Goldeneye Theme Song
The Edda is a poetic anthology filled with the myths and legends which lay at the heart of Iceland's cultural heritage.
The etymology of the word 'Edda' has been a topic of much debate. Jakob Grimm's pituresque notion of the word stemming from 'great-grandmother' may conjure up an idyllic scene of the 'ancestral mother' passing on the tales of 'the hoary past' to the children of Iceland but it is not believed to be an accurate translation. Current scholars hold to Arni Magnusson's theory that 'Edda' translates as 'soulful utterance'.
However before the Edda were recorded in manuscripts in the 13th Century the stories were passed on from one generation to the next by oral tradition. A large portion of the Edda can be found in the Codex Regius (King's Book) compiled by Snorri Sturlson, a 13th Century Icelandic historian, mythographer, literary critic and saga author.
Benjamin Bagby on his travels to the land of fire and ice researched the authentic folk music of modern day Iceland in order to gain some insight into how the Edda would have been originally performed. The music he compiled is derived from a collection of medieval modal patterns or formulations and his study into the metric and poetic features of Eddaic verse.
Rimur, Rhyme and 'Magic Measures' and the Significance of Dreams
The epic poems of Iceland are living, breathing stories woven into the culture of the indigenous people. The changing winds of the North Atlantic Ocean have brought about Iceland's gradual loss of external communication. As an island it has immersed itself in its own folkloric tradition which is at the root of Icelandic culture and philosophy. The folklore of Iceland is at the heart of the Edda.
The epic narratives of the Edda were communicated through the artistic medium of rimur: long narrative poems comprised of sequential verses sung to a preconceived melody, first originating in the 14th Century. The term derives from the singular rima meaning 'rhymes' which relates to their elaborate versification technique (Rimnakveoskapur) which makes use of esoteric features, such as palindrome rhyme. The rimur were typically recited on farms, at informal gatherings where the family would congregate for a magical evening of story telling, known as kvoldvaka ('evening-awakening').
Iceland's richly diverse religious history is reflected in 'Odinn's Rune-verses from Havamal' where Odinn descends into the realm of the dead: a key theme in pagan philosophy. However his sacrificial death by hanging on a tree has a strong resemblance to Christian theology; complying with the Christian conversion around the year 1000.
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