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Gullsmidr (goldsmith) is the name used by written Nordic sources to define someone who works in "noble" (precious) metals, whether gold or silver, and the work is called "gullsmid" (goldsmithing). But the name silversmith is also used. The name goldsmith is still used by those who work in the cities, whereas the tradesman in the country is called a silversmith. I suppose that goldsmith was a more prestigious name, and in addition, the goldsmith in the city had to include some work in gold for his journeyman's test. The rural silversmith worked only in silver. Most likely this created the difference in naming.
There probably was no great difference in the definitions in the Middle Ages; gold and silver were often considered equal; a man who is silfrdfrjugr has a lot of silver, or silfrfar, has little; he may have a silfrketill, silfrkista silfrkistill, or gullhus; gullkista to hide his valuables, and in both cases the name referred to either silver or gold. We know for sure that silver as well as gold jewelry was made here at home. On the other hand, raw materials always came from abroad, except when they re-smelted old things.
Silver, what we are dealing with here, came in the old days from the Orient, Spain, and other places. In the Middle Ages they found rich silver deposits in central Europe, especially in Germany, and that was a major reason why the Germans for a long time were the pioneers in mining and jewelry work. As a result of the great explorations by seafarers in the 14 and 15 hundreds, the tremendous American silver production was dumped on the European market. The silver in Norway was either imported as ready-made decorative ornaments, or also as raw material. The written Nordic sources mention both kinds, and it is possible to identify it because of its decorative style. Precious metals were used instead of, or as, money whether it was minted or not. When our sources mention gullhella and silfrhella, they could be referring to rods or plates for jewelry work, but just as likely for minting or use in trading. The sources talk about various types of silver: Norraent silver (Nordic silver.) most likely refers to silver used for trading, valued according to weight, while gray silver and white silver make reference to how pure it was which depended on the smelting process. Our sources often talk of "burnt silver", pointing to the smelting. Burnt silver might be processed and made into jewelry, or unprocessed. Around 1500 the expression to "burn" silver had become fully accepted in the dialect. When the Jyske Law (Danish law from that period) talks about burning false silver, it refers to silver alloying.
During the time when silver rings and silver coins were used in trade, it was quite natural that every man was in possession of a certain "weight" (amount) of silver. Using this silver as raw material for decorative ornaments as well as for trading was natural. For this reason we find in the Middle Ages appraisals showing that people held on to silver (and gold) themselves, and the silver smith was to have a certain amount of the raw material for his work. In Eirik Magnus son's amendment to the law, 1282, the goldsmith appraisal goes like this: In the Danish book about jewelry work (1429) it is stated that according to the old rules, the pay for work that was not in gold, was to be half the weight of each full "lodd's ¼ lb." used. Here the goldsmith takes his pay out of the raw material. When people (i.e. the customers) were to furnish the silver themselves, the purity was probably so-so, and the smiths might often have reason for cheating since the raw material was of poor quality. A lot of the imported silver was substandard as is indicated by the regulation issued to the people of Bergen in 1607. The King had found out how "in our City of Bergen, there is found to be a great deal of deception and duplicity in regards to silver material, which is imported by the Germans on Bryggen (the Hanseatic League) and others and sold to subjects of nobility, clergymen, citizens, and bønder who live in this country, and these our above mentioned subjects are cheated to the highest degree, and the goldsmiths in that same area are deprived of their living because of the fact that said silver material does not meet the standards or the weight required when it is sold, which the Norwegian Law stipulates."
Native raw material was unknown in the Middle Ages. Production of silver in
Norway, taken as a whole, did not occur until we opened the silver mines in
Kongsberg. However, silver mines were known long before the Kongsberg silver
veins. And those have yielded ore and pure silver - without any doubt. Otherwise
it is impossible to understand the many old, and at times curious, legends about
silver veins and ore deposits. "There is a dense murkiness obscuring the
accounts about the early history of Norway's mining," says Brunnich; "we
discern only shadowy outlines of some mines of the past, about which we are
left with vague descriptions or at times just rumors. Thus, a number of descriptions
from some place or other in Norway tell about ruins still indicating abandoned
mines, about mounds piled up as a result of abandoned and now unknown, deep
mines - to which they bear testimony, and about piles of slag from decayed smelting
works, having no memorials in the yearly records of the country -"
Many of those tales and many of those mounds are testimonies of ancient iron
mining in our country; some of them are remains of copper mines or other non-precious
metals. What we are most interested in here, silver mines and silver deposits,
are more scarce. Nevertheless, even to this day there are so many legends, tied
to certain places, about silver deposits with actual mining activity, that I
shall examine the most important ones, found in written sources or in oral tradition.
