In 1910, Norwegian poet Ingeborg Möller-Lindholm (1878-1964) told Rudolf Steiner about an old Norwegian poem called The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson. The poem is about the Holy Nights between December 24 and January 6. It is unknown when it was written, although it is unlikely to have been outside of the period between the 5th and 11th centuries. Until the year 353, Epiphany on January 6 was the Christmas Day, a day which, back then, was dedicated not only to the birth of Jesus, but also the baptism, the Christ and the mystery of Golgotha. Parts of the poem reappeared in the 19th century.
Möller-Lindholm created a translation from the old Norwegian dialect into German, upon Steiner’s request, in 1910. Her son Dan Lindholm (1908-1998) published this translation under his own name in 1967 and it is still in print today. The Dutch edition is based on this German version. The English version, however, after many musicians have used it as a source of inspiration, seems to be fading into obscurity.
The poem was published in a book called The Dream Song: Draumkvaedet, Norske Folkeviser, edited by singer, conductor and composer Thorvald Lammers (1841-1922), printed in Kristiania, modern-day Oslo, in 1910 by Aschehoug & Co. Poet Eleanor C. Merry (1873-1956) made an English translation, and the first edition by New Knowledge Books appeared a few years after her death in 1961. In the 1980s this book was sold by the non-profit Rudolf Steiner Press until they took it out of print. They stated in an email that it was no longer cost-effective. The asking prices of second-hand editions, meanwhile, are starting at $300.
Plenty of stories tell of how this old poem was rediscovered in Norway around 1850, but some parts of these accounts are surprisingly detailed while other parts leave big mysteries unsolved. In whichever way it happened, parts of the poem did gradually reappear from obscurity through the people hereby named, and it certainly is much older than is often assumed. Let us hope its current descent back into obscurity can be halted.
The poem can be read here on the website of the Rudolf Steiner Archive.