Love of nature did not curb August's high spirits in childhood. At the age of ten he played wild games, climbed trees, slid down mountains on pieces of wood, robbed birds' nests and shot their innocent owners. He rode bareback, could swim, sail a boat and handle a gun.
During a summer holiday August and his brothers were sent as boarders to the house of a sexton. It was the father's wish that his sons should share in the work on the farm as well as prepare for the winter's schooling. In the sexton's kitchen August saw the wafers prepared and stamped for Holy Communion. He mischievously ate them and reflected that there was not much in the Sacrament. He broke covenant with his host by rushing into the church, turning the hour-glass on the pulpit, and delivering a sermon. He ran through the church on the backs of the pews and threw over the reading-desk, on which the hymn-book lay. The disjointed pieces of the desk frightened him and reminded him of possible consequences. Yielding to the first impulse of self-preservation he knelt and said the Lord's Prayer.
Strindberg's mother, Ulrika Eleonora Norling
Strindberg's father Oskar Strindberg