They may even drive away some of the "murkiness" Brunnich talks about.
When it comes to silver deposits, Telemark appears to have had the most. At
any rate, we have more tales from there, and it was there that mining first
developed into an industry in Norway. Many accounts indicate that the work was
actually being performed in a professional manner. In Dalskasine in Dalane,
Kvitseid, there is a 2 meter dig driven into the mountain. More recently they
have found pure silver and silver ore that had been covered up again with earth.
H.I. Wille tells us that about 3/4 of a mile east of Synsttveiten in Selgjord
(Seljord) there is an old copper mine driven into the mountain "2 1/2 fathoms
toward the east", with a vein 4 fingers wide:
already at that time this mine had been abandoned for ages. People up in the
highlands can still point out a 13 meter long elevation with an equally deep
pit. The Synsttveit man was the owner or major partner in the mine, it was said.
He transported the ore down the Svarttjonn Valley, and at Øvland there
was a miner name Tor who smelted and minted. He came to Øvland as a tenant
and ended up as the owner and a very rich man. His smithy was located away from
the gard buildings, and whenever he was working in the smithy, they would hang
up a towel in the upper walkway of the storehouse. If the towel was hanging
there, all was safe, but if anyone came to the gard, they took it down, and
the blacksmith stopped hammering. Tor Øvland forged "dalars":
to mold the dalars he made an impression of a valid dalar in wet clay. He made
a lot of this kind of money, and it took a long time before anyone detected
it. But finally it was discovered, and the lensmann came to Øvland. Tor
was just then expecting a load on horseback from the north, and he ran out to
meet the boy with the horse and asked him to throw the load off. He did, and
the ore is lying on a rocky outcropping in the Lidstoul valley to this day.
They claim that there are stripes of silver in the ore. Tor Øvland was
given a choice of either paying a fine or losing his life. The fine took everything
he owned, but the legend says nothing about what happened to the Synsttveit
man. At Stigslid in Selgjord they heard a lot of hammering over in a big pile
of rocks; that was
"silver picking".
The sokneprest in Laardal found silver ore in Prestehagane next to the prestegard. It is said that the mine is located in Gaagehaug, a peninsula of rock outcropping just outside the prestegard. The sokneprest even made ferrules for his cane from the silver he found there. The ferrules are filigreed, and the cane is supposed to have been at Blikom in Skavsaa (Skafså) until recently. Some people say that a community silversmith made the ferrules. This would probably take us back to around 1600. Later, Lensmann Christofer Blom had silver buttons made from the same mine; he left behind a lot of silver, including silver buttons with the dates 1689 and 1697.
"In the Saesvodd Hills, on the border with Bykle and Vinje, there is supposed to be a really splendid silver mine. At Saesvodd there was a very wealthy man who also owned the mine. When he had company and the water (on the lake) was nice and shiny, he allowed his daughters to use silver coins (instead of stones) for skipping across the water, that's how much he had of them and how little he cared about them. He sent silver from the gard to Denmark to have coins made from it." (recorded by Oystein Vesaas). This sounds somewhat fabulous; however, it is a fact that the largest smelting works building we know of was located where the river flows into the Saevats Lake. Tremendous amounts of cinder and slag and deep house foundations can be found there. The silver mine here in Saesvodd and one in Vaagslid (Vinje) are said to be mentioned in "old records". On the Hardingvidda (Hardangervidda) there are, according to the legends, mines in several places. For instance, in Veigdalen there was a silver mine also; two brothers from Numedal found the ore and were mining in secret. They made a variety of items in silver, - brooches, buttons, spoons, etc., and every year they set out for Eastern Norway to sell their silver products. But in the end they filled in the opening and covered it with dirt. Some people say that it was one from Eidfjord who found the mine and that he sold his items in the Bergen area. "These legends are probably based on historical fact," says the Reverend O. Olafsen who has provided me with information about the Veigdal mine; and he points out that in 1889 a hole or a depression was discovered in Veigdal by a tourist guide who was putting up markings along the road from Bjoreidalen to Bogen. He found a 6 meter deep cave with visible signs of having been made by man. The cave was then full of water, and the opening had been covered up with rocks. The guide found silver ore there. -- Among other mining excavations we can mention one in Vindeggen where they found gold and copper. People believe that it is the same veins that pop up in various places. "The veins underground go all around the earth just like stretching a rope," an old Selgjord man told me. "The mines in Aamdal and Gullnes and Vindeggen point in the same direction; it's the same vein."
