August 18-20, 2016

 

Text: Christina Dimitrova (Trin), photos: also

 

If you love metal, camping and historical reenactment, the Viking Age in particular, and are looking for an excuse to visit Norway, the Midgardsblot in Borre is just for you. 

 

 

 

 

If you don't like walking in knee deep mud and the huge crowds of massive commercial festivals like Wacken and Download, but prefer small niche festivals where you can see and hear the bands from a close distance, Midgardsblot is just for you. 

 

Even though this was barely its second year, the festival already has its cult following and sold out a few days before its start, attracting people from faraway places like Colombia and Australia. Next year's early bird tickets are already on sale and are selling like hot cakes.

 

Perhaps the main reasons for the genuine charm of Midgardsblot are the unparalleled festival location – a national park with ancient burial mounds and rich archaeological findings displayed in the nearby museum Midgard Historical Center and the wonderful friendly atmosphere. 

 

The combination of a traditional historical festival and metal also contributes to the singularity of Midgardsblot. It is true that many people dress up for festivals, but there is hardly another metal festival where half the audience is wearing traditional viking clothes. 

 

 

 

 

Gildehallen – the historically authentic wooden viking banqueting hall, modeled on the findings of a similar building nearby, is another reason to enjoy Midgardsblot. With its bar, huge fireplace and the wooden benches covered with sheepskins, the large hall with the carved wooden columns easily accommodates several hundred people. There is no more pleasant place to hide from the rain, drink sing and yell „SKÅL!”. 

 

 

The music, of course, should not be forgotten either. Where else, besides at Midgardsblot (and London), in 24 hours you can hear the project of Ivar Bjornson (Enslaved) and Einar Selvik (Wardruna) – Skuggsja, Enslaved and Wardruna? 

 

Plus Hamferd of the Faroe islands, one of Iceland's chief metal exports at the moment – Skalmold, as well as lots of Norwegian black metal bands? In addition, to the joke metallers Trollfest, the Nordic folk of the Dutch band L.E.A.F. and oriental metal from Melechesh. 

 

Midgardsblot is perhaps the only metal festival which has a rich accompanying program of historical reenactments, viking games and wrestling (glima), film screenings, saga telling, viking market, presentations on the Nordic culture and its connections to the black metal and the meaning of runes (given by Einar Selvik), a guitar clinic with Ivar Bjornson, tattoo fest and beer tastings.

 

 

The only thing lacking was mead in big quantities. 

 

But lets start from the beginning

 

Thursday (Torsdag – Thor's day)

 

The first day of the festival is for getting armbands, pitching tents, food shopping in the village supermarket and surveying the surrounding area. The camping was split into a “party” and a “quiet” zone, but the racket from the party zone and most of all Nana Mouskouri's hit „Guten morgen sonnenschein” and the goat horns at 8:30 in the morning, could be heard even in the furthest end of the quiet zone. Ah, the joys of festival camping!

 

 

In the evening in front of Gildehallen is performed a blot – a symbolic blood (theatrical) offering to the Norse gods with prayers and blowing of horns. The ritual was led by the troupe Folket Bortafor Nordavinden. The gods were asked for blessing and peace upon the festival and fair weather. The first plea was granted, but the second – not quite. The gods blessed us with rain both on Friday and Saturday evening instead. Next year we'll be more insistent on the fair weather part.

 

 

 

The evening ended with a merry gathering around the campfire on the fjord shore in front of the camping. 

 

 

 

Friday (Fredag – Freya's day)

 

The day starts early because of the aforementioned Nana Mouskouri and goat horns from the party zone. The concert part of the festival starts in the early afternoon so we fill the day with viking games and lazing on the beach.

 

In mid-afternoon I start towards the festival area where Trollfest are already playing their weird mix of Norwegian folklore, Serbian turbofolk, metal and a bit of Latino. As I walk through the grove, I wonder what type of weirdos are those. When I finally see them on the stage – in Adidas tracksuits and the lady in a fishnet pantyhose and skirt with sequins – I gather they do not take themselves too seriously. Joke metal. But it's fun. 

 

 

Everybody knows how boring the wait between bands can be. But not at Midgardsblot. The local viking enthusiasts from Borrefylkingen demonstrate some pretty good viking fighting, while the technicians move stuff around on the stage and some of us are casting worried glances at the ever graying skies. 

 

 

 

The weather forecasts do not mention rain, but weather forecasts in Norway  turn out to be utterly unreliable, as weather in Norway is a rather fickle affair. Just when the Icelandic viking metallers Skalmold hit the stage, the gods send us the all too familiar Nordic powdered rain, but the audience is nonplussed. I have seen Skalmold's famous performance with the Icelandic Philharmonic several times and have some high expectations. I am not disappointed, though the set is too short. 

 

 

 

Towards its end the rain intensifies and I rush to the camp to get my rain poncho, which I so naively left in the tent, trusting the weather forecast. By the time I get back, the set of Inquisition who play monotonous black metal is towards its end. 

