Nordic primal stomp

Last night we went to hear two Scandinavian folk rock bands, Hedningarna (The Heathens, a Swedish group) and Valravn (Ravens feasting on dead guys after a battle, a Danish group, drawing on Old Norse for its name.) It is interesting that Old Norse, re-spelled here in Danish, has a concise term for that. (Socio-linguistics tends to say that societies have both short concise terms and very elatorated sets of terms for things that are very important to them. Sandy says this was an important mythic and poetic image in Old Norse.)

This picture of Hedningarna looks like a set of nice folkies with old acoustic instruments, but they had electrified and amplified them to levels Jimi Hendrix or Neil Young would approve of, and proceeded to rock out. Very few vocals, lots of rhythm and beat. Lots of tall white guys with shaved heads were jumping and moshing along. Nordic primal stomp, indeed. Lots of lesbian couples, too. Welcome to modern Scandinavia.

The first act, a lesser known, slightly newer Danish group were not quite as much pure primal stomp, but they rocked pretty hard too, with even more folk based instruments (although you could tell they were adding a lot pre-recorded electronic stuff in the background). They play a lot more traditional ballads from all over Scandinavia, even the Faroe Islands, which have their own dialect, related to Old Norse, and a strong ballad tradition. Great band, sort of in the tradition of Steeleye Span or Fairport Convention, the Brit ancestors or equivalents. But folk rock has been big in Scandinavia for a long time. Sandy has been playing it around the house for a long time. So it is cool to finally get to see some of it on its home ground and begin to hear (or understand) a bit of what they are singing about. (And dead guys on medieval battlefields and dead sheep in fields being contemplated as dinner by ravens is not only the name of the band but in fact a theme that comes up in their music.) They also sing ballads about brothers killing each other, young men being stolen away by elves, young girls being stolen away by pirates. You know, sweet, light pop music.

The music sort of preceded in fact, the current revival of Viking and medieval chic around Scandinavia, with lots of people getting involved in historical re-enactment, more interest in the museums, etc. This second image of Valravn definitely shows the mood they are trying to evoke.

The interest in medieval things is quite exciting. I just hope people don't go over the edge with historical pride in their Viking ancestors. There are some nasty, racialist uses of this kind of imagery and ethnic historical pride. Sandy's department back in Texas periodically gets letters from white guys in prison who want to learn more about Odin, so they can have a proper white guy religion. This is documented in an interesting way in Gods of the Blood by Mattias Gardell, a Swedish anthropologist, who studied white supremacist use of old Norse religion in the USA.