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Norse Saga

Norse saga

The Norse sagas or Viking sagas (Icelandic: sögur), are stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking voyages, about migration to Iceland, and of feuds between Icelandic families. One of them, the Gutasaga, was written on Gotland and deals with the early history of the Gotlanders. They were written in the Old Norse language. The texts are epic tales in prose, often with stanzas or whole poems in alliterative verse embedded in the text, of heroic deeds of days long gone, tales of worthy men, who were often Vikings, sometimes Pagan, sometimes Christian. The tales are usually realistic (except, of course, legendary sagas, sagas of saints, sagas of bishops and translated or recomposed romances), sometimes romanticised and fantastic, but always dealing with human beings we can understand.

Background

The (English) saga , (German) Sage originates from (Icelandic) saga, pl. sögur and refers to (1) "what is said, statement" or (2) "story, tale, history". Icelandic sagas are based on oral traditions and much research has focused on what is real and what is fiction within each tale. The accuracy of the sagas is often hotly disputed, being both overestimated and underestimated by various scholars. Most of the manuscripts in which the sagas were originally preserved were taken to Denmark and Sweden in the 17th century, but later returned to Iceland. There are plenty of tales of kings (e.g. Heimskringla), every-day people (e.g. Bandamanna saga) and larger than life characters (e. g. Egils saga). The sagas describe a part of the history of some of the Nordic countries (e.g. the last chapter of Hervarar saga). England and North America are also mentioned. It was only recently (start of 20th century) that the tales of the voyages to America were authenticated. Most sagas of Icelanders take place in the period 930–1030, which is actually called söguöld (Age of the Sagas) in Icelandic history. The sagas of kings, bishops, contemporary sagas and so on, of course have their own time frame. Most were written down between 1190 to 1320, sometimes existing as oral traditions long before, others are pure fiction, and for some we do know the sources: The author of King Sverrir's saga had met the king and used him as a source.

On the plots and writing style

Some Norse Sagas live between Christianity and Paganism (Njál's saga is an example; see also Norse mythology.) Aside from Christian influence, the world of the sagas is strongly pagan, and fate plays a central role, a key line in Njal's Saga (chapter 6, as translated by Magnus Magnusson; references below) is :... each must do as destiny decides. The civilization of Norse sagas is complex, many-layered, with often-contradictory agents sometimes acting as forces for good, sometime evil, and always grippingly human. The writing style tends towards the impersonal, terse, with no explanation of why's. Things happen; no one questions fate. Characters are often but briefly introduced, There was a man named ..., followed by brief biographies, genealogy, and all-important relations to other figures in the saga. Personalities are shown through action, seldom through analysis any deeper than offhand lines like He was an utter scoundrel, or, He was a powerful chieftain. Often a prominent agent figures in other sagas, and one may draw information from them, which saga writers simply assumed. Relationships between individuals are complex, by friendship, blood, marriage, and immediate geography. One must often and at disadvantage overcome fantastic enemies. Life is short, uncertain, and men's worth is determined by glory in arms. Critical concepts to the Norse saga technique are honour, luck (or destiny), and fate, the supernatural, and character. Behavior is often not explained, as within the world of the saga it is what must be done, and early listeners of sagas had no need of questions. Any slight to one's honour (or that of one's family) had to be avenged, by blood or money. Men could easily be goaded to fatal violence over a (real or imagined) slight to their honour. The concept of luck is simple, certainly in one such as Njal's Saga: one is born with a certain store of good luck. When your good luck runs out, you're doomed. The supernatural often plays a major role as well. Oneiric (i.e., relating to prophetic dreams) factors may also play a role. Do agents have the character to surmount their difficulties, or do they succumb to vices such as evil, cowardice and pride? As a final stylistic point, Magnus Magnusson beautifully notes in his introduction to Njal's Saga, :In the midst of such economy, one spendthrift sentence can speak volumes: 'two ravens flew with them all the way' (Chapter 79) as Skarp-Hedin and Hogni set out at night to avenge Gunnar ...

The saga as a literary technique

The saga is not strictly a Norse literary technique. Similar styles around the world were either independently developed or were derived from the style of the Norse sagas. For example:
- The epic Western genre of the Western, a romanticised history of America's west. Some Westerns have plots drawn directly from Norse sagas. An epic Western such as Once Upon a Time in the West may be regarded a revenge saga.
- The Song of Roland as a French saga, as all their Chansons de geste.
- Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as English sagas
- Homer's Odyssey as a Greek saga
- Japan's tales of the samurai
- The science fiction sub-genre Space Opera
- J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and many of the derivative works in modern fantasy literature Even some religious writings such as the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita have saga overtones.

Modern parallels

Tolkien's name Gandalf is found in the Edda; indeed, Gandalf is reminiscent of Odin, the principal Norse god, though in the Edda the name belongs to a dwarf, Gandálfr. Tolkien's name Middle-earth comes from an Old and Middle English term for that society's "known world" for which cognates exist in Old Norse and other Germanic languages. Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen drew inspiration from sources including the Norse Saga, Edda, Volsunga saga and the German epic The Nibelungenlied.

Classification of sagas

Norse Sagas are generally classified as:

Kings' sagas

These tell of the lives of Scandinavian kings. They were composed in the 12th to 14th centuries. See List of Kings' sagas

Icelandic saga (Íslendingasögur)

These are heroic prose narratives written in the 12th to 14th centuries of the great families of Iceland from 930 to 1030. These are the highest form of the classical Icelandic saga writing. See List of Icelandic sagas

Short stories of the Norse Saga technique (Íslendinga þættir)

The material of these sagas is similar to Íslendinga sögur, just shorter. See Short stories of the Norse Saga technique.

Legendary sagas

These blend remote history with myth or legend. The aim is on a lively narrative and entertainment. Scandinavia's pagan past was a proud and heroic history for the Icelanders. See List of Legendary sagas.

Other Norse sagas

See List of other Norse sagas

External links and references

- [http://www.heimskringla.no «Kulturformidlingen norrøne tekster og kvad»]
- [http://www.northvegr.org/lore/main.php Free saga e-texts and related materials]
- [http://www.cyberclip.com/Katrine/NorwayInfo/words/saga.html A Norse saga page]
- [http://home.prcn.org/~saeunn/norse.htm Viking sagas online]
- [http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~cherryne/mythology.html A Norse mythology page]
- [http://server.fhp.uoregon.edu/norse/ Norse saga resources from the University of Oregon]
- (Unknown author, translated by Magnus Magnusson) (1960), Njal's Saga,
- (ISBN 0140441034)
- (Unknown author, translated by Seamus Heaney), Beowulf, (2000)
- (ISBN 0393320979)
- [http://www.snerpa.is/net/isl/isl.htm The icelandic sagas at Netútgáfan] Category:Viking Age Category:History of the Germanic peoples Category:Medieval literature Category:Norse sagas Category:Norse mythology Category:Sagas of Iceland ja:サーガ

Icelandic (language)