At Skeide in Flatdal it is told that the old Skeide man was digging clay in the cellar under his utility building, and he came across a band of silver……? He cut off a piece with his axe, and it was pure silver. He then tore down the utility building, filled in with dirt and planted grass over it, otherwise they would have expropriated his gard and put it under the crown.
However, the best known legend in Telemark is the legend about Olav Graa, which we'll discuss in the next chapter. But otherwise, tales about silver mines and silver finds are known many places in Norway. A story from Hyllestad in Setesdalen relates that there was a silver mine there; but then the King announced that he could take any property he wanted on the condition that the owner was given another gard of equal size. This startled the Hyllestad people and they blocked off their mine with rocks, similar to the Saesvodd mine.
From Sondeled it is told that the man at Lunde was working a silver mine in secret. But when the King demanded that all mines were to be registered with him, the Lunde mine was closed up, tightly, and no one has found it since no matter how hard they have looked. The bonde at Homme in the same community also worked a silver mine in secret, but when the Egeland Works was built, it became too dangerous to continue with the mine, especially since the law stipulated that an iron works could not be operated near a silver mine; the owner of Egeland therefore paid off the man from Homme, and he closed up his mine. Since then no one has found it. In Gjerstad there is a story about a man who saw a crack in the closed-off opening of a silver mine, and he could see the gold hanging like icicles inside the mountain. Around the year 1600 there was a man by the name of Tallak who lived at Aas on Vegardshei; he became a very wealthy man, and an account tells us that his wealth came from a silver mine he was working. In order to dispose of the silver ore, he placed it inside a hollow log which buyers from Holland picked up and took away.
A widespread legend with some historical base is told in Konnismo in Nordre Audndal. In a mountain called Stiknollen a "wild-smith" had settled down, and he worked in gold and silver as well as in other metals. The legend points to certain pieces of work that are around still.
From Hallingdal there are accounts of silver finds both in the old days and more recently. In Nes, for instance, they are supposed to find the same veins as in Kongsberg. A man in the Li neighborhood, way, way back, found a silver vein some place by the Todola River. Pure silver was hanging in big lumps. He broke off a lump, then closed up the opening, which he never was able to find later. From that lump they made brooches which are to be found in the community still. By Langevatn in the same town a herd's boy saw the silver vein hanging in the mountain. He, too, wanted to keep it secret, but he never found the place afterwards. Similar to the legend from Lid is a legend from Aal. A "husmann" (crofter, one who had an official agreement with a bønder, allowing him to live on a small piece of the land, which usually included a simple home and a barn and enough land to grow some potatoes and harvest enough hay for a cow, a goat, or sheep or two on the condition that the husmann and, if it applied, also his wife and children, spent a certain number of weeks or months helping out with work on the main gard.) A husmann who was mowing grass in Ridalen, saw the silver hanging in the mountain. He broke off some of it and brought it to Sjugurd Skjervheim, a silver smith. Sjugurd processed the silver. The husmann and the silver smith set up a contract that one of them was to break out the silver, and the other one processed it, and they kept going with this. It was said that the husmann once found a lump weighing 4 ½ lbs. This was in the 1820s.
