Fanitullen

Gåte

traduzione in Inglese

Album:

Svevn

Testi originali

Norvegese

Traduzione

Inglese

Fanitullen

The Devil's Tune

In these traumatic times where power in madness reigns

And ragnarok anew could create tormenting conditions

Where humans like giants can fight gods down

And only Judgement day can bring lasting peace

There takes place a bloody wedding on this little earth

Where forces of darkness battle those made of sun

And the poor must suffer for those who have it nice

From life's dark cellar, a tune1 can be heard

Where betrayal and envy is like crop

That grows from misdeed, murder, and death

Where hatred and predation is on the lurk

And forces life behind locked doors and brick walls

There, the tune1 sounds of screams and suffering

From the fiddler in the blue glow2

If something succeeds and survives

That enmity once again to madness drives

It bites and crunches in bone and gnaws

With mouths of beasts that slurp the blood

Of completely innocent, overtaken

And strangled in eternal night

He must disturbed drag himself to the grave

He who seeks pleasure in the act of killing

Every time a white-clad one is defeated

Then the dark one finds peace in the tune1

In these traumatic times where power in madness reigns

And ragnarok anew could create tormenting conditions

Where humans like giants can fight gods down

And only Judgement day can bring lasting peace

There takes place a bloody wedding on this little earth

Where forces of darkness battle those made of sun

And the poor must suffer for those who have it nice

From life's dark cellar, a tune1 can be heard

1. a. b. c. d. 'slått' is a type of Norwegian folk tune that is usually played on a Hardanger fiddle
2. 'blåne' is a form of the word 'blå' ('blue') that means something that is so far in the distance that it looks blue against the mountains, so 'blåne-skin' means a blue glow far away

Song details

Translation details

- Please give credit if you post my translations elsewhere
- Vennligst krediter meg hvis du legger ut oversettelsene mine et annet sted

stineemilie

submitted on 2 Mar 2022 - 03:28

Give a shoutout to stineemilie

Commenti dell’autore:

The language in this song is quite dialectal and rural, which made it difficult to translate since I speak a different dialect. Just pointing that out as there may be some small mistakes in the translation.

Some cultural context:
The folk song "Fanitullen" is a type of Norwegian tune called "slått", which the song references, but I chose to translate "slått" as "tune" since there is no English equivalent. Furthermore, the Devil is often portrayed as a fiddler in Scandinavian folklore, so the fiddler and the tune in the lyrics refer to the Devil and "Fanitullen" (aka "the Devil's tune").

This is what Gåte has written about the story of "Fanitullen" on their official website:

Fanitullen is a fiddle tune that was heard in a beer cellar during a wedding in Hol in Hallingdal in 1727. At this wedding, a violent brawl broke out and the son of the local chief constable killed a soldier with a knife. The wedding fiddler was in charge of drinks, and as he went down to the cellar to get ale for the winner of the fight, he saw the Devil sitting on the ale barrel, in a blue light, playing an unknown fiddle tune. The fiddler was petrified, and he ran up towards the parlour where the murder had recently taken place. From the cellar, the wild fiddle tune could still be heard, and the fiddler later remembered the tune, and he named this music Fanitullen.