The Settlement and Culture of Iceland
The early medieval manuscripts containing the Eddic poems recorded on
this disc, were found in Iceland, an island first settled by people
from Norway and the other Scandinavian countries during the years
870-930. The unique Icelandic settlement was part of a general movement
that is best known for the Viking raids and the settlement of the
Scandinavians in other parts of the world.
The establishment of the Icelandic parliament (the Alþingi) in
930 gave shape to the pagan society of Iceland in which most people
bore allegiance to the old Scandinavian (or Germanic) gods. The most
famous of these gods are Óðinn (often called Odin) and
Frigg, Þórr (Thor) and Sif, Freyr (Frey) and Freyja. It is
important, however, to understand that the pagan religion of the
Scandinavians was not institutionalised; people were not duty-bound to
have the same beliefs. This religion did not evolve in a centralised
society, but in conditions that make it natural for us to expect wide
variations in beliefs and religious practice between one area and
another, if not between individual family "clans".
The Pagan Religion of the Scandinavians
Any understanding of the Eddic poems demands some knowledge of the Old
Nordic religion. The belief in the Nordic Æsir and Vanir gods is
commonly discussed as if there was some form of standardised state
religion that was followed by all the Scandinavian countries during the
time prior to the Conversion. As mentioned above, this was far from the
case. The gods that were most respected in each area probably varied.
In some places, the highest in rank were the fertility gods, Freyr and
Freyja. There is some evidence to suggest that their main area of
influence was in the eastern part of pagan Scandinavia, possibly mainly
on the fertile plains of Sweden, like Uppland for example. In many
other places, people clearly declared most loyalty to
Þórr, the guardian of the land, who was continuously
defending Cosmos, the dwelling place of human kind and the gods,
against the chaotic powers of Jötunheimr. It is thought by most
scholars that the prudent farmers of Norway in particular placed their
trust in this thunder god. Others, however, were more attracted by the
cunning, worldly appearance of Óðinn, the god of poetry who
had control over magic and other forms of knowledge. It is naturally
tempting to connect this belief with the Viking explorers and
adventurers, and first and foremost with the poets.
The moral code of the pagan Scandinavians was not based on any demands
or laws that had been set by the gods. On the contrary, the individual
bore total responsibility for himself, and in the clan system, this
responsibility extended to include closest relatives, and eventually
went farther and farther. In this way, people gradually began to place
certain controls on human behaviour and set rules that should be
followed.
Religious Practice
It seems clear that special festivals were held in which the gods were
praised or given some reminder of the needs of their charges, and that
at these festivals they were offered sacrifices. Some of the texts of
the Eddic poems appear to be well-suited for performance at religious
ceremonies such as these under discussion here, where they might even
have involved some complex staging. Recent research has given strong
support to the idea that the dialogic poem Skírnismál
(The Lay of Skírnir), for example, is actually a form of play
that was designed for performance at a fertility or sun festival
(probably close to the mid-winter sacrifice). As will be noted further
below, it is easy to imagine conditions in which the other dialogic
poems might have been performed at religious festivals.
A central part of religious practice seems to have been played by
incantation and magic, but it must never be forgotten that at this time
magic was used as much to aid people as it was employed for vengeful
purposes. And magical incantations certainly appear to have been sung
in a special way if we consider the Icelandic expression gala galdr
("to 'crow' magic"). There are very few descriptions of the
commonly-referred-to magic ritual known as seiðr, and
certainly none as striking as that given in Eríks saga
rauða (The Saga of Eiríkr the Red) which tells of a
woman called Þorbjörg who was known as lítilvölva
(the Little Prophetess). This account is particularly detailed and
surprisingly free of prejudice. It was recorded a long time after the
Conversion of Iceland (the oldest manuscript of the saga is from the
fourteenth century), but ideas were obviously still current about the
special role of the so-called seiðkonur (prophetesses). It
is clear that the act of seiðr was regarded as a religious
rite in which people attempted to gain knowledge about the times to
come. There is little question that the Eddic poem Vǫluspá
should be viewed in the context of this rite.
