Vinda

Not quite 20 years ago I became interested in the Nordic myths. I had studied some of the Greek and Roman stories in both high school and college, picked up a bit the Indian Upanishads along the way, and had also gotten a bit of the stories from various Native North American traditions somewhere, but I had never studied the Norse legends. (Marvel comics, notwithstanding.)

So while searching for something else, I had stumbled across a whole new world of music, which I listen to in fits and starts. I find it interesting, but not always engrossing enough to displace what I usually turn to. One of the artists I found from that path is Kati Rán. Here is how her Bandcamp page describes her work.

Nordic Music

Kati Rán creates song with historical folk instruments and composes her music with poetry reflecting our connection with nature.

I first ran across Kati Rán due to a song she performed at Midgardsblot 2016^‡. That song wasn't interesting enough to feature here, but was enough to get me to go looking for more. And so we are here today.

For today's song, you can find the lyrics and their English translation at this link.

This is the acoustic version of "Vinda" by Kati Rán featuring Ravn Helisir. "Vinda" translates to "Wind" in English. The song was originally on the 2015 album Lys which translates to Leaf. This acoustic version was released in 2016, as far as I can tell.

‡ Midgardsblot is a festival of "extreme metal" and folk music, that also includes what looks to be the Nordic version of a Renaissance Faire, and probably a bunch more stuff I don't know about. It appears to be on for this coming August in Norway.