Season 100 · Episode 1 — the opening of the Icelandic shelf of KacheliTV World Classics: legends and folk tales from Iceland, read aloud in the English translation of George E. J. Powell and Eirikur Magnusson.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
THE BOOKS BEHIND THIS EPISODE
Both sources are Icelandic Legends, collected by Jon Arnason, the librarian of Reykjavik, who gathered the folk tales of Iceland from tellers all over the island. The first series was published at London by Richard Bentley in 1864, and the second series at London by Longmans, Green, and Co. in 1866, in the translation of George E. J. Powell and Eirikur Magnusson. The five elf stories are read from the first series' Stories of Elves, and Bukolla from the second series' Tales, in the order they stand in their books. Every piece considered for this episode was read and screened under this shelf's content rule before anything was built: of the pieces read in full, six are told here. The rest stand named, each with its reason, in the shelf register — the excluded pieces are not told, and no completeness is claimed for either book.
IN THIS EPISODE
0:35 Introduction
2:18 The Grateful Elfwoman — a month of milk left out for an elfwoman who asked in a dream, and the silver belt found under the pillow in thanks.
3:47 Grimsborg — in the famine the farmer of Keta begs Grimur, chief of the elves of the rock, for help, and a whale lies on the shore by morning.
6:33 Blue Face — a priest rides with a farmer over the sea to the elves' rock, where his lost daughter stands with a pale-blue face and a white cross on her forehead.
9:49 The Bishop and the Elves — the bishop's maid is stolen on a mountain camp, and John the Giant holds her fast against the magic circles until she comes to her senses.
15:16 Who Built Reynir Church? — a strange builder raises a church on one bargain: learn his name before the last plank is nailed, or give him your son.
19:28 Bukolla — another story of another Bukolla: the carl's son fetches the wonderful cow home past a river, a flame and a mountain, and the ogress who bored through the mountain is there yet, turned to stone in the hole.
Narration: Morgana. Music: the instrumental theme "Falling Leaves at the Ice Cliffs" is heard at the opening and at the close, and in a short excerpt between the stories; there is no music under the narration.
