Kravik is in Nore, on Kravikfjorden, a little over a kilometer from Kjøntveit. It was split early into Nordre and Søre Kravik, north and south, and later a Mellom, a middle farm, as well. Søre Kravik's yard sat lower, nearer the water.
The lyre
Sometime in the middle of the 1800s a small pine lyre turned up at Kravik, about 72 centimeters long and 27 wide. It went to the University's collection of antiquities in 1864 and is now in Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo, known as the Kravik lyre. For a long time it was dated to the 1300s.
Then the wood was radiocarbon dated. The tree it came from was felled between 1475 and 1633, most likely between 1556 and 1633. So it's not a medieval instrument after all. The article that redated it is titled "Europe's youngest surviving lyre."
Who played it at Kravik, nobody knows. People still play copies. In July 2025 there was a lecture and concert about it, outdoors, at Mellom Kravik.
The legend
Henrik Kravik told this one, and the Numedalslaget in America printed it in its yearbook for 1917. It's a legend, not a family memory.
At Kravik in the old days the underground folk came every Christmas Eve, crowds of them. So every Christmas the household packed up and moved to the summer farm, and stayed until after Twelfth Night, when the visitors were gone.
One Christmas Eve a traveler stopped and asked for a bed. The farmer and his wife told him the truth: they couldn't give him one if they wanted to, because they were leaving themselves, to get out of the way. He said if they'd just let him stay, he'd take his chances. They let him, and told him he was in for a rough night.
When they'd gone and it was getting dark, he loaded his gun with a big silver button and hid in a closed-in bed in the main room.
Soon they came, so many that the big room nearly filled. They laid the table with the finest Christmas food and sat down along the long table, with a dignified old fellow in the high seat. When it was time to pour the Christmas dram, the steward said, "I suppose I'll pour for old Trond first."
"I'll pour for old Trond," said the man in the bed, and fired.
There was a scream, the old one went down, and the whole company vanished. Kravik never had trouble with the underground folk again.
Kari's family
Paul Larsen of Kjøntveit married Kari Halvorsdatter of Kravik in 1721, the farm history says, and that is how Kravik comes into the family. The records confirm Kari as Paul's wife. Who her parents were rests on the farm histories so far.
It makes her the daughter of Halvor Stenersen of Søre Kravik, lensmannlensmann A Norwegian rural official, usually one of the district's farmers, who served as sheriff. He assisted the bailiff and the court, witnessed probate, and made arrests. All the words, the district's sheriff, in Nore from 1693, and Helga Torsteinsdotter, from Kopseng in Eggedal. They had six children: Ambjør, Halvor, Stener, Kari, Christi, and probably an Ole. In 1723 Søre Kravik kept a horse, three cows, a heifer, a calf, six sheep and six goats, with a summer farm and timber for the house.
The Eggedal farm history, from 1954, tells it from the other end. Among the five children of Torstein Aslesen and Åse Halvorsdatter of Kopseng it lists Helge, "married to Halvor Steinarsen Kravik in Nore," and says Torstein lent his son-in-law 100 riksdalerdaler The silver money Norway counted in before the krone of 1875: the riksdaler, and from 1816 the speciedaler. In the 1830s a farm in Veggli sold for a few hundred speciedaler. All the words in 1698, with Kravik as the security. Torstein, like Lars at Hvåle, was the man who found horses for official travelers, from 1663. Two books agreeing isn't a record, and the Nore author may have read the Eggedal one. The 1698 loan, if it turns up, should say more.
Halvor died in 1724, at seventy-seven, the farm history says. On July 9, 1725, his widow and children met to divide the estate. Young Halvor got Søre Kravik and paid sixty riksdaler to his sisters Ambjør and Kari. Stener got Kverndalen and paid forty to Christi, the youngest. Her share came with three cows, a calf, nine sheep and goats, bedding, linens and pottery, to make her even with the older sisters, who'd had theirs when they married. Helga could live on Søre Kravik as long as she liked, and her sons were to look after her properly. Everyone shook hands and thanked each other for a fair division. She died in 1741, at eighty-seven.
The 1725 agreement itself hasn't been found yet. When it is, it should settle whether Kari was one of those sisters.
Later
The name comes back in the 1800s. Sigrid Tollefsdatter, born in 1846, was a niece of Kari Tollefsdatter of Kjøntveit, the fiddler Steinar's wife. She was living on Kravik in 1900, the tree says, and died there in 1933.
Who lived here
born or died at Kravik · a pale bar is a life whose start isn’t recorded
Show them as a list, with what puts each of them here
- Sigrid Tollefsdatter 1846–1933 · died here; lived here
The records
- 1695–1697. The Kjøntveit–Kravik boundary, settled between Sten Kravik and Lars of Hvåle: on the Kjøntveit page.
- 1741. Kari Halvorsdatter's estate, March 4. Probate register 5B, folios 576b–577a: the page.
The lyre: Norsk Folkemuseum, NF.1904-0194, its catalog entry, citing Bjørn Aksdal and Sverre Heimdal, "Europas yngste bevarte lyre," Folkemusikk 2017/1, pp. 68–72. The 2025 concert: Fortidsminneforeningen.
The legend: "Haugetyet på Kravik," told by Henrik Kravik, Aarbok for Numedalslaget no. 3 (1917), as reprinted by Numedalslaget in Oslo in December 1976, pp. 10–11: the reprint.
Kopseng: Andreas Mørch, Sigdal og Eggedal, vol. 3, Gard og slekt (1954), p. 915, at the National Library.
The farm history: T. K. Loftsgard, Nore–Uvdal i forn og nye, part 1, vol. 3, pp. 1232–1237, at the National Library.