The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Olaf Åsteson Opening Remarks

[ 1 ] The so-called “Dream Song,” which will be performed today, calls for a few preliminary remarks.

[ 2 ] I already referred to this “dream song” in the Christmas address I gave you a few days ago. There I was able to say that the observance of Christmas is by no means merely a figment of the imagination, something born of thought, but that the observance of Christmas arises in the course of the year from very specific inner processes that can take place in the human soul, when that soul attains clairvoyant visions as the highest fruits of the soul, either through certain forces inherent in the natural course of things or through trained clairvoyance. We can best understand what actually underlies the human soul by setting the following thought before our soul.

[ ] All that which pertains to plants, all that which pertains to sprouting and budding growths—that which sunlight and solar warmth conjure forth in spring and cause to flourish throughout the summer—all of this, as it were, enters into a winter slumber, into winter darkness, following a sort of winter path during the time to which the Christmas festival has been assigned by humanity’s historical consciousness. Just as sleep and darkness for the beings of nature, so does the time in which Christmas is set appear to us. The opposite is true for the human soul as it is for outer nature. While the beings of nature descend into darkness and the human soul accompanies them into this realm of outer solar eclipse, it becomes—or at least can become—brighter within this human soul. Through the natural course of things—which we have often referred to as a certain inherited clairvoyance—or through trained clairvoyance, it can plunge directly into the brightest spiritual world, where the mysteries of the spirit, hidden behind the outer sensory things, then unfold before it. And just as this descent of the plant world around the time of the winter solstice is subject to a regular law, so too is the spiritual blossoming of human beings subject to such a law, so that it coincides in its luminous brightness with the natural darkness into which the Christmas festival is set.

[ 3 ] It might now seem as though such things are spoken of merely from the perspective of modern, trained clairvoyance, or, as our opponents say, from mere fantasy. However, what people and nations experience in the external world will always serve as living, fully valid proof to the contrary. That is why I found it extraordinarily interesting that, after I had spoken for several years within our movement about this Christmas clairvoyance—which introduces us to the significance of the Christ Being, to the dawning of the Christ Being precisely when the human soul is most deeply immersed in clairvoyance— and I then once again came to Norway—a country so close to us in spiritual terms—for a series of lectures—that I was presented there with a strange vision from up there, about which, however, anyone familiar with such things must immediately say to themselves: Yes, this resonates with much of what has always lived on in similar visions among the Germanic peoples, what many people have essentially seen clairvoyantly during the thirteen nights from Christmas Eve to the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6. - There the human soul can look into the spiritual world and see the destiny of the human soul in its disembodied state as it passes through Kamaloka, and it then becomes clear to the soul how a relationship is established between the higher spiritual worlds and the deeds of human beings here on Earth. And it is interesting that the person of whom this dream song now tells us, and to whom these visions in this Nordic region are attributed through this dream song, is a man named Olaf Åsteson. It is said of him that during these thirteen nights, in a kind of clairvoyant experience, he underwent what the Nordic person, in his own way, can perceive as a vision. He first experienced how human deeds continue to unfold once a person has passed through the gate of death, but he also experienced how what we call the Christ-Essence intervenes in the workings and weaving of the soul after disembodiment, how the judicial office of Jesus, the Christ, who steps in alongside the ancient World Judge, the so-called Face of Jehovah, the Archangel Michael, falls into the Nordic spiritual order of life after death. So that, alongside everything else that appears to the clairvoyance of Olaf Åsteson, the penetration of Christianity into the North also resonates, and that everything becomes clairvoyantly clear to him during the thirteen nights of the festival of Jesus’ birth, through which he slept.

[ 4 ] To what kind of consciousness does this become clear? It is curious that this is already hinted at in the name itself, which in the North originally referred quite clearly to a human consciousness inherited from the forefathers, from the ancestors. Olaf is truly Olaf in those times when the ancient, clairvoyant ancestral consciousness reawakens within him. He who has inherited his consciousness, his inner being, from the ancestors: that is what is contained in the name Olaf. And Åste means love, the love that is passed down through the blood from generation to generation. This son of love, Åsteson, is Olaf; he is the consciousness that has been passed down from generation to generation since the ancient clairvoyant times; he is like a revived ancestral lineage. Olaf, born with this clairvoyant consciousness, perceives the destiny of the human soul, and at the same time beholds the intervention of that Being whom we celebrate in the feast of Jesus’ birth as his entry into earthly existence. And strangely, while such visions have certainly been experienced time and again, especially in Germanic countries, this dream song seems to have been forgotten. For in 1850, the preacher Landstad set out in Telemark, a lonely mountain valley where few people lived at the time, to collect folk songs. And among the various folk songs, alive in the vernacular—he did not know since when, he did not know for how long—was the song of Olaf Åsteson, who in the thirteen nights beheld the destiny of the human soul after it had passed through the gate of death, and the entry of Christ Jesus into world history. He did not know when this song of initiation into the human soul, this initiation song, had taken root, for it lived on and was recited in the folk tradition, set to a musical melody, time and again. The few people of the lonely mountain valley took delight in it, and there the preacher Landstad read it, as it spoke to him of the mysteries that had been explored—as by the folk spirit itself—regarding initiation in ancient times. Thus it has been passed down until Landstad found it in the vernacular. Many people naturally believe that it alludes to Saint Olaf, who introduced Christianity in 1030 AD and whose mother was named Äste, meaning “love.” As with so many things, there is both a historical and a spiritual dimension to this story.

[ 5 ] It is also interesting to note that this dream song has now quickly spread among a large portion of the Nordic people and lives on in the hearts of the Norwegian people. There is, after all, a major movement in Norway aimed at reviving the old times and, with that, the old language—which is very close to the Proto-Germanic language—to revive the Nordic language in contrast to the Danish language that was introduced later. Now, this song is in a language that echoes the oldest language preserved there, and for those who wish to revive their ancient heritage, this song spoke to their hearts, and over the past ten to fifteen years it has penetrated not only the hearts of the people but also the schools. It is sung and recited everywhere; wherever the soul awakens to the old folklore, one hears, so to speak, the dream song of Olaf Åsteson, who during the thirteen nights from Christmas to January 6 was, so to speak, naturally initiated into the sacred mysteries of humanity. And for this reason, we would like to present this dream song of Olaf Åsteson to you today. Miss von Sivers will recite it. I first attempted to adapt it provisionally so that it could be recited in German, after Mrs. Lindholm took me by the hand to make possible in German the peculiar language in which the song lives—and now lives more and more, having become an aria of folk song. So we will now hear it in this initially provisional arrangement, which I was able to produce in just a few days.

The Dream Song

I.

So listen to my song!
I will sing to you
Of a nimble young man:

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept so long.
Of him I will sing to you.

II.

He went to rest on Christmas Eve.
A deep sleep soon overcame him,
And he could not awaken,
Until on the thirteenth day
The people went to church.

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept so long.
Of him I will sing to you.

He went to rest on Christmas Eve.
He slept for a very long time!
He could not wake up,
Before on the thirteenth day
The bird spreads its wings!

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept so long.
Of him I will sing to you.

Olaf could not wake,
Until on the thirteenth day
The sun shone over the mountains.
Then he saddled his swift horse,
And hurriedly rode to the church.

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept so long.
Of him I will sing to you.

Already the priest stood
At the altar reading Mass,
When at the church door
Olaf sat down to tell
Of the content of many dreams,
Which during his long sleep
Filled his soul.

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept so long.
Of him I will sing to you.

And young and old alike,
They listened attentively to the words,
That Olaf spoke of his dreams.

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept so long.
Of him I will sing to you.

III.

“I went to rest on Christmas Eve.
A deep sleep soon enveloped me;
And I could not awaken,
Until on the thirteenth day
The people went to church.

The moon shone bright
And the paths stretched far and wide.

I was lifted up to the heights of the clouds
And cast into the depths of the sea,
And whoever wishes to follow me,
Let him not expect joy.

The moon shone bright
And the paths stretched far and wide.

I was lifted up to the heights of the clouds
Then cast into murky swamps,
Beholding the horrors of hell
And also the light of heaven.

The moon shone bright
And far and wide the paths stretched out.

And I had to journey into the depths of the earth,
Where the streams of the gods roar terribly.
I could not see them,
But I could hear the roaring.

