Hummel collection in Musik- och Teatermuseet in Stockholm

The Stockholm Music and Theatre Museum is part of The Swedish National Collections of Music together with The Music and Theatre Library of Sweden and The Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research -Sibyllegatan 2, Box 16326, 103 26 Stockholm 08- 519 554 90 museum@musikmuseet.se

Pix of a dozen to two dozen (I didn't count 'em) hummels in the museum. Says the introductory paragraph:

The Swedish hummel is played with a plectrum or with the fingers.
It is also called långspel or långharpa (cf. the Norweigian langeleik).
It probably got its name from the German word Hummel (bumblebee) – maybe referring to the instrument’s “buzzing” tone. The hummel has 1-4 melody strings and a varying number of sympathetic strings." Most of them are from Småland or southern Sweden, most half-pear shaped.

Hummel is discussed in The Hawaiian steel guitar and its great Hawaiian musicians By Lorene Ruymar, Hawaiian Steel Guitar Association ... on Google Books on pages 20 and 21 ... quotes Hortense Panum ... mentions Otto AMalmberg ... unsourced but very likely accurate: "The strings of the zither were not raised and in Scandinavian countries the string pitch was usually changed by the player stopping them against the fret with the fingers of the left hand, not by sliding an object over them." on p. 21

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Stig WALIN, Die Schwedische Hummel. Stockholm, Nordiska Museet Handlingar : 43., 1952

Die schwedische Hummel
eine instrumentenkundliche Untersuchung.
Published 1952 by Nordiska Museet in Stockholm .
Written in German.
Edition Notes
German text.

Series NordiskaMuseets Handlingar -- 43

http://openlibrary.org/works/OL10562117W/Die_schwedische_Hummel