Sheer Folk

Known as: Större Enångerslira

Inventory number: N10543

Maker: unknown

Origin: Hälsingland, Sweden

Length: 720 mm

Characteristics:1 melody string, 2 drone strings, 20 keys in one row (1 missing), rectangular corpus

Year: ca. 1800

Status: Currently preserved at Musikmuseet, Stockholm, Sweden (consignation from Nordiska museet from a donation by Anders Vasberg in 1876)

Introduction

This bigger Enångerslira was donated to Nordiska Museet in June 1876 by the hemmansägare (yeoman) An­ders Vasberg from Fläcka, through the folkskola (primary school) teacher Erik Mickelsson from Svedja. Fläcka lies some farms north-west of Enånger near the current highway E4 between Hudiksvall and Söderhamn. No other information is available regarding its history.

The instrument is the longest extant Swedish hurdy-gurdy, with a scale of about 72 cm.  We have to go back to the two-man organistrum of the Middle-Ages to find something similar. In contrast, its width is only about 21 cm, with a wheel of a comparatively very small diameter.  The hurdy-gurdy in general gives a rustic almost primitive appearance, as if it had not been properly completed. The bottom is only rough-planed and neither the lid has a finer finish.

The bigger Enånger hurdy-gurdy in detail

The body is elongated. The straight beams and the flat lid give it a box-like appearance even though the bottom has a softer, rounded finish. Strings and saddles are missing. Judging by the number of tuning pegs, it looks like the hurdy-gurdy had three strings. There are also buttons for fastening them on the beam on both sides of the wheel-axis. A smaller, triangular wooden block is attached on the lid near the crank, over the wheel-axis in its length. The reason is unclear, but it may be linked to a string holder. Two holes in the lid located at an angle above and outward from this block probably mark where the drone saddle must have been placed. Such a location, so far from the wheel, is unusual.

There are also other holes in the lid, nearer the wheel and somewhat to the right of the hurdy-gurdy´s median line. It seems the melody strings were attached to these. The elongated key-box has sockets for twenty keys of which all but the one on the top are preserved. Numbered in pencil, number one is located in the second socket, number two in the third, etc., counted from the peg-box. The tangent heads are symmetrical, with a faint curling on the end surface and have grooves on the top. Similar heads were observed only in particular hurdy-gurdies from Ukraine and Belarus. The key ends are cylindrical for about a third of the total length. Because of the short length of the key-box, the key ends stick out several inches on the left side. The keys are equally wide and the distance among them is also almost uniform. The design of the hurdy-gurdy is austere but it is nevertheless colored. It has a slight English red hue and the key heads are alternately red and white.

Nothing suggests the existence of a buzzing system.  However, it would be useful to mention that there are rests of a strap with fastener. There is no keybox lid nor sound-hole. Whether the strap was fastened to the player´s waist or neck, such a prolonged instrument like this should have been difficult to play.

 

 

Tonal system

 

 

We can suppose that the builder started from the notion “the more keys, the bigger musical possibilities”, and then decided on a unique suitable measure among the keys. The tangents are bow-like just like in the smaller Enångerslira and the hurdy-gurdy known as Groddaliran. They are so long that their possible angular positions in most cases render overlapping positions on the melody string.

 

Most of the information on this article is taken from “Lirans hemligheter – En studie i nordisk instrumenthistoria”  by Per-Ulf Allmo and Jan Winter, 1985, ISSN 02828952, published by AllWins förlag HB, Stockholm, Sweden. You can buy the book here.  All translations from Swedish into English are mine.