Summary. 
For centuries the peasants in the southern and western 
parts of Norway have had their own special kind of violin, 
the so-called "Harding-fele”. What most conspiciously di- 
stinguishes this fiddle from the European violin, are the sub- 
chords, the fiddle being furnished with four slender steel 
chords under the ordinary strings. These sub-chords are tuned 
in concord with the upper ones so as to produce the charac- 
teristic “undertone” of the fiddle music. 
According to a newspaper record from 1766 the invention 
of the Harding-fiddle has commonly been ascribed to Isak 
Botnen (1663—1759), a peasant from the parish of Kvam in 
Hardanger. Most of the investigators of Norwegian popular 
music also hold the opinion that the fiddle is only a local 
Norwegian innovation of the modern Italian violino. 
I think I have found some evidence showing that the 
Harding-fiddle might, after all, prove to be older than from 
the time of Isak Botnen, and also that it has originated 
independently of the Italian violino. 
At the Museum of Bergen there is a Harding-fiddle 
bearing the date of 1652, which is made by a man who was 
well-known in Hardanger at that time. And in “Den Norske 
Dictionarium” (from 1646) by the Rev. Christen Jenson from 
Sunnfjord, there is a passage in which a peasant’s fiddle is 
called *Haar-Gie”. This word is not to be found again in our 
days; but I hold that it has been pronounced “Haarr-gigje”, 
which means *Hord-gigje”, i. e, gigje (fiddle) from Hordaland. 
The people inhabiting the surrounding districts of Bergen are 
still called *Haarra”, i. e. Hordar. 
Christen Jensøn says that the *Hordgigje” was a peasant’s 
fiddle. This expression seems to imply that the fiddle has 
