New Year's Celebration at Skansen

At Skansen, we have welcomed the new year since 1894. Today the celebration is filled with music and entertainment on Solliden stage with a live broadcast in Swedish Television, SVT. Each year, a well-known swede gets the honor of reading the poem Nyårsklockan (Ring Out, Wild Bells).

About the poem Ring Out, Wild Bells

Ring Out, Wild Bells is a poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson, published in 1850, the year he was appointed Poet Laureate. It forms part of In Memoriam, Tennyson’s elegy to Arthur Henry Hallam, his sister’s fiancé who died at the age of 22.

The first reading of Ring Out, Wild Bells at Skansen was in 1895 by Nikolaus Bergendahl, an employee at Skansen. Snow chaos prevented the New Year’s celebration in 1896, but the year after we celebrated again. Artur Hazelius, Skansens founder, then appointed the 28-year-old theater student Anders de Wahl to read the poem, something he continued to do until his death in 1955.