The fiddler they had at Svartsjö he did not care to engage. His name was Jan Öster. The Juryman knew, to be sure, that he had quite a big name; but he was so poor that sometimes he would appear at a wedding in a frayed jacket and without shoes to his feet. The Juryman didn't wish to see such a ragtag at the head of the bridal procession, so he decided to send a messenger to a musician in Jösse parish, who was commonly called Fiddler Mårten, and ask him if he wouldn't come and play at the wedding.
Fiddler Mårten didn't consider the proposition for a second, but promptly replied that he did not want to play at Svartsjö, because in that parish lived a musician who was more skilled than all others in Vermland. While they had him, there was no need for them to call another.
When Nils Olafsson received this answer, he took a few days to think it over, and then he sent word to a fiddler in Big Kil parish, named Olle in Säby, to ask him if he wouldn't come and play at his daughter's wedding.
Olle in Säby answered in the same way as Fiddler Mårten. He sent his compliments to Nils Olafsson, and said that so long as there was such a capable musician as Jan Öster to be had in Svartsjö, he didn't want to go there to play.
Nils Olafsson didn't like it that the musicians tried in this way to force upon him the very one he did not want. Now he considered that it was a point of honor with him to get another fiddler than Jan Öster.
A few days after he had the answer from Olle in Säby, he sent his servant to fiddler Lars Larsson, who lived at the game lodge in Ullerud parish. Lars Larsson was a well-to-do man who owned a fine farm. He was sensible and considerate and no hotspur, like the other musicians. But Lars Larsson, like the others, at once thought of Jan Öster, and asked how it happened that he was not to play at the wedding.
Nils Olafsson's servant thought it best to say to him that, since Jan Öster lived at Svartsjö, they could hear him play at any time. As Nils Olafsson was making ready to give a grand wedding, he wished to treat his guests to something a little better and more select.
"I doubt if you can get any one better," said Lars Larsson.
"Now you must be thinking of answering in the same way as fiddler Mårten and Olle in Säby did," said the servant. Then he told him how he had fared with them.
Lars Larsson paid close attention to the servant's story, and then he sat quietly for a long while and pondered. Finally he answered in the affirmative: "Tell your master that I thank him for his invitation and will come."