| Halling tunes on tape from Hedmark are few in number and sporadic. Most are from Folldal, northern Trysil and Solør (Grue, Åsnes and Våler). There are no more than a small handful in any district, and the halling dance has not been in general use for generations.
O.M. Sandvik's transcriptions also show hallings from Elverum and Stor-Elvdal: "This old dance was current in the valley up to the mid-1800s. Very occasionally it would be played at weddings as late as the 1870s. Johan Elgshøen reported that he danced it in his youth, but added that he was usually had the dance floor to himself" (Østerdalsmusikken:13).
The halling was still current when L.M. Lindeman visited Østerdalen in about 1860. Most of the tunes he subsequently had printed were given to him in manuscript form by the organist and fiddler Arne N. Thingstad in Åmot.
We have five hallings from Folldal, all recorded by the brothers Thorvald and Melvin Trondsgård, mostly learned from local fiddlers. However, some contact with Gudbrandsdalen is in evidence (H2 is a variant, H3 is related by name and musical similarity). Trondsgård's form of H2 was learned from Jo Bubakk at Kvikne. Transcriptions of the playing of Jo Støen (including a variant of the familiar Kal-Fant halling), and Sandvik's hallings no. 23 and 24, also show that halling was played in Kvikne (the latter with a variant in Folldal, see H5), although confident conclusions about general local use should not be drawn.
Martin Strøm's "Grøthallingen" (Porridge Halling) from Kvikne has, according to the contextual information, functioned as a march in more recent times; however, the dividing lines between tune genres tend to be vague.
Malena-Knut (Plassen, Alvdal) played one halling, according to Ingjald Hoel, who lilted it (private interview in 1983). However, scarcely anyone in Alvdal could recall the halling dance in common use.
No mention is made of the halling in our material from Tolga (after Marius Nytrøen, Vingelen) and Os (Petter Høistad Østvang). Nytrøen had never heard mention of local halling tunes or dancers (Council for Folk Music and Folk Dance 15). But neither does he have any wedding marches (see p. ??), which suggests breaks in important branches of the musical tradition.
Jakob Elgåen from Elgå (born 1904) knew of no-one having played or danced the halling there (Td 1167). Neither had Eilif Enersen in Drevsjø seen or heard of the halling in his home district. His father, Enok Olsen, did not play the halling at any rate (Td 1143).
This must be viewed in light of the fact that the Røros area (Sør-Trøndelag) has no halling tradition, neither does it afford early tune material of the type of halling that was used, say, as marches. Inasmuch as other music and dance traditions in this district are very much alive, it must be doubted whether the halling has ever gained a foothold here.
Helmer Kjølvang (tradition from central Engerdal and Drevsjø) had never played the halling, and never heard others do so either (Td 1148).
However, Hildur Nymoen Kvilten's grandfather Petter (born in 1831 in Engerdal) had spoken of the halling, which he himself had danced in his youth (Td 2096).
Kaspar Jotar (born 1895) remembered having seen Johan Gjermunds from Heggeriset dance the halling. (Jota's only recorded halling, H10, is a tune otherwise known as a "6-mannsreel").
Embret Lund had also seen Gjermunds and Anders Andersen from Hylleråsen dance the halling. The music used was a skotsk - Lund had no halling (Td 1146). But Lund had said on several occasions that some marches resemble hallings, e.g. march M13, "you can dance the halling to this tune" (Td 1146). Lund's main tune source, Embret Kveen, reportedly did not play the halling (Td 1640). Lund«s father, Jon Lund (born 1877) remembers no other halling dancer than Johan Gjermunds, so he must have been the sole exponent of this dance for a long period.
As mentioned, Johan Elgshøen had danced the halling in his youth, and a clutch of transcribed halling tunes after him, and some after Ole Bæk in Ljørdalen (Sandvik), must bear witness to earlier use of the dance in northern and eastern Trysil.
Bæk is also represented here with a halling (H12, difficult to dance to). Johan Hollseter has three hallings after Elgshøen, but the halling dance had not been in active use since in his time, although both he and his brother Jon had seen someone try his hand at elements of the halling.
From Elvdal only written examples of the halling exist. Tollef Pedersen Husfloen (1780-1857) was admired as a fine halling dancer (Local History of Engerdal II:42).
Neither Johannes Kletten nor Ivar Lutnæs in Rendalen were aware that the halling (music or dance) had been used there (Td 2400). Nor did Bjarne Millhaugen, Undset, Øvre Rendal, recall any use of the halling (Td 2540).
