Legends and Landscape 2: Darradarljod
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| Burial Mound at Camster, Caithness |
Caithness and its coastline make several appearances in Norse sagas and Eddic poetry : the Orkneyinga Saga details the history and legends of the Earldom of Orkney, of which Caithness was a part until 1331. Darradarljod (Darraðarljóð) is an epic piece of prose in the Eddic tradition which features in Njal's Saga. The grisly tale is told of a warrior, Darrad (also referred to as Dorrud), who watched 12 riders enter a mound in Caithness, but not return. Upon approach to the mound entrance, Darrad sees that the riders are 12 valkyries, warrior maidens. The Valkyries are weaving upon a loom whilst singing - they are controlling the fates of the men fighting in the Battle of Clontarf in Ireland. The horrific loom is constructed using the guts of men as the thread, their heads as weights, a sword as a shuttle and an arrow as a beater.
Wide is cast
for the falling of the slain
The loom-beam's swung cloud;
Blood rains;
now before the spears
is come up the grey
weaving of mankind,
when those friendly women
fulfil with red thread
Randver's fate.
That weaving is cast
with the guts of men
and hard-weighted
with the heads of men;
blood-spattered javelins are used as the beams,
iron-clad is the frame,
but beaten with arrows;
we must strike with swords
this weaving of victory.
(Translation -Judith Jesch, The Triumph Tree)
In the summer of 2016, I (literally) stumbled across a workshop event at the Caithness Viking Festival held in Thurso: Icelandic textile artist Kristín Ragna Gudmundsdottír was creating scenes from Darraðarljóð as part of the ongoing Njalurfill ( Njal's Saga Tapestry) project in Hvolsvöllur. The project, due for completion at the end of this year, uses local volunteer embroiderers to sew the designs in Bayeux stitch on to a canvas that will eventually be around 90m long. (https://www.njalurefill.is/about-the-njala-tapestry)
In the summer of 2016, I (literally) stumbled across a workshop event at the Caithness Viking Festival held in Thurso: Icelandic textile artist Kristín Ragna Gudmundsdottír was creating scenes from Darraðarljóð as part of the ongoing Njalurfill ( Njal's Saga Tapestry) project in Hvolsvöllur. The project, due for completion at the end of this year, uses local volunteer embroiderers to sew the designs in Bayeux stitch on to a canvas that will eventually be around 90m long. (https://www.njalurefill.is/about-the-njala-tapestry)
My unexpected sketching excursion produced this:
Hopefully immortalised in silk soon!
The motif of the severed head is common in both Celtic and Norse folklore - interestingly, Walsh, in his paper The Sagas of Iceland and Ireland- Literary Influence (see Reading Lists and References), suggests that the Irish poetic tradition predates the Icelandic Eddas by several centuries, and that, given that the tradition is not found in other early European literature, the similarities between the two cultures cannot be coincidental. It is a possibility that Irish folklore may have found its way to Iceland around the time of its settlement in the late 9th century, via peripatetic Christian missionaries and the substantial Irish slave population. This folklore then found its way back to Norse Scotland via Shetland, Orkney and Caithness.
The legend of the Loom was later used as the basis for Thomas Gray's (1716-71) The Fatal Sisters: an Ode - the full text can be found here: http://www.orkneyjar.com/tradition/fatalsisters.htm
Sir Walter Scott recounted, after a visit to Orkney in 1814, that elderly locals with a knowledge of the Norn language recognised the subject matter of Gray's poem as one already known in their native folklore.
I took this irresistibly Gothic prose as the seed material for Darrad's Loom: this is currently in instrumental form, but will hopefully develop into a song if I am able to take the Eddic poem and turn some of it into ballad form. I listened to recordings of old hand looms to get a feel for the percussive rhythm of the machine, which is then used to form the basis of the opening riff. This is juxtaposed against a syncopated minor chord progression. The overall feel of the tune seems to be heading towards more of a rock/alternative direction than pure folk- there is also the possibility of adding some electro-acoustic or sampled elements to the work. Watch this space.....
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| (One of the Valkyries tearing the woven cloth, each part representing the fate of one of the Battle's warriors) |
The motif of the severed head is common in both Celtic and Norse folklore - interestingly, Walsh, in his paper The Sagas of Iceland and Ireland- Literary Influence (see Reading Lists and References), suggests that the Irish poetic tradition predates the Icelandic Eddas by several centuries, and that, given that the tradition is not found in other early European literature, the similarities between the two cultures cannot be coincidental. It is a possibility that Irish folklore may have found its way to Iceland around the time of its settlement in the late 9th century, via peripatetic Christian missionaries and the substantial Irish slave population. This folklore then found its way back to Norse Scotland via Shetland, Orkney and Caithness.
The legend of the Loom was later used as the basis for Thomas Gray's (1716-71) The Fatal Sisters: an Ode - the full text can be found here: http://www.orkneyjar.com/tradition/fatalsisters.htm
Sir Walter Scott recounted, after a visit to Orkney in 1814, that elderly locals with a knowledge of the Norn language recognised the subject matter of Gray's poem as one already known in their native folklore.
I took this irresistibly Gothic prose as the seed material for Darrad's Loom: this is currently in instrumental form, but will hopefully develop into a song if I am able to take the Eddic poem and turn some of it into ballad form. I listened to recordings of old hand looms to get a feel for the percussive rhythm of the machine, which is then used to form the basis of the opening riff. This is juxtaposed against a syncopated minor chord progression. The overall feel of the tune seems to be heading towards more of a rock/alternative direction than pure folk- there is also the possibility of adding some electro-acoustic or sampled elements to the work. Watch this space.....
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