:For other meanings, see Icelandic (disambiguation). Icelandic (íslenska) is a North Germanic language spoken in Iceland. It is an inflected language with four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Its closest relative is the Faroese language. While most Western European languages have reduced greatly the extent of inflection, particularly in noun declension, Icelandic retains an inflectional grammar comparable to that of Latin, Ancient Greek, or more closely, Old English. Written Icelandic has changed relatively little since the 13th century. As a result of this, and of the similarity between the modern and ancient grammar, modern speakers can still read, more or less, the original sagas and Eddas that were written some eight hundred years ago. This ability is sometimes mildly overstated by Icelanders themselves, most of whom actually read the Sagas with updated modern spelling and footnotes - though otherwise intact. This old form of the language is called Old Icelandic, but also commonly equated to Old Norse (an umbrella term for the common Scandinavian language of the Viking era). The icelandic alphabet is notable for its retention of two old letters which no longer exist in the English alphabet: þ (thorn) and ð (eth or edh), representing the voiceless and voiced "th" sounds as in English thin and this respectively. The complete Icelandic alphabet is: A Á B D Ð E É F G H I Í J K L M N O Ó P R S T U Ú V X Y Ý Þ Æ Ö (32 letters) a á b d ð e é f g h i í j k l m n o ó p r s t u ú v x y ý þ æ ö The preservation of the Icelandic language is taken seriously by the Icelanders — rather than borrow foreign words for new concepts, new Icelandic words are diligently forged for public use. An extremely purist form of Icelandic is High Icelandic or Háfrónska. Icelandic does not have any dialect differences that can cause misunderstanding.

Sounds

Icelandic has an aspiration contrast between plosives, rather than a voicing contrast, something relativly rare among European languages. Preaspirated voiceless stops are also common. However fricative and sonorant consonant phonemes exhibit regular contrasts in voice, including in nasals (rare in the world's languages). Additionally, length is contrastive for many phonemes; voiceless sonorant consonants seem to be the only exception. The chart below is based on Scholten (2000, p. 22); refer to the IPA article for information on the sounds of the following symbols:

Consonants

The voiced fricatives , , and are not completely constrictive and are often closer to approximants than fricatives. The status of and as phonemes or as allophones of and is the topic of some debate. One the one hand, the presence of minimal pairs like gjóla "light wind" vs. góla "howl" and kjóla "dresses" vs. kóla "cola" suggests that the palatal stops are separate phonemes. On the other hand, only the palatal stops, not the velars, may appear before front vowels, and some linguists (e.g. Rögnvaldsson 1993) have held out for an underlying phonemic representation of and as and respectively, with a phonological process merging into . Whether this approach, which is consistent with the orthography and historical processes, represents a synchronic reality is disputed. The dental fricatives and are allophones of a single phoneme. is used word-initially, as in þak "roof", and before a voiceless consonant, as in maðkur "worm". is used intervocalically, as in iða "vortex" and word-finally, as in bað "bath", although it can be devoiced to before pause. Of the voiceless nasals, only occurs in word-initial position, for example in hné "knee". Recently, there has been an increasing tendency, especially among children, to pronounce this as voiced, for example pronouncing hnífur "knife" rather than standard . The palatal nasal appears before palatal stops and the velar nasals before velar stops. appears also before and through the deletion of in the consonant clusters and . The preaspirates (e.g. löpp "foot") do not occur in initial position. The geminates are not necessarily longer than simple but do cause shortening of a preceding vowel. Still, they may be pronounced long in certain styles of speech, such as when talking to children.

Vowels

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. Vowel length is predictable in Icelandic (Orešnik and Pétursson 1977). Stressed vowels (both monophthongs and diphthongs) are long:
- In one-syllable words where the vowel is word-final:
- fá "get"
- nei "no"
- þú "you"
- Before a single consonant:
- fara "go"
- hás "hoarse"
- vekja "wake up"
- ég "I"
- spyr "ask (1 person, singular)"
- Before any of the consonant clusters , , or :
- lipra "agile (accusative, feminine)"
- sætra "sweet (genitive, plural)"
- akra "fields (accusative, plural)"
- hásra "hoarse (genitive, plural)"
- vepja "lapwing"
- letja "dissuade"
- Esja proper noun, a mountain
- götva as in uppgötva "discover"
- vökva "water (verb)" Before other consonant clusters (including the preaspirated stops and geminate consonants), stressed vowels are short. Unstressed vowels are always short.
- Karl proper noun
- standa "stand"
- sjálfur "self"
- kenna "teach"
- fínt "fine"
- loft "air"
- upp "up"
- yrði as in nýyrði "neologism"
- ætla "will (verb)"
- laust "lightly"

Morphology

Many German speakers will find Icelandic morphology familiar. Almost every morphological category in one language is represented in the other. Nouns are declined for case, number and gender, adjectives for case, number, gender and comparison, and there are two declensions for adjectives, weak and strong. Icelandic possesses only the definite article, which can stand on its own, or be attached to its modified noun (as in other North-Germanic languages). Verbs are conjugated for tense, mood, person, number and voice. There are three voices, active, passive and medial, but it may be debated whether the medial voice is a voice or simply an independent class of verbs of its own. There are only two simple tenses, past and present, but to make up for that there are a number of auxiliary constructions, some of which may be regarded as tenses, others as aspects to varying degrees.

Syntax

Icelandic is SVO, generally speaking, but the inflectional system allows for quite some freedom in word order.

Icelandic sign language

:Main article: Icelandic Sign Language Icelandic sign language was originally based on Danish Sign Language. Until 1910, deaf Icelandic people were sent to school in Denmark. Today, Icelandic sign language has evolved apart from its Danish roots. The language is regulated by a national committee.

References

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External links

- University of Iceland ([http://www.hi.is/page/hi_is_english_frontpage English]) ([http://www.hi.is/ Icelandic])
- [http://www.ismal.hi.is/malsten.htm Íslensk málstöð (The Icelandic Language Institute)]
- [http://lexis.hi.is/ Lexicographical Institute of Háskóli Íslands / Orðabók Háskóla Íslands]
- [http://www.hi.is/nam/islenska/ Íslenskuskor Háskóla Íslands]
- [http://www.hum.uit.no/a/svenonius/lingua/flow/li/minig/enmini_is.html An Icelandic minigrammar]
- [http://www2.hu-berlin.de/bragi BRAGI] - website on the Icelandic language, primarily in Icelandic and German, though other languages are available for some sub-pages.
- [http://www.rimur.is/ Iðunn - Poetry society]
- [http://www.rimur.is/?i=4 Bragfræði og Háttatal]
- [http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/IcelOnline.IEOrd Icelandic-English Dictionary / Íslensk-ensk orðabók] Sverrir Hólmarsson, Christopher Sanders, John Tucker. Searchable dictionary from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries
- [http://frontpage.simnet.is/annas/laerdom/malshatt.htm Some Icelandic sayings] (I)
- [http://www.msfelag.is/lettmeti/malshaettir.htm Some Icelandic sayings] (II)
- [http://www.mannanofn.com/ Meanings of Icelandic names]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=isl Ethnologue report for the Icelandic language] (about Ethnologue)
- [http://www.ma.is/kenn/svp/kennsluefni/malfar/fyrsta.htm Daily spoken Icelandic - a little help]
- [http://www.ma.is/kenn/svp/pistlar/default.htm Mannamál, Some tricky points of daily spoken Icelandic]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Icelandic-english/ Icelandic - English Dictionary]: from Webster's Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.islenska.de/index.html Íslenska - German magazine for Learners of Icelandic]
- [http://mimir.dettifoss.org/ Mimir - Online Icelandic grammar notebook]
- [http://briem.ismennt.is Thorn and eth: how to get them right]
- [http://www.verbix.com/languages/icelandic.shtml Verbix - an online Icelandic verb conjugator]
- [http://www.lexis.hi.is/beygingarlysing/index.html An online declension tool for Icelandic nouns]
- [http://www.mentalcode.com/nl/islenska/index.page Mentalcode - Icelandic]
- [http://www.samkoma.com/mimir/mimir.htm Mímir - Icelandic grammar notebook]
- [http://gis.bofh.is/ornefnaskra/ Örnefnaskrá Íslands - Icelandic place names directory] Category:Icelandic language Category:North Germanic languages Category:Languages of Iceland ja:アイスランド語 nb:Islandsk språk simple:Icelandic language

