Come Blow Your Horn
Ever since Frozen Fever came out over two years ago, I have been thinking about something in it that made curious for a long time. Now I finally want to write it all out, so here I go.
Towards the end of both the short and its song “Making Today A Perfect Day,” during Anna’s party, Elsa blows (or rather, sneezes) into a large horn, out of which comes a huge snowball, which is then catapulted all the way to the Southern Isles and pummels Hans.
Now when Elsa mentions the name of the instrument, it sounds like she says “bugle horn.” However, a bugle horn instrument looks like this:
The drastic differences, especially the sizes, between a basic bugle and this large horn have led me to believe that the latter is not truly a bugle. After doing a lot of searching to find answers, I have come to the conclusion that the horn featured in Frozen Fever is really a “bukkehorn.” A bukkehorn instrument looks like the one pictured below:
According to its Wikipedia page, “the bukkehorn, also called ‘Billy Goat Horn’ in English, is an ancient Norwegian musical instrument, made from the horn of a ram or a goat.” Based on the way Elsa says it, the first two syllables may be enunciated as “bu-kaa,” which does sound very similar to “bu-gle.” This similarity in pronunciation is what may have lead to people mishearing and misinterpreting it to be a “bugle horn.”
Now while the horn shown in the short does look much too large to have belonged to a goat or ram, I still strongly believe that Elsa sneezes into a bukkehorn because the resemblance it has to a real horn of this kind is very close. As previously mentioned above, this type of horn is a Norwegian instrument. Because Frozen is implied to be set in Norway, this Norwegian culture reference is another factor in what convinces me of its identity as a bukkehorn.
The lyrics of "Making Today A Perfect Today” on its Disney Wiki page, along with the lyric video made by DisneyMusicVEVO on YouTube, give “bukkehorn” as the word Elsa says, not “bugle horn.” Additionally, the content of this Disney article seems to confirm (more or less) that the instrument is indeed a bukkehorn, with it even being referred to as “the Billy Goat Horn” like Wikipedia says.
So based on everything I have discussed regarding this unique instrument, I am fully convinced that Elsa sneezes into a bukkehorn, NOT a bugle horn. But given its large size, if you asked me, just from what this horn was made, I have absolutely no clue! 😝
For @minervadeannabond, my soul sister, the Anna to my Elsa, and the one who came up with the clever pun for this analysis’s title. Love you, girl! 😄 ❤️
