The carved and painted horses from the Swedish region of Dalarna are everywhere in Sweden: big or little, new or antique.
You find them in all Swedish gift shops, and some shops sell only Dala horses.
My favorites are the clever variations made by artists and displayed in museums. Why not a rug? This is in the collection of Leksands Kulturhus.
An exhibition about the history of Dala horses at the Dalarnas Museum in Falun included a display case with dozens of sweet painted animals of all varieties, like a Dala horse elephant and a giraffe. Ylva Ekman’s Rinkebyhäst is a multicultural combination to comment on immigrants in contemporary Sweden. We are all the same, but different.
Peter Johansson had the grisliest interpretation. He became so tired of seeing them everywhere and questioned their relevance to Swedish society. So he sliced them and packaged them in plastic, as if we were at the butcher’s, in How to Cook a Souvenir, 1992.
We have a few more days in Sweden, and there will be many more Dala horse sightings before we leave for Norway on Sunday. Then the souvenir we see everywhere will be the troll.