The French Inn

The French inn was built in 1806. The house is located at Djurgarden in Stockholm, Sweden.The building is a large, yellow wooden house and surrounded by two smaller wings. The house is one of several large houses in the area in the era of Karl XIV Johan. In the 1830s it had a pink facade. At the inn was held Artist club's first summer festival in 1857 where all Swedish leading artists was present. The party was immortalized in a detailed watercolor painted by the member Fredrik Wilhem Scholander. Today, the buildings are private residence

 

 

Behind the inn, to the right, you can see the Hallestad bell tower which now stands at Skansen in Stockholm, originally from Hallestad parish in northern Ostergotland. With its 40.5 meters it is one of Sweden's highest bell tower. The tower was built in 1732-33 and donate to Skansen in the late 1800s where it now stands as a stately monument of the time period.

The three bells of Hallestad belltower always rings in the New Year as it did for our ancestors when they went to Hallestad church between 1732- 1893.

Every New Year's Night, all we Swedes that are scattered throughout the world, hear the bells from Skansen, TV or the Web as we listening to the poem Ring Out, Wild Bells ("Ring bell ring") by Lord Tennyson being recited at midnight at Skansen. This is an old Swedish tradition, the first time the poem was read beside the bell tower was in 1895.

 

 

Ring Out, Wild Bells, Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

 

 

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more,

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

 

 

*It should be clearly noted that the Swedish translation witch is recited varies from the English original.

Done