Dance Until You Drop at Hälsingehambon

According to legend, the Hårga song is so spellbinding, you won’t be able to stop dancing. For traditional music, dancing, and outfits galore, visit the annual dance event Hälsingehambon

By Kajsa Norman

It was late one Saturday night when a stranger walked into a dance lodge in the village of Hårga in Hälsingland. When the music stopped, he grabbed his fiddle and began to play a tune they had never heard. The young people of Hårga began to dance and dance. But once they started, they couldn’t stop. Enchanted by the music, they forgot about God and the world around them.

At the break of dawn, the fiddler lifted his bow towards the rising sun and led the young dancers outside. They danced over meadows and hills, high up to the ridge of Hårga mountain. Wearing out their heels and soles, nobody could stop dancing. Who was this stranger? What was this enchanted tune that drove them all wild? “If you don’t stop, our hearts will burst! Oh God help us; he has a cloven hoof!” they cried.

Before long, the bells rung in the valley. Villagers made their way to the parish church, but where was Hårga’s youth? Still dancing! “Stop your bow, oh fiddler, they will dance their bodies and souls to pieces.” But the fiddler did not stop. He climbed a pine tree and kept playing from its top. The youth danced and danced until nothing but their skeletons remained. Legend has it you can still see marks from the dancers on Hårga mountain; and, if you’re brave enough to venture there on a full moon night, you can still hear the music the Devil played.

Hundreds of years later, the Hårga legend inspired an annual dance event known as Hälsingehambon. Spanning several quaint villages, it is a full-day event of dancing “hambo”, a traditional pairs folkdance, in the fields beneath the Hårga mountain, the grass meadows of Arbrå and the outdoor, wooden dance floor of Järvsö. Sometimes called the Vasaloppet of dance, each stage ends with an 8-minute-long hambo competition, with the final held in Järvsö. There is also a youth category for people under the age of 15 and a senior category for those older than 55.

The event, founded in 1965, became so popular that in 1979, the organizers had to limit the number of dancers to 1,500 couples. Participation dwindled over the last two decades, but after the pandemic, 2022’s event brought back the enthusiasm of old.

On the first Saturday after the first Sunday in July, when the morning mist has lifted, and the elves have danced the dew off the field, dancers, musicians, and bystanders all come together for a traditional fäbodfrukost at Ol-Jons Hembygdsgård in Hårga.

“It’s a joyous time for greeting new and old friends over a lengthy, traditional breakfast,” says Robert Gustafson from Eugene, Oregon, who has been practicing Scandinavian folkdance since 2013.

Robert first learned about Hälsingehambon when former champions Camilla Idh and Magnus Mårtensson came to teach Hälsinge dance at the Scandia Camp Mendocino in 2017.

The following summer, Robert brought two of his children to Hälsing- land. Triplets Brede and Soren were 15-years old at the time and became the first non-Swedes to win the youth category. As Robert didn’t bring a partner, the organizers helped to team him up with a local dancer and the two of them went on to tie for third place in the senior category – an amazing achievement for a first effort. The family was hooked, and Robert became a regular at Hälsingehambon

When the Swedish Press catches up with him in 2022, he is in Hälsingland with his son Aemon. They have both been teamed up with locals.

Donning traditional folk costumes, Robert and Aemon join the other dancers in a grand procession behind flag bearers and local musicians known as spelmän, marching solemnly towards Hårga mountain. In the fields beneath the mountain, they begin to dance in circular laps. As in the legend, they dance and they dance. The constant spinning of the hambo, in addition to the group as a whole moving in circles around the field, makes me dizzy just watching. But both Robert and Aemon look unfazed, keeping their chins up and their shoulders straight as they turn their partners round and round.

When all couples have danced their eight minutes before the judges, and the points have been awarded, it’s time to move on to Arbrå, about a half hour’s distance away by car, where the next stage of the competition takes place. It too, commences with a grand procession, but this time the dancers perform on different terrain – a grassy hillside. The event ends in Järvsö. While its wooden dance floor may seem easy in comparison, the couples who make the semi-finals and finals, must maintain both impeccable technique and enthusiasm as dancing continues late into the evening.

In the bright summer nights of Hälsingland, it is hard to distinguish when dusk turns to night turns to dawn. The air is enchanted. The music magical. When I leave, Robert and Aemon are still smiling and dancing. Perhaps they are still dancing now.

For more information about the event and how to register, please visit https://halsingehambon.com