Germanic tribes

The term Germanic tribes (or Teutonic tribes) applies to the ancient Germanic peoples of Europe. The Germanic tribes spoke mutually intelligible dialects and shared a mythology (see Germanic mythology) and storytelling, as is indicated by Beowulf and the Volsunga saga. One example of their shared identity is their common Germanic name for non-Germanic peoples,
- walhaz (plural of
- walhoz), from which the local names Welsh, Wallis, Walloon, Wallachia and Cornwall were derived. A second example of a recognized ethnic unity is the fact that the Romans knew them as one and gave them a common name, Germani, the source of our German and Germanic (see Etymology below). In the absence of large-scale political unification, such as that imposed forcibly by the Romans upon the peoples of Italy, the various tribes remained free, led by their own hereditary or chosen leaders.

Etymology of "German"

As the Germanic tribes never called themselves so, but the Romans first knew them as allies of the Celts, Germani is thought to be the Celtic name for them. However, there is also a Latin adjective germanus (<- germen, seed or offshoot), which has the sense of "related" or "kindred" and whence derives the Portuguese irmão and the Spanish hermano, "brother". If the proper name Germani derives from this word, it may refer to the Roman experience of the Germanic tribes as allies of the Celts. Another possible derivation is the one proffered by The Oxford Etymological Dictionary (1966 Edition), which relates the name to Old Irish gair, "neighbor", which actually means "near". The Welsh is ger. Considering the earliest historical relationship between the Germans and the Celts, "neighbor" ought perhaps to be interpreted as "ally." McBain's An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language relates the word to Irish gearr, "cut, short" (a short distance) and states the Proto-Celtic root to be
- gerso-s, further related to ancient Greek chereion, "inferior" and English gash. Here the etymological trail seems to recede into a prehistoric morass, but there is a good reason for this disappearing trail. English gash leads by one path or another to the Greek word character, which is an engraving for an identity sign of some sort. There is no clear root for this word. It could be an Indo-european root,
- khar-,
- kher-,
- ghar-,
- gher-, "cut", from which also Hittite kar-, "cut". Or, it could be a pre-Indo-European root, related perhaps to Egyptian kha-, "cut", or the Indo-European root could come from the pre-Indo-European root. The self names for the Germanics reveal something of a unity as well. The best known are the Deutsch/Dutch/Dietsch /Dansk words, which come from Indo-European
- teuta-, "tribe" or "people". Not all the Germanics use that word, but there is another, used by all, which is so obvious that it escapes notice: man. We read of the man first in the Germania of Tacitus (Chapter 2, Oxford text): :"Celebrant carminibus antiquis, quod unum apud illos memoriae et annalium genus est, Tuistonem deum terra editum. ei filium Mannum originem gentis conditoresque Manno tres filios adsignant..." :"They celebrate, in ancient songs, which are the only kind of memory and annals among them, Tuisto, the god brought forth from the earth, and assign to him a son, Mannus, the author, and three sons to Mannus, the founders, of the people..."

History

Origin

Mannus]] Regarding the question of ethnic origins, evidence developed by both archaeologists and linguists suggests that a people or group of peoples sharing a common material culture dwelt in northern Germany and southern Scandinavia during the late European Bronze Age (1000 BC-500 BC). This culture group is called the Nordic Bronze Age and spread from southern Scandinavia into northern Germany. The long presence of Germanic tribes in southern Scandinavia (an Indo-European language had probably arrived by 2000 BC) is also evidenced by the fact that no pre-Germanic place names have been found in this area. Linguists, working backwards from historically-known Germanic languages, suggest that this group spoke proto-Germanic, a distinct branch of the Indo-European language family. Cultural features at that time included small, independent settlements, and an economy strongly based on the keeping of livestock. Indo-European, ca 500 BC-60 BC. The area south of Scandinavia is the Jastorf culture]] The southward movement was probably influenced by a deteriorating climate in Scandinavia ca 600 BC - ca 300 BC. The warm and dry climate of southern Scandinavia (2-3 degrees warmer than today) deteriorated considerably, which not only dramatically changed the flora, but forced people to change their way of living and to leave settlements. At around this time, this culture discovered how to extract bog iron from the ore in peat bogs. Their technology for gaining iron ore from local sources may have helped them expand into new territories. The Germanic culture grew to the southwest and southeast, without sudden breaks, and it can be distinguished from the culture of the Celts inhabiting the more southerly Danube and Alpine regions during the same period. The details of the expansion are known only generally, but it is clear that the forebears of the Goths were settled on the southern Baltic shore by 100 AD. According to some scholars, along the lower and middle Rhine, previous local inhabitants seem to have come under the leadership of Germanic figures from outside.

Collision with Rome

By the late 2nd century, B.C., Roman authors recount Gaul (modern France), Italy, and Iberia (modern Portugal and Spain) were invaded by migrating Germanic tribes, culminating in military conflict with the armies of the Roman Empire. Six decades later, Julius Caesar invoked the threat of such attacks as one justification for his annexation of Gaul to Rome. Julius Caesar, an ethnographic work on the diverse group of Germanic tribes outside of the Roman Empire.]] As Rome advanced her borders to the Rhine and Danube, incorporating many Celtic societies into the Empire, the tribal homelands to the north and east emerged collectively in the records as Germania, whose peoples were sometimes at war with the Empire, but who also engaged in complex and long-term trade relations, military alliances, and cultural exchanges with their neighbors to the south. The wars against the Cimbri and Teutoni whose military incursion into Roman Italy was thrust back in 101 BC were written up by Caesar and others as historical prototypes of a Northern danger for the Empire to be controlled. In the Augustean period there was - as a result of Roman activity as far as the Elbe River - a first definition of the "Germania magna": from Rhine and Danube in the West and South to the Vistula and the Baltic Sea in the East and North. Caesar's ethnographic excurses finally established the term Germania. The initial purpose of the Roman campaigns was to protect Gaul by controlling the area between the Rhine and the Elbe. In 9 AD a revolt of their subject Germanics headed by Arminius (decisive defeat of Quintilius Varus in the Teutoburg Forest) ended in the withdrawal of the Roman frontier to the Rhine. At the end of the 1st century two provinces west of the Rhine called Germania inferior and Germania superior were established. Important medieval cities like Aachen, Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Worms and Speyer were part of these Roman structures.