The Prose Edda and the Eddic Poems
In the early thirteenth century, the Icelanders gained a new author and
scholar among their ranks, a man who is still regarded as being one of
the greatest Scandinavian writers. His name was Snorri Sturluson
(1178/79—1241), and he was not only one of the most powerful
leaders in his country, but also the cleverest of historians; a poet
and a scholar of poetry, in addition to being an expert on Old Nordic
mythology. His masterpieces in the field of history and mythology,
known respectively as Heimskringla and Edda (generally
referred to as The Prose Edda), are central works for anyone
trying to understand medieval Scandinavia. The latter work, in
particular, is a key to understanding the pagan beliefs of Scandinavia.
Snorri's Prose Edda is actually a kind of handbook designed to
teach people about the poetic arts of Scandinavia, which, as was
mentioned above, had very ancient roots. In order to understand this
poetry, it was necessary to learn about the pagan beliefs. Snorri
therefore relates a number of myths for his readers, almost all of
which seem to be old. He also cites many ancient poems that have been
passed down for generations in the oral tradition as evidence to
support the things he is saying. Many centuries later, when people
eventually discovered a near contemporary manuscript containing many of
the poems Snorri quotes, they also named this manuscript Edda.
That was a misunderstanding, but the name has stuck, and even today
people refer to these Eddic poems as being a special type of ancient
Scandinavian poetry.
At root, some of these poems are probably much older than the time of
the settlement of Iceland, and it is logical to assume that the
settlers must therefore have brought them to Iceland from Norway or
some other area populated by Scandinavians. As will be stressed further
below, it is pointless trying to make a guess about the moment at which
some poet decided to make the "first draft" of this or that poem. We
have to be satisfied with a different approach. Nonetheless, these
poems were clearly so unique in their subject matter and form that
people found reason to preserve them, and chant them for the coming
generations in order to give some idea of how people used to think and
speak, of how their ancestors understood the world.
The Eddic poems, though, often give very little detail about events of
great consequence, and often help is needed to fill in the gaps. The
information provided by Snorri is often our only key to understanding
the wording of these poems and those myths that they only briefly touch
on. Even though it is difficult to be certain that Snorri is always
telling the complete truth, we would be in a far worse position if his
work did not exist. This applies not only to The Prose Edda,
but also to Ynglinga saga, which forms the first part of
Snorri's work about the Norwegian kings, Heimskringla. Ynglinga
saga tells of the earliest kings of Sweden in prehistoric times,
linking them euhemeristically with the gods, and especially with
Óðinn's who thus becomes the forefather of all the
Scandinavian kings.
The Subject Matter and Classification of the Eddie Poems
In terms of subject matter, the Eddic poems can be divided into two
groups: on one hand, heroic poems, and on the other, mythological poems
about the gods. The former group is a collection of relatively short
historical works dealing with people who are, to some extent,
recognisable from other early Germanic sources. Sigurðr, killer of
the serpent Fáfnir, for example, is really the same figure as
the Siegfried who appears in the Nibelungenlied. Other
recognisable figures from the same geographical area are Guðrun
(Kudrun) and Brynhildr (Brynilde). From elsewhere we recognise Atli the
King of the Huns (Attila), and Jǫrmunrekr, the King of the East-Goths
(Ermanaric). Even though these earthly heroes are all tragic, emotive
figures, they are characterised by a realism that has few contemporary
parallels.
The gods of the poems, on the other hand, are in many ways more
ordinary individuals, and in fact, much more down to earth. The main
figures in this regard are Óðinn and Þórr,
although many other gods make appearances here and there.
The mythological poems can also be divided into two general groups.
First of all, there are the poems of wisdom, which are gnomic,
didactic, even mnemonic pieces. Then there are the narrative works,
which are short accounts dealing with the adventures of the gods.
However, cutting straight across this broad subject classification we
find yet another more stylistic division in which some poems take the
form of pure dialogues, while others have a single speaker.
