She has been Living in a Cabin in the Forests of Sweden for 8 years | Home Tour
Tova Christoffersson lives in a tiny cabin in the forests of Jämtland, Sweden. She has done so for the past 8 years. In the above video, she gives viewers a tour of her home and how she lives, with her husband and child.
If you have ever seen a cabin in a movie, Tova’s is very similar but more modern and without the impending doom/horror vibes (like The Hateful Eight or Evil Dead, for example). The purpose of living “off-the-grid” is to live a more sustainable life and what could be more environmentally friendly than this?
It’s not something I could ever do but it works for them and that’s the important thing.
A while back, I wrote about pule, a unique cheese made from donkey milk. Well, there’s another expensive and rare cheese out there and it’s made from moose milk.
Moose cheese brings in the cheddar
Christer and Ulla Johansson are the two farmers from Älgens Hus (Elk/Moose House) farm in Bjurholm, Sweden and they’re believed to be the world’s only producer of moose cheese. Due to its rarity, the moose milk generates 300kg of cheese per year at a cost of over £750 per kg (around $1,000). That makes it one of the most expensive cheeses in the world.
What kind of cheese does moose milk make?
The milk creates four types of cheese:
Two types of blue cheese (dry and creamy)
Feta-style
Rind-style
As well as being sold, the Johansson’s also serve the cheese at their Älgens Hus’ restaurant in Sweden.
This is all made possible by three female moose named Gullan, Haelga, and Juno who lactate for 5 months of the year between May and September.
Why not visit The Moose House?
As well as the moose cheese, you can also visit Älgens Hus and take a tour around the farm. Say hello to all the tame moose and moose calves witness the Kings (and Queens) of the Forest in all their Scandanavian splendour.
The farm is a 30-minute bus ride and walk from Bjurholm busstation on the 113. By car, it’s around 10 minutes.
The codex set the standard for future book formats that live in on modern times. Some are peculiar, like Codex Seraphinianus, but Codex Argenteus is the bible of Gothic Germany.
What is Codex Argenteus?
Codex Argenteus is a 6th-century book containing a Gothic translation of the Bible from the 4th century. To be clear, I’m not talking about the modern gothic subculture. The Goths were an East Germanic people who helped bring down the Western Roman Empire.
But back to the book. Codex Argenteus preserved the Gothic language in the best way possible – via a translation of the most famous text in human history. Its creation started in Ravenna, Italy. The city was the capital of the Western Roman Empire at the time and King Theoderic the Great wanted to make it a metropolis. Ravenna became the capital of the Ostrogothic Kingdom after the Empire’s demise; a Bible translated into the kingdom’s language seemed fitting.
Who wrote it?
A bishop called Ulfilas (or Wulfila as he was known in Gothic) was originally attributed as the sole translator. But we now know Codex Argenteus was translated by multiple scholars supervised by the bishop. Ulfilas was a Goth and developed the Gothic alphabet, loosely based on an amalgamated Greco-Runic alphabet.
The empire fell in 476 and Theoderic died in 526. The Codex disappeared with him and stayed that way for centuries. It was then found in the 16th century on a library shelf in Werden, Germany. Occult-obsessed Rudolf II began collecting books for his court in Prague and select “Argenteus” as one of them.
The Silver Bible travels to Sweden
A page from Codex Argenteus
It stayed there for about 70 years before Sweden invaded Prague and took the Silver Bible with it. Codex Argenteus then became a part of Queen Christina’s library. But a few years later, Queen Christina converted to Catholicism and left for Rome after abdicating her throne. Her librarian went with her and she paid him in books as she didn’t have any money. The Gothic Bible changed hands once more.
Sweden’s new king, Charles X Gustav got his brother-in-law, Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie, to speak to Christina’s librarian (a Dutch scholar called Isaac Vossius), and he bought the Silver Bible for 400 marks (about £12,300 in today’s money).
Codex Argenteus, stolen and returned
But did it stay in the possession of the Swedish royal family for good? Of course not. In 1995, it was stolen by two men in gas masks. Authorities recovered Codex Argenteus a month later but the thieves were never caught. It now resides in an annexe to Carolina Rediviva, Uppsala University’s main library. And a bulletproof glass box protects it this time.
Unfortunately, today only 56% of its original 336 pages remain. They were also dyed purple – talk about regal. It was expensive to do this in the 6th century, exclusively for emperors. Codex Argenteus is a well-travelled book and an enduring bastion of a lost language.
The Silver bible online?
Wulfila didn’t want the Gothic language to stay within the confines of Codex Argenteus. He wanted to spread the text and keep the language alive that way. And now anyone can read the book.
