On a swing
"I believe I’ve brought some of the magic from there with me on my journey out into the world."
Imagine Aurora sitting on a swing in her garden. She’s only two years old, shouting for her mother to push harder. Maybe her sister Viktoria had a swing beside her, too?
I found a little gem of an article in an old newspaper. It’s so extremely rare to find any information on Aurora’s first year, from before she moved away from Høle (=Hole), a district of Sandnes City with only 426 inhabitants.1
In the article, Aurora and her parents share some of their earliest memories, and I thought I would like to share it here with you 💚.2
Aurora’s first 3 years
Aurora was born at Stavanger University Hospital in 1996. After her birth they went back home to Høle, where her family had lived for 12 years. It would take even three more years before they moved on to Lysefjorden in Os. Three years when Aurora learned her first words and began to sing the song verses.
Aurora sang a lot in everyday life from the age of two or three. She preferred long songs with many verses, her parents said.
They continued, and shared that she loved the sea, and that she enjoyed being in a boat to travel to small rocks and islets. Here she collected small treasures from the shore.
Her imagination was rich. The forest stood right behind their house, and she lived her life out there. Aurora also loved to dress herself up with clothes from their attic. She could put on layer upon layer, all from a chest filled with old clothes and hats. Aurora also enjoyed creating dramatic plays. She used a homemade theater stage with red velvet curtains and handmade puppets.
– Do you think Aurora's time in Høle has influenced her music?
– It's difficult to say, but one thing is certain: the first years of life are the most important in a person's life.
Aurora’s earliest memories
Aurora states in the article that she doesn’t remember much from her years in Høle. After all, she was only 3 years old when she moved. What she does remember is that they had a swing in the garden, and that there was some bushes with candy hanging from their branches.
She remembers the color of their kitchen, which was blue. She also remembers a birthday with a soft cake with strawberries on top.
I only lived there for three years, but I think you absorb a lot of your surroundings as a child. I believe I’ve brought some of the magic from there with me on my journey out into the world.
But, Aurora wasn’t alone with her mom the first year. Both of her older sisters lived there too, and especially Viktoria became an important person in Aurora’s life.
Viktoria
In 1996, the year Aurora was born, Viktoria was 6 years old. In Norway, it was decided by law that from 1997 every 6-year-old was to attend school. But before this year it was optional for parents so send their little ones to pre-school. From everything I have heard about their parents, I believe they are good at listening to their kids’ wishes and to hear them out on matters that affected their daily life.
Viktoria said in another interview that when Aurora was born, she could choose to begin school or stay home with her mother and the little one. It was not a difficult question, according to Viktoria: “I had attended ultrasound scans with my mom through her whole labor, and of course I wanted to wait. Then I got to stay a child a little longer, and at the same time become a little mom.”
She continues by saying that Aurora was a very funny baby, and that: “I think I grew an extra over-protective gene that year.”3
We know that they had parents who not only allowed, but encouraged her children to grow up and figure out for themselves who they were. We often hear Aurora speaks warmly of her her parents who allowed her to be who she was. Blend that in with the sea, the forest, and her homemade theater as her playground, it's easy to see how Aurora's creativity was sparked from an early age.
When we look at Aurora today, I think we are seeing some effects of this lovely, magical mix of freedom, creativity and connection to nature. The foundations of her Queendom have pathways leading all the way back to Høle.
Community Spotlight
A.C. Cargill, Author -
This spotlight deviates a bit from my usual spotlights since it’s not related to Aurora, but for those of you who want to know what’s going on here on Substack, this is very relevant. She’s author of the Freelan Journal series, and have also published a lot of short stories. Here on Substack, she’s running the account “A Literary Eye”.
A few months back, a message arrived from Substack to my inbox. It stated that A.C. Cargill had mentioned me in one of her posts here. Diving in, I found that she had done a HUGE job in finding active substacks about a whole lot of topics - and she had sorted them alphabetically by name. She also provided a sentence or two about the content of each newsletter. And the best thing is : she keeps it updated. The list is quite long by now, so she has divided it into two pieces: A-M and N-Z.
If you are anything like me, and you like to find something to read, you might find something of interest here:
- Celebrating Writers A-M, March 2025
- Celebrating Writers N-Z, March 2025
Fabrice’s Corner
Fabrice has just started on this little journey where he creates a video out of extracts from various topics. He call them “Aurora in interviews - talking about…<topic>”. He has so far made “…talking about… Conqueror” and the one about Enya embedded below. The idea is to show what Aurora actually has said about various topics, and maybe especially on topics where there are lots of confusion in the community.
Fabrice did this one because he saw comments here and there saying that "she never talked about Enya before people started comparing them", which is actually wrong. She talked about Enya very early. Take a look and see for your self 😉.
… and it's a song called "May It Be" by Enya. And it was a song that it just made me dream about being a part of a world. Like, that song is... is a part of that fantasy world, which meant so much to me when I was a child, because it made me feel like I was a wizard of some kind, or that I had a bigger meaning to my life than just to exist.
It’s not certain if Fabrice will make more of these videos. It takes quite a few hours to find, cut and compile them, and the response has been quite low. I do think he will make more if this changes, though, so if you like them: let him know in the comments here or in the video above what topics you would be interested in.
Final Words
It’s quite strange to me to write so much, and depend on such few sources as I do in this one. Still, I think it’s justified because the paper I refer to is talking directly with Aurora and her parents. One of my biggest curiosities regarding Aurora is how on Earth she ended up to be such an influential artist. Maybe a part of that answer is found here, within this letter to you 💚.
Have a day 😊
Rune
Sources
Thorsnæs, Geir: Høle - tettsted i Store norske leksikon på snl.no. Hentet 11. mars 2025 fra https://snl.no/H%C3%B8le_-_tettsted
Gudmestad, B. 2016, Aug 24. "– Eg trur eg har noko av magien frå Høle med på mi reise ut i verda". Sandnesposten. Retrieved 2025, Feb 27 from https://www.sandnesposten.no/aurora/musikk/hole/eg-trur-eg-har-noko-av-magien-fra-hole-med-pa-mi-reise-ut-i-verda/s/5-105-75632
Thalset, Thomas. "Aurora Aksnes om søstrene - De betyr så mye". VG, published July 4th 2016. Available at: https://www.vg.no/rampelys/i/52eJE/aurora-aksnes-om-soestrene-de-betyr-saa-mye. Retrieved September 9th 2024.
A.C. is a gem. She keeps that list up to date and adds new people, all while working on her own books.
Great read Rune :)
Just want to add a fun fact, Høle is right across Lysefjorden, the one with the Pulpit Rock (look it up those of u that don’t know 😉). So they moved from one Lysefjorden to another Lysefjorden 😆
It’s a beautiful, quite little place (I live in Sandnes myself so I’ve been many times).