To some extent this stylistic classification is reminiscent of that
defining the difference between plays and novels. The dialogic works,
like Skírnismál (The Lay of Skírnir), Lokasenna
(The Flyting of Loki), Hárbarðsljóð (The Poem of
Hárbardr) and Baldrs draumar (Baldr's Dreams) all involve more
than one speaker. People address each other, the speaker divisions are
clear, and we even find the speakers displaying individual
characteristics. The staging of these dialogues could have been both
simple and powerful, as the recent dramatic performances of Skírnismál
and Lokasenna in Iceland and elsewhere have shown. These works
contain dramatic tension and little imagination is required to see some
connection with holy rituals or sacrifical ceremonies.
The poems involving a single speaker are somewhat different. Depending
on the circumstances, the speaker recounts events or gives shocking
news to his/her listeners. Once again, as mentioned above, it is
possible to imagine a religious context for the performance of these
poems. This seems particularly obvious in the case of Voluspá
(The Prophecy of the Seeress), for example. The speaker of the
monologue in this case is a woman. She is apparently addressing
Óðinn and her audience in general, the "greater and lesser
descendants of the god Heimdallr", an expression believed by scholars
to refer to all humankind. The woman tells her listeners a story to
which she adds conviction because she is wiser than others, and has
knowledge that is simultaneously exciting and terrifying. In dim light
and flickering shadows (like that which would have existed in any
ancient Icelandic farmhouse in wintertime) the performance of the poem
would have been transformed into a kind of mysterious religious ritual
in which the listeners would have found themselves faced with insight
into ancient and holy mysteries. It can be no coincidence that the poem
should issue from the lips of a woman, the völva (seeress)
herself, who has access to all secret knowledge, has come to visit, and
even has the power to threaten Óðinn by revealing the most
sacred mysteries known to him.
The Preservation of the Eddic Poems
Most of the Eddic poems have been preserved in the early
thirteenth-century manuscript mentioned earlier, which is called the Codex
Regius (The King's Book: Gl. kgl. sml. 2365 4to) now in the care of
the Arnamagnean Institute in Reykjavík. This is the text that
Sequentia has used for the performances of Vǫluspá,
Hávamál and Þrymskviða. Grottasǫngr
(The Song of Grotti), is found only in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda;
and Baldrs draumar is found along with several other Eddic
poems in the AM 748 I, 4to manuscript which is slightly more recent
than the Codex Regius.
The Performance of the Eddic Poems
We know relatively little about how the mythological poems of the
Poetic Edda were performed during the Middle Ages. The account from Eiríks
saga rauda about Þorbjörg the Little Prophetess, noted
earlier, gives a highly tempting picture, but we can never be totally
certain about whether it is wholly trustworthy. It is natural to
conclude that this might have been one form of performance.
Nonetheless, it seems certain that the text of these poems in
performance was far from fixed. Concerning the text, it is naturally
pointless trying to guess the actual degree of freedom that the
original performers would have allowed themselves. It is clear,
however, that once the poems were written down, they probably gradually
gained a kind of stability, a clear shape, meaning that the usual
freedom, originally granted by the oral tradition, was no longer valid.
Nonetheless, we are lucky enough to be able to attain some insight into
the methods employed by the oral performer, partly because of the three
differing versions of Vǫluspá that came to be recorded
on parchment. Each of these versions of the poem must at some time have
been recorded on the basis of an oral performance. Partly for this
reason, there is little point in attempting to use the usual literary
comparative methods in order to try and establish an "original" text
for the poem. Each editor has to choose the version that he/she thinks
best, and most agree that the version contained in the Codex Regius
is more poetic, and to some extent older than that found in Hauksbók.
That is the reason why Sequentia chose to use the version
of Vǫluspá for this disc.
Scattered examples telling of the recital of poems give a clear
indication that the performance of the poetry was different from that
of prose. The poems might not have been "sung" literally, but people
certainly regarded poetry as being a holier form of language than
prose, and felt that the performance should be appropriate for both the
form and its contents.
