The Bellman joke is a type of simple

joke cycle A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with ...

popular among Swedish schoolchildren, always including a person named Bellman as the main character. The jokes first became popular in the 19th century, and were originally inspired by the life of the poet and composer Carl Michael Bellman. The first known Bellman joke appears in the preface to an 1835 collection of Bellman's works, in which the publisher reprints an 1808 letter from a contemporary of Bellman, containing the following anecdote. Nineteenth-century Bellman jokes tended to focus on C. M. Bellman's life at court, and often contained sexual humour. Since then, however, the Bellman character of the jokes has changed into a generic Swede, rather than the historical figure. The shift from jokes told by adults to jokes told mainly by young schoolchildren up to 10 years of age probably happened in the first half of the 20th century.{{cite journal , author=Klintberg, Bengt af. , date=November 1987 , url=http://www.buks.dk/PDF/Varfor_er_bellmannhistorierna_roliga.pdf , title=Varför är Bellmanhistorierna roliga? , trans-title=Why are Bellman jokes so funny? , journal=Børne-og UngdomsKulturSammenslutningen , volume=9 , language=Swedish , url-status=dead , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130502234624/http://www.buks.dk/PDF/Varfor_er_bellmannhistorierna_roliga.pdf , archivedate=2 May 2013 The modern versions of the Bellman jokes often include Bellman and two other characters of different nationalities, with the former coming out victorious from a tricky situation. However, in many Bellman jokes, Bellman is portrayed as something of an

anti-hero An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero or two words anti hero) or anti-heroine is a character in a narrative (in literature, film, TV, etc.) who may lack some conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism and morality. Al ...

, who may cheat, lie or even smell very bad in order to get the last laugh. Another common theme is that Bellman fools or makes fun of a priest, policeman or other authority figure. He can thus be seen as a modern sort of a

trickster In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherw ...

. The jokes tend to involve bodily functions such as urinating or defecating. The ubiquitous character of the stories and the fact that they have been told in various forms for so many years have made them subject to study by

ethnologists Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Scien ...

such as Bengt af KlintbergKlintberg, Bengt af. 1998. ''Kuttrasju: Folkloriska och kulturhistoriska essäer''. Stockholm: Norstedts and researchers in children's culture.

References

External links

Bellman jokes
Stock characters in jokes Joke cycles Swedish humour Swedish folklore Carl Michael Bellman Eponyms