In the areas farther north there are also legends about silver smiths who worked in silver from local silver mines or from ore they themselves had discovered. From Stordalen (Sunnmore) comes a story about a man who found a big lump of silver ore and took it to a silver smith in the community, who broke it up, smelted the silver and made silver buttons from it. -The silver smith, Jon Funtaune in Meraker, for instance, was supposed to have his own mine in Kluken next to the Swedish border. On a summer mountain gard, Prestfossan, a part of the prestegard in Selbu, people used to live year round. A silver smith used to live there, and he was a wealthy and influential man. He used to shoe his horse with silver shoes and the harness was fitted with silver ornamentation all around. No one knew where he got his silver, but some people believed he had a mine. In regards to this man there is also a more widespread legend, saying that the sokneprest was not supposed to ring the bell until he saw the silver smith on the road to the church. The legend implies that he lived some time during the Middle Ages. --- The legend about the mine in Svoluskardet in Stjordalen has been discussed earlier; it was said that they could hear hammering underground as if someone was working.
There are still a number of legends about silver deposits, but the samples I have included here, show plainly enough their historical value. To begin, we have to eliminate everything that is fantastic or poetic, tales that are found in several locations and having features of a fairytale. When that is done, we are left with a number of pieces of historical information, tied to specific locations, information that we cannot just ignore. Based on the biological aspects of many of these legends we can establish that they have ties to certain locations and ancient visible local memorials or keepsakes; next, there are ties to certain families and people who are named along with items in the possession of a family or an individual. Finally, the legends are tied to a certain time, corresponding to specific historical events. If we then examine the legends through written sources, we find that they are based on facts.
It is not possible to establish a time of actual operation for all of these mines or excavation. Most of them are probably from a more recent period, but in general we are fairly safe in saying that they date from the time period between 1500 and 1800. It is noticeable that what they found often was pure silver, in lumps. It is therefore reasonable to assume that some of these finds date back to the Middle Ages, and that this in certain cases could lead to a primitive, private operation by the owner of a gard. However, the great impetus for mining in Norway came about when the German miners came to Telemark around 1500.
The first king who tries to do something for mining in Norway is Kristian II. In Akersbakken by Oslo they tried starting a silver mine with the aid of miners from Saxony. In 1524 the bishop in Hamar is given "Sundzberg" as an endowment; that is the first time the Gullnes Works in Selgjord is mentioned. But it was not until 1537 and from then on, under Kristian III, that mining picked up. The history of Gullnes, or Golmsberg, as the Germans called it, is so well known that I'll just point to older accounts. Here I'll only point out that the Gullnes mine had silver mixed in with the copper, and that actually considerable amounts of silver was smelted. In a letter to the King in 1542 it is stated that both in Gullnes and in Mosanapp in Fyresdal they are producing "silver, copper, and lead". In 1544 they got 71 lbs. of silver from 71 hundredweight's of ore. There was a shortage of small change, and the intention was to smelt the silver and mint it, but it was a slow process.
Submitter's note: THE BONDE REVOLT IN HJARTDAL IN 1540 mentions that the people of Telemark had been silver smiths since the 1500s.
Olav Grå was a good silver smith. Some say that he came from Eastern Norway to Telemark. Others are of the opinion that he came from the area around Kongsberg; at any rate, his name was seen in connection with the Kongsberg Works (the silver mines), since he was supposed to of worked there. (1)His family came with him, his wife named Live, and some daughters. People also claim he has had descendants in Kviteseid (2) until recently. Based on all time references, it appears that he was born in the first half of the 1600's and that his greatest work activity took place beginning after about 1650. In Fjågesund in Kviteseid, Gråsvoll still carries his name, and when we keep in mind that one Jakob Gråsvoll in Sandsver in the 1620's discovered the *Kongsberg mine and that his father took this discovery to a silver smith there in the village, our thought process easily pick up Olav Grå; there may be a connection between the names. If Olav Grå was that silver smith, then he is the first one to get into trouble because he took advantage of the silver in Kongsberg. One thing is certain; all folk tales in Telemark agree that Olav Grå was a fugitive, that he worked illegally and consequently had to work as a smith secretly, and flee from place to place. Keeping track of him as he moved around, finding out where he came first, where he came last, is not easy.
The first time we hear about Olav Grå is probably in the story about the Vreim mine in Bø.(3) Sveinung Vreim had found silver vein on his property, Store Vreim and instead of reporting the finding to the government, he kept it hidden as carefully as he could. He found out about Olav Grå, "a silver smith who had worked at the mint works in Kongsberg" and sent for him. They made a contract, and Olav Grå stood in a dug-out making all kinds of silver items; it was even claimed that he made coins. This dugout was excavated in the hill so close to the house itself that there was a hallway (under ground) between the basement in the house and the earth cellar. The mine itself was close enough so that "when they stood in the attic (in the Vreim loft), they could look straight into the opening. There were, to be sure, some who hinted that there was no mine there, and that the silver came from the Kongsberg mines. Others were of the opinion that the silver vein was substantial. "And it was said, also, that they saw the silver vein going down to the river towards the Baksås side, (4) like two big logs.
