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- Jan 7, 2003
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- 1,131
When I was a kid growing up in the large woods just beneath the mountains there vere still old men from the old times alive. They have earned their living in the woods. Living in cabins whole winters logging, far from home, or during the summer working with following the timber downstreem the big flods. They often had small farms that also required hard work. They had a few cows and hens and mabye if they were wealthy even a horse. The familys were big and money was scarce. My grandfather now soon to be 98 years old is the last living of them.
This was men who mastered their few working tools. Logsaws with double handles, big axes, shovels, boats and timberhooks, and also knifes.
I almost never saw them without a knife and it was always a reed handle (or used to be reedhandle) mora knife. The realy old knifes hadent the reed handle just plain birch. Anyway most of them was brownish after use in the nature with much kontakt with blood, fat, and water. They stuck to the standard size of 11 cm klade and 11 cm handle, and had fibre sheats as this was before the plastic sheat times. Often the blades was bouth thinner and shorter due to the use of the handdriven grinding wheels. The sharpening stones of sandstone was always close by. Its hard to me to tell if they only had one knife each or if it was a few, as the knifes all looked the same.
In the days I knew them they were elderly men with time for drinking coffee and talking about older times. Mostly they talked about horses or cabins in the forest or historys from forestworking, hunting and fishing but I remember them talk about knifes also.
One can think that they must have agreed about the best knife as their knifes looked so close to eathother but I can tell you they diskussed lively about it. It was all about the blades, all of them agreed that laminated steel was the best but was it Eriksson, Frost or Jönsson that was the masters of lamination?
My grandfather thought Frost was the best (and he still does), FallJohan thought as him, The legendary hunter and worker Zakarias, strong as an ox and 2 meters tall,was all in for Eriksson and so was my grandfathers brother Olof, and the brothers Rönning, Olle and Theodor, was strongly for Jönsson. Walter Swedlund, that as a old man drowe my schoolbus was a odd man in the bunch, He had a shorter (mabye 8 cm) reed handle Frost and thought that a shorter blade was usable. he was the only one that didnt think 10-11 cm was the real size for a real knife. I have seen a few knifes that belonged to them that arent traditional moraknifes but I never saw tham carry their nicer knifes. For ex Theodor Rönning had a very nice knife with a silver sheath and curly birch handle. He got it from his mother when he turned 50 and even though he lived to be more than 85 years old it nowadays rests unused as new in his brothers sons livingroom as one of the heirlooms of long gone times. I belive though I have the real treasure as Im the one having his old Jönsson Mora that he actually carried for a lot of his older days. And what a knife, Its knifes like this thats makes legends of the past.
Bosse
This was men who mastered their few working tools. Logsaws with double handles, big axes, shovels, boats and timberhooks, and also knifes.
I almost never saw them without a knife and it was always a reed handle (or used to be reedhandle) mora knife. The realy old knifes hadent the reed handle just plain birch. Anyway most of them was brownish after use in the nature with much kontakt with blood, fat, and water. They stuck to the standard size of 11 cm klade and 11 cm handle, and had fibre sheats as this was before the plastic sheat times. Often the blades was bouth thinner and shorter due to the use of the handdriven grinding wheels. The sharpening stones of sandstone was always close by. Its hard to me to tell if they only had one knife each or if it was a few, as the knifes all looked the same.
In the days I knew them they were elderly men with time for drinking coffee and talking about older times. Mostly they talked about horses or cabins in the forest or historys from forestworking, hunting and fishing but I remember them talk about knifes also.
One can think that they must have agreed about the best knife as their knifes looked so close to eathother but I can tell you they diskussed lively about it. It was all about the blades, all of them agreed that laminated steel was the best but was it Eriksson, Frost or Jönsson that was the masters of lamination?
My grandfather thought Frost was the best (and he still does), FallJohan thought as him, The legendary hunter and worker Zakarias, strong as an ox and 2 meters tall,was all in for Eriksson and so was my grandfathers brother Olof, and the brothers Rönning, Olle and Theodor, was strongly for Jönsson. Walter Swedlund, that as a old man drowe my schoolbus was a odd man in the bunch, He had a shorter (mabye 8 cm) reed handle Frost and thought that a shorter blade was usable. he was the only one that didnt think 10-11 cm was the real size for a real knife. I have seen a few knifes that belonged to them that arent traditional moraknifes but I never saw tham carry their nicer knifes. For ex Theodor Rönning had a very nice knife with a silver sheath and curly birch handle. He got it from his mother when he turned 50 and even though he lived to be more than 85 years old it nowadays rests unused as new in his brothers sons livingroom as one of the heirlooms of long gone times. I belive though I have the real treasure as Im the one having his old Jönsson Mora that he actually carried for a lot of his older days. And what a knife, Its knifes like this thats makes legends of the past.
Bosse
