Sixten is my best friend. He was 7 years old when he moved to our estate with his family and now he’s 11, so he’s a year older than me.
When we met for the first time, we got on really well straight away. It was winter and everything was covered in snow and I went sledging with some other children from the village. There is the perfect hill for it just behind Uncle Abbe’s cowshed. Sixten stood at the bottom and watched. He didn’t have his own sledge yet. He had never ridden one himself either. I asked him if he would like to try it and then we went together until we had to go home for dinner. We’ve been firm friends ever since.
Sixten loves reading books the most. He reads anything he can come across, so he can tell you something about almost anything. I couldn’t possibly remember that much, especially because he knows a lot of things I’ve never heard of, but Sixten has a memory like an elephant. He even reads technical manuals because he loves tinkering with cables, soldering, and repairing or modifying old devices. He got that from his father. He thinks that’s great, too.
But Sixten doesn’t just like knowledge books, he also enjoys reading and collecting comics. He has tons of Fantomen at home, for example, because his father also thinks they’re great. You may have noticed that Sixten has a lot in common with his father. They are both a bit strange, but also very likeable.
Sixten also has an older brother, Richard. He sometimes goes fishing with him, but apart from that they don’t do much together. Nevertheless, the two brothers are really close and if Sixten is ever bullied by someone, Richard is immediately on the spot. It often annoys Sixten because he thinks he can defend himself very well. But I’m not quite sure whether he would have stood much of a chance against Mån’s bear the other day. He’s huge and always likes to attack the smaller ones.
I think Sixten misses his mom very much. She died a few years ago. Shortly before they moved here. But he also says that he can’t remember so much. His father often tells him about his mom before he goes to bed. Sixten told me, she always wore different socks because she thought she could outwit the sock trolls and she talked in her sleep. So she couldn’t keep any secrets to herself because she always blabbed everything. I hope I don’t talk in my sleep, too.
His mother also firmly believed that she was of Walloon descent. “My grandfather worked in the foundry. He had all black hair and was already tanned like a Swedish gingerbread in May,” she apparently often said. That’s why Sixten also has black hair. He only got his blue eyes from his dad. Apparently the blue prevailed, despite the weaker gene. I’ve forgotten exactly what it’s called again. I just can’t remember everything this boy says.
In any case, the probability that Sixten is actually descended from the Walloons is rather low. He once explained to me that there are similar stories in almost every Swedish family. Everyone wants to be a Walloon.
During Gustav Vasa’s reign, ironworking began to develop economically in Sweden. There was a great demand for good workers, so first German blacksmiths and then Walloons were brought in.
Around one to two thousand Walloons came to Sweden. They were good at their craft, but kept the secret of their skills to themselves, just as they generally preferred to remain among their own kind. “If only a few thousand Walloons came to Sweden and most of their children only married Walloons, how can almost every Swedish family be related to them? But as soon as someone has dark hair, they surely want to be a descendant of the Walloons, the nobility of the working class. I’m more likely to be descended from the Sami. You too, by the way,” Sixten finished his speech: “You also have dark hair and brown eyes.”
The Sami, by the way, are an indigenous people in Sweden. They’re the ones with the pretty blue and red clothing. Because they breed reindeer, Grandpa Bertil Fuchs is quite certain they’re in cahoots with Santa Claus. Therefore, no one knows where they originally come from, but they were already living in Scandinavia before Sweden was even founded. I don’t actually find his claim all that far-fetched.
Regardless of whether Sami or Walloon, or neither, Sixten and I hope to remain close friends for a long time to come, and after a truly wonderful summer, I’m definitely looking forward to our adventures together in the colder season. Christmas is coming soon!