Foot notes:
1 cf. Karl Reynols in "Varden" Feb. 13, 1912, 37.
2 From Jan, his son, came Jan Fossheim, and in addition there were many Auver
in that family. Auver Myrane was one of them.
3 See "Skilling-Magazine" 1848 pages 263-64; H.N. Tvedten, Sagn fra
Telemarken (Tales from Telemark) p.17----(first in "Fremskridt"1889,
#5-6); Karl Reynolds in "Varden" Feb. 13, 1912, 37 This information
is taken from my own notes.
4 Or: The "root" of the silver here was the same in "Tjørnstauldalen
(Bø)
.*Note: DEJ (King Christian IV opened the silver mines on 2 May 1624 and the
Royal Mint was located there.)
And the sister (i.e. the smaller vein) was in Kongsberg, but the brother was
here." It was also said that the silver was so loose (i.e. easy to remove),
they could cut it out with a chisel, and that it was so pure it did not need
any cleaning up.
Of Olav Grå's works from that period are known of only one single item,
a knife with silver ferrules fig. 14). As pictured:
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The ferrules have been cut off; they had been twice as wide and had probably
the same measurements as t.LXXX, fig.1 They have wavy engravings on them, but
these have mostly worn off. The present owner writes about the knife: I remember
well that my father at that time (thirty five years ago) said that "the
knife is two hundred years old and made by Olav Grå who gave it to mother's
grandmother who, as a little girl brought him food to him in his dug out".
My father also said that the knife's silver ferrules originally were supposed
to have been twice as wide as they are now. In my childhood the knife had a
fairly narrow, somewhat thick and worn out blade, but when my brother, Olav
Sigelhus in Bø, gave it to me in 1905, he ha(?) had a new blade installed.
(1)
It is probable that Olav Grå worked all kinds of silver when he was in the Vreim cellar, but his fame came mostly from the mint work. The only ones who knew about the silver smith were the Vreim people. Never the less it got around the village. People would see lights there and hammering at night, and talk about this spread like a grass fire. Finally the government found out about it. It is said that some important fellow was going by. He heard "silver picking" and he reported it. As soon as Sveinung heard about it, he had the mine and the earth cellar work area filled with loads of marshy dirt and sod and the horses worked so hard that one of them collapsed in the marsh. To this very day this marsh is called Sprengsmyr ("Break-down Marsh"). The workers had to swear not to say a word, and Olav Grå left Bø township.
foot notes:
1 Letter to the author from Hans Espedal dated Oct. 8, 1919.
The lensmann and a man from Borgja who accompanied him now came to Vreim to search for the mine and the silver. They looked inside and outside, but found nothing. Then the other fellow noticed a copper kettle full of money, standing in the entry way to the bath house; they say that he and Sveinung were buddies, and that he therefore helped hide the kettle of money by throwing a pile of flax on it. But in the middle of the night the Borgja fellow came and got the kettle, and after that the Vreim man never saw any more of his silver. No doubt he knew who the thief was, but when he demanded to get his silver, the other fellow man threatened to report him; and so Sveinung had to keep silent. From this day on the Borgja man was rolling in money.(1) This Sveinung lived in the second half of the second half of the 1600's.(2)
Many have later tried to rediscover the mine. A widow from Siglhus had been a servant girl on the gard during the time Olav Grå worked there. (3) Her son tried so hard to convince her to tell where the mine was located, but she had sworn a solemn oath to keep silent, she said. about it. They got this much out of her: "When I stand by the handrail to the steel shed, I can see where the silver was taken out". When there was a hearing in the affair many years later, she was the only survivor of those who knew about it. They kept pestering her for so long about pointing out the place, that she at last promised to do so. "I can't point to the place or tell you exactly, but I shall throw something over to where it is." She was in poor health at that time so she had to ride horseback, but on the way there, she took ill, and they found her dead in the dell below the gard.
