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– an agriculture, lumbering and industry community at the east end of the thirty kilometers long lake Selbusjøen, southeast of Trondheim
All Norwegians – and quite a few foreigners – know the Selbu (sports) knitwear and regard it as something typical Norwegian. The Selbu tradition of knitting a rose pattern with dual yarns of different colors was initiated in 1857 by a 16 years old girl,
Marit Olsdatter (above), born 1841 on the farm Gullsetbrua in Selbu (died as Marit Emstad in 1929). Originally this knitwear was essentially for the family and for traditional wedding gifts (actually from the bride to the groom and the guests!), but during the 1890s the knitting developed into a home industry and a new source of income, reaching an incredible peak between the two world wars. For many years "everybody", including men and children, knitted whenever possible. The genuine Selbu knitwear is made from the undyed wool of white and black sheep, and the sweaters, stockings, mittens and caps are thus ideal for sportswear. The most common motif is the Selbu Rose, depicted in the Selbu coat of arms above. (The latter rose has a four axis symmetry while the knitted one is usually closer to having only a two axis symmetry.)
A "Selbu troll", properly dressed. I don't know why a knitted cap (with a pompon) is missing. This troll is a commercial one, it's carrying a sack with the name of a grocery store, and apart from the long nose it does indeed look more like a shop clerk than a troll.
(2009-05-31)
Art at the town hall: "Morsarvin" (Maternal heritage, 2004), bronze sculpture by Sivert Donali (1931– ) showing a mother teaching her daughter to knit.
(2009-05-31)
The Selbu church, the oldest part dates back to 1183, but it has been expanded and renovated several times since then. One Sunday in the winter 1857-58 Marit Olsdatter and her sister came to this church wearing the new mittens and thus attracting the congregation's attention (which embarrassed the sisters). Soon Marit was asked by a lot of women to teach them the new knitting.
(2009-05-30)
Close to the church, in the old priest's residence (built 1745), you'll find the Selbu Village Museum (web site in Norwegian).
As a part of the village museum we have – surprise! – the Selbu Museum of Knitting. My collage shows some pattern samples.
(2009-08-06)
I got a pair of woolen gloves from an elderly Selbu lady a couple of years ago. She's still knitting for the market, and so are many other Selbu women. Please note the pattern on the fingers. Obviously this is for the advanced ones, and they make it at high speed almost without looking.
The logo for the 1997 World Championship of Nordic Skiing was derived from the Selbu Rose. The three colors pattern departs from the traditional two colors one, but it's the national colors red-white-blue. The championship took place in Trondheim .
A millstone at the Selbu church with the inscription (in the local dialect) "In memory of the men on Kvennfeli" (i.e. "The Mill(stone) Mountains"). About twenty kilometers east of Selbu, in a mountain area that is now the Skarvan and Roltdalen National Park, rock suitable for millstones is found. It's biotite schist with imbedded hard grains of staurolite and garnets. While the schist wears off slowly, the grains tend to persist; thus these millstones are self-sharpening. When millstone quarrying started here is unknown, a guess is the thirteen hundreds. There is another major site for millstone quarrying in Hyllestad in Sogn where the activity probably started around 600 AD. However, maybe from the fifteen hundreds on, the production in Selbu was the larger one, and during the eighteen hundreds nine out of ten millstones in Norway came from Selbu. There was even some export, mainly to Sweden and Denmark, but also to Russia and U.S.A. At the end of the eighteen hundreds the production subsided and ended when World War I started.
Millstone quarrying started in October, when summer work on the farms was over, and the half-finished stones were transported back home, usually at night on crusted snow in April. It was tough work in a tough climate, and a substantial fraction of the time they had to spend removing water and snow from the pits. But they did get their payment.
(2009-08-06)
It may be noted that the rise of the knitting industry coincided roughly with the decline of the millstone industry. In those days Selbu had it's "millstone" businessmen with networks throughout Norway and to a lesser extent abroad, which was doubtlessly a great advantage when marketing the knitwear.
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updated 2009-11-07