{"id":814,"date":"2021-10-26T22:58:11","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T22:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/?page_id=814"},"modified":"2022-10-29T18:52:33","modified_gmt":"2022-10-29T18:52:33","slug":"hargalaten","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/hargalaten\/","title":{"rendered":"H\u00e5rgal\u00e5ten"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u00a0 H\u00e5rgal\u00e5ten\u00a0<\/b>is one of the best known fiddle tunes from the province of H\u00e4lsingland.\u00a0 \u00a0There are variants of the tune from other nearby areas, but this version is connected with the\u00a0H\u00e5rga legend<\/strong>, which I will put down here in its entirety:<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0First, you should know that the main color of the traditional dress in Hanebo is blue, and in Segersta grey.\u00a0 The two villages lie in the shadow of the mountain, H\u00e5rgaberget<\/strong>.<\/p>

\u00a0 One summer Saturday evening, some young people, dressed in their best clothes, attended a big party with dancing.\u00a0 \u00a0When midnight came and the musicians and most of the dancers were gone, this group, against church rules, decided to keep dancing, even though it was now Sunday morning.<\/p>

Their problem was that they didn’t have any music.\u00a0 \u00a0But right at the stroke of midnight, a tall stranger entered the barn they were in, and asked if they wanted a fiddler.\u00a0 He opened his case, took out his fiddle, and began playing the most beautiful polska they had ever heard.<\/p>

They started dancing, and got lost in the music, dancing for hours.\u00a0 Finally, the churchbells rang, signalling that it was time to go to church.\u00a0 \u00a0Then the fiddler began to sing as he played, saying “Here dance the blue, and here dance the grey, but on H\u00e5rgaberget the dancers will stay!”<\/p>

\u00a0 With that, the doors of the barn swung open, and the dancers, holding hands, went single file out of the barn toward the mountain.\u00a0 \u00a0But the last boy in line caught sight of the fiddler’s foot, and saw that it was a cloven hoof!\u00a0 \u00a0That broke the spell for him, but now he tried to save his girlfriend who was now last in line, by holding her arm.\u00a0 \u00a0The door slammed shut on it, tearing her arm right off.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The dancers continued to the top of the mountain, where the Devil (for so the fiddler was) sat in the crook of a tree (which is still there to this very day), and played while they danced in a circle until there was nothing left but their heads, rolling around with the music.<\/p>

\u00a0 To the left is a sculpture in the nearby town of Kilafors, showing the Devil at his evil work.<\/p>

I learned this tune back in the 1970’s in the key of G minor, and for many years only played it that way.\u00a0 \u00a0But more recently, I have found that most players (not all!) currently play it in A minor, so I have put it in that key.<\/p>

Here<\/span><\/a> is a YouTube video of some H\u00e4lsingland fiddlers playing it in A minor.<\/p>

And here<\/span><\/a> is the sheet music for the tune in the key of G minor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

Here<\/span><\/a> is an interesting video, too:\u00a0 it is from the H\u00e4lsinge-Hambo dance competition, its 50-year anniversary.\u00a0 \u00a0The music is out of synch with the dancers, but you can get an idea of how the dance is done.\u00a0 \u00a0See the numbers on the backs of competitors – in the past, there have been as many as 2000 couples entered!\u00a0 \u00a0 The tune here is played in G minor.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 H\u00e5rgal\u00e5ten\u00a0is one of the best known fiddle tunes from the province of H\u00e4lsingland.\u00a0 \u00a0There are variants of the tune from other nearby areas, but this version is connected with the\u00a0H\u00e5rga legend, which I will put down here in its entirety: \u00a0 \u00a0First, you should know that the main color of the traditional dress in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-814","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","wpbf-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}