From: olafugun@rhi.hi.is (Olafur Gunnlaugsson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic, soc.culture.german, alt.pagan,
            rec.music.early, rec.music.industrial
Subject: Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson Dies
Date: 27 Dec 1993 04:43:34 GMT
Organization: University of Iceland

It's with a great regret that I announce that Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson
Allsherjargothi, the Icelandic farmer, poet, "kvaedamadur" (poetry
"singer") and head of the Icelandic 'Asatruarsofnudurinn passed away
on the 25th of December of 1993 at the age of 69.

Sveinbjorn was born in 1924 in Grafardal, but from the age of 20
farmed the land at Draghals in Borgarfjo"rdur, in 1965 he married
Svanfr¡Œur Hagvaag (divorced). They had two sons.

He is perhaps best known as the Allsherjargothi (supreme head) of the
official Icelandic 'Asatruarsofnudur (or 'Asatru-sect), the sect
devoted to the survival of the heathen religion of pre-christian
Iceland.  Amongst others things, Sveinbjorn got 'Asatruarsofnuthurinn
officially recognised as a religious body in 1972 after a long battle
with the Ministry of Justice & Ecclesiastical Affairs, the first
non-christian group to receive such rights, and served as the
Allsherjargothi from the beginning.

Apart from the farming the main bulk of Sveinbjorn's work lay in the
Rimur and other poetry with the older Germanic form and metre.

Rimur is a kind of "sung Poetry" and is closely related to the epic
singing traditions of early Europe, unlike other conventional European
vocal music the Rimur where not affected by later and/or imported
musical characteristics. The Rimur singing reminds one of the vocal
chanting from the middle east, but the forms are not related and
unlike the Arabic counterpart the "sung poetry" of Iceland has no
tonal scale but is a free- form wave of sound. Still it's a strict
form of expression with stability in the volume, pitch, tempo and
length of syllables.

Using the Rimur singing as a basis Sveinbjorn almost single-handed re-
created the art of epic singing of the Eddic metre/forms, the forms
used by the Scandinavian and English poets of pre Christian times,
that created such masterpieces as Voluspa and Beowulf
(Bjolfskvitda). The modern reader of such poetry tends to forget that
the Eddic poetry, Frankish lays, Beowulf and other old Germanic poetry
was meant to be recited, not read.

As the Nordic intelligentsia had dismissed the singing of Rimur and
epic lays to be "the primitive groans of farmers", and the older forms
of poetry where thought to be "outdated, primitive and restrictive"
(in other words, hill-billy "art", not to be taken seriously)
Sveinbjorn turned to the younger generation of listeners with his
offerings.

Thus, in the late seventies/early eighties he often performed with the
various New Wave, Industrial and Punk-rock artists, groups like
Psychic TV Theyr (members later in Psychic TV, Killing Joke, Kukl,
Sugarcubes & Frostbite) and Purkur Pilnikk (whose members later stared
Kukl & the Sugarcubes), a move which earned him the respect and
admiration of the younger music fans and the disrespect, hatred even,
of self-appointed "cultural moguls" and poetry/literature scholars.

He kept these close ties to the rock/industrial community and his
records where published by independent rock labels, rather than the
classical or early music specialist labels that you would have
expected to find his work on.

Apart from rekindling the interest in traditional forms of poetry and
poetry singing amongst the "indy rock" musicians in Europe, he
occasionally had other dealings with them, he conducted the marriage
ceremony of Genesis Porridge and his beloved (?) Paula, and the rate
of Industrial/noise artists amongst the members of 'Asatuarsofnudurinn
in Reykjavik is so high, that they are sometimes referred to
(humorously?) as the "Flu Flux Flan".

Sveinbjorn's vocalization (singing) of the lays of the Elder Edda (Eddu 
Kvaedi) are available from the English record company "D.U.R.T.R.O." (United 
Dairies) as "Current 93 Presents Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson : The Edda's"
His biography was published in 1992 ("Alsherjajargodinn" published by Horpu-
utgavan.

We will remember.

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'Olafur Gunnlaugsson                Internet:     olafugun@rhi.hi.is
Postholf 9192                       Phone: (international) 354-1-74203
129 Reykjavik                       Phone: (locally) (91)-74203
Iceland           "Nice Planet......Shame about the inhabitants"
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