Nykkur – The Man in the Falls
Within Scandinavian folklore, there exists a water being which seems to have a very particular place. He is not a being of open water like the Baekhast. He is not a being of saltwater like the Marmenil. He is not actively involved in human life like Nixies, Lorelei and the Swan Maidens. He is Nykkur, and he simply is.
The Nykkur lives in waterfalls, existing in a place that is between two levels surrounded by the rush of water. He is a shape-changer and a master fiddler; and it is this skill for which he is so prized. Musicians spend significant time and effort wooing Nykkur in order to receive his great skill. Nykken trained fiddlers play so fast and hard that strings break, but Nykkur charges for this service.
Firstly the Nykkur are fond of meat, but it cannot be your own meat nor can you purchase it. You must steal it. No exchange of words can take place over the meat and Nykkur prefers legs of lamb and hocks of ham both fresh and cured. If you err, Nykkur can be cruel as you will see.
Secondly he must be enticed. He must hear your playing and think you worthy of his time. So once you have thrown the meat into the falls, you must sit on the bank or bridge and play. Nykkur does not waste his time, so play your best.
Secondly, he wishes you to be serious and not easily frightened. To prove yourself, you must visit the falls thrice, and throw three hocks or legs. Each visit must be a week apart on a Thursday.
When Nykkur chooses to teach you, the learning takes no time at all, you simply know how to play better than any human being, and as well as the Nykkur. You will no longer be able to play with normal musicians, as they will not have the ability to keep up with you in either intricacy or speed. A Nykkur trained fiddler is only comfortable in the company of other Nykkur trained fiddlers. Worse yet, the fiddler cannot teach his skill to another as he does not have the benefit of learning as normal fiddlers do.
Finally, Nykkur training exacts a further price. The Nykkur has no soul, and he dearly wishes to have one. He has been teased by children all his life that he has no god-given soul and his jealousy knows no bounds. The final price of Nykur training is the human soul and thus the Nykkur will go to heaven, and the Nykkur trained fiddler takes Nykkur’s place in Hell.
Sometimes Nykkur brings a fiddle to gift his student and it is about this sort of thing that our first story tells. It was collected by Andreas Mørch in Frå Gamle Dagar: Folkeminlag en Sigdal og Eggedal (From the olden times: folklore from Sigdal and Eggedal) and translated by J Sibley and myself. Mørch tells us:
There was someone in the village who had stolen a ham hock in order to learn to play but he felt it was a sin to toss so much meat into the falls. So he ate most of it and tossed the bone in.
Each week was the same and when it came to the third Thursday evening, Nykkur came out with a fiddle gift in his hands. He said: “You shall learn how to hold it, but not how to play it. Just as you gave me a cured leg, with no meat upon it.”
We also have a long story about two Nykken trained fiddlers collected by the same folklorist.
Ola Eilivsen Taleshaugen was certainly the best fiddler in the village for the last 50 years. He had learned from the Nykkur. He had gone north to Kittils Falls with the fiddle three Thursdays one after the other and then he had learned much that none of the other fiddlers knew. He even knew tunes that no one had heard before, let alone play. All this he learned from the Nykkur at Kittils Falls. Ola traveled to America.
Trond Kolstad too had learned from the ‘streamfellow’. He sat a lot in a mountain kleft down there where the New Prest Falls Bridge goes now. There he learned a lot about playing but so there wasn’t anyone who could keep up with him. He broke so many strings that it created a famine among fiddlers.
Trond played so fast, high and beautifully that none who heard him could say they could do better.
Nowadays, Ola and Trond play a lot together as nobody else can play with them. I heard they met at a wedding in Rolvstad. Ola said there wasn’t anything that Trond played that was too difficult. Later they played together again and Trond took to playing so finely and Ola followed him in perfect harmony. They played so well that it was truly amazing to hear. But then Trond built up a head of steam so high that Ola, in trying to follow broke his strings and had to put his fiddle down. But not for Trond. It was thus that not all who tried to could learn the fiddle.
There is one more thing for which Nykkur is known. Nykkur likes the ladies, especially the young and beautiful ones. He plays so brilliantly and so hauntingly that young ladies are drawn to him and lured into the falls from which they are never again seen.
Nykkur lore is rich and interesting, and what I have provided here is truly the tip of the iceberg. Consider why one of the names for the Devil, particularly the fiddling devil at the crossroads is “Old Nick”.
This enigmatic being is worth the time spent reading his tales.
