From the local newspaper Sunnmørsposten (smp.no) today (Google Translation):
Was the Swede drunk as well?
Why is the Knife the wrong way?
The knife at Aksla has piloted seafarers for over 150 years, been a tourist attraction and a beloved landmark. But why is the knife upside down? Was the Swede who set it up drunk?
- He, he, he, he. Wrong way? I’ve never thought about that. If the Swede was drunk as well? That’s not easy to say. But that is a good question, laughs historian Ivar Gunnar Braaten, senior adviser at Stiftinga Sunnmøre Museum.
For of all the strange things one can think about, is that a knife “normally” would have the handle attached to the knife blade at the top and not at the bottom . The landmark “Knife” has the handle at the bottom, as if the knife cuts into the thin air. It’s a little weird ?, we try.
- Stately cultural monument
- But the Knife is at least a stately cultural monument, and before that the seafarer and others informed about the wind direction. But that the Knife is upside down, I have never thought of that. The name Kniven is probably something that came up later, because it was probably referred to as the “wind arrow” to begin with. “The knife” I think is a more popular expression that came up later, says Braaten.
The wind vane / wind arrow The knife has survived most of the weather, wind fire and bomb attacks for over a century and a half. It was Byselskapet that financed the wind arrow.
According to city historian Harald Grytten (Byvandring, volume 4), it was set up either in 1862 or 1867. This is based on two different articles in Sunnmørsposten in 1917 and in 1948. Unfortunately, the City Society’s protocols from this time are gone, so historians have not been able to time. with certainty what year the wind vane came up.
Spit on the finger
The idea for the design of the Knife came from optician Nils Svabø (1835-1912). Svabø was used to designing compasses and other navigation equipment for fishermen and seafarers. It is said that he got the idea when he saw the fishermen in the city used to spit on a finger and hold it up in the air, to check the wind direction. Optician Svabø then thought that a wind direction indicator in a high and visible place had to be more reliable, and started the project.
Drunk, Swedish stonemason
- For assembly, he received help from a Swedish stonemason. It is said that the Swede must have been of the drunken kind. He therefore had to promise in good faith that he would stay sober during the assembly work with the Knife. That the assembly took place without a single skew occurring in either the rod, stay or wind arrow, indicates that he kept his word.
This is what Braaten writes in the blog Aalesund- og Borgundberetninger (2012), a blog with local history infested with visuals and an appropriate dose of nostalgia.
After the job was done, the Swedish stonemason is said to have become an abstainer.
Then came the Germans
But after delving a bit around history and whether the landmark is potentially incorrectly mounted upside down, which the story does not in any way suggest, there are still several events that may have been recorded.
- But the wind vane / wind arrow was dismantled and taken down by the Germans during World War II, Braaten points out.
So if one is to blame someone for possible incorrect installation, then it is conceivable that the Swede is completely innocent.
Set up again
If you read more from Harald Grytten’s urban history, Kniven was preserved after the occupiers had taken it down. After the war, it was driven up again on Aksla, to its old place, reinforced and equipped with a new ball bearing.
Whether the Knife is upside down, or it is actually the way it should be, we do not have the upper hand. Perhaps the most important thing, however, is that the arrow points in the right direction. Maybe you can check it next time you look at it?
Cultural monument:The knife at Aksla. The photo was taken in 1983. PHOTO: STIFTELSEN SUNNMØRE MUSEUM
Ålesund:The knife at Aksla today. PHOTO: MONA SKJONG
