I've been feeling a bit on the folk rock/folk metal track lately, and so I've been getting back to a teenage years favorite of mine, Norwegian Gåte (Translating to "riddle") and this song is pretty badass. Like most of Gåte's output it's based on an existing folk song, this one is a central Norwegian one called Knut Liten og Sylvelin.
Our story follows a man known as Little Knut (Knut Liten) asking the king, this probably being some pre-unification petty king as they were relatively numerous before Harald Fairhair did his thing, for his daugther Sylvelin's hand in marriage. The king refuses, and Knut goes "I'll show you mate." Knut returns to Sylvelin, revealing that they are already an item, king's blessing or no. Unfortunately, a house servant (i believe) rats them out to his highness, which enrages the king. In his rage, the king orders his soldiers to armor up and go get this Knut fellow.
What the king plans to do with him we never get to know, as Little Knut turns out to be ten pounds of kickass in a five pound bag and slays soldiers until the blood reaches the silver buckles on his shoes (I notice such boasts/descriptions of brutality keeps popping up in Medieval Europe despite being... not really practically possible, although I could concede it being more of a "It was a Kill Bill Vol. 1 situation and the blood went fucking everywhere" situation that got kind of misunderstood in the retelling. IDK, I'm not a historian.) Anyway, Knut doesn't particularly like anyone sending people to kill him, and so he rides back to face the king, silvery sword in hand and ready to do some (petty) regicide. The king, to his credit, probably realizes that 1: His anger was disproportionate and 2: That Knut fellow is going to murder his ass if he doesn't make amends. The king, then, offers Knut Sylvelin's hand in marriage, as he has shown himself to be worthy with all that murdering (and, one suspects, the king not particularly wanting his ass murdered.) The call-and-response, I would argue then implies that Knut's love for Sylvelin stays his rage, and the king lives to make bad judgements of character, and hopefully commission some better soldiers, another day.
What I find enjoyable about this story, apart from the absolutely kickass adaptation by Gåte, who employs the call-and-response cry of "Iselilja" and the slightly more of a mouthful "Så såre syrgjer Sylvelin fyr lisle Knut i Løyndom" (roughly translated "So sorely Sylvelin longs/mourns for Knut in secret") and a bass line that intensifies as the story grows violent along with Gåte's typical combination of rock and folk elements with hardingfele, is how different it is from a lot of Norwegian Folk Tales the story is. The surviving-to-modernity Norwegian folk tale is often very moralistic, and simplistically so. Espen Askeladd wins the day (and the hand of the princess and half of the kingdom usually) because he's the nicest, most polite lad whom the universe rewards for his unflinching can-do attitude and good manners by a number of supernatural boons, while his cruel and otherwise mediocre brothers eat shit. See for example "Espen Askeladd and the Seven Helpers" where he recruits seven strangers with an odd mix of curses and boons that helps him achieve an otherwise impossible tasks, or for a non-askeladd example The Fox' Widow, where the polite and kind fox manages to woo the titular widow by helping various fairytale creatures who help him in return, that other bachelors, like the boorish bear and violent wolf, either ignore or mock. Very educational, very pro-social. Helping others will help yourself. Classic stuff. Not the case with Little Knut though. He survives and indeed conquers his situation not through any universal justice per se, but from being the most ass-kickingest son of a bitch north of Skagerrak. I mean there is a thread of love winning out, with the call-and-response providing a bit of a greek chorus reminder for the duration that this story is about Sylvelin's love for Knut, but it is, I would be remiss not to note, love winning out through the power of Incredible Violence.
