Someone on the internet asked if anyone could translate this song.  The short answer is no.  The long answer is almost.  I’ve had a difficult time even with my Swedish contacts in making sense of the line “Jag går på gäle å harver.”  Also, while I chose “Is he crying still,” there’s are a couple of other meanings of “lever han än,” including “is he still fussy,” “is he still making noise,” and “is he still alive?”

I’ll fix the formatting later.

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People sometimes ask me what kind of music I listen to.  I tend to be pretty eclectic, with tastes ranging from tribal drumming to Norwegian power metal covers of pop songs.  However, for getting in touch with my ancestors I prefer folk music.  A few of my favorite groups are Eivør, Frifot, Garmarna, Gjallarhorn, Hedningarna, Loituma, Ranarim, Triakel, Värttinä, and Wimme.

Of these, Garmarna and Hedningarna tend to apply the most progressive approach to Folk.  The rest tend to be use reasonably traditional arrangements, although Wimme sometimes shakes up his Joik with a modern beat.

Here’s a quick tour of some of my favorite songs by these artists.

I’ve already dedicated an entire blog post to translating Garmarna’s En Gång Ska Han Gråta, which may be my favorite of all their work.  A close second would be the progressive groove they are rocking in Gamen and Klevabergselden.  For beautifully haunting songs, you might try Den Bortsålda, about a girl whose father sells her away, and whose brother is unwilling to ransom her back.  The song is worth listening to solely for Emma Härdelin’s Kulning technique.  If you prefer delicate work, you might try Domschottis, and if an almost pop feel is more to your liking, I recommend Euchari.  I really could go on about this band all day, but I’m going to stop here.

Frifot brings the Swedish pipes in Höga Berg, and the double pipe in Dubbelpipan.  I couldn’t find a Youtube link for these, so you’ll have to try samples for the Album Sluring on iTunes or Amazon.

Eivør’s Trollabundin is visceral and haunting, especially with the bebox-style hissing/grunting she uses to make her troll sounds.  Her work meanders between traditional, progressive and modern folk, but I think this is perhaps the single best example of her versatility.

Hedningarna demonstrates a lovely fusion of progressive beats and traditional instruments with Räven.

No survey of Gjallarhorn would be complete without the joyful Suvetar and the stirring Bergfäst and Hjaðningarima.  The very ethereal sound of their adaptation of a Swedish Psalm is covered in depth with translation in my prior post.

Finnish Loituma’s claim to fame is Levan Polkka, a sung from the perspective of a young suitor who is intent on taking a girl to a festival dance, and isn’t afraid to inform her parents that they are, in fact, going, and no one can stop them.  The song was sampled for the infamous spinning leek Orihime meme.

Ranarim captures the joy of the folk scene in Maj Vare Välkommen and Fager Som En Ros.  Their arrangements are generally traditional yet very rich in sound.

Triakel features only Garmarna’s vocalist and two of the gentlemen from Hoven Droven.  They perform only traditional arrangments.  I think my favorite is probably Längmasaguten, but I Youtube seems to lack it.  Enjoy Veit instead.

Finnish Värtinnä has a long history, but I like their more recent work best.  They can do mirthful well, but I find the rhythmic chanting, progressive percussion, and slightly spooky atmosphere in Riena to really showcase their sound.  For a deliciously haunting treat, try Äijö.

You really cannot discuss Scandinavian folk music without including Joik, and Wimme performs this style almost exclusively.  Joik is rhythmic tribal chanting, usually set to drums and sometimes using a sparse set of instruments to round out the sound.  In Bamboo Honey, Wimme shows us a somewhat contemporary sound.  Joik of the Wind is a more traditional treatment, by Sofia Jannok.  Or here’s a whole playlist.

I hope you enjoyed this meandering through the styles.

A friend of mine asked if I could help clarify what was meant by a passage about Frau Perchta, and in particular, the name of one of the wee people that followed in her procession in a particular story. Of course, most of the versions of the story we could find were scarce on details, but the tale goes basically like this: Perchta is proceeding through town and this man sees the trail of poor children behind her, and as the last passes by, exclaims, “O du armes Zodawascherl.” She informs the man that, for naming the child, his reward shall be good fortune. Yes, that’s disappointingly the extent of the detail in most of the surviving versions of the tale, especially those that have been translated into English.

My friend wanted to know if Zodawascherl is a name or whether it is a word that has some significant meaning.

Zodawascherl is not so archaic as you might guess.

It’s comprised of two roots, the first is Zod- and the second is -wasch. The second half of the word, taken by itself, means literally “little washer,” in the same way that adding “-l” to any name adds the concept “little” or “dear”  Franz -> Franzl, Hans -> Hansl, Greta -> Gretl. Sometimes, as with the tale Hansel and Gretel, “-el” is added to aid pronunciation, but this latter spelling is (in my limited experience) only common in English translations.

The first half of the compound word has been more difficult to track down, and probably is archaic. The Germans love their kennings, even to this day, so deciphering the meaning will be a bit of a challenge. In Modern English, I tend to expect compound words to be made of components that refer to each other. In most other Germanic languages, this not necessarily the rule: compound word components complement each other to make a whole picture. So, as English speakers, we might expect “Zoda” to tell us something about how or what the “little washer” washes.

The author of this page offers a completely unsubstantiated meaning of the name, which is “ragged little mite.”

I think that’s certainly in the spirit of the name. Let’s see if we can do better.

The best two matches I can find in Wahrig Deutsches Wörterbuch (1997), hastily corroborated by a glance at the entry for Proto-Germanic tadôn from The Germanic Lexicon Project, are:

die Zotte (OHG Zotta, Zotto, from Proto-Germanic tadôn), meaning an unorganized tuft or lock of hair.

die Zotte (Low german Teute, Tute) “Bottle-spout”

It seems to me from the context of the myth, that if either of these is correct it is likely to be “tuft of hair,” which would allow us to translate the name as “little scruff-washer.” However, it is possible that the name could instead mean “little bottle-washer,” which is plausible because myth-makers love puns: this could mean that the little one washes bottles, or that he washes only with a bottle (instead of a basin, bucket, or more ample-sized water vessel.)

It seems equally plausible that Zod- comes from some other root word. I need some context.

I went looking for the original myths, and while I’m not sure that I really found them, I did find this 2005 OCR-scan of a 1913 paper, “Perht Holda und verwandte Gestalten, Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Religionsgeschichte, by Dr. Viktor Wachnitius.

In the section on Lower Austria, there is some information about Zodawascherl. It seems that tradition holds that Perchta has 13 children that follow her in her hunt. 12 of them are obviously ghostly, demonic, dead, or otherwise otherworldly. One of them is more like a real child, but is unable to join the children in the villages that the hunt passes through. In his sadness, he cries constantly. He collects his tears with… A JUG.

So, I’m going to go with “you poor little bottle-washer.” You can put the page through Google Translate if you like.

Start reading after searching for “Zodawascherl” and you will find a very rough translation.