In Norway, anyone who passes a waterfall hears the noise of the water, and some say they hear music too. According to folklore, it comes from Fossegrim, a spirit who lives in waterfalls and plays the fiddle better than any person.

Who Fossegrim is

The name starts with foss, waterfall. In the stories he is a male figure bound to the water, and descriptions vary from region to region. His instrument, in the Norwegian versions, is the fiddle, and in many regions the hardingfele, the Hardanger fiddle, with extra strings that vibrate on their own.

Elsewhere in Scandinavia his relative is the Swedish strömkarl, or the nøkk, spirit of rivers and lakes. The stories vary, and it is hard to say how old they are, because they were written down only in the 18th and 19th centuries.

How you learn from him

Whoever wants to learn music from Fossegrim must bring an offering on a Thursday night, in secret. According to the versions gathered by Benjamin Thorpe and Jacob Grimm, the offering was a white he-goat thrown head first into a waterfall flowing north, or smoked mutton, the fenalår.

If the gift is small, with little meat on the bone, Fossegrim only teaches how to tune the fiddle. If it is good, he takes the pupil’s right hand and draws the fingers across the strings until they bleed. The pupil then plays in a way that makes the trees dance and the waters stop flowing.

The Swedish relative

In Sweden, the strömkarl also plays in an enchanting way. According to the tradition gathered by Grimm, his tune has eleven variations, and the last is reserved for the spirits of the night. In a version recorded in the 18th century, the spirit asks the musician for “redemption”. If he does not receive it, he breaks his instrument and weeps.

What the story keeps

One possible reading of the tale is a common idea in folklore: playing well seemed a supernatural gift, and whoever had too much talent was viewed with suspicion, as if they had made a deal with something not human. The Norwegian fiddler could be admired and feared in the same night.

The story can also be read as a way of talking about practice. The Thursday gift and the hand guided across the strings are reminders that nobody learns music without giving something in return and without calluses on the fingers.

To hear what the spirit plays, play The waterfall fiddle.

Sources.

• Benjamin Thorpe, *Northern Mythology*, 1851-1852, volume 2
• Jacob Grimm, *Teutonic Mythology*, translated by Stallybrass, 1883