Once in a great while you hear a piece that sends your spirit to a happy place. Such is Hjaltadans, or Hjalta Dance. Two legendary fiddlers got together who found a special kinship that promoted them to record a CD together – “Darol & Bruce: Lockdown Breakdown.” I first watched Darol Anger and Bruce Molsky playing Hjaltadans in a medley with Hunter's Grove in a Facebook video posted by Bruce played live before an audience, where watching their interaction is half of the fun. They’re totally together and the low notes of Darol’s bass fiddle give it a symphonic sound. About midway they play an ending phrase over and over and then stop simultaneously, allow a beat, and then play again, totally in sync and to the delight of the listeners. Note the smiles on their faces as the audience reacts (captured via a screenshot of the video). The music is in the first link below.
To my American ear, the tune has an exciting Scandinavian feel with a Celtic twist. Upon a query for the source, Bruce commented, “Ale Möller pieced Hjaltadans together from some old Shetland tunes that (I think) came to him through Aly Bain.” Aly Bain is Scottish and Ale Möller is Swedish. If Ale Möller “pieced together” the tune, it’s a daunting task to figure out where the first part comes from, as only the B part is heard in another Scottish group.
The version I’ve learned has 16 measures in the A part, but the melodic theme is, at first, ten measures, then it’s six measures. Its crooked feel comes within the first ten measures. The B part is twelve measures total, broken up with five measures, then those five measures repeated with a two-measure held note.
There is a fairly young group named Haltadans from the Shetland Islands whose band name comes from the tune. In this delightful video they play the second part fairly closely to the Hjaltadans I’ve learned. The first part isn’t played at all, so one still wonders about the original tune.
The tune title has a historic and mythological background. In this Wikipedia article, we read:
“Haltadans, also known as Fairy Ring or Haltadans stone circle, is a stone circle on the island of Fetlar in Shetland, Scotland. This site is a ring of 38 stones, of which 22 are still fixed in the soil, and it is 11 meters (37 ft) in diameter. Inside this is an earthen ring 7.9 meters (26 ft) in diameter, with a 1.5 meters (5 ft) gap in the southwest side. In the center of the rings are two rectangular pillars.”
Further, according to Jakob Jakobsen, “the name Haltadans means: ‘lame or limping dance’. This is a reference to the legend that the circle of stones was once a circle of dancing trolls and that the two rock pillars in the center were once a fiddler and his wife. They had fiddled and danced all night long, and, heedless of the time, were still fiddling and dancing when the sun rose and petrified them all.”
Another article includes the circle of stone description, plus a sound track with Aly Bain playing a different tune with Ale Möller and Bruce Molsky.
Following are links to the recordings I’ve found:
Aly Bain, Ale Möller, Bruce Molsky
RANT (B part slowly played)
The above two links are in The Sessions discussion of the "Shetland Tune ID."
Well, sometimes I pick an esoteric piece for TOTW and hopefully you’ll enjoy this one -- even give it a try.
Edited by - JanetB on 04/11/2025 07:50:56
'Esoteric' is good. Thanks, Janet.
David
It was a nice tune! And I love the Swedish connection. It really sounds Scandinavian to me.
I watched a show with Ale Möller and Bruce Molsky last May, when Broce was here in Sweden. He made another visit earlier this year, but I had no opportunity to watch him.
Thanks for confirming my thinking, Jan. And though it sounds Scandanavian, the tune's title definitely has Scottish roots. On this site with Scottish word definitions, halta dance was a fairies' dance. I'm reminded of Turlough O'Carolan's first composition, Shebeg, Shemore, which translates to Little Fairy, Big Fairy. The theme is widespread in the Celtic tradition.
