Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.09.2019, Page 52

EDDA RECAP
Hávamál
The sayings of the high one
Words: Grayson Del Faro Illustration: Lóa Hlín Hjálmtýsdóttir
This poem is a prime example
of a massive problem that still
plagues society today: men. If
there is anything we’ve learned
from the Me Too movement, it’s
that we (men) may be doing a
much better job of talking the
woke talk but most of us are not
really walking the woke walk.
Völundur was basically the
ancient Scandinavian version of
that guy you know who retweets
celebrity women’s clever clap-
backs but then sues a woman
when she goes public with the
fact that he date-raped her. Yeah,
it goes there, so consider yourself
warned.
My, what big teeth
you have
So there are these three brothers
who live way up in a Finnish val-
ley, the name of which translates
as “Wolfdale.” One morning they
go out to their lake to find three
babes in swan-dresses. Unlike
Björks iconic 2001 look, these
actually allow them to transform
into swans. Or, knowing Björk,
maybe just like hers.
In any case, this means they
are valkyries, the kind of magical
women from Old Norse mythol-
ogy who choose which warriors
get into Valhalla. So naturally,
the wolves in gentlemen’s cloth-
ing marry these very fashion-
forward swans. Seven winters
pass and suddenly the valkyries
are like, “Listen up, losers. It’s
been real but we’ve got important
supernatural shit to do. Byeeeee!”
And off they fly.
The two older brothers go off
to look for their birdly baes, but
the youngest, Völundur, keeps
his cool. Since he’s a blacksmith,
he decides to sit and make some
dope-ass jewellery for his wife,
Hervör, while he awaits her
return. Sounds like a good dude,
right? Like super understanding
of women’s autonomy? Thank
again.
All the better to
eat you with
Some random king hears that
Völundur is alone in his castle, so
he sends some dudes to kidnap
him. They slash his hamstrings
so he cannot walk and trap him
on an island where he becomes a
blacksmith slave to the king. But
Völundur is ready for revenge.
He lures the king’s sons to
him with the promise of gold and
decapitates them. He then covers
their skulls in silver and makes
earrings from their eyeballs,
which he sends to the king’s
wife. He makes brooches from
their teeth and sends them to the
king’s daughter, Böðvildur. Then
he lures her to the island, gets
her drunk, and rapes her. Then
he randomly turns himself into a
swan and flies off to tell the king
what he has done.
The poem ends with Böðvildur
lamenting to her father, “I didn’t
know how to struggle against
him. I couldn’t struggle at all.”
There is no joke here, just the
sad reality that things haven’t
changed for women since the
literal fucking middle ages.
Morals of the story:
1. Rape jokes aren’t funny.
2. Let’s get our shit together,
dudes. Seriously.
TV GODDESS
Chapelle, Chapelle,
Chapeller
Words: Lóa Hlín Hjálmtýsdóttir
When you watch old comedy shows
or stand-up, you forgive the per-
former many things because the
jokes are often a child of their
times. Many of them don’t have the
capacity to become classics because
their ideas age badly. In his Netflix
special, Dave Chapelle seems to not
care how dated or poisonous many
of his jokes are. Not that he ever
cared, but the times have changed
and, I guess, so has my personal
tolerance.
The audience might be laugh-
ing, but I’d bet all the oil left in the
ground that a huge portion of them
had a weird pit in their stomachs
when they walked out of the the-
atre. That being said, I don’t think a
comedian’s job is being a model citi-
zen or a beacon of political correct-
ness; they can say what they want.
I actually like it when someone has
different opinions to me. It makes
me realize that I actually have opin-
ions. Side note: In my experience,
the people who are most vocal about
the freedom of speech, are the first
ones to start crying and moaning
when someone criticizes them for
being jerks.
Dave Chapelle talks about the
difference between being broke
and being poor and that poor is a
state of mind while being broke is a
financial situation. He never men-
tions being cheap, which is what
many of his jokes are. It’s easy to
shock and say things a teenager
says when he’s trying to discover
who he is by being contrary to ev-
erything. Comedians are, for the
most part, smart people and Cha-
pelle is obviously highly intelligent.
That’s probably the reason why this
show bothered me. I don’t get why a
smart person would decide this was
a great idea. I’m starting to under-
stand my mother better now. In her
words: I’m disappointed in you.
52The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 16 — 2018
In this series, we illuminate
the individual poems of the
Edda–that most famous, epic
masterpiece of Icelandic literary
tradition–with humour, vulgarity
and modern realness. If you're
still confused, Google 'Saga
Recap.'
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Dave Chapelle, time traveller from 2004