Hey Tomtegubbar: A Song History
"Hej tomtegubbar" appears in Ringlekar på Skansen, a book of ring games issued by Nordiska museet, whose third edition was printed in Stockholm in 1908.[1] The preface to the first edition records that ring games were introduced at Skansen in the spring of 1897.[2] In the book the song is printed with its melody as one of the ring games, under an older title.[3] The book's notes credit this version to V. Bergström and other members of the Västgöta nation in 1883.[4]
Le Nain, Children Dancing, oil on canvas, c. 1650. A French ring dance, shown for the song's place among ring games.
The "tomtegubbar" of the title are tomtar, figures from Swedish folk belief: the gårdstomte was an unseen, human-like guardian of the farm and its livestock, and it is for him that Christmas porridge is set out.[5] His name is linked to tomt, a homestead or property, and when the artist Jenny Nyström painted Christmas postcards in the later nineteenth century, she drew on him for the Swedish jultomte, a figure whose roots also lie in legends of St. Nicholas.[5] The American Swedish Historical Museum prints the song in Swedish and English in "Tiptoe with Tomte," a December handout for its toddler program about the tomte.[6]
Mark Gilston includes "Hey Tomtegubbar" in Christmas With Dulcimers, a 56-page book of mountain dulcimer tablature that pairs familiar Christmas standards with less familiar melodies.[7]
Sources
- Project Runeberg: "Ringlekar på Skansen" (Nordiska museet, 3rd ed., 1908).
- Project Runeberg: "Ringlekar på Skansen", Förord till första upplagan.
- Project Runeberg: "Ringlekar på Skansen", p. 14.
- Project Runeberg: "Ringlekar på Skansen", p. 71: Anmärkningar.
- Nordiska museet: "Julen på Nordiska museet".
- American Swedish Historical Museum: "Tiptoe with Tomte".
- Mark Gilston: "Christmas With Dulcimers".
- Image: Le Nain, Children Dancing, oil on canvas, c. 1650. The Cleveland Museum of Art.