The Story of Volund: A translation from the oral to the visual

The Story of Volund from Norse poetry was the foundation of a large-scaled installation in the spring of 2014 in the online virtual world of Second Life®. The installation was created in collaboration between a storyteller and a visual designer, who are also the authors of this text. This article will discuss how the principles of oral storytelling, agency and presence were woven together to bring about a ‘story-world’ in which visitors were able to become both a protagonist and a storyteller through various means and devices that were put at their disposal. This process – both the theoretical considerations that played a role during the formulation of the project as well as the strategies employed during its building – will be examined through a literature review encompassing oral storytelling and its performative aspects, the extension of these into virtual environments, Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces (1973), and a discussion of the myth of Volund himself.