The language in which the poems have been preserved is Icelandic. Since
Icelandic was originally a western Norwegian dialect, this alone tells
us little about the origin of the poems. However, the conditions in
Iceland are so unusual that changes in the language and thereby also
the declension system between the Middle Ages and our own time have
been relatively limited both as regards prose and poetry. In other
words what was recorded in the Middle Ages might be regarded as being
comparatively easy to read for any relatively literate, intelligent
Icelander in our own time. The actual pronunciation of Icelandic, on
the other hand, has changed greatly since the thirteenth century, not
only with regard to the vowel and consonant systems, but also the rules
governing lengths of vowels which have altered radically. Even though
our source material on these changes is comparatively extensive, a
great deal still remains uncertain. No one alive today could recreate
with any certainty the pronunciation or the poetic rhythm that was used
for the Eddic poems during the first centuries of the Icelandic
settlement.
When considering the performance of the Eddic poems, as Sequentia
have done for this disk, many things need to be borne in mind. The
recreation of probable medieval music and song is one aspect of this
and naturally demands some form of recreated pronunciation. Even though
Icelanders in our own time are used to reading the poems with a modern
Icelandic pronunciation, it would be ridiculous to use a modern
pronunciation for an attempted recreation of the original sound of
poetry. The route chosen was of course just one of many. An attempt was
made to avoid all linguistic changes that are known to have taken place
since the thirteenth century, but for logical reasons, no attempt was
made to guess at the pronunciation and rhythm of the ninth or tenth
century. The basis for the performance is the recorded manuscript-text,
and that is no earlier than from the thirteenth century. It is
therefore totally pointless to try and take the pronunciation of these
poems back beyond that point.
Heimir Pálsson, Iceland, 1998; English translation by Terry Gunnell
The Reconstruction of Eddic Performance
Although we know that medieval epic poetry was the domain of bards and
singers, no written musical sources of the Eddic poems dating
from the Middle Ages are known to exist; indeed, we would have no
reason to expect such sources to have been written at all. The milieu
in which these poems were originally transmitted, sung, and acted out
was that of a uniquely oral culture, and professional minstrels (leikari)
passed on repertoires and techniques from generation to generation
without the hindrance and expense of writing. As is almost always the
case with medieval song, the use of musical notation is linked to the
world of the scriptorium and the noble or ecclesiastical
collector, not to the world of the practicing musician.
We can assume that the performing traditions of the Edda were
probably already in decline by the time the main text manuscript, Codex
Regius, was copied in the late thirteenth century. Given this
situation, how can we possibly reconstruct sung performances of Eddic
poems as they would have been known before the time of Snorri Sturluson
in twelfth-century Iceland?
The earliest witness which we possess to musical settings of poems from
the Edda is an account found in Benjamin de la Bordes Essai
sur la musique ancienne et moderne, published in 1780. Among other
examples (collected by a musician at the Danish Royal Court, Johann
Ernst Hartmann), we find a strophe from the Vǫluspá set to a
simple melody. Unfortunately, we will never know if this melody
represents part of an unrelated Icelandic folk tradition of the 17th
and 18th centuries, or if it indeed survived in this form from its
origins as an oral formula for the vocalization of Eddic poetry.
In searching for paths to the vocalization of these texts, it was
obvious to me that more musical information would be needed than this
scrap of melodic material from the late 18th century, and I decided to
make use of the techniques of "modal language" which Sequentia
has developed over the years in work with medieval song. Briefly, we
identify a mode not as a musical scale, but rather as a collection of
gestures and signs which can be interiorized, varied, combined and used
as a font to create musical "texts" which can be completely new while
possessing the authentic integrity of the original material. But like
the magic mead which gives Óðinn the gift of poetry, this
"modal mead" is a concoction which is both inspiring and dangerous. We
need a strong knowledge of the practice of singing epic poetry as it
still exists in various world cultures to show us how such performances
must be given a form and a soul, to temper the limitless freedom of
modal intoxication.
Having temporarily put aside Monsieur de la Borde, where did I turn
first for the basic ingredients of this modal brew? Iceland, of course.
