My 6yo doesn't know a word of Icelandic (that I know of, anyway) and she's traumatized by this song. I meant to read the translation to her but somehow I don't think that will make it better.
For some reason the old Nordic traditions seem to include traumatizing children as badly as possible around this time of the year. Not that they're not doing it anymore - there's this horrible videoscreen on one of the main shopping streets downtown with the monster cat. The first time I saw it was one early, stormy morning when no one else was around yet. I almost didn't dare to wait for my friends that I was going to meet anywhere within sight of that screen. -.-
I wonder if that's a world-wide thing? Fairy tales when I was little were all pretty morbid, and had been toned down from earlier versions... these days they all have happy endings. Maybe the bad endings made some kind of sense when children weren't necessarily expected to make it to adulthood. Be prepared and all that.
Considering fairy tales were originally meant for young adults the morbid themes are quite common. If you haven't yet you'd hate to hear some of the earlier versions of f.ex. Sleeping Beauty! They were often meant for teaching lessons like "don't go walk around with strangers in the woods" etc. Even the happy endings in those tales were pretty gruesome, like in the stories of brothers Grimm where the villain is usually slowly tortured alive. I have to admit I loved those ones as a child though! ^^;
LOL. I read them and was disturbed! Had a Hans Christian Anderson collection, too, and just. Who's idea was it to market the works of someone _that_ depressed to children? I vaguely remember huddling in the corner of my room crying over that poor girl with the matchsticks... good times.
I was so afraid of the story of the chimney sweep and the shepherdess that I didn't even dare to open one particular page in the book. Same with the little mermaid. -.-
lyrics in English:
ReplyDeletehttp://simnet.is/gardarj/yule11.htm
Awesomeness, thank you! :3
ReplyDeleteMy 6yo doesn't know a word of Icelandic (that I know of, anyway) and she's traumatized by this song. I meant to read the translation to her but somehow I don't think that will make it better.
ReplyDeleteSounds very cool to me, though.
For some reason the old Nordic traditions seem to include traumatizing children as badly as possible around this time of the year. Not that they're not doing it anymore - there's this horrible videoscreen on one of the main shopping streets downtown with the monster cat. The first time I saw it was one early, stormy morning when no one else was around yet. I almost didn't dare to wait for my friends that I was going to meet anywhere within sight of that screen. -.-
ReplyDeleteI wonder if that's a world-wide thing? Fairy tales when I was little were all pretty morbid, and had been toned down from earlier versions... these days they all have happy endings. Maybe the bad endings made some kind of sense when children weren't necessarily expected to make it to adulthood. Be prepared and all that.
ReplyDeleteDepressing.
Ok, I'd have been a little scared of that, too!
Considering fairy tales were originally meant for young adults the morbid themes are quite common. If you haven't yet you'd hate to hear some of the earlier versions of f.ex. Sleeping Beauty! They were often meant for teaching lessons like "don't go walk around with strangers in the woods" etc. Even the happy endings in those tales were pretty gruesome, like in the stories of brothers Grimm where the villain is usually slowly tortured alive. I have to admit I loved those ones as a child though! ^^;
ReplyDeleteLOL. I read them and was disturbed! Had a Hans Christian Anderson collection, too, and just. Who's idea was it to market the works of someone _that_ depressed to children? I vaguely remember huddling in the corner of my room crying over that poor girl with the matchsticks... good times.
ReplyDeleteI was so afraid of the story of the chimney sweep and the shepherdess that I didn't even dare to open one particular page in the book. Same with the little mermaid. -.-
ReplyDelete