 

Surprisingly, Enslaved, who celebrate their 25-th anniversary and play predominantly old material this year, starts 15 minutes ahead of schedule.

 

This would be the third time I am seeing Enslaved live. The first was back in 2011 at the Tuska festival in Helsinki, just a day after the mass murder in Oslo and on the Utoya island, so quite naturally, Enslaved were rather grim. The second time was in Sofia in the scorching afternoon heat at the Sofia Rocks festival in 2013. 

 

This time, however, the mood is just right for primordial Norwegian black metal. And even though I generally prefer Enslaved's later material, I stick around to pay homage to the origins. 

 

 

 

 

My suspicions that the printed festival program is wrong are confirmed and Skuggsja – one of the main reasons I am spending my holiday in Norway, start 15 minutes ahead of the announced time. 

 

The project of Einar Selvik and Ivar Bjornson was initially a one-off affair in 2014. It was composed to mark the 200-th anniversary of the Norwegian constitution, but was received with much acclaim and was recorded and released this spring. The live performance, however, is still a relative rarity. On the stage practically are both Wardruna and Enslaved and I enjoy every second of the album, which I already know almost by heart. It is a strange combination of the two bands – so different, that it is easy to tell who wrote which song, yet merging and supplementing each other so well.

 

 

 

The night ends around the campfire once more. 

 

Saturday (Lordag – day for washing)

 

Whereas we, the Bulgarians, tend to shower on Sundays, in the Nordic countries the traditional day for washing was Saturday. It is noted in the name of the day in all Nordic languages. The traditional has been kept since viking times, as the vikings, unlike most Europeans in the period, were fans of personal hygiene and were washing regularly.

 

The wonderful hot showers of the village sports hall are totally worth the 20-minute walk in the wonderful morning and, combined with the best burger in the Universe at the Esso petrol station, mark the start of another great day.

 

After the shower and the breakfast, it is time for Einar Selvik's lecture on the runes and their esoteric meaning. The presentation is a little chaotic, but nevertheless informative. The notion that the viking age was the beginning of the end for the traditional Nordic culture gives significant food for thought and is actually quite correct, considering the following efforts of Christianity (quite successful) to destroy all memory of what was before. 

 

The lecture puts me in the mood for some history so I have a look at the displays in the Midgard Historic Center. The museum contains artifacts – everyday objects, weapons, ornaments, etc. found in Vestfold, which is the area with some of the earliest settlements in Norway and where the viking ships displayed in the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo were actually found. Curiously, the village of Borre has given its name to an entire Nordic ornamental style in the early Middle Ages.

 

I have missed L.E.A.F. because the runes presentation started a bit late and was a bit longer than scheduled and because of my museum visit, so I go to check out the viking village instead.

 

Its traditional tents are pithed right across the festival entrance. There is also a market: home made sausages, piglet on a spit, home dyed yarns, drinking horns, home made soap, balms, spices, furniture, cauldrons and other silverware, bows and arrows, spare parts for shields, jewelry, accessories, clothes, shoes, musical instruments, sheepskins, etc. 

 

 

 

While I hang out at the viking village eating sausages and drinking mead, I can hear Blot. A relatively new Norwegian band that combines black and viking metal. They are followed by the local Kirkebrann, which in Norwegian means “church burning”. Their props, quite fittingly, include red gas cans and the main themes of their lyrics are darkness, winter and blasphemy. Quite predictable and clichéd, but this is Norwegian black metal for you. Need I mention the corpse paint? 

 

 

Hamferd come up next. They get on the stage in their usual black suits, just like funeral agents. Right on cue for their melancholic and beautiful doom, the sky turns gray and it starts raining. It is a beautiful, but unfortunately short set. 

 

 

It is seriously pouring it down so I hide under the eaves of Gildehallen to watch Manegarm who are playing textbook viking metal and despite the rain the audience is getting jollier by the minute. 

 

 

Since I have strong intolerance for oriental rhythms, be they incorporated in metal, I leave Melechesh and sit by the fire in the Gilderhallen, which is fairly full of merry tipsy people. It is raining harder and ever more people come in, so I decide to skip yet another Norwegian black metal band – Tsjuder and preserve my energy for Wardruna – my personal highlight of the evening. 

 

 

 

It is still raining while Wardruna work their magic in the chilly forest night by the burial mounds on the fjord shore and close the festival. The feeling is enthralling and almost religious as we all stand silent and quiet soaking up each note of the ancient instruments and the voices of Einar and Lindy. They sing of Laukr – the rune of water and deeper understanding and we raise arms and faces towards the sky and the rain. They sing of Naudir – the rune of need and we all feel the cold. They sing of Odal – the rune of inheritance and a song from the upcoming Ragnarok album and Einar is joined by his children on stage. 

 

 

 

As usual, Wardruna's concert ends with the song about death, dying, crossing over and letting go – Helvegen. There are no encores.

 

The Midgardsblot magic continues.