Høstfest, aka the county fair, comes to Århus

Sometimes it is easy to forget that Denmark has almost five pigs for every person. You wonder where they are. We sort of expected to see them in the countryside, but they are apparently raised indoors in very high tech fashion, keeping the smell that plagues Iowa to a minimum.

However, pigs, sheep, cows, etc. were much in evidence during Høst Fest, the fall harvest festival in Århus today.

There were also a lot of old tractors and other farm equipment on display. This one reminds me quite a bit of the one my Dad used on our old farm in Kuna, Idaho. (Ours was a Ford of about the same vintage. The one in the photo was made in 1950.)

The whole event took place in the square right beside the main cathedral, whose construction started in 1200. So the setting doesn't look much like the Western Idaho State Fair of my youth, but it still reminded me quite a bit of county and state fairs we used to go to.

Odd to think about it now, but the first time I think I slept away from home with no relatives around was at age eight, beside my Guernsey 4-H show cow at the Western Idaho State Fair. (4-H -- Head, Heart, Hands, and Health -- is an organization for getting kids interested in farm life and work. It started in in the USA but spread to Scandinavia, so maybe the rumbles of memory here are not entirely accidental.) The fair today certainly had a lot of exhibits to let kids see cows.

From the baleful look this sheep is giving me, it seems like the animals have decided to stare back. It seems to be saying, "OK, I look silly because I have just been shorn. What's your excuse," although that is attributing a lot of thought to a sheep. They never struck me as the brightest bulbs in the pasture, even compared to the cows.

Of course, the Western Idaho State Fair never had medieval re-enactors working a forge to make tools, next to the sheep, fifty feet away from a Nigerian dance troupe exhibition. So the harvest fair seems to have gone pre-modern and post-modern all at the same time.

It does show how prominent medieval re-creation groups have become in the last few years in Denmark. (Although they were attracting a lot less attention than the Nigerian dance troupe.)