To give one example: in the sung oral poetry known as rímur—which
in itself is a tradition dating from the late middle ages, but whose
roots may touch much earlier skaldic poetry—I found a vast
repertoire of modal material, which clearly could be grouped into
several types. During our research residency in Reykjavik in May, 1995,
I was graciously permitted to work in the tape archives of the Stofnun
Árna Magnússonar, where I listened to hundreds of
recorded performances of rímur and related song-types,
making notes and analyses of the types and uses of modal materials. The
result of this process of digestion (which included a weeding-out of
obviously later melodic types) was a series of modal vocabularies
grouped by structural "signals", which could then be taught to the
other singers and applied to the metrics of the Eddic texts as taught
to us by the philologist Heimir Pálsson. Everything was learned
in a process very much resembling oral tradition: we have only worked
with our Edda texts and our memories; there were never any
musical scores. And in light of this knowledge, even the melody found
in de la Borde began to make sense. However one chooses to see its
transmission, the fact is that this melody demonstrates characteristics
which point to the use of a specific modal vocabulary consisting of a
few limited elements which are repeated and varied. And so, the
attentive listener might hear its "genetic code" echoed in these
performances, just as an experienced Icelandic rímur-singer
hearing these poems might find at times that some undefinable element
makes him feel he knows the unknown piece being sung.
In cases where two or three singers declaim the same text, different
versions of the modal gestures may sometimes be heard simultaneously,
resulting in a kind of heterophonic texture (verging on improvised
polyphony) typical of traditional musical cultures. We still hear a
vestige of such ancient practices in the traditional two-voiced tvisöngur
sung in Iceland today.
Other aspects of the reconstructive work include a study of Icelandic
sources besides rímur, as well as a study of the ancient
dance-song melodies of the Faroe Islands. As the Edda project continues
in years to come, the research will certainly expand to include sources
from the entire Viking world, with particular emphasis on Finland and
other Baltic countries, as well as Saami lands. Equally important in
these musical reconstructions are the instruments which play
independant pieces and sometimes accompany the vocalists. In the
twelfth century, the two most important European instruments for
courtly entertainment were certainly the fiddle and the harp, although
other types of instruments (for instance, wind and percussion) were
certainly known in popular culture. Elizabeth Gaver explains in a
separate essay about her reconstructions of fiddle music. The harps
which I use in this production are copies from remains of instruments
found in seventh-century germanic burial sites, researched and
reconstructed by Rainer Thurau (Wiesbaden, Germany).
This type of "lyre" would have been known throughout the northern
world, together with the related triangular cithara which we recognize
as the most common harp form. These instruments have very few strings
(the lyre, for instance, has six gut strings), and the tuning systems,
based on medieval theories of consonance, yield a series of basic
intervals which in turn can inform the text being accompanied. The
tuning system of the instrument is closely related to the mode which
the singer has chosen, so that the instrument must be re-tuned to
accompany in a new mode. Regarding playing technique, it hardly needs
stating that an instrument of six strings is not suited to playing
chords and elaborate melodies. Instead, we have here a harp type (such
as is still known in several non-European musical cultures) which has
as its means of expression the use of pattern and variation, and on the
"playing out" of modal vocabularies. Just as the singers rely on a
small repertoire of potent modal gestures for the vocalization of their
texts, the harp makes a virtue of its seeming limitations and, like an
interlaced Viking design, brings a richness of articulation to the
expression of the mode.
Imagining the context of performance
Although it is certain that in ancient oral traditions such as the Edda
represents, pieces were always "vocalized" and even acted out before
gatherings of knowledgable listeners, we are obliged to imagine
performance contexts which were never specifically described by
contemporaries. In our performances, we represent a performing
tradition as it might have existed in both Iceland and Norway (and
perhaps as far afield as the Continent) during the time of Snorri
Sturluson (ca. 1200). The performers themselves are not local farmers,
but rather professional minstrels (Icelandic: leikari),
possibly joined by other Nordic, Celtic or Saxon minstrels who travel
widely in northern lands (which would also account for the use of the
fiddle); and the performance itself could be taking place either in the
dwelling of a powerful Icelandic chieftain or the hall of a Norwegian
lord.
