Knut Knutsson Steintjønndalen (1887 - 1969) was a Norwegian Hardanger fiddle maker from Bø in Telemark

Telemark

is a county in Norway, bordering Vestfold, Buskerud, Hordaland, Rogaland and Aust-Agder. The county administration is in Skien. Until 1919 the county was known as Bratsberg amt.-Location:...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

.

Before he died, Knut Eilevson told his 15 year old son Knut to keep the tradition alive. Knut made his first Hardanger fiddle at age 15 and was paid approximately $1.50. 61 years later, in 1963, he was paid about $200. It took him about one month to complete one violin, and he produced about 8-900 fiddles during his life.

He worked every weekday from 7 a.m. until the late evening. There was no romanticism about this work. It was hard and tedious labour to keep a living.

External links

• The Helland fiddle maker family