The moon shone bright
And the paths stretched far and wide.

My black horse did not neigh,
And my dogs did not bark,
Nor did the morning bird sing,
It was a single wonder everywhere.

The moon shone bright
And far and wide the paths stretched out.

I had to travel through the spirit realm
Across the vast field of thorn heath,
My scarlet cloak was torn
And so were the nails of my feet.

The moon shone bright
And far and wide the paths stretched out.

I came to the Gjallar Bridge.
It hangs in the highest heights of the wind,
It is studded with red gold
And it has nails with sharp points.

The moon shone bright
And far and wide the paths stretched out.

The ghostly serpent struck me,
The ghostly dog bit me,
The bull stood in the middle of the path.
These are the bridge’s three creatures.
They are of a terribly evil nature.

The moon shone bright
And the paths stretched far and wide.

The dog is quite vicious,
And the serpent seeks to strike,
The bull looms menacingly!
They let no one cross the bridge,
Who does not honor the truth!

The moon shone bright
And the paths stretched far and wide.

I have walked across the bridge,
Which is narrow and dizzying.
I had to wade through swamps....
They now lie behind me!

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched far and wide.

In swamps I had to wade,
They seemed bottomless beneath my feet.
When I crossed the bridge,
I felt earth in my mouth
Like the dead lying in graves.

The moon shone bright
And far and wide the paths stretched out.

Then I came to water,
In which, like blue flames
The ice masses shone brightly...
And God, He guided my mind,
So that I avoided the area.

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched far and wide.

I directed my steps toward the winter path.
To the right I could see it:
I gazed as if into paradise,
Which shone brightly far and wide.

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched far and wide.

And God’s high Mother,
I saw her there in the radiance!
To journey to Brooksvalin,
So she commanded me, announcing,
That souls are judged there!

The moon shone bright
And the paths stretched far and wide.»

IV.

«In other worlds I dwelt
Through many long nights;
And God alone can know,
How much of the souls’ distress I saw —

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

I could see a young man,
He had murdered a boy:
Now he must carry him forever
In his own arms!
He stood so deep in the mud

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

I also saw an old man,
He wore a cloak as if of lead;
Thus was he punished, for he
Lived on earth in greed,

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

And men appeared,
Who wore fiery garments;
Dishonesty weighs
Upon their poor souls

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

I could also see children,
Who had embers of coal beneath their feet;
They had done evil to their parents in life,
Which weighed heavily upon their spirits

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

And to approach that house,
It was imposed upon me,
Where witches were to perform their work
In the blood that enraged them in life,

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

From the north, in wild hordes,
There rode evil spirits,
Led by the Prince of Hell,

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

What came from the north,
Seemed above all evil;
He rode ahead, the Prince of Hell,
On his black steed

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

But from the south came
Other hordes in noble calm.
Saint Michael rode ahead
At the side of Jesus Christ

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.”

The souls, burdened with sin,
They trembled in fear!
Tears streamed down in torrents
As the consequences of evil deeds

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

There stood Michael in majesty
And weighed the souls of men
On his scales of sin,
And standing there in judgment
Was Jesus Christ, Judge of the World

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.”

V.

“How blessed is he who, in his earthly life
Gives shoes to the poor;
He need not walk with bare feet
Through the field of thorns.

Then the tongue of the scales speaks,
And universal truth
Resounds in the realm of the spirit.

How blessed is he who, in his earthly life
Gives bread to the poor!
He cannot be harmed
By the dogs in that world.

There the tongue of the scales speaks,
And universal truth
Resounds in the realm of the spirit.

How blessed is he who, in his earthly life
Gives grain to the poor!
He cannot be threatened
By the sharp horn of the bull,
When he must cross the Gjallar Bridge.

There speaks the tongue of Libra,
And the truth of the world
Resounds in the realm of the spirit.

How blessed is he who, in his earthly life
Gives clothes to the poor!
He cannot be frozen to death
By the ice masses in Brooksvalin.

There speaks the tongue of the scales,
And the truth of the world
Resounds in the realm of the spirit.»

VI.

And young and old alike,
They listened attentively to the words,
That Olaf spoke of his dreams. You have slept for so long... Awake now, O Olaf Åsteson!