THE AMERIC AN-SC AN DIN AVI AN REVIEW 
753 
Dance Floors Are Being Built Round About in the Country. This Is at Sater, Dalecarlia 
The revival of the folk-dance has carried with it that of the cos¬ 
tumes. A little over half a century ago Swedish peasants still wore 
the old costumes which, to be sure, have, like the dances, come to them 
from more fashionable circles, but which have nevertheless been 
adapted so that they are thoroughly in harmony with nature and the 
people. Every province, sometimes every district, had its own cos¬ 
tume. It was bright and colorful, was the pride of its owner as well 
as of the province, and was made by the people themselves. Now this 
dress is worn only occasionally by the peasants. 
The peasant dances, the folk music, and the so-called national 
costumes have value and significance not only for their own sake, but 
also as witnesses to the culture possessed by the Swedes in bygone 
ages; and fortunately it has been possible to rescue them from oblivion 
before they were entirely superseded by modern fashions and customs. 
Collectors of music have labored untiringly to write down the melodies 
that still live among the people; competitions for spelemdn have been 
held to which peasant musicians have been invited, and in this way the 
wealth of musical treasure that has been accumulating through the 
centuries has been saved for posterity. In doing this, it has been 
found that the most numerous melodies were the dance tunes. 
This movement has been independent of others, while the efforts 
to preserve the dances and the costumes have gone hand in hand. The 
beginning was in Uppsala, in 1880 , when a young student, E. G. A. 
Sundstrom, formed the society Philocoros, with the object of preserv- 
