Ljoðarhall (ɫjʊːðɑrhɑl)

A ljoðarhall (translated: sounds hall/hall of sounds) is a type of assembly hall found in nearly every settlement in Auregelmir. Most are built and owned by a cooperative consisting of associations, clubs, and local individuals, though it is not unheard of for the herað to fund a community's ljoðarhall.

Day-to-day it is used as a place where people come to drink and sing, but serves many other purposes depending on the size and function of a settlement. People gather here to celebrate the holidays with their neighbors, receive important messages from the government, host events, or in smaller villages, conduct court for minor offenses. It is the center, often literally, of the community.

History

The ljoðarhall has its origin in ancient times when a regular Auregelending settlement consisted of a single longhouse. The main hall of the longhouse, making up roughly two thirds to four fifths of its length was called the ljoðarhall. Here you could find a long fire pit, benches, tables, cooking utensils, and sometimes beds. It was the working man's common room where all their daily indoor activities took place. In the evenings, after a hard day of work, they would gather here for food and drink, and of course song. The tradition for having a place dedicated partially to singing is believed to be the reason so many ancient aure songs are still around today.

As it became more common for families to live in individual houses, the hall became a standalone structure, often being the largest building in any given settlement. While the people lived in simple houses with thatched roofs, the ljoðarhall was given the little extra. Tall stone foundation, old growth pine walls, and slate tile roofing.

How the halls look today is very dependent on its location, and they may not be immediately recognizable from one town to the next. Many swear on building them exactly as they were, while some want insulated walls and fine glass windows. Regardless of looks, they are still used the same way today as they were a thousand years ago.

Song games

Games of song and rhyme are a nightly occurrence in the halls, but none more popular than "I Ljoðarhalli" (translated: In/inside [the] sound hall/hall of sounds). The game starts with all participants singing the first verse of the eponymous song. It goes like this:

Syng med den stemmen du har
Ein kar, uklar, men stemmar i par
Ljoðhalljydar ljyder ei rar

Translation tooltip here

The participants will then take turns making their own verses, sing it out loud, and have the rest of the group repeat it. They set their own themes and rules each time the game is played, though a common baseline is to have at least four rhyming words in each verse. Players are eliminated when they are unable to make up a verse in a reasonable time, thus breaking the flow of the song. The winner, or winners if the game just keeps going, get their verse added to the song the next time they play. Some reset their games after a week or a month, while some never end, creating songs with hundreds of verses.

Structure

Longhouse

In ancient times when the ljoðarhall was part of the larger longhouse, it took up the largest and central chamber. At most a longhouse contained three other chambers: a private chamber for the head farmer, a storage room, and a small barn section for prized animals and pets. The storage was often part of the ljoðarhall, creating the more common three-room longhouse.

The houses were built using the grindverk technique, a type of timber framing. The "grind" is a frame consisting of a pair of columns/staves joined by a crossbeam. The beam and columns are connected with a deep bridle joint. The staves are either buried into the ground or placed atop a stone foundation. The corners are strengthened by diagonal braces held in place by dowels. Two or more of these grinds are placed roughly equal distances from each other along the length of the structure, and longer beams are placed on top of the crossbeams to hold the structure together lengthwise, and to support the rafters.

Standalone

When the longhouse was phased out with larger settlements and the eventual invention of the sawmill, this is when the ljoðarhall truly became a hall of feast and song. Building techniques at the time varied greatly across Auregelmir, and halls were built with timber framing methods, log stacking, bricks, natural stone, or some even carved out from smaller caves.

With the invention of the water powered sawmill came more advanced means of timber framing. This method of framing is called stavline (translated: stave line/line of staves) and can be considered the continuation of grindverk. Compared to grindverk, it can survive harsher weather and bear a heavier load. The introduction of this technique popularized stone slate roofing, as opposed to using thatch or wooden shingles. For some time, if a village only had a single building with stone slates, you could be certain it was the ljoðarhall.

Though the techniques of stacking notched logs upon one another, called laft by aure, had been used for ages, building a ljoðarhall this way never became popular. It was labor intensive, and used a lot of materials. In remote settlements, though, abandoned houses were sometimes repurposed to serve the community. With proper love, care, and effort, some of these log houses still serve today as the pride of many a hamlet.

As a standalone building, the hall usually had a dedicated kitchen, a storage room, and a cellar for brewing and keeping food and drinks cool. Some even had a space for travelers to sleep, usually in a loft space.

Today

There is little to no consistency in style or building technique used in a ljoðarhall today, besides it having at least one big hall. Many communities have kept their hall as it has been for centuries, some have rebuilt it using increasingly complex timber framing methods, some build entirely new ones in entirely new ways. What has changed in recent years is the addition of several floors in city-built halls. As population increases, so does the demand for song and ale, and expanding sideways is not always an option.

Interior

The halls have one or more long tables with equally long benches on either side. These are placed around a central fire pit, a remnant from the longhouse days, though its primary function is warmth with cooking taking place in a kitchen. The wall with the entryway is lined with benches or shelves with spoons, bowls, and tankards. The wall opposite the entryway is where drink and/or food is served.

Decor varies, but it is common to find a dagstav inside. In smaller settlements, the ljoðarhall is where you'll find the only dagstav. Community arts and crafts are both created and placed within the hall. Some even have small shrines to one or more gods.

Economy

To the foreign eye it is difficult to imagine the ljoðarhall being anything else than a business, like a tavern or an inn. The owner surely sells their wares and services, and use their profits to maintain the business and pay their workers. While this is getting closer to the truth in large cities, the hall is built by the community for the community. And without the effort of the community, there will be no ljoðarhall. The town's carpenters take turns brewing ale and mead in the cellar. The local farmers share their surplus grain and growths to supply ingredients for porridge and soup. Their wives get together to make the soup. Their children take turns cleaning up in the mornings. Some drunkard lost his spoon in the fire last night? He'll carve a new one the next day.

You are not expected to pay. Even travelers drink for free. You are, however, encouraged to give back in some way. Helping with chores, making an offering at a nearby shrine, or telling tales and teaching songs from foreign lands. Someone who takes more and gives little or nothing in return may well find themselves at the end of a rope, hanging from a tree just outside of town.