Þrymskviða - Old Norse Song

Music and vocals by Farya Faraji. The Þrymskviða is a poem from the Poetic Edda, an especially comedic one dealing with the disappearance of Thor’s hammer, and his quest with Loki to find it, which leads him to dressing up as a bride with the latter to infiltrate the assembly of Jötnar who stole his hammer. See Jackson Crawford’s excellent summary and translation of the poem here: I used the reconstructed Old Norse pronunciation as described by Jackson Crawford—please note that this means it will sound unlike most readings of the poem which use modern Icelandic pronunciation. It’s a common convention to use the latter since it’s phonology changed the least from Old Norse, however it isn’t the same. Whilst the Norse (more specifically the Vikings) are more popular than ever in pop culture, and Norse-themed music is everywhere, almost all of that music is creative in nature and doesn’t seek to be historically accurate--the current audience is therefore inundated with tons of examples of very enjoyable music that is more modern and fantastical in nature than historically accurate. I wanted to add my humble contribution to the Norse-music landscape by providing a more historically informed example of what the actual music of the Norse may have sounded like, rather than music that evokes our modern pop culture idea of the Vikings like with the excellent Wardruna or Heilung bands. The first step was to do away with the typical dark, gloomy sound now associated with “Viking music;“ there is no reason nor historical indication that would lead us to believe that Norse music was fundamentally dark-sounding, and very light, happy-sounding tunes would probably have been part of their musical palette. I also didn’t use throat singing as there’s absolutely no evidence whatsoever towards the usage of it by the Norse, see my discussion video on the subject: I used a typical lyre of the region and era, drums, a jaw-harp and both wooden and bone flutes. All of these are attested historically for the Norse, although the degree to which their percussions were complex and heavily used in unkown. I also used a Byzantine lyra. The tagelharpa is often used as the go-to bowed lyre for Norse-themed music, however its earliest attestations are centuries after the Viking period, and bowed instruments are not conclusively known to have existed then in Scandinavia. I therefore used the Byzantine lyra given that extensive contact between the Norse and the Eastern Romans is known, and its possible that they first encountered bowed instruments from the Mediterranean cultures using them. What is also unkown is their melodies: I decided to go with a probable option which is the Dorian minor mode. The Norse’s ancestors had lived in frequent contact with the Classical World of Antiquity where such heptatonic modes were common, and looking at Norse clothing and other cultural aspects, it’s clear that they weren’t as isolated from Europe as our romanticised ideas may want them to be, so I believe it likely that they utilised the typical heptatonic modes found in Europe in the early Middle-Ages. I built the melody so that the first syllable of every word would be accented as much as possible to respect Norse’s prosody. Lyrics: Vreiðr var þá Vingþórr er hann vaknaði ok síns hamars of saknaði, skegg nam at hrista, skor nam at dýja, réð Jarðar burr um at þreifask. Fló þá Loki, - fjaðrhamr dunði, - unz fyr útan kom ása garða ok fyr innan kom jotna heima. Ek hef Hlórriða hamar of folginn átta rostum fyr jorð neðan; hann engi maðr aftr of heimtir, nema færi mér Freyju at kvæn. Þá kvað þat Heimdallr, hvítastr ása, vissi hann vel fram sem vanir aðrir: Bindum vér Þór þá brúðar líni, hafi hann it mikla men Brísinga. Þá kvað Loki Laufeyjar sonr: Mun ek ok með þér ambótt vera, vit skulum aka tvær í Jotunheima. English translation: Wroth then was Wingthor awakening, To find missing Miolnir, his hammer. He shook his beard and shaggy head: The son of Earth sought how to find it. Flew then Loki, feathercoat rustling, Until he was out of the Ases’ court And was far within the Iotons’ home. “I have reward worth my labor. Thrym has thy hammer, Thurses’ ruler; And such no one shall see again, Save he first bring him Freyja to wife.“ Then said Heimdall, whitest of Ases, Of the future aware as were the Vanir, Let us bind then Thor, in bridal linen. Let him bear the famed, Brisinga necklace Said then Loki, son of Laufey: “I’ll also go to act as maid, We two girls journey to the giant’s home.”