Migration Period

:Main article: Migration Period During the 5th century, as the Roman Empire drew toward its end, numerous Germanic tribes, under pressure from invading Asian peoples and/or population growth and climate change, began migrating en masse in far and diverse directions, taking them to England and as far south through present day Continental Europe to the Mediterranean and northern Africa. Over time, this wandering meant intrusions into other tribal territories, and the ensuing wars for land escalated with the dwindling amount of unoccupied territory. Wandering tribes then began staking out permanent homes as a means of protection. Much of this resulted in fixed settlements from which many, under a powerful leader, expanded outwards. A defeat meant either scattering or merging with the dominant tribe, and this continued to be how nations were formed. In Denmark the Jutes merged with the Danes, in Sweden the Geats merged with the Swedes. In England, for example, we now most often refer to the Anglo-Saxons rather than the two separate tribes.

Role of the Germanics in the Fall of Rome

Some of the Germanic tribes are frequently blamed in popular conceptions for the fall of the Roman Empire in the late 5th century. Professional historians and archaeologists have since the 1950s shifted their interpretations in such a way that the Germanic peoples are no longer seen as invading a decaying empire but as being co-opted into helping defend territory the central government could no longer adequately administer. Individuals and small groups from Germanic tribes had long been recruited from the territories beyond the limes (i.e., the regions just outside the Roman Empire), and some of them had risen high in the command structure of the army. Then the Empire recruited entire tribal groups under their native leaders as officers. Assisting with defense eventually shifted into administration and then outright rule, as Roman traditions of government passed into the hands of Germanic leaders. Odoacer, who deposed Romulus Augustulus, is the ultimate example. The presence of successor states controlled by a nobility from one of the Germanic tribes is evident in the 6th century - even in Italy, the former heart of the Empire, where Odoacer was followed by Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, who was regarded by Roman citizens and Gothic settlers alike as legitimate successor to the rule of Rome and Italy.

Culture

Italy.]] See: Germanic king, Germanic paganism The Germanic tribes were each politically independent, under a hereditary king. The kings appear to have claimed descendancy from mythical founders of the tribes, the name of some of which is preserved:
- Angul — Angles (the Kings of Mercia, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, other Anglo-Saxon dynasties are derived from other descendents of Woden)
- Aurvandil — Vandals (uncertain)
- Burgundus — Burgundians
- Cibidus — Cibidi
- Dan — Danes
- Gothus — Goths
- Ingve — Ynglings
- Irmin — Irminones
- Longobardus — Lombards
- Saxneat — Saxons
- Valagothus — Valagoths

Conversion to Christianity

The Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Vandals were Christianized while they were still outside the bounds of the Empire; however, they converted to Arianism rather than to orthodox Catholicism, and were soon regarded as heretics. The one great written remnant of the Gothic language is a translation of portions of the Bible made by Ulfilas, the missionary who converted them. The Lombards were not converted until after their entrance into the Empire, but received Christianity from Arian Germanic groups. The Franks were converted directly from paganism to Catholicism without an intervening time as Arians. Several centuries later, Anglo-Saxon and Frankish missionaries and warriors undertook the conversion of their Saxon neighbours. A key event was the felling of Thor's Oak near Fritzlar by Boniface, apostle of the Germans, in 723. Eventually, the conversion was forced by armed force, successfully completed by Charlemagne, in a series of campaigns (the Saxon Wars), that also brought Saxon lands into the Frankish empire.

Languages

- Germanic languages

List of Germanic tribes

- Adrabaecampi, Alamanni, Ambrones, Ampsivarii, Angles, Angrivarii, Avarpi, Aviones
- Baemi, Banochaemae, Batavii or Batavi, Batini, Bavarii, Brisgavi, Brondings, Bructeri, Burgundiones, Buri (Germanic tribe)
- Calucones, Canninefates, Caritni, Chaedini, Chaemae, Chali, Chamavi, Charudes, Chasuarii, Chattuarii, Chauci, Cherusci, Chatti, Cimbri, Cobandi, Condrusi, Corconti
- Dani, Dauciones, Diduni, Dulgubnii
- Eburones, Eudoses
- Favonae, Firaesi, Fosi (Germanic tribe), Franks, Frisians, Fundusi
- Gambrivii, Geats, Gepidae, Goths
- Harii, Hasdingi, Helisii, Helveconae, Heruli, Hermunduri, Hilleviones
- Ingriones, Ingvaeones (North Sea Germans), Intuergi, Irminones (Elbe Germans), Istvaeones (Rhine-Weser Germans)
- Jutes, Juthungi
- Lacringi, Landi, Lemovii, Levoni, Lombards or Langobardes, Lugii
- Manimi, Marcomanni, Marsi (Germanic), Marsigni, Mattiaci, Mugilones
- Naharvali, Nemetes, Nertereanes, Nervii, Njars, Nuitones
- Ostrogoths
- Parmaecampi, Pharodini
- Quadi
- Racatae, Racatriae, Reudigni, Rugii, Ruticli
- Sabalingi, Saxons, Scirii, Segni, Semnoni, Sibini, Sidini, Sigulones, Silingi, Sitones, Suarini, Suebi, Suiones, Sugambri
- Tencteri, Teuriochaemae, Teutons, Treviri, Triboci, Tubantes, Tungri, Turcilingi
- Ubii, Usipetes, Usipi
- Vandals, Vangiones, Varini, Varisci, Visburgi, Visigoths
- Zumi Precautionary Note: These ethnic names were culled from a variety of ancient and mediaeval sources dating from the middle of the 1st millennium BC to the early 2nd millennium AD. They do not necessarily represent contemporaneous, distinct or Germanic-speaking populations. The peoples referenced do not necessarily have common ancestral populations. Some identities closely fit the concept of a tribe. Others are confederations or even unions of tribes. Some may not have spoken Germanic at all, but were bundled by the sources with the Germanic speakers. Some were undoubtedly of mixed culture. Some tribes may have assimilated to Germanic; others to other cultures from Germanic. Long-lasting ethnic identities changed population base and language over the centuries. As for genetic characteristics, they must be considered unrelated to these names. Apart from these limitations, it is probably safe to assume that, on the whole, most of these populations spoke some branch of Germanic and contributed to pools of descendants who currently live in the Germanic-speaking countries. Many of the names descend to modern place names. Some tribal maps of ancient Germany can be found at:
- [http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/tacitusc/germany/map.htm Germany of Tacitus]
- [http://www.reisenett.no/map_collection/historical/Ancient_Germania.jpg A speculative Findlay map of 1849] Note: these maps or any other maps represent an interpretation of the information available to the map-maker. Typically the ancients did not know or did not leave enough information for us to locate them exactly. The maps only give us a rough idea of the features and ethnic locations of ancient Germany. In addition, some of tribes, e.g. the Bastarnae are not identified as Germanic with any certainty and large areas in Central Europe the Germanic tribes probably only constituted a newly arrived minority among Slavs and remaining Celts. Wolfram (1990:91f), for instance, points out that the early Visigoths, called Tervingi also comprised many Taifalans (unknown origin) and Alans (Iranians). The Alans became so Gothicized that non-Germanic people considered them to be Goths.