Since then they have found certain hints of the silver and the mine at Vreim. They found silver goblets and other fine things, even silver spools; so Olav Grå was not stingy with the silver. One by the name of Hallvord Smed (Smith) wanted to find out if there was any truth to the folk tale; he started digging in a hollow in the hill right next to the Vreim home. The hollow had become deeper, gradually, and therefore they believed that this was the location of the workshop. Hallvord did indeed find melting pots and other parts of the smithy.----- Around 1852 Rolleiv Vreim was plowing in that same hill; the horse fell through, and there was such a hole that the measuring pole went all the way down. They then found an earthen cabin with log walls, and on the floor were lots of cinders and broken glass. There are some who say that they found silver buttons marked S.V. (4)
foot notes:
1 Some say that it was the man who accompanied the lensmann who took kettle
(Varden Feb. 13, 1912, 37 ect.
2 In 1663 he is a co-signer of a church document (County Museum for Telemark
and grenl.(Grenland) Annual Book 1914, p. 48.
3 Plainly the same one who brought food to the silver smith and got the knife.
4 It is possibly the same time that Hallvord Smed and Rolleiv Vreim found the
earth cellar, cf. Karl Reynolds in "Varden' Feb. 13, 1912, 37-. The stamped
initials are more likely O.G. M. Holst relates in "Skillings-Magazine"
1849, p. 264 that Eiliv Åsland saw silver in Askeberge(t) and Sveinung
Forberge saw a silver coin in the river; Holst regarded the whole thing for
fabrication.
It is obvious that there is some substance to the claim that Olav Grå worked with silver in his earth cellar at Vreim. H.N. Tvedten says "It has always been fairly certain that one Olav Grå worked on silver at Vreim, but whether the silver came from Kongsberg or from the Vreim mine, the opinions have been divided. It is beyond dispute that there are clear veins in the mountain near Vreim, but whether those carry silver or not has not so far been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. (1) In a document Sveinung Vreim is called "The silver man from Vreim" and no doubt that refers to his silver smith activities.
Where Olav Grå went after leaving Bø is not clear. But it seems reasonable that it was then that he fled across Fjågesund in Kviteseid. On Gråsvoll-odden (point of land, peninsula) he had a cabin where he lived, and he also had a smithy there. Gråvsvoll, which now is a gard by itself, is named after him. He found his silver in the Myrkevats River (Dark-Water River) a mile-and-a-half from Grå; others say that he found it in a mountain near Gråsvoll. It is straight across from Jutulbruplassen, but on the west side of the fjord , and it is still called Gråsvollberge. Out in Grimenes they found a pot after him which they assumed he had used as a melting pot. But here, too, he was pursued. They would hear hammering at night or late in the evening, those who were rowing by. If anyone was curious enough to stop and go in, the silver smith just stood there hammering on a horse shoe or some other piece of iron. They caught on to that the chopping block (under his anvil) was hollow and that he hid the silver and his tools there. Later it came out that he also had a hiding place under the floor of his smithy. A few times the authorities tried to catch him unawares; once the bailiff came upon him suddenly and they thought they had caught the bird; but he was making horseshoe nails.
However, in the end he got in trouble. He was working on a silver tankard for a long time, hiding it inside the chopping block every time someone would come, but in the end he had to throw it into the fjord south of Gråvsvoll-tangen (point of land, peninsula). The rocky point is to this day called the Silver-can Rock. It appears that he has continued his counterfeit activities because the silver tankard was full of coins when it sank we are told by the most reliable historians. He was rolling on and flush with money at all times. (2) After the silver smith had sunk his tankard, he found it prudent to leave Fjågesund, and he therefore fled to the Staumstaul(3) area in Kviteseid.
foot notes:
1 Tales from Telemark, pages 20-21.
2 Regarding the counterfeiting, there is a tale about a "student"
who came rowing along the fjord, heard hammering up in the forest, and went
ashore. He found Olav Grå, hammering on a horse shoe. But the student
maintained that the hammering he had heard on the fjord was a different kind.
3 From Kviteseid Bygdesoge Volumn II: Straumstaul (northern) Gard # 19, Parcels.#
10, 11, and 13. This property is located on the east side of the Fjågesund
Current, sheltered under the mountain, a little beyond Holland. The only way
to get to Straumstaul is by crossing the current.
