The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1974, Side 27

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
25
BEOWULF WALKS AGAIN
by Betty Jane Wylie
My mother never taught me Iceland-
ic because then she wouldn’t have been
able to gossip with her mother and
sisters in my presence when I was a
little girl. Spending every summer of
my young life in Gimli, I got so I
could understand most of what they
were saying anyway, but I never let on.
By the time my grandmother Tergesen
died, God love her, I was in univer-
sity and studying Anglo-Saxon and
Beowulf and that helped. When the
minister conducted the private family
service in Icelandic I understood him
as much because of the Anglo-Saxon
as because of my skimpy Icelandic. For
example, the word for Lord in Anglo-
Saxon is dryten and in Icelandic it’s
drottinn and Lord knows whether I
spelled them right.
The point is, I always had this al-
most mystical feeling for the language
as well as for the attitudes of the
people. So much so that when I took
my Masters degree in English, my
major was Twentieth Century Poetrv
and my minor was Anglo-Saxon and
Old Norse. I translated Beowulf for
the second time and a couple of the
Norse sagas as well. My pronunciation
is impeccable, though I’ve never had
an old Norse assess it.
When rock music first came out I
remember commenting in my writer’s
journal on the relationship between
the sprung rhythm of Anglo-Saxon
poetry and rock rhythms. So all those
pure beautiful words and sounds and
images and rhythms had been running
around in my head like pre-historica!
sounds when I chanced to have an
interesting party conversation with a
young New York director. Talking
about northern literature he said he’d
love to see a musical based on Beowulf.
Beowulf! Next to Rhett Butler, one
of my favourite characters, though for
vastly different reasons. I’d never want
to marry Beowulf.
That chance remark began a cor-
respondence as the young director and
I discussed by mail the idea of Beo-
wulf set to music. Alas, the y.d. fell by
the wayside but my roots, you see,
were much deeper. I spoke to a com-
poser I knew about the idea. Victor
Davies of Winnipeg had never heard
of Beowulf. When he did, he wished
he hadn’t. At first. I sent him a few
lyrics and he read a translation. No-
thing happened. At first. .
But Beowulf gets to people and
tunes began humming in his head. He
phoned me and asked me if I had any
more lyrics. It just happened that 1
had. I had just finished what may or
may not be the final draft of a play
(it has never been produced) and took
a holiday by writing the libretta of
Beowulf. Like the farmer’s axe with
three new heads and two new handles,
that is what we have today, only with
more changes. In passing, just to dem-
onstrate my devotion to this Norse
thing, I’ll tell you that the play I
referred to is a giant thing based on
the story of Signy in the Volsungasaga.
Norse literature turns me on.