HOW THE DANES, SWEDES AND NORWEGIANS GOT TO CHICAGO

Lutefisk

The reason the Irish celebrate St. Patrick's Day is because this is when St. Patrick drove the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians out of Ireland. It seems that some centuries ago, many Vikings came to Ireland to escape the bitterness of the Scandinavian winter. Ireland was having a famine at the time and food was scarce. The Vikings were eating all the fish caught in the area, leaving the Irish with nothing to eat but potatoes.

St. Patrick, taking matters into his own hands, as most Irishmen do, decided the Vikings had to go. Secretly, he organized the Irish IRATRIOV (Irish Republican Army to Rid Ireland of Vikings)/  Irish members of IRATRIOV passed a law in Ireland that prohibited merchants from selling ice boxes or ice to the Scandinavians, in hopes that their fish would spoil. This would force the Vikings to flee to a colder climate where their fish would keep. 

Well, the fish spoiled, all right, but the Vikings, as everyone knows today, thrive on spoiled fish. So, faced with failure, the desperate Irishmen sneaked into the Viking fish storage caves in the dead of night and sprinkled the rotten fish with lye, hoping to poison the Norwegian invaders. But, as everyone knows, the Vikings thought this only added to the flavor of the fish, and they liked it so much they decided to call it "lutefisk", which is Scandinavian for "luscious fish".

Matters became even worse for the Irishmen when the Vikings started taking over the Irish potato crop and making something called "lefse". Poor St. Patrick was at his wit's end, and finally on March 17th, he blew his top and told all the Vikings to "GO TO HELL". So they all got in their boats and emigrated to Chicago, the only other place on earth where smelly fish, old potatoes and plenty of cold weather can be found in abundance.

The End.

Vikings Craig and Beth Hullinger