A crazy amazing Swedish midsummer's party

Last Friday I was invited, along with some other German Stammtisch-related people, to attend a Swedish midsummer's party in Hütten, which is really as close to the middle of nowhere as I think you can get in Germany. Amanda, who is Swedish, and who I met at the Stammtisch in Jena, has been spending the last while doing volunteer service at a youth hostel-education centre where they run workshops for school groups and interested people on environmental topics. (At least that's what I understand of it, I may not have all the details right.)

In any case, it's a lovely place for a party, as it has a nice courtyard, an industrial-sized kitchen, and plenty of beds for everyone to sleep over. Her parents were visiting from Sweden, and they helped prepare the party as well, even bringing special decorations.

The central decoration was this:
I'm not sure what it's called, but it's not a Christian cross with a couple of wreaths on it as I'd originally thought - rather a giant phallic symbol with wreaths for testicles. They built it themselves, and it was decorated with leaves and flowers that are in season. (The pink ones are digitalis.)

Here in the foreground you can see a little model of what it traditionally looks like - I'd say they got it pretty well perfect!
And the whole decorated table... (Yes, that's my knitting on the left.)
And of course we had lots of traditional Swedish food as well, such as a gratin with potatoes, anchovies, and cream (called frestelse in Swedish), and this most beautiful smorgastarta (savory sandwich torte), which contained layers of bread and creamy fillings like egg salad, smoked salmon and creme fraiche, shrimp, capers, etc.
Not to mention the incredible decorations on the outside...
As the night grew darker we started learning a Swedish drinking song, which Amanda had written out for all of us on sheets. I can still remember the tune, but not the words so well. I think it's called "Halun gor" (with a little circle on top of the "o"), but I might be wrong. What I do remember for sure is that everytime you finish it you have to drain your shot glass of vodka. We sang it several times.
Valentina is seen at the left, committing the song to memory...
They also had these nice burning logs which I've seen a few times now in Germany. They cut the logs down crosswise, deeply in 2 perpendicular lines, and then not so deeply in two other directions. Then they get the fire started with some paper or lighter fluid inside, and it makes a nice lantern. Apparently they're called Swedish something-or-other in German, but the Swedes there had only ever seen them in Germany.
And again without the flash - much blurrier, but it gives a better idea of what they really look like.
And then we began to dance around the phallic symbol, singing a song in Swedish about having no ears and no tail, with actions to match.
Pagan much?
There were a couple other circular dances...
...and then we all went back to drinking and learning German songs. (While there were a number of foreigners there, German was still the language of the evening.) We sang a few rounds, including a quadrilingual version of Frère Jacques, and passed around the flower crown. I think that Valentina definitely deserved to be crowned the Midsommerkönigen of Hütten, however.
Although there were competing bids from me,
Chiara,
Jörg and Grit,
and the lovely Marie.
And here's a rather off-centre self-portrait of Frank (the teacher of the German songs) and Valentina, quite late in the evening at this point.
In all, it was a wonderful party, and a great way to spend the shortest night of the year, even if Saturday was a complete write-off. But more on Saturday and my disastrous cooking in the next post.