Rudbeck: historical compilation Atlantica the song opens: "Hå, hå, Räfwen han låckar på isen". In the 1950 Carl-Herman Tillhagen and Nils Deckers compilation Svenska folkvisor och danser is a version opening entitled "Räven raskar över riset".

Publication

• Lek med toner, 1971 (as "Sånglek")
• Julens önskesångbok, 1997, under the lines "Nyare julsånger", also under "Tjugondag Knut dansas julen ut"
• Barnens svenska sångbok, 1999, under the lines "Sång med lek och dans".

Recordings

An early recording was one by Margareta Schömström in Stockholm in May 1925, and the record came out in January.^[1] The song has also been recorded by Anita Lindblom on the 1975 Christmas album Jul med tradition.^[2]

Film music

The song is also used as film music for the 1987 film "Mer om oss barn i Bullerbyn".^[3]

Other versions

During the 20th century, Gullan Bornemark wrote two new lyrics versions of the same versions. Both of them were traffic-related, and appeared in her Anita och Televinken show. Strunta i att gå i vägen ("Ignore walking in the road") deals with, for example, not to follow the fire truck during accidents you don't have to do with, and Hej, nu åker vi, is a wintertime song arguing for the hills being the best place to ride the toboggan or the pulk, not the road, which is made for cars and buses.^[4]

Over the 2002-2003 Christmas and holiday season, a film from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency about the greenhouse effect and global warming was often showed as a TV commercial. Depicting a fictional Christmas tree plundering in the future, the participatns were children, singing "Räven simmar över sjön" ("the fox swims across the lake") instead of "Räven raskar över isen" ("The fox runs across the ice"), before throwing the Christmas tree out in the rain. What was feared was a future Sweden, where children in an era of global warming would no longer know what ice is.^[5]

References