Marit Olsdatter, 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 male 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, even when walking from one place to another. 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. (However, nobody has been sued for using dyed wool of different colours.) The most common motif is a variant of the Selbu Rose , depicted in the Selbu flag above. (The latter has a four axis symmetry, while the knitted rose usually have a two axis symmetry.)

A statue at the Selbu administration centre, "Felkar'n" by Kristofer Leirdal, 1991: A millstone quarrier with his pick hammer and pair of compasses.

About twenty kilometres east of Selbu, in a mountain area that is now the Skarvan and Roltdalen National Park, rock suitable for millstones was found many hundred years ago. 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 as they should be. When millstone quarrying started here is unknown, a guess is the fourteenth century. There is another major site for millstone quarrying in Hyllestad in Sogn where the activity probably started around 600 AD. However, maybe from the sixteenth century on, the production in Selbu was the larger one, and during the nineteenth century 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 nineteenth century 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.

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)

I apologize that the Selbu story is told in the reverse chronological order. 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.

(2009-08-06)

Some interesting people came from Selbu, like Olga (nickname Ollie) Pedersdatter Sollie who married Peter Andrews (born Petros Andreou in Greece) and became the mother of the three Andrews Sisters. Olga was born April 1887 and May 1888 her parents (Soffi Pedersdatter née Haave and Per Pedersen Sollie) emigrated to U.S.A. with their five kids. She died 3 July 1948, when her three daughters were at the height of their career.

♫ Drinkin' Rum and Coca Cola, go down Point Cumana Both mother and daughter, workin' for the Yankee dollar... ♫

Sorry, I also have to mention Belle Gunness a.k.a. Lady Bluebeard, the serial killer. The number of victims is unknown; one estimate says 25–40. Belle was born 11 November 1859 in Selbu as Brynhild Paulsdatter Størset. In her youth she evidently had some very bad experience with a man. She emigrated to U.S.A. on her own in 1881. Her year of death is unknown: On 28 April 1908 her house burnt down and the bodies of her three poisoned children was found in the ruins, together with a headless female body. The obviously pragmatic police concluded that this was the body of Belle Gunness, although the size seemed wrong.