In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle…

I know that most readers of this blog don’t understand Swedish. I just “have to” include this anyway, even though half the joke gets lost in translation…
 
Brother, dog and I went for a walk in a nature reserve in the countryside again this weekend. (It is quite close to where our dad lives.) From a meadow, a path along the river leads into a wood of mostly alder and birch. Here and there there are signs to tell you what you’re looking at…




For some unfathomable reason, this one sign among all the others seemed to be directed at children rather than adults. First of all they call the alder wood a “jungle”. (?!) Then they go on to say that “in this jungle, there are no dangerous predatory animals or elephants…” (elephants?!)
“But if you look down into the calm water…”
 


… Any idea yet what you’re looking at? …*
 


“… you may see some insects walking on the surface of the water. These are called water striders, and they are predators hunting for other small insects…” 
 


“… using their proboscis.” (Swedish: snabel)
 
You tell me! - but I do suspect that the proboscis joke gets even more lost in English than in Swedish, since with the elephant you usually use the word ‘trunk’…? Even in Swedish, if and when you finally get it at all, the whole jungle joke still feels so far-fetched and out of place that it makes you go “aaargh”…!


* Sorry, to get close enough for a proper macro shot of the insects I would have had to step into the water, and since unlike the water striders I’m not able to walk on the surface… Well, anyway - the black ‘dots’ are their shadows on the bottom of the river (you can see they have quite large feet!); and in the enlarged picture the striders themselves are kind of purplish in colour.

In the Jungle,
the mighty jungle,
the lion sleeps tonight.
In the jungle,
the quiet jungle,
the lion sleeps tonight…
A-weema-weh, a-weema-weh,
a-weema-weh, a-weema-weh…

PS. Would you have known how to spell that ? I mean “a-weema-weh”… Another thing I never gave a thought until just now! But I found it on the Web. Of course!

Quotation of the week 26/09

Vicky's message filled the kitchen, the hall and the room that still lay in darkness, it took up all the space, it consumed the oxygen.
"Hi, it's Vicky. Have you heard? Have you heard about the accident? It's about Yvonne. She's dead."
In the midst of the confusion I noted my own behaviour, as if watching myself from outside.
---
The strange thing was that I took out a clean tea towel and removed the strainer from the teapot before I called Vicky back.
No, it's not strange. It's how it is. The screw is there. In case of shock, please wind up for mechanical behaviour.

Vibeke Olsson (Swedish author)
(translated by me from a novel that I don't think is available in English, "Koltrasten i Tegnérlunden"; koltrast = blackbird)