Over the cold and barren sands: folk singing and folk memories in a northern Icelandic valley

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper continues from the two previously published in Folk Life, that concern daily and seasonal life, women’s work and food production and preservation in the northern Icelandic valley of Vatnsdalur, in the later 1970s and after. It addresses the tunes and words of ‘folk-style singing’ in spontaneous contexts, in the home, farm work environment and at social events, noting that the practice later diminished, though it ceased only in about 2015, with the deaths of the leading singers. The relationship to the production of music in church is then considered. The paper then goes on to consider aspects of the general narrative folk tradition recounted at the period in question.