Without Lifting A Finger

Midsummer , also known as St John's Day , [ 1 ] is the period of time centered upon the summer solstice , and more specifically the Northern European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice or take place on a day between June 21 and June 25 and the preceding evening. The exact dates vary between different cultures. Because he was alleged to have been born on that day, the Christian Church designated June 24 as the feast day of the early Christian martyr St John the Baptist , and the observance of St John's Day begins the evening before, known as St John's Eve . These are commemorated by many Christian denominations . [ 2 ] Midsummer is especially important in the cultures of Scandinavia , Finland and the Baltics . In Sweden the Midsummer is such an important festivity that there have been serious discussions to make the Midsummer's Eve into the National Day of Sweden , instead of 6 June. It may also be referred to as St. Hans Day. Sweden In modern Sw...

   [From Sweden and the Holy Land: pietistic and communal settlement , by Ruth Kark]

Can't find much on him in English, but this seems to be the Beskow Strindberg is alluding to. *         [From Pilgrims and Travellers in Search of the Holy , edited by Rene Gothoni]   

     He was also a pietist from spiritual pride, as all pietists are. Beskow, the repentant lieutenant, had come home from his pilgrimage to the grave of Christ. His Journal was read at home by John's stepmother, who inclined to pietism. Beskow made pietism gentlemanly, and brought it into fashion, and a considerable portion of the lower classes followed this fashion. Pietism was then what spiritualism is now--a presumably higher knowledge of hidden things. It was therefore eagerly taken up by all women and uncultivated people, and finally found acceptance at Court.

Johan August Strindberg (   pronounced   ( help · info ) ; 22 January 1849 – 14 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics. [ 4 ] A bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic tragedy , monodrama , and history plays, to his anticipations of expressionist and surrealist dramatic techniques. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] From his earliest work, Strindberg developed forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition so innovative that many were to become technically possible to stage only with the advent of film. [ 7 ] He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature and his The Red Room (1879) has ...

Albertus Pictor ( English , "Albert the Painter"; b. Immenhusen, c. 1440 - d. c. 1507), also called Albert Pictor , Albert Målare and Albrekt Pärlstickare ( Swedish ), is the most famous late medieval Swedish painter, known for his wallpaintings surviving in numerous churches in southern and central Sweden. Career Albertus was originally called Albertus Immenhusen , after the German town of Immenhausen in Hessen of which he was a native. He occurs in Swedish historical sources from 1465, when he was admitted a burgher of Arboga . Eight years later he moved to Stockholm , where, in accordance with current practice, he took over the workshop as well as the widow of a deceased painter. He was a versatile and prolific artist, known to his contemporaries not only for his church wallpaintings, but also as an organist and embroiderer (hence his nickname of Pärlstickare , "Pearl-embroiderer"). More than thirty of his schemes, mostly in a secco technique, are ex...

Albertus Pictor , a photo by Hans Olind on Flickr. The "supposed" inspiration for Bergman's chess match. This painting is in the Taby Church in Sweden.