Unnamed Swedish Tune
Barb Zavon has known this tune since
the 1980s when she learned it at the
fiddle festival in Wieser, Idaho. Barb
plays this on her traditional Swedish
instrument called a Nyckelharpa, accompanied
by Mark on fiddle. This instrument
belongs to the same class as
the French Vielle and English Hurdy
Gurdy. It’s sort of an elongated violin
with four melody strings that are noted
with wooden keys and many sympathetic
strings. The oldest representation of a
nyckelharpa is found on one of the gates
to Kallunge Church in Gotland dating
about 1350. Many variations have been
made over the centuries and Barb has a
modern version from 1925, made from a
design by August Bohlin. I have searched
for evidence of this instrument in early
America, since the first Swedish settlement
was New Sweden in the Delaware
Valley in 1638. But if they brought a
nyckelharpa, they did not tell anyone.
Barb on nyckelharpa and Mark fiddle.