A Return to Orality: Reciting the 'Saga', #1

 Recent tutorial discussions having inspired me to try reciting - performing - some of the Saga, earlier tonight I gave it a go. Four passages, of varying length and dramatic import, were tested out, to see how they might be presented in a live, public-facing environment. 

So here follows a short reading of the 'Song of Haeleth of the Dawn's Light', which I think is my favourite 'poem-within-the-poem' if only for its deeply sincere elegaic tone, and the fact it was inspired by a Celtic, rather than Germanic, source - in which an elegy is sung for a brave swordswoman of the Ylfu people, Haeleth. Her vengeful sister, Gwearyffeth, has more than a hint of Gwalchmai (the Welsh prototype of Sir Gawain) about her. Inspired by the 12th Century Welsh bardic song 'The Killing of Hywel ab Owein' (Peryf ap Cedifor, 1170):


And now for the beginning of the whole thing...


 

In classic Old English formulaic fashion, the story begins not with the central character, but an account of an ancient ancestor, from olden days (cf. 'Beowulf' - wherein the first hero we hear of is Scyld, the founder of the Scylding dynasty, and his glorious deeds of yore). In this case a shamanic nomad who would later find himself a god...and whose influence upon the whole story may be greater than first appears. In a sense, the 'deconstruction' (dismemberment) of this character, Hrefni, is repeated across the physical text, and the whole exhibition presentation, itself. Thanks to Jacques Derrida for that inspiration...


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