Anders Ljungqvist (10 May 1815 – 24 December 1896), also known as "Gås-Anders" (Anders of the geese), was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

fiddle A fiddle is a Bow (music), bowed String instrument, string musical instrument, most often a violin or a bass. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including European classical music, classical music. Althou ...

r from

Björklinge Björklinge is a locality situated in Uppsala Municipality, Uppsala County, Sweden with 3,269 inhabitants in 2010. The name, written as ''Birklinge'', was used for the parish as early as 1314, and Norsemen graves have been found in the area. Bjö ...

Uppland Uppland is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. The name literally ...

.''Gås-Anders'', ''

Nationalencyklopedin (; "The National Encyclopedia" in English), abbreviated NE, is a comprehensive contemporary Swedish-language encyclopedia with several hundred thousand articles. It is available both online and via a printed version. History The project was ...

'', retrieved 12 July 2014 Gås-Anders got his derogatory nickname as a child when he worked as a goose herder at a mansion house in

Gamla Uppsala Gamla Uppsala (, ''Old Uppsala'') is a parish and a village outside Uppsala in Sweden. It had 17,973 inhabitants in 2016. As early as the 3rd century AD and the 4th century AD and onwards, it was an important religious, economic and political c ...

. As he grew up he never used the name Gås-Anders, and it was not until the 1920s that folk musicians started referring to him by that name, which was by now used as a positive epithet rather than a slur. Although Gås-Anders made his living by working as a

day labourer Day labor (or day labour in Commonwealth spelling) is work done where the worker is hired and paid one day at a time, with no promise that more work will be available in the future, and outside the protection of labor and civil rights laws. It i ...

at the farms around Björklige, he was known as a poor worker who usually brought his

with him and played rather than worked. As a spelman he was very popular and extremely skilled, and it was said that nobody could sit still when he played dancing music – not even he himself. As he played he would jump around, dancing on chairs and tables. Rumour had it that Näcken had taught him to play, signing a contract in blood on human bones from the churchyard. According to the stories, Gås-Anders played the

polska Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

he had learnt from Näcken on his death bed, after which all four strings on his fiddle broke and he was able to die in peace. Another story had it that Gås-Anders's wife once put a Bible on top of his fiddle, and after that it would never stay tuned. Gås-Anders left a legacy of

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

, upwards of 150 different melodies; both tunes he himself had written and those he had learnt from other fiddlers. Most of the tunes are eighth-note polskas. Since fiddlers at the time played by ear, not from written music (something which is true for traditional folk musicians today as well), much of Gås-Anders's music was never saved for posterity. Towards the end of his life he got rather deaf and had to bring a helper to tune his fiddle, but he kept playing at weddings and dances up until the final years of his life. He was a poor man when he died, and was buried in the communal part of the churchyard in Björklinge. The exact location of his grave in the churchyard is unknown. In 1944, a statue of Gås-Anders, created by the sculptor

Bror Hjorth Bror Hjorth (1894 in Marma, Sweden, Marma, Sweden – May 21, 1968 in Uppsala, Sweden) was a Sweden, Swedish artist. Hjorth was one of Sweden’s best-known sculpture, sculptors and Painting, painters, and was professor of art at the Royal Univ ...

, was erected next to Björklinge church.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ljungqvist, Anders 1815 births 1896 deaths Nordic folk musicians Swedish male musicians 19th-century male musicians People from Uppsala Municipality Musicians from Uppsala County