A Dane, a Swede and a Finn walk into a bar...
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Viewed by outsiders as blond-haired, sauna-going types with a shared Viking history, the Scandinavian nations like to make fun of each other. The strong stereotypes in these jokes reveal distinct national characteristics and hint at how the past still shapes relations between these countries.
Swedish ethnologist and author Bengt af Klintberg explains that many of the standard jokes - using the "A Dane, a Swede and a Norwegian" model - are actually based on a series of American jokes that spread to Europe in the 1970s. Still, he argues, there is a lot of true to be gleaned from the stereotypes that crop up here.
For example, the Finns are notorious in other Scandinavian countries for being moody and silent. While the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish languages are closely related, the Finnish language comes from a completely different language group. As a consequence, while the other nations found it easy to communicate with each other, Finns - struggling to overcome a much larger language barrier - gained a reputation for being taciturn.
Norwegians, meanwhile, are seen by their neighbours as nationalistic. Bengt af Klintberg attributes this to historical factors. "Both Danes and Swedes cannot really accept that Norway didn’t want to be a part of their countries, that Norway first liberated itself from Denmark – it was a part of Denmark – and then later on in the early 20th century from Sweden," he says.
And as for Sweden, they are the ones most frequently pushing for joint Nordic or Scandinavian cooperation efforts - something often seen as patronising by the other nations. As a consequence, when a Norwegian, a Finn, a Dane and a Swede board any form of transport in a joke, it is invariably the Swede who gets thrown overboard first.
For more in our series on European stereotypes see:
European stereotypes: Don't mention the wars!
When in Rome... Italians' views on their less stylish neighbours