However, Halvor Berget, father of Peder Nordberg and grandfather of Kletten, is said to have played the halling. Nordberg recalled that two of his older sisters danced a halling in which they alternately held and released their partner (Nordberg, Td 1179). Was this the remnant of a couple-halling, or merely an oddity? Could it come from Berget's kith and kin in Engerdal? (Cf. O.R. Gjermunds' intimations of the halling as a couple-dance, see below), when the halling appears to be absolutely unknown elsewhere in Rendalen in his time?
J.B. Bull deals with the subject of dances in his Local History of Rendalen; he mentions the "Halling, which was demonstrably danced in Rendalen alongside the Polsk right up to the start of 19th century". He names a renowned polsk dancer, Ole Andersen Kvernæs (born in 1726), and his son Tollev Olsen, who "was known as the best halling dancer of his time in Rendalen" (Bull 1919:122-123).
The situation in Rendalen was probably identical to that in Solør-Odal and Hedemarken, where knowledge of the halling is absent in most localities today, but where old transcriptions and literary glimpses clearly suggest that the halling was widespread.
Gustav Kåterud from Våler recorded two hallings, Ole Henriksen and Kåre Langholmen one each, showing its use in Solør. Sandvik's manuscripts from Solør-Odal (a-1824 and a-1900-07) contain three or four halling transcriptions, Olaf Sunde wrote down two hallings from Lauritz Tangen from Austmarka (Kongsvinger), and Lars Fjellstad's material from Eidskog (Vestmarka, southern tip of Hedmark) contains a halling.
Anders Heyerdal's transcriptions from 1856-1861 (same age as A.N. Thingstad's from Åmot) from Aurskog, just over the county boundary with Akershus, contain as many as 11 hallings (some in print, some in manuscript form), a number of springdans tunes and the composite "Bridal dance from olden times in Urskog". Much of this material must have been collected in the area around Aurskog, although there is also a repertoire from a wider area, e.g. Valdres, Hallingdal etc. A few of these hallings are known from transcriptions of Hedmark variants, and support the view that the halling was also widely known and used in Sør-Hedmark up to the mid-1800s. But thereafter it rapidly faded from use. The halling of Sør-Hedmark may have corresponded to the halling of Aurskog which was "only danced by menfolk in a very crouched position, with leaps and somersaults" (Heyerdal 1882:175). Here too the squatting position is highlighted (see matching descriptions in Åsnes, Trysil etc., below).
On the Swedish side of the border a few hallings are found as far north as Särna. Some are recordings (e.g. of Olmorts Olof Svensson), some transcribed in Svenska Låtar (Dalarna and Värmland). But all carry references to Norway, or are presented with a clear perception that the dance and type of tune originated in Norway.
The available documentation of the halling (and indications of use of the halling dance or halling music) show a picture of a type of music and associated dance that must have been widespread in most areas of Hedmark - only in some northern communities is information sparse or entirely absent. This suggests that the halling dance and music in these areas may appear to have penetrated from the west and south-west and never reached further north-east than this?
The halling dance, as we know it today in Hedmark, was recreated in the 1960s and 1970s from scant and sporadic documentation from areas such as Elverum and Trysil. It is a solo dance based on a set of elements roughly in keeping with the way it is danced in other districts where the halling has been preserved.
In Gudbrandsdalen a great deal of halling music has been preserved (Vol. 1 has 63 hallings!), but the dance seems to have been entirely forgotten in the northern part of the valley.
However, a couple-halling was recently reconstructed and is performed in central Gudbrandsdalen. Møre and Romsdal and Sunnfjord afford glimpses of the same.
Hedmark shows only intimations. Ole Henriksen's tune from Åsnes (H 13), and information on it, are at any rate an interesting curiosity. The fiddle tune mostly resembles a halling (elements of a figure dance?), and the description of the dance only tells of one element, which is central to all forms of halling, i.e. squatting or "heeling". A man in Henriksen's parts (Åsnes Finnskog) "danced on his heels". The girl held his hands, and he danced only on his heels… then he squatted… round and round the floor the whole time". The girl kept time and "…danced upright".
Perhaps he witnessed a remnant of the couple-halling, or possibly just a fellow showing his paces?
Jon Hollseter (brother of our performer Johan) recalled having seen the halling during his childhood, danced by men in twos, but his recollections of the dance itself were largely confined to the element mentioned, squatting or "heeling", and that it was performed in a ring (Myhr).
Odd Ragnar Gjermunds, Engerdal, has made enquiries over the border in Sweden (Idre), where the memories preserved of the halling may also suggest that it was a couple-dance. |
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