爆料TV

For the Vikings, unlike for Fantine, a dream was not something you dreamed. Fantine鈥檚 dream is a product of her own hopes for the future, and like 鈥淭he American Dream鈥� it is not even a sleeping dream. In contrast, Viking dreams came from outside and entered into you while you were asleep or in a trance. Instead of saying 鈥淚 dreamed a dream鈥�, they would say that a dream 鈥渄reamed me鈥�. The dream was understood as something that was sent, by a friend or enemy or by the supernatural. It was therefore crucial to be able to interpret dream visions, as they could give vital clues about future happenings. A scenic example is from Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue鈥檚 Saga, where a man called Thorstein dreams that he sees 鈥渁 fine, beautiful swan up on the roof-ridge. I thought that I owned her, and I was very pleased with her. Then I saw a huge eagle fly down from the mountains. He flew towards Borg and perched next to the swan and chattered to her happily. She seemed to be well pleased with that. Then I noticed that the eagle had black eyes and claws of iron; he looked like a gallant fellow.鈥� Next, another eagle arrives, and starts fighting with the first eagle, leading to the death of them both. Lastly, a hawk arrives, and the hawk and the swan fly off together. This is interpreted to mean that Thorstein will have a daughter, and the eagles and hawk represent her various suitors. The remainder of the saga proves this interpretation to be true.

Draumkvedet, or the 鈥渄ream ballad鈥�, on the other hand, belongs in the genre of Christian dream visions, along with medieval dream visions in English such as the Dream of the Rood, Piers Plowman, and Pearl. The folklorist Sophus Bugge suggested that it might have been based on an Irish dream vision from 1149. The ballad was collected in the county of Telemark in the 1840s by the song collector Magnus Landstad, who collated what we now know as the full version from shorter fragments sung by various local people. (The 爆料TV has a whole module on dream visions, by the way! Not taught by me, though, sadly.)

In the 鈥渄ream ballad鈥�, we meet a man called Olav 脜steson, who turns up in church announcing to everyone that he fell asleep on Christmas Eve and only woke up after Twelfth Night. While sleeping, he travels along the paths of the dead. In a beautiful combination of heathen and Christian imagery, he crosses the Gjallarbru, the bridge which separates the worlds of the living and dead, before travelling through Purgatory, Hell, and Paradise. 鈥淪aint Soul-Michael鈥� battles with 鈥淕rutte Grey-Beard鈥� who is the Devil. Finally, he sees Judgment Day when St Michael鈥檚 great scales come out to weigh people鈥檚 souls.

My favourite part of the poem was the part where we get to hear about the grotesque punishments for various sins committed in life. For example: 鈥淭here I met two serpents/They bit each other in the tails:/They were sinful cousins/Who married each other on earth鈥� (translation by Christian Carlsen).Transformed into a snake forevermore, for marrying your cousin! For being a witch, the punishment is to stand in a pool of blood. For moving stones which mark the extent of land ownership, the punishment is to carry scorching hot soil.

Thankfully, there are also some rewards for good behaviour: For example if you in life give shoes to the poor, you shall not have to walk bare-footed over thorns after your death.

I think it鈥檚 lovely to observe the apparent connection between Britain, Ireland, and Norway here, where the inspiration for the 鈥渄ream ballad鈥� seems to have crossed the sea. If it is correct that the ballad鈥檚 roots go as far back as the second half of the twelfth century, it comes from a time when there was a great deal of cultural contact between the British Isles and Norway.

At some point in the late Middle Ages, the meaning of the verb 鈥渄ream鈥� starts to shift, and people started thinking of dreams as something that originates within the sleeper, rather than coming into the sleeper from outside. In Old Norse, we first see this new sense of the word in translations of European literature. But it was not just in Old Norse that this shift happened. Also in English, we can see the old way of thinking 鈥� 鈥�(something) dreamed me鈥� rather than 鈥淚 dreamed (something)鈥� 鈥� in sources older than about the 15^th century, for example in the afore mentioned Piers Plowman. After a period of overlap, however, the modern way of thinking about dreams takes over, which then leads to the idea that a 鈥渄ream鈥� can also be one of Fantine鈥檚 sort: a waking fantasy.

Ragnhild Ljosland

Originally published in The Orcadian, 19th February 2015, page 9.