"fame never dies!": the Hávamál as song.

While listening to Nancy Farmer's The Sea Of Trolls, reader Gerard Doyle does something few audiobook performers ever do: he sings!

[photo illustration only, not actually the book's Vikings nor Gerard Doyle -- it's singers from Shetland's Up Helly Aa fire festival.]

At a certain juncture in the book the Viking raiders (who show up to claim the young bardic protagonist as a thrall) start to sing an adorned version of the Hávamál's oft-quoted stanzas 77 & 78, the in-context sample of which NorsePlay presents to you here:



That lilting/rising ramped up end-delivery's an awkwardly curious stylistic choice, but functionally the after text makes one wonder if the idea of offering ritual song up to the Gods could've been presented by some just so? There's been some suppositions made in Norse Studies about performance (see the work of the amazing Professor of Folkloristics Terry Gunnell and noted deeply before him scholar Dame Bertha Philpotts), and that includes the idea of music & song being part of that.

Anyhow, go Hávamál-oke this, you gullraddaðr NorsePlayers! 🎤

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Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants at age seven. Since then he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the Map of Midgard project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay. If you have employment/opportunities in investigative mythology,  field research, or product development to offer, do contact him.