Classification

The concept of "Germanic" as a distinct ethnic identity was hinted at by the early Greek geographer Strabo [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0198;query=section%3D%2341;chunk=section;layout=;loc=7.1.1], who distinguished a barbarian group in northern Europe similar to, but not part of, the Celts. Posidonius, to our knowledge, is the first to have used the name. By the 1st century A.D., the writings of Caesar, Tacitus and other Roman era writers indicate a division of Germanic-speaking peoples into tribal groupings centred on:
- the rivers Oder and Vistula (Poland) (East Germanic tribes),
- the lower Rhine river (Istvaeones),
- the river Elbe (Irminones),
- Jutland and the Danish islands (Ingvaeones). The Istvaeones, Irminones, and Ingvaeones are collectively called West Germanic tribes. In addition to this those Germanic people who remained in Scandinavia are referred to as North Germanic. These groups all developed separate dialects, the basis for the differences among Germanic languages down to the present day. The divison of peoples into west-Germanic, east-Germanic, and north-Germanic was a 19th century hypothesis of linguists. Many Greek scholars only classified Celts and Scyths in the Northwest and Northeast of the Mediterranean and this classification was widely maintained in Greek literature until Late Antiquity. Latin-Greek ethnographers (Tacitus, Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy, and Strabo) mentioned in the first two centuries AD the names of peoples they classified as Germanic along the Elbe, the Rhine, and the Danube, the Vistula and on the Baltic Sea. Tacitus mentioned 40, Ptolemy 69 peoples. Classical ethnography applied the name Suebi to many tribes in the first century. It appeared that this native name had all but replaced the foreign name Germanic. After the Marcomannic wars the Gothic name steadily gained importance. Some of the ethnic names mentioned by the ethnographers of the first two centuries AD on the shores of the Oder and the Vistula (Gutones, Vandali) reappear from the 3rd century on in the area of the lower Danube and north of the Carpathian Mountains. Modern scholarship has no explanation for the ethnic processes causing this continuity. For the end of the 5th century the Gothic name can be used - according to the historical sources - for such different peoples like the Goths in Gaul, Iberia and Italy, the Vandals in Africa, the Gepids along the Tisza and the Danube, the Rugians, Sciri and Burgundians, even the Iranian Alans. These peoples were classified as Scyths and often deducted from the ancient Getae (most important: Cassiodor/Jordanes, Getica approx. 550 AD).

The concept of Volk

In the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st there has been debate about exactly what "tribe" or "people" meant to these groups, whose fluidity and willingness to sometimes blend is seen while at the same time forced mergers as a result of war were taking place and the tribe as it had been known vanished. The late classical sources are especially clear in the matter of the blended nature of the Alamanni. The idea of a unified German people, or Volk, was expressed openly in print by 19th century Ethnic Nationalist writers and thinkers after the Napoleonic Wars. Such an identity, however, had existed more implicitly since the Middle Ages, helping to fuel the Protestant Reformation, when many Germanic lands pulled away religiously and politically from the Roman Catholic Church.

Gutasaga

The Gutasaga was recorded in the 13th century and survives in only a single manuscript, the Codex Holm. B 64, dating to ca. 1350, kept at the Swedish Royal Library in Stockholm) together with the Gutalag, the legal code of Gotland. It was written in the Old Gutnish dialect of Old Norse. The saga treats the history of Gotland before its Christianization. It begins with Tielvar and his son Havde, who had three sons, Graip, Guti and Gunfjaun, the ancestors of the Gutar. The saga tells of an emigration, that is associated with the historical migration of the Goths during the Migration period: :over a long time, the people descended from these three multiplied so much that the land couldn't support them all. Then they draw lots, and every third person was picked to leave, and they could keep everything they owned and take it with them, except for their land. ... they went up the river Dvina, up through Russia. They went so far that they came to the land of the Greeks. ... they settled there, and live there still, and still have something of our language. That the Goths should have gone "to the land of the Greeks" is consistent with their first appearance in classical sources: Eusebius of Caesarea reported that they devastated "Macedonia, Greece, the Pontus, and Asia" in 263. The emigration would have taken place in the 1st century AD, and loose contact with their homeland would have been maintained for another two centuries, the comment that the emigrant's language "still has something" in common shows awareness of dialectal separation. The events would have needed to be transmitted orally for almost a millennium before the text was written down. The mention of the Dvina river is in good agreement with the Wielbark Culture. Historically, the Goths followed the Vistula, but during the Viking Age, the Dvina-Dniepr waterway succeeded the Vistula as the main trade route to Greece for the Gutar (or Gotar in standard Old Norse), and it is not surprising that it also replaced the Vistula in the migration traditions.

External links

- [http://runeberg.org/gutasaga/ Original text]
- [http://www.northvegr.org/lore/gutasaga/index.php English translation] Category:History of the Germanic peoples Category:Medieval literature Category:Swedish literature Category:Sources of Norse mythology

Gotland

is the largest island in the Baltic Sea with a size of 2,994 km². It is also the largest island belonging to Sweden. Inhabitants of the island number 57,381 (2002 figure), with about 22,000 living in the city Visby. The primary income sources are tourism and agriculture. The island constitutes its own province, or landskap, in Sweden. The province also includes the northern islands Fårö, the Karlsö Islands and Gotska Sandön. The Latin name of Gotland, which may occasionally be encountered today, is Gotlandia.

County

The island province of Gotland is represented by the current administrative entity, Gotland County. Counties are sub-divided into municipalities; but Gotland County only includes the sole municipality Gotland Municipality.

Geography

Gotland is located about 90 km east off the Swedish mainland. The province of Gotland also includes the islands Fårö, the Karlsö Islands and Gotska Sandön. Gotska Sandön has been designated a national park. Visby, founded approximately around the year 1000, was the only chartered city of Gotland. Today, almost half of the island's population live in Visby (around 22,000), and Visby is the natural seat for the county council and municipality council.

History

city Early on Gotland became a commercial center and the town of Visby was the most important Hanseatic city in the Baltic Sea. The island had in late medieval time twenty tings, each represented at the island-ting, called landsting, by its elected judge. New laws were decided at the landsting, which also took other decisions regarding the island as a whole. The city of Visby and rest of the island was governed separately and a civil war caused by conflicts between the German merchants in Visby and the trading peasants on the countryside had to be put down by King Magnus I of Sweden in 1288. In 1361, Waldemar Atterdag of Denmark invaded the island. Victual Brothers occupied the island in 1394 to set up a stronghold headquarters on their own in Visby. At least Gotland came as a fiefdom to the Teutonic Knights to fight Victual Brothers at their fortified sanctuary. An invasion army of the Teutonic Knights conquered the island in 1398, destroyed Visby and drove the Victual Brothers out of Gotland. The authority of the landsting was successively eroded after the island was occupied by the Teutonic Order, then sold to Eric of Pomerania and after 1449 ruled by Danish governors. In late medieval time the ting consisted of twelve representatives for the farmers, free-holders or tenants. Since the Treaty of Brömsebro in 1645 the island remains under Swedish rule.

Heraldry

Gotland was granted its arms in 1560, even though the island was at the time occupied by Danish forces. The coat of arms is represented with a ducal coronet. Blazon: "Azure a ram statant Argent armed Or holding on a cross-staff of the same a banner Gules bordered and with five tails of the third."

Culture

Main article: Culture of Gotland The medieval town of Visby has been entered as a site of the UNESCO World heritage program. An impressive feature of Visby is the fortress wall that surrounds the old city, dating from the time of the Hanseatic League. Christopher Polhem (1661-1751), the father of Swedish mechanical physics was born in Visby. He was also called the Archimedes of the north. The inhabitants of Gotland traditionally speak a distinct dialect of Swedish, known as Gutnish. Traditional games of skill like Kubb and Varpa are still played on Gotland.

Dukes of Gotlandia

Since 1772, Swedish Princes have been created Dukes of various provinces. This is solely a nominal title.
- Prince Oscar (from his birth in 1859 until his loss of succession rights in 1888)

External links

- [http://www.gotlandweb.com/ Gotland Tourist Site]
- [http://www.alltomgotland.se/ www.alltomgotland.se - information about Gotland]
- [http://ostergarnslandet.se/ Picture pages about life in eastern Gotland - Oestergarnslandet] Category:Provinces of Sweden Category:Swedish islands in the Baltic ja:ゴトランド島

Gotlander

The Gotlanders are the population of the island of Gotland. In Swedish, they are also called Gutar an ethnonym originally identical to Goths (Gutans), and both names were originally Proto-Germanic
- Gutaniz. Their dialect/language is called Gutnish (Gutniska). Their oldest history is retold in the Gutasaga, where it is related that because of overpopulation one third of the Gutar had to emigrate and settle in southern Europe. :over a long time, the people descended from these three multiplied so much that the land couldn't support them all. Then they draw lots, and every third person was picked to leave, and they could keep everything they owned and take it with them, except for their land. ... they went up the river Dvina, up through Russia. They went so far that they came to the land of the Greeks. ... they settled there, and live there still, and still have something of our language. The fact that the ethnonym is identical to Goth may be the reason why they are not mentioned as a special group until Jordanes' Getica, where they may be those who are called Vagoths (see Scandza). Before the 9th century, they became subjects of the Swedish kings, a voluntary submission according to the Gutasaga. :Many kings made war on Gotland while it was heathen, but the Gotlanders always maintained their own religion and law. Then the Gotlanders were sending many messengers to Sweden, but none of them succeeded in negotiating a peace, till Awair Strabain from Alva parish. He was the first to make peace with the king of the Swedes.[...] As he was a smooth-tongued man, wise indeed and artful, as the stories of him go, he established a fixed treaty with the Swedish king: 60 marks of silver a year - that is the tax for the Gotlanders - with 40 for the king, out of that sixty, and the jarls to get 20. This amount had already been decided by agreement of the whole land before he left. :So the Gotlanders submitted to the king of the Swedes of their own free will, that they might go anywhere in Sweden freely and unfettered by tolls or any duties. So too the Swedes could come to Gotland with no ban on the import of corn, or any other restrictions. The king was to give aid and help whenever they needed it and asked. The king would send messengers to the Gotland national assembly, and the jarls likewise, to collect their tax. These messengers must proclaim freedom to the Gotlanders to travel in peace over the sea, to all places where the Swedish king held sway. And the same went for anyone travelling there to Gotland. Category:Goths Category:Ancient Germanic peoples Category:History of the Germanic peoples Category:Ethnic groups of Europe

Old Norse language

and the green area is the extent of the other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility]] Old Norse is the Germanic language once spoken by the inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300. It evolved from the older Proto-Norse, in the 8th century. Due to the fact that most of the surviving texts are from Medieval Icelandic, the de facto standard version of the language is its dialect Old West Norse, that is Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian. Sometimes, Old Norse is even defined as Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian. However, there was also an Old East Norse dialect which was very similar and was spoken in Denmark and Sweden and their settlements. Moreover, there was no clear geographical separation between the two dialects. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden. In addition, there was also an Old Gutnish dialect, sometimes included in Old East Norse due to it being the least known dialect. Until the 13th century these three dialects were considered by their speakers to be one and the same language, and they called it dansk tunga (in the eastern dialect) or dönsk tunga (in the western dialect). This autonym translates as "Danish tongue". Old Norse was mutually intelligible with Old English and Old Saxon and other Low Germanic languages spoken in northern Germany. It gradually evolved into the modern North Germanic languages: Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish. Modern Icelandic is the descendant which has diverged the least from Old Norse. Faroese also retains many similarities but is influenced from Danish, Norwgeian, and Gaelic (Scots and/or Irish). Although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain mutual intelligibility. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having a similar development due to impact from Low German.

Geographical distribution

Old Icelandic was essentially identical to Old Norwegian and they formed together the Old West Norse dialect of Old Norse. The Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark and Sweden and settlements in Russia, England and Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East. In the 11th century, it was the most widely spoken European language ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga in the East. In Russia it survived longest in Novgorod and died out in the 13th century.

Modern descendants

Its modern descendants are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian and the extinct Norn language of the Orkney and the Shetland Islands as well as the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish. Norwegian has decended from West Norse (West Scandinavian), but over the centuries it has been heavily influenced by East Norse (East Scandinavian). Among these, Icelandic and the closely related Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, although with Danish rule of the Faroe Islands Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and particularly Lowland Scots which contains many Old Norse loanwords. It also influenced the development of the Norman language. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects and Scottish Gaelic. Russian and Finnish also have a number of Norse loanwords; "Russian" itself is derived from "Rus", a Norse term.

Sounds

Vowels

The vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The orthography marks the long vowels with an acute accent. The short counterpart of is not a phoneme but an allophone of . The long counterpart of has merged with in the classical (13th century) language. All phonemes have, more or less, the expected phonetic realization.

Consonants

Old Norse has six stop phonemes. Of these is rare word-initially and and do not occur between vowels. The phoneme is realized as a voiced fricative between vowels.

Orthography

The standardized Old Norse spelling is for the most part phonemic. The most notable deviation is that the non-phonemic difference between the voiced and the unvoiced dental fricatives is marked. As mentioned above, long vowels are denoted with acutes. Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme, except as shown in the table below.

Dialects and texts

The earliest inscriptions in Old Norse are runic, from the 8th century (although there are 200 inscriptions in Proto-Norse going as far back as the 2nd century), and runes continued to be used for a thousand years. The main literary texts are in the Latin alphabet, the great sagas and eddas of medieval Iceland. As Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse, in the 8th century, the effects of the umlauts varied geographically. The typical umlauts (for example fylla from
- fullian) were stronger in the West whereas those resulting in diaeresis (for example hiarta from herto) were more influential in the East. This difference was the main reason behind the dialectalization that took place in the 9th and 10th centuries shaping an Old West Norse dialect in Norway and the Atlantic settlements and an Old East Norse dialect in Denmark and Sweden. A second difference was that the old diphthongs generally became monophthongs in East Norse. For instance in East Norse stain became sten, whereas it became steinn in West Norse. In Old Gutnish, this diphthong remained. Old West Norse and Old Gutnish kept the diphthong au as in auga, whereas it in East Norse became øgha. Likewise, West Norse had the ey diphthong, as in heyra, while it in East Norse became ø, as in høra, and in Old Gutnish was oy as in hoyra. A third difference was that Old West Norse lost certain combinations of consonants. The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- were assimilated into -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse, but this phenomenon was limited in Old East Norse. However, these differences were an exception. The dialects were very similar and considered to be the same language, a language that they called the Danish tongue, for example Móðir Dyggva var Drótt, dóttir Danps konungs, sonar Rígs er fyrstr var konungr kallaðr á danska tungu (Snorri Sturluson, the Ynglinga saga). Translation: Dyggve's mother was Drott, the daughter of king Danp, Ríg's son, who was the first one to be called king in the Danish tongue. Here is a comparison between the two dialects. It is a transcription from one of the Funbo Runestones (U990) meaning : Veðr and Thane and Gunnar raised this stone after Haursa, their father. God help his soul: :Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr reistu stein þenna at Haursa, föður sinn. Guð hjalpi önd hans. (OWN) :Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr ræistu stæin þenna at Haursa, faður sinn. Guð hialpi and hans (OEN)

Old West Norse

Most of the innovations that appeared in Old Norse spread evenly through the Old Norse area, but some were geographically limited and created a dialectal difference between Old West Norse and Old East Norse. One difference was that Old West Norse did not take part in the monophthongization which changed æi/ei into e, øy/ey into ø and au into ø. An early difference was that Old West Norse had the forms bu (dwelling), ku (cow) and tru (faith) whereas Old East Norse had bo, ko and tro. Old West Norse was also characterized by u-umlaut, which meant that for example Proto-Norse
- tanþu was pronounced tönn and not tand as in Old East Norse. Moreoever, there were nasal assimilations as in bekkr from Proto-Norse
- bankiaz. The earliest body of text appears in runic inscriptions and in poems composed ca 900 by Tjodolf of Hvin. The earliest manuscripts are from the period 1150-1200 and concern both legal, religious and historical matters. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Trøndelag and Vestlandet were the most important areas of the Norwegian kingdom and they shaped Old West Norse as an archaic language with a rich set of declensions. As the body of text has come down to us until ca 1300, Old West Norse was a uniform dialect and it is difficult to see whether a text was written in Old Icelandic or in Old Norwegian. It was called norrœn tunga (the Northern tongue). Old Norwegian differentiated early from Old Icelandic by the loss of the consonant h in initial position before l, n and r. This meant that whereas Old Icelandic had the form hnefi (fist), Old Norwegian had the forms næve and neve. About 1300, the court moved to south-eastern Norway, and the old written standard was felt to be old-fashioned. After the union with Sweden ca 1319, Old Swedish began to influence Norwegian, and the plague, about 1350, meant more or less the end of the old literary tradition. The influence from East Norse had only begun and was continued after the union with Denmark in 1380.

Text example

The following text is from Egils saga. The manuscript is the oldest known for that saga, the so called θ-fragment from the 13th century. The text clearly shows how little Icelandic has changed structurally. The last version is legitimate Modern Icelandic, although nothing has been altered but the spelling. The text also demonstrates, however, that a modern reader might have difficulties with the unaltered manuscript text, to say nothing of the lettering.

Old East Norse

Old East Norse, between 800 and 1100, is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in Denmark Runic Danish, but the use of Swedish and Danish is not for linguistic reasons. They are called runic due to the fact that the body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark, which only had 16 letters. Due to the limited number of runes, the rune for the vowel u was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i was used for e. A change that occurrered in Old East Norse was the change of æi (Old West Norse ei) to e, as in stæin to sten. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into ø as in døðr. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey) diphthong changed into ø as well, as in the Old Norse word for "island". Until the early 12th century, Old East Norse was a uniform dialect. It was in Denmark that the first innovations appeared that would differentiate Old Danish from Old Swedish and these innovations spread north unevenly creating a series of isoglosses going from Zealand to Svealand. The word final vowels -a, -o and -e started to merge into -e. At the same time, the voiceless stop consonants p, t and k became voiced stops and even fricatives. These innovations resulted in that Danish has kage, bide and gabe whereas Swedish has retained older forms, kaka, bita and gapa. Moreover, Danish lost the tonal word accent present in modern Swedish and Norwegian, replacing the grave accent with a glottal stop.

Text example

This is an extract from the Westrogothic law (Västgötalagen). It is the oldest text written as a manuscript found in Sweden and from the 13th century. It is contemporaneous with most of the Icelandic literature. The text marks the beginning of Old Swedish. :Dræpær maþar svænskan man eller smalenskæn, innan konongsrikis man, eigh væstgøskan, bøte firi atta ørtogher ok þrettan markær ok ænga ætar bot. [...] Dræpar maþær danskan man allæ noræn man, bøte niv markum. Dræpær maþær vtlænskan man, eigh ma frid flyia or landi sinu oc j æth hans. Dræpær maþær vtlænskæn prest, bøte sva mykit firi sum hærlænskan man. Præstær skal i bondalaghum væræ. Varþær suþærman dræpin ællær ænskær maþær, ta skal bøta firi marchum fiurum þem sakinæ søkir, ok tvar marchar konongi. Translation: :If someone slays a Swede or a Smålander, a man from the kingdom, but not a West Geat, he will pay eight örtugar and thirteen marks, but no wergild. The king owns nine marks from manslaughter and the killing of any man. If someone slays a Dane or a Norwegian, he will pay nine marks. If someone slays a foreigner, he shall not be banished and have to flee to his clan. If someone slays a foreign priest, he will pay as much as for a foreigner. A priest counts as a freeman. If a Southerner is slain or an Englishman, he shall pay four marks to the plaintif and two marks to the king.

Old Gutnish

The Gutasaga is the longest text surviving from Old Gutnish. It was written in the 13th century and dealt with the early history of the Gotlanders. This part relates of the agreement that the Gotlanders had with the Swedish king sometime before the 9th century: :So gingu gutar sielfs wiliandi vndir suia kunung þy at þair mattin frir Oc frelsir sykia suiariki j huerium staþ. vtan tull oc allar utgiftir. So aigu oc suiar sykia gutland firir vtan cornband ellar annur forbuþ. hegnan oc hielp sculdi kunungur gutum at waita. En þair wiþr þorftin. oc kallaþin. sendimen al oc kunungr oc ierl samulaiþ a gutnal þing senda. Oc latta þar taka scatt sinn. þair sendibuþar aighu friþ lysa gutum alla steþi til sykia yfir haf sum upsala kunungi til hoyrir. Oc so þair sum þan wegin aigu hinget sykia. Translation: :So, by their own volition, the Gotlanders became the subjects of the Swedish king, so that they could travel freely and without risk to any location in the Swedish kingdom without toll and other fees. Likewise, the Swedes had the right to go to Gotland without corn restrictions or other prohibitions. The king was to provide protection and aid, when they needed it and asked for it. The king and the jarl shall send emissaries to the Gutnish althing to receive the taxes. These emissaries shall declare free passage for the Gotlanders to all locations in the sea of the king at Uppsala (that is the Baltic Sea was under Swedish control) and likewise for everyone who wanted to travel to Gotland. Some important characteristics of old Gutnish are seen in this text. First, unlike contemporary East Norse all diphthongs are preserved. Second, the diphtong ai in aigu, þair and waita (and probably other words) is not umlauted to ei as in West Norse eigu, þeir and veita.

References

- Gordon, Eric V. and A.R. Taylor. Introduction to Old Norse. Second. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.

External links

- [http://www.heimskringla.no «Kulturformidlingen norrøne tekster og kvad»]
- [http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/language_resources.html Indo-European Language Resources] The resources in question are mostly Germanic, including two dictionaries of Old Icelandic (in English), two grammars of Old Icelandic (one in English, one in German) and a grammar of Old Swedish (in German).
- [http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/sounds/ragn1_2b.mp3 soundsample]
- [http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/ Old Norse for Beginners]
- [http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/lrc/eieol/norol-TC-X.html Old Norse Online], by Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum from the Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. Category:Nordic folklore Norse language, Old Category:North Germanic languages ko:고대 노르드어 ja:古ノルド語

Stanza

In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. The term means "room" in Italian. A stanza may have a self-contained rhyme scheme or be made up of a fixed number of lines (see distich/couplet, tercet, quatrain, cinquain/quintain, sestet) or, as in much modern poetry, may be an arbitrary unit defined by publishing conventions such as white space or punctuation. Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 can be broken into stanzas: Let me not to the marriage of true minds |\ Admit impediments. Love is not love | \ Which alters when it alteration finds, | / All one stanza Or bends with the remover to remove. |/ O no, it is an ever fixed mark |\ That looks on tempests and is never shaken; | \ It is the star to every wand'ring barque, | / All one stanza Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. |/ Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks |\ Within his bending sickle's compass come; | \ Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, | / All one stanza But bears it out even to the edge of doom. |/ If this be error and upon me proved,|\ I never writ, nor no man ever loved.|/ All one stanza Category:Poetic form

Vikings

The name Viking is a borrowed word from the native Scandinavian term for the Norse warriors who raided the coasts of Scandinavia, the British Isles, and other parts of Europe from the late 8th century to the 11th century. Vikings traveled to the west and Varangians, who were best known as the Varangian Guards of the Byzantine emperors, to the east. This period of European history (generally dated to 793 - 1066 AD) is often referred to as the Viking Age. The word “Viking” was introduced to the English language with romantic connotations in the 18th century. Today, somewhat controversially, the word is also used as a generic adjective, referring to the Viking Age Scandinavians. The medieval Scandinavian population, in general, is more properly referred to as Norse.

Etymology

The etymology of "Viking" is somewhat unclear. One path might be from the Old Norse word vík, meaning "bay," "creek," or "inlet," and the suffix -ing, meaning "coming from" or "belonging to." Thus, a Viking would be a 'person of the bay', or "bayling" for lack of a better word. In Old Norse, this would be spelled vikingr. The term Viking later became synonymous with "naval expedition" or "naval raid", and a vikingr was a member of such expeditions. A second etymology suggested that the term is derived from the Old English wíc, or "trading city" (cognate to Latin vicus, "village"). The word Viking appears on several rune stones found in Scandinavia. In the Icelandic sagas, víking refers to an overseas expedition (Old Norse vikingr "to go on an expedition"), and víkingr, to a seaman or warrior taking part in such an expedition. In Old English, the word appears first in the 6th or 7th century in the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith. In medieval use (eg, Widsith, and the writings of Adam von Bremen), a Viking is a pirate, and not a name for the people or culture in general. Indeed, when Scandinavian raiders left their boats, stole horses and rode across country, they were never referred to as "vikings" in English sources. The word disappeared in Middle English, and was reintroduced as Viking during 18th century Romanticism. During the 20th century, the meaning of the term was expanded to refer not only to the raiders, but also to the entire period; that is now, somewhat confusingly, used as a noun both in the original meaning of raiders, warriors or navigators, and sometimes to refer to the Scandinavian population in general. As an adjective, the word may be used in expressions like "Viking age," "Viking culture," "Viking colony," etc., generally referring to medieval Scandinavia. During the last century, speculations began about whether the foreign traders known as varyags, who had trade posts along the Russian rivers down to the Byzantine Empire, were of Scandinavian origin, and since then the term has been interpreted also to refer to tradesmen from Scandinavia who established colonies in Russia. Early Scandinavian colonies in North America are also labeled as "Viking" by modern English speakers. It should be noted, however, that no written sources, in the cases of Vinland, Rus', or Varyags, use the term "Viking." Scandinavians, in general, were not Vikings. They were farmers, fishers and hunters, as were most others in Europe at the time. As the Scandinavian shores were attacked by enemy forces, they established the defence fleet called the leidang, which was also used as protection against Vikings. Though it is a common practice today, calling all Northmen (Scandinavians) Vikings, rather than reserving the word solely for those involved in piracy, can lead to misunderstanding and confusion. As members of the leidang fleet, as well as farmers and fishers now and then, were attacked by Vikings, most Scandinavians probably saw Vikings as their enemies and fought against them with all their might.

Historical records

leidang in the Byzantine Empire and a Byzantine ship]] The earliest date given for a Viking raid is 787 AD when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a group of men from Norway sailed to Portland, in Dorset. There, they were mistaken for merchants by a royal official, and they murdered him when he tried to get them to accompany him to the king's manor to pay a trading tax on their goods. The next recorded attack, dated June 8, 793 AD, was on the monastery at Lindisfarne – the "Holy Island" – on the east coast of England. For the next 200 years, European history is filled with tales of Vikings and their plundering. However, the vast majority of the Viking attacks were naturally attacks on France – as we know from the official histories – because the Emperor Charlemagne was seen as the main enemy, but other parts of the Holy Roman Empire also fell victim to such attacks as well as other Christian countries in Europe. Vikings exerted influence throughout the coastal areas of Ireland and Scotland, and conquered and colonised large parts of England (see Danelaw). They travelled up the rivers of France and Spain, and gained control of areas in Russia and along the Baltic coast. Stories tell of raids in the Mediterranean and as far east as the Caspian Sea.

Adam of Bremen

Adam of Bremen records in his book Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, (volume four): - :Aurum ibi plurimum, quod raptu congeritur piratico. Ipsi enim piratae, 'quos illi Wichingos as appellant, