''Darraðarljóð'' is a

skald A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditional ...

ic poem in

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

found in chapter 157 of ''

Njáls saga ''Njáls saga'' ( ), also ''Njála'' ( ), ''Brennu-Njáls saga'' ( ) or ''"The Story of Burnt Njáll"'', is a thirteenth-century Icelandic saga that describes events between 960 and 1020. The saga deals with a process of blood feuds in the ...

''. The song, which is seen in a vision by a man named Dorrud, the song consists of 11 stanzas, and within it twelve :valkyries weave and choose who is to be slain at the

Battle of Clontarf The Battle of Clontarf ( ga, Cath Chluain Tarbh) took place on 23 April 1014 at Clontarf, near Dublin, on the east coast of Ireland. It pitted an army led by Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, against a Norse-Irish alliance comprising the for ...

(fought outside

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

in 1014). Their

loom A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but t ...

uses human entrails as warp and woof, swords as treadles, an arrow as the batten and men's heads as weights. Of the twelve valkyries weaving, six of their names are given:

Hildr In Norse mythology, Hildr ( Old Norse "battle"Orchard (1997:192).) is a valkyrie. Hildr is attested in the '' Prose Edda'' as Högni's daughter and Hedin's wife in the '' Hjaðningavíg''. She had the power to revive the dead in battlefields ...

, Hjörþrimul, Sanngriðr, Svipul, Guðr, and Göndul. Stanza 9 of the song reads:

:Now awful it is to be without, :as blood-red rack races overhead; :is the welkin gory with warriors' blood :as we valkyries war-songs chanted.Hollander (1980:68).

At the end of the poem, the valkyries sing "start we swiftly with steeds unsaddled—hence to battle with brandished swords!" The poem may have influenced the concept of the

Three Witches The Three Witches, also known as the Weird Sisters or Wayward Sisters, are characters in William Shakespeare's play ''Macbeth'' (c. 1603–1607). The witches eventually lead Macbeth to his demise, and they hold a striking resemblance to the ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's ''

Macbeth ''Macbeth'' (, full title ''The Tragedie of Macbeth'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those w ...

''.Simek (2007:57). Darrað or Dorrud's vision is located in

Caithness Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded ...

and the story is a "powerful mixture of Celtic and Old Norse imagery".

In popular culture

Einar Selvik Einar Selvik (born 18 November 1979), also known by his stage name Kvitrafn ("white raven"), is a Norwegian musician known for being the drummer in the black metal band Gorgoroth from 2000 to 2004, and for fronting the Nordic folk project War ...

and Trevor Morris used stanzas from Darraðarljóð in the opening battle in season 2 of

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

. Darraðarljóð was set to music by the Icelandic composer Jón Leifs in 1964 (Op.60). It was composed for mixed chorus and orchestra. To date it remains unperformed.Ingólfsson 2019

Notes

References

* Crawford, Barbara E. (1987) ''Scandinavian Scotland''. Leicester University Press. * Hollander, Lee Milton (1980). ''Old Norse Poems: The Most Important Nonskaldic Verse Not Included in the Poetic Edda''. Forgotten Books. * Ingólfsson, Árni Heimir (2019) ''Jón Leifs and the Musical Invention of Iceland''. Indiana University Press * Simek, Rudolf (2007) translated by Angela Hall. ''Dictionary of Northern Mythology''. D.S. Brewer

External links

Darraðarljóð
in Old Norse from «Kulturformidlingen norrøne tekster og kvad» Norway.
Translation of the relevant part of Njal's saga
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darradarljod Skaldic poems