Løyperstreng
Will Foster



As the last event of the Bluss night event two large illuminated Hay balls where sent down the Løyperstreng one after the other. When they landed at the farm they where collected lifted onto the back of a local farmer who transported them into the near by barn.

Løyperstreng | 54 sec
Documented by Audun Amundsen
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The cultivated landscape in Fykse throughout the centuries has been formed by the farmers who inhabit it.  Since arriving in Fykse I have been interested in the way farming has evolved over the centuries and yet how the Fykse community have still managed to preserve many farming traditions of the cultural landscape. A method of land distribution that is commern throughout western and in the southern Norway is that Farmland is divided into various plots and widely spread out to secure everyone who ownes land has a fare share of the best and poorest land.

An area of interest that was brought up in conversation during the Bluss two week process and continued to come up in many conversations was the idea of
‘The Aesthetics of Necessity’.  I feel this relates directly with how the farmers have coexisted within the natural environment in Fykse. For example the traditional tools used to work the land hold a beauty and integrity as objects in themselves and are in most cases born from a simple desire to find a practical means to an end.
How do I get this hay down the mountain?

I would like to introduce two cleaver inventions and essential tools for farming labour in Fykse:

The Holvold is a unique functional design it is used as a mechanism to lock and unlock the rope tight against a hay ball so the hay it can stay in tact while being transported.

The Method of Making a hay ball
The Holvold (made from steam bent Ash) was pegged in the ground with a rope tide to it and stretched out along the ground. The hay would be manually built up in a neat stack across the rope and then when the hay ball was big enough the rope was pulled over to link both ends of the rope. Then the rope was tightened with Holvold using a special knot to lock the rope. This meant the hay ball could now be more easily carried on the farmers back or hooked onto the well oiled pulley (a Linekrok) and sent down the 'Løyperstreng’

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The Løyperstreng (or Linestreng as it is known in Fykse) is a long distance metal cable system that was used by farmers at harvest time throughout Fykse and the Kvam region. It was used to send hay, apples and wood from the highland down to the farmhouse. At one time in Fykse there was 22 Løyperstreng systems in working order. There are only 2 in tact today.

“If we had to harvest the land on the hill again then the only method that would make sense would be to use the Løyperstreng, it’s the best and most practical way.”
Arne Fykse

The Løyperstreng outside Aners Fykse farm has been in his family for centuries and is the last of it’s particular kind in Fykse, it was last used for farming in the summer of 1987.

Throughout the last century Arne's family will have undoubtedly seen significant changes in the ways farming operates, from the methods in which they use to work the land, the birth of mechanisation, to the change in demand from the national and global economy. Small scale farming in many cases has become less economically viable driving people to take on other trades.
The farming of the land used to be more geared towards self-sufficiency with less of a requirement to make money beyond the needs of the family unit.
Farmers needed to make the most of the land they had and this included harvesting the highland, which required intensive labour aided by tools like the Løyperstreng.
Farmers have now developed and machine cultivated the low lands closer to their farms houses so there has become a lesser need to harvest from the highland and thus the Loyperstreng isn’t required anymore.

New problems solved by old methods.
I just read that this summer the farmers on the isle of Harris on the Outer Hebrides in Scotland are starting to redig the peat bogs to fuel their fires in the winter as rising oil prices are taking effect on the island community.

Climate change is the most serious long-term challenge facing the world today, and farmers and other land managers will be one of the first sectors to feel the effects.  
Will we see some of these old tools and methods like the Løyperstreng and Holvold reappear in agriculture? If there becomes a need for farmers and families to move back to a more self-sufficient existence this could easily be the case.
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I would like to thank Ed Hamer and Arne Fykse and Odvin Fykse for thier invaluable help during this project.

Will Foster

Links:

Present and future farming in Norway:
http://www.isgnweb.org/pub/02-009.htm

Gamlastovo Gardsrestaurant
www.gamlastovo.no