Gärdebylåten
Gärdebylåten is without doubt the best-known tune among everyone who plays Swedish fiddle music. Wherever you might go anywhere in the world where there is a Swedish fiddle gathering, it will be a tune that you will be able to play with anybody.
It is named for a tiny district on the outskirts of the town of Rättvik, in the province of Dalarna. It is hard to say where it really originated, but this version attributed to the Bingsjö fiddler Hjort Anders Olsson, has been adopted as the “anthem” of eastern Dalarna, especially the town of Rättvik.
Here is a link to a fiddlers’ team from Sweden playing Gärdebylåten.
The picture to the left is of a sculpture dedicated to fiddlers in Rättvik. There is a saying that “if you see 3 people walking down the street in Rättvik, you can be sure that 4 of them are fiddlers.”