There he dug himself a cabin in the ground for a smithy. Also there, the name Gråvsvoll, named after him. It is said, also, that he did prospecting in the Nordskog area in Morgedal. But he was not left alone any place, and so he moved to Tveit in the Tveit neighborhood (Kviteseid, 1) and this Tveit was for ages referred to in everyday speech as Grås-Tveit; that name is no longer in use. But the heath from Tveit neighborhood all the way to the Raudberg Peak still has that name and is called the Grås-Tveit Heath. There, to the north, he found silver. He had been prospecting many places in that area. Drilled holes are visible in the rocks (mountains) all the way from Tvestedalen to the very top. They talked about the Tvestedal mine (in the Braut area) after him; it is certain, however, that he found silver in the Drithol ( a vulgar name for the rectum) mine up under the Raudberg Peak. It is clearly visible that ore was extracted there in the old days, and the substance is supposed to have been galena with silver in it. Many were of the opinion that he had found a mine below the Tveit Loft also.(2) This "Loft" was at that time dug into the hill and there was a level area below; there are still visible signs after it, with wooden steps cut out of a single log. He used the steps to reach the level area. The truth is no doubt that this is where he had his smithy.
Also here he was under observation so that he had to close off the opening to the flat area and the smithy. He did not stop making coins, and it is said that he became so rich that he redeemed Tveit three times. That is no doubt just fiction; but it seems quite certain that he was arrested because of his mint making. The folk tale maintains that they were unable to prove anything against him.
They say he made up a little song then:
My name is Olav Grås-Tveit
it is indeed just so,
and you can kiss my ass
and then let me go!
No one knows what happened to Olav Gra in the end. Possibly he died in Kviteseid, possibly he fled. An unreliable source said he fled from Tveit to Sauherad and later over to England, where he died, and where there was a great inheritance after him. (3)
The story that he was the owner Flekketveit is also uncertain. It is possible that he worked both by Gullnes and Mosanapp and that he would then go through Kviteseid on the way according to a historian. (4) But it is equally reasonable to believe that this refers to the ordinary main road.
foot notes- col. 52
1 Here a historian ("historians" here refer to local people with
an interest in local events and tales of the past) is mixing up the story of
Olav Grå with the folk tale about the robber, Hilde, who used to hang
out in the Tveit Loft (cf. this folk tale in "Norig" 1st yr., 4).
2 "He had (mines) so many places, but the grandest one was in the Tveit
neighborhood" (Tarald Sunde, Kviteseid).
3 This is no doubt a mix-up with the story about Ingebret Resen Mandt; see R.
Berge, Rural Literature from Telemark VI, p.23--
4 "The road was going across the Storli Heath, in the direction from Åmdal
Works to Bergje in Morgedal was in Morgedal was his road" (i.e. the road
he would use, B.B.) Gunnar Strond, Brunkberg).
One thing is certain: Olav Grå did live, he was a silver smith, and a counterfeiter and carried out his activities in Vreim, in Fjågesund and Tveit. The special characteristics of the tales, the many place names after him, the visible signs left of his earth cellars, and not the least, exact silver items made by him are all indications of this. In addition to the knife we mentioned, people also known of silver buttons with his mark, O.G. and a special type of filigree work. I have not seen these, but there is no reason to doubt it. Finally, his descendants ought to be an unmistakable proof, also. Here, too, there is a curious conformity between the tales and written sources. At Tveit and on the place (small cotter's place) Finnkosi under Tveit, the names Jan, Olav and Verner (in Kviteseid Varn) are found in the first part of the 1700's. In 1712 "Verner Olsen" rents the gard, and he is possibly a son of Olav Grå. Jan and Verner are foreign (i.e. "new") names and indicate people who have moved in. (1)
It makes it even more reasonable to believe that Olav Grå had some connection with Tveit since the same family continued to own (2) it. Taken as a whole, it is not only reasonable, but certain that Olav Grå is the person the tales claim he was.
What is less certain is whether he worked from silver mines. There are many
indications pointing to the possibility that he was a worker in the Kongsberg
silver mines who had broken the law and had to flee and therefore continued
working in silver independently and illegally. If he did in fact make silver
coins, this made him even more of a criminal, and if he was dishonest to that
extent, it is quite reasonably to expect him to work on silver stolen from the
Kongsberg mines. In order to hide his theft, he allowed tales about mines around
the places where he worked to come out.