The music and texts they sing represent last vestiges of the ancient
oral traditions of the pre-Christian north, now performed by
specialists in a nominally Christian society which still has strong
links to the archaic world of the myths and the worship of the old gods.
And so, in this recording, the voices can be heard alone, as in parts
of the long visionary tale of the Völva; or the fiddle,
playing solo, can conjure up a world of mythological beings; or the
fiddle accompanies the singers who re-enact the story of
Óðinn's ride into the realm of the dead to question the
seeress about Baldur's death. There are ritualistic moments of mystery:
the singer with his lyre speaking in the voice of Óðinn,
retelling the myth of the runes; or hilarious storytelling, as in the
famous tale—half-spoken and half-sung to lyre
accompaniment—of Thor's vengeful transvestite voyage to the realm
of his enemies, the giants, to recover his stolen hammer. In the story
of Grotti's mill and the two giant slave-girls, the fiddle
provides both the modal fundament as well as the relentless turning of
the millstone; and in the final description of the end of the gods,
Ragnarǫk, all three voices join with the fiddle in a homophonic texture
of visionary terror.
As there are no extant medieval manuscripts containing Nordic
instrumental music, in order to create the fiddle music for this Edda
production I turned to the flourishing folk music tradition in Norway,
both for information and inspiration. It has been my aim to find the
particular aspects in the current folk violin tradition that are
idiomatic to the medieval fiddle as well.
During two research trips to Norway, I was able to explore the hardingfele
tradition, by listening to countless hours of field recordings in the Norsk
Folkemusikk-samling of the University of Oslo, and by meeting with
several well-known performers and teachers, in Oslo, Valdres, and the Ole
Bull Akademie in Voss.
The hardingfele is essentially a violin with the addition of
four or five resonance strings running under the fingerboard. The body
of the hardingfele is highly arched, and the bridge is nearly
flat, allowing the player to easily bow two or even three strings at
once. The characteristic sound of the instrument depends on its
resonance, which is enhanced by the use of open tunings similar to
those used on medieval fiddles. Although the hardingfele
originates in the seventeenth century, there are aspects of the music
itself that could be part of a much older tradition. Many dance tunes,
or slatter, are clearly Baroque in nature, with triadic
melodies and regular phrase structures. Other slatter, however,
have characteristics in common with much earlier musical forms. They
are constructed from short melodic motives that are varied and repeated
during the tune, often resulting in uneven phrase lengths and a certain
ambiguity in the beginnings and endings of phrases. Although these
tunes are passed from teacher to student through generations, remaining
unchanged in essence, there is also room for improvisation according to
the style of each player. There is often an interaction between the
player and dancers, and the dance gains in intensity and excitement as
phrases spin out endlessly, strong bow articulations are used, and
upper and lower bourdons are added.
The hardingfele is also used occasionally to accompany songs,
or to play an ornamented version of a song alone. It is in this
repertoire that one hears quite clearly the use of unfamiliar scales
with various neutral tones. Most commonly, the placement of the third
and seventh tones of the scale results in intervals that are between
major and minor, giving a very particular coloration to the melody.
The three medieval fiddles used in this production are typical
instruments of twelfth-and thirteenth-century Europe. Unlike
instruments of the modern violin family, the bodies and necks of these
fiddles are carved from single blocks of wood. This simple
construction, often with no additional soundpost, results in a clear,
highly resonant tone quality. The tunings of the gut strings used here
are characteristic of the medieval period with open intervals of
fourths and fifths resulting in a resonant tone quality enhanced by the
frequent use of bourdon strings.
The fiddle pieces created for this production incorporate many aspects
of hardingfele repertoire and playing style. Some are rhythmic
and dance-like in character, while others are meditative and lyrical.
The melodic motives are derived from the Icelandic rímur
tradition, from the ballad tradition of the Faroe Islands, or are
simply idiomatic to the instruments themselves.
