Kairi Leivo, Piret Päär, Leanne Barbo (Estonia)

Ina Celitane, Inga Buvere (Latvia)

Astrid Selling, Mimmi Nilsson, Marie Länne Persson, Love Kjellsson (Sweden)

For five days, folk singers and storytellers from three countries met in Järnavik in Blekinge to shed light on traditional storytelling through folksinging, handcrafting and storytelling. The project's goal is to create a common platform to exchange knowledge with each other as practitioners and leaders in cultural heritage.

The program planned for legend safaris, handicraft sessions, theatre, cultural heritage café, workshops, concerts and discussions such as how the project should be carried out during the project year.

We started at the Blekinge Archive in Bräkne-Hoby where we got to see some interesting items, such as the diary from the 1850's belonging to a fiddler, a document from the 1400's, objects that have been used among worker unions and the old village councils dating back to the 17th century.
It was an interesting mix discussing storytelling in culture history, but also storytelling in itself in and archive.

Less than a km from the archive there is a cemetery that was built outside the village for a reason. In 1711 more than half of the inhabitants of Sweden died in the plague.
Here we told and sang stories about death.
We also visited Röaby, the small village by a lake where one important tradition carrier, Ingrid Isaksson, lived during the first half of the 20th century.

At the crafts house in Ronneby, Mimmi took us into the world of milk hares and puker. A handcraft magic that has been common all over Europe.

A break in today's safari, when we were allowed to let our hands work and tell the stories.

Lunch at Äggaboden, a barn remade into a restaurant. There we accidently ran into Björn Nilsson, lead archaeologist at Västra Vång, who invited us to the excavations.

In the evening, Astrid Selling and Johan Westermark played The Unfortunate Danish Prince at Björketorp's farm. A story about the Danish king Christian II who persumably is the role model for Hamlet.

Brunberg opened up a waffle and ice cream café.

Before we had lunch at the Marine Museum, Astrid took everyone up to Karlskrona's very best point; Bryggarberget, from where she could tell the story of Karlskrona's remarkable development in the 1680's.

A quick visit to the Marine Museum, where we all got stuck in the galleon hall and sang sailor songs.

In the Blekinge Museum's collections at Rosenholm, we held a cultural heritage café where we not only sang and told stories, but also shared methods, for example when we work with children and young people.

All SATURDAY we dedicated to Ronneby where we firstly had an open workshop in singing in Estonian, Swedish and Latvian and secondly, in the late afternoon, a concert in the Holy Cross Church, which despite corona times received a good amount of visitors. The workshop participants participated as a choir during the concert.