Harald Gråfell
Here’s a two-minute-or-so segment from the video I am projecting in my sculptural installation at the Viking Ship Museum. The total length of the video loop (which I burn to a DVD) is about 28 minutes now. I really like this little segment. There is no sound at the museum, but here you can hear the dog panting (it’s Blü!) and the water lapping.
Harald Gråfell was one of the ancient kings of Norway. The name translates as “Harald (or Harold) Graycloak.” Harald met his end in northern Denmark in battle in 971 A.D. I came across a rather melancholy poem about him in Snorri Sturluson’s “Heimskringla” that is attributed to Glum Geirason, an Icelandic skald. I collected video imagery of the sea-shore nearby at Hvervenbukta, just outside the Oslo city limits. The trees, which I think are birches, or maybe they’re aspens?, were recorded in Idaho, on the Gibson Jack Creek Trail, just outside of Pocatello.
“On Limfjord’s strand, by the tide’s flow,
Stern fate has laid King Harald low;
The gallant viking-cruiser-he
Who loved the isle-encircling sea.
The generous ruler of the land
Fell at the narrow Limfjord strand.
Enticed by Hakons’s cunning speech
To his death-bed on Limfjord’s beach.”
