YouTube Debut

Just one week ago, I made and posted my first YouTube video! I've been slightly obsessed about the Outlander version of Skye Boat Song ever since I saw the series, and I felt like doing a little cover, so here it is:

It's not very long, the sound quality is kind of iffy, but it's a start! :)

Jenta og Råta

This is one of the few songs I've written in Norwegian. It was born as I read the book "Odinsbarn" ("Odin's child" directly translated), the first of three in the series "Ravneringene" ("The Raven Rings") by Siri Pettersen, and stubled across a song where only two verses were on print, but the story of the song was briefly summarised in the text. The book is set in a world that conjures up associations to Nordic Viking Age, mixed with Medieval inspired fantasy, but it's inhabitants are not humans; they are of Ymsætt ("Ætt" being vaguely equivalent to clan, but is used in the book to descibe the entire race) and have tails like the Scandinavian mythological creature "hulder".Humans are things of legend, "Odinsbarn", "Mennskr", said to inflict "The Rot" upon any Ættling whom they got close to, and this song is about a girl who gets too close.

The first and the penultimate verse are those from the book. I wrote the rest of the verses and composed the music. Having finished the song a day before the release party for the second book, "Råta", I sent Siri this recording of the song. She liked it so much, she allowed me to play it at the release party, and it was very well received! ^_^

What bigger compliment can a fan ask for! :D

Nimrodel

'Do you hear the voice of Nimrodel?' asked Legolas. 'I will sing you a song of the maiden Nimrodel, who bore the same name as the stream beside which she lived long ago. It is a fair song in our woodland tongue; but this is how it runs in the Western Speech, as some in Rivendell now sing it.'

- From the Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R.Tolkien

When I first read The Fellowship of The Ring in English (my father had read the Norwegian version for me as a child), I was in my teens and I got mildly obsessed with the poem of Nimrodel and Amroth. I memorised it, and slowly a melody started to form in my head. Now, almost twice the age I was then, I've put chords and harmonies to that melody and made a song out of the poem.

As ever, I've drawn my influence from folk music, but I also wanted to convey some of the haunting atmosphere of the scene in the book from whence it came.


I know others have probably done so before me, but this is my version of "Nimrodel":