The history of Eldskål began in 2018 at the Festival Mediaval. After a few dances and a few drinks, we realized that our family had almost the entire lineup for our own medieval band, except for a drummer.
We quickly found a drummer in Tom. However, instead of the planned line-up of vocals, guitar, bass, drums, flute, bagpipes and fiddle, we ended up with something a little different at the beginning: we had 3 (three!) flutes. You have to be able to handle that mentally… The band’s working title at the time was still “Die Konkurrenz” (The Competition). For various reasons, the “family” lineup didn’t work out. The bagpipes and fiddle (Marlena and Hannah) couldn’t continue, so we started a simple cover band with the remaining lineup. There were a few more hurdles: the long search for a rehearsal space, the interruption caused by COVID-19, changing lineups, Simone’s switch to a new instrument. At some point along the way, we made the decision to write our own music from then on. With this new courage came a new band name: “Eldskål” was founded.
At the end of 2021, Jan joined the band as second guitarist for a short time, and finally, in July 2022, Matze took over on drums. This is how the first album came about with the following line-up:
Jeannot
Vocals
Simon
Guitar
Simone
Flute and bagpipes
Matze
Drums
Gerhard
Bass
You can download and listen to the album for free.
In November 23, Felix joined as bagpipes player, and so we were able to play our first gigs in 2024.
Sadly, Jeannot had to leave the band in November 2024 for personal reasons. Felix followed suit a week later. Fortunately for us, we found new additions to the band in January 2025: René took over on vocals and Simon joined on the hurdy-gurdy. Both enrich Eldskål in their own unique and wonderful ways, and the current songs were created with this line-up.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Marlena, Hannah, Tom, and Jan for their invaluable help in getting us started, and Jeannot and Felix for their time with the band. We wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors!