ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how learning to sing rímur, a type of intoned poetry, engages with larger cultural and social issues in Iceland, even as it remains mostly outside of the country’s robust system of community-based music schools and other official institutions of learning. Through a case study of the Iðunn society of Reykjavík, I consider how contemporary singers engage with traditional modes of transmission and learning in contemporary contexts. This research offers an ethnographic study of how people in Iceland today engage with traditional singing and offers insight into the ethnographic process in such research.
