Gåte - Hemnarsverdet

Taken from the EP “Til Nord“, out now: Hemnarsverdet is an old Norwegian folk tale hailing from the region of Telemark. It is a story about a personal vendetta, blood revenge and the fatal consequences of these motifs. A stranger arrives at a gathering of people with a serious errand. He’s looking for the man who took the life of his father. Faced with his father’s murderer the stranger begs his sword for aid in his lethal mission. The sword answers that it must be forged and made much stronger first. When this is done, the stranger swings the sword and kills - not only the murderer, but also all the others present including an infant. Making the stranger beg the sword to stop in the name of God. The sword stops and says that if he had not mentioned God’s name, the stranger himself would have been killed. The fact that the sword seemingly acts of its own free will and kills relentlessly, is a telling expression of how much damage blood revenge co