I have gone into so much detail in the story about of Olav Grå because
it proves two important things: it shows where the rural silver smith got his
raw material and that ity-taught smiths moved out in the country also in more
recent times. They brought with them a rush of new currents of foreign arts
and crafts from the Norwegian cities to the rural communities. It provided new
connections and new methods for the art of the silver smith in the country.
And Olav Grå is far from being the only city-taught silver smith to come
to the rural area among bønder.
foot notes:
1 Lars Vernersson (died 1744) and Jan Vernersson (died 1752) both live at Finnkosi,
are brothers, and the oldest son of both is named Olav. This Verner Finnkosi
may very well be the son of Olav Grå.
2 Auver Jansson (died 1774) is the owner of (has an investment of) 280 government
daler in Tveit, including Graver and Finnkosi at the time of his estate settlement.
Submitter's comments:
The origins of Olav Grå are unknown but these are two of the theories
that exist:
1. He appears to have Swedish origins based upon the fact that the Grå
name has been found in the Swedish records regarding the mining/metal working
industry since the late 1400s. There was an Olof Grå (1473-87) at Kopparberget,
Dalarna, Sweden and more recently Anders Grå, a Swedish silversmith died
in 1655. Source: Svenskt silversmide 1520-1850-E. Andrèn- published 1963;
page 538
SÖDERTÄLJE; Anders Grå -1655 Mästare i Södertälje
under ämb i Arboga; var död 14.9.1655, då pengar utbetlades
till hans begravning-Arboga prot.; (Anders Grå was a master silver smith
in the town of Södertälje and died before Sept. 14, 1655 - at which
date a certain amount of money was paid out for his funeral). Note: Olav Grå
in Norway had sons named Jan, Anders, Verner and Arnt (Aadne).
2. Excerpts from a letter from Jorunn Fossberg, [leader of Norsk Folkmuseum's research on Norwegian goldsmiths, their works and their marks, and through years has examined large quantities of unpublished material] suggests that Olav Grå could be Danish.
Olle Graa is actually an enigmatic person, and Rikard Berge has made him even more so. Thanks to your letter I decided to try to find more hard facts about him, and succeeded to a certain extent.
As a taxpayer he is listed under "artisans", and is sometimes called "smith", i.e. blacksmith, but is never called goldsmith. The reason for this may very well be the King"s order that goldsmiths should live and work in the towns and not in the countryside.
He is mentioned for the first time in 1644: Olle smid at Wasdall, i.e. a place neither in Bø nor Kviteseid, but in the neighboring county of Holden (= Holla). In 1647 he is called Olle Graae at Wasdall.
From 1652 we find him in Kviteseid: Olle Graa smid, and find him again in 1655:
Oluff graae, and in 1657: Oluff smed, and this time even his son: Jan Olufsen
smed.
In 1664 he is settled at one of several small places called Tvedt in Kviteseid;
Olluf, 54 years, with his 2 sons Anders 18 years and Werner 14 years, and a
servant Knud, 16 years.
In 1664 he is obviously rather well off, since he still has 2 of his sons at home and even has a servant. These written sources don't mention Kongsberg at all, but it is interesting that we first find him in Holden, near Norway "s oldest iron mine at Fossum (from 1538) and the town of Skien. Iron mines at Holden, later called Ulefos, were actually taken up by the owners of the Fossum mine in 1657.
The above mentioned facts lead me to believe that Olle Graa primarily was occupied at the iron mines, but this profession also gave him insight into the goldsmith "s profession. Personally I think he is a Dane, probably acquainted with the Danish owners of the Fossum work, one of the owners being the Danish goldsmith Johan Post and his son, Henrik Post. The first Norwegian master of the Mint (at work between 1628-1642), who was a distinguished goldsmith as well, was also "participant" of the corporation owning the Norwegian silver, copper and iron mines.
In other words: I think Olle Graa was an immigrant to Norway, probably a Dane, and professionally trained as a blacksmith, or/and even as a goldsmith.
Submitter's note: Rikard Berge's article clearly indicates that he was both a blacksmith and a silversmith.
Darrel E. Johnson
