I interviewed RUNAHILD from ELIWAGAR again

01. Hi, Runlahild! Or welcome back! He he. How things evolved for you since the last time we met on this webspace ?

This is interesting to read again an interview given 2 years ago and notice indeed all the changes in life since then. Eliwagar has now turned 10 years in December 2016. I had a few ideas about doing something special to celebrate it, but I didn’t follow any of these threads and instead decided to start my side project as Runahild.

Most of my life, I have been on my own to live my passions and followed a quite solitary road. While I do truly enjoy being alone, I have also always been longing to meet more people from my spiritual family (those who I instantly feel home with). Those feelings have been very much reflected into Eliwagar, a need to escape this reality because I have been struggling so much with feeling home here. I have been very gifted to meet Bjørn in 2010, and slowly my path is being woven to more people whose souls harmonize with mine. Also, I have now a little cabin on a hill that has been built mostly with material around (from pine trees, turf… etc.) and moving there has given me a home on earth… a place on its own where I can freely create, melt as one into nature and live my spirituality in peace. I love our farm, but it is a social and workspace and I am depending on loneliness and a private space for creativity… in the same time as I need to feel connected to my kindred. So, there has been quite a few major life changing that have given me new perspectives on life.

02. This month was released an album titled « Seidgaldr » that appears like the first record under the name of RUNAHILD. February 2017, you said you’ll release this album under your artist name due to new path with your life. Can you tell us more ? is the ELIWAGAR project coming to the end ?

It is really difficult for me to say that Eliwagar comes to an end. I really don’t know now whether I will record new songs later or not, that will truly depend on my inspiration and under which project the music I create fits best. 

One of the main reasons for this new project is, as mentioned in the previous question, a change in my way to experience life from trying to escape it and dreaming myself away to actually embracing my fate with both the darkness and the light it is being woven from. It is also due to a different way to compose music, some different instruments and energies/inspiration. When I started recording music again some months after the last release « I Vølven’s Vev », I just knew it could not be a following, but had to be a kind of new start. But I didn’t want to start a new project with a whole new name; I just wanted it to be me. The name « Runahild » came to me long before I started or even though about making music. It came to me like a whisper in my mind and it feels very natural to me to release under this name now, in fact it feels like coming back to the source.

03. Do we find special guests on this album ? 

Bjørn Dahl makes an appearance with a lead guitar on the song « Høstmånen ». Most of the new songs are quite based on improvisation and just letting the flow take over, while with Eliwagar I usually rehearsed the songs quite a few times before starting to record them.  It is very nice to realize that Bjørn came into the music with the same energy. It was one evening and we just had a nice time jamming and we just recorded different guitar tracks and ended up using 2 together, which completed each other perfectly although they were both total improvisations.

For me, it is primordial now that if someone should join either on records or stage, we must have a special connection that allows the energy to flow, it is more important to me than how technically good a person may be. For now, there is no other guest appearance… but I am quite open for the future and I would actually love at some point to record the energy during a drum circle, when everyone start singing and drumming and it all takes off really, that is a dream of mine to be able to include such a track on a record as this kind of atmosphere has been a very strong source of inspiration on « Seidgaldr ».

04. What do you play as the main member for that record ?

I play the kraviklyre, langeleik, different kind of hand drum, flute, hardanger fiddle, mouth harp, bukkhorn a little bit of guitar and bass.

05. Have you got positive feedbacks now the new release is out?

I have actually got really heart-warming feedbacks and I am very touched and happy for that. I was wondering what would be the reactions with this record considering the fact it is not as « worked » sound-wise as the Eliwagar ones. I am glad I can invite people into my world through music and that others can appreciate the journey.

06. What can we expect from the new record "Seidgaldr" available for sale here ? Magic through music ? :)

Musically speaking, I define this album as ethereal heathen folk. Seidgaldr takes root into experiences such as drum journeys/spiritual journeys into the underworld, or call it subconscious, to face my own darkness and shadow in order to nurture and heal it by acknowledging it and by connecting my darkness to my light. To feel and recognize how darkness and light are living in symbiosis with one an other within me and how they are together making me whole… this is what makes nature and the universe beautiful and we are but a personification of the universe. Music is healing and when I create songs I just wish to express and bring out the inner most feelings into harmonies. I feel very honoured when other people can somehow connect to it as well, no matter in which way it may speak to them. I guess it is up to everyone to experience what my music can bring to them personally.

07. Can you name your favorite track(s) from the tracklist of the new album and 
explain why is it your favorite ?

Every song of this album has a special and personal story so they all mean something important to me at different times… however if I must name at least one, I would say « Nornir » (Norns ) is maybe a favourite. I consider that this song was actually born on stage. I had composed the melody a few weeks before a concert and we rehearsed it with Bjørn (who joined with bass) a few times but it sounded different every time and we were very much in doubt if we should perform it or skip it. We went for playing it, and because this song had no structure we were completely free to improvise with it. Surprisingly for us, this was one of the songs that got the best response. This concert experience truly was an inspiration when I recorded it later. Somehow for me ,the energies that arose through me while playing it live, like a feeling of entering into a state of trance, remained into the song’s essence. 

08. "Seidgaldr" is your 11th full length. 
Did you expect to go that far when you started the ELIWAGAR project ?

I surely dreamed I would but once an album is finished, I never know if I will be able to compose a new one, so I never know how far music will take me. I am very happy that this journey has been so creative until now. There have been many different periods and sources of inspiration that have given every album their own identity… at least I feel it that way… I still mean that I don’t know how I would have survived this world without music, so I feel thankful for every time a song comes to me.

09. Do you plan to make a tour or some shows with live members if not true ones, in a near future ?

Actually, it is needed for me to take a little break for playing live this year, so it seems. We have one date in October where we have the great pleasure to play for the third year at a Norwegian festival – Urkraftfestival. Apart from this, I feel now that I maybe need new live members to join in for different reasons. I am not stressing with it though, we’ll see where life will lead me next. I want to focus more on improvisation on stage rather than structured songs, since this allows the energies to flow much more freely. But that requires that the people who join me are on the same wavelength and that we just have a very natural connection that can be reflected on music so we can intertwine our melodies instantly.

10. Do you miss France, sometimes ?

I actually don’t… except for the food though haha! 

Thank you for the interview, Runahild! 

Thank you very much for according me this interview and for your great support through the years. I truly appreciate you’ve always kept in touch with my project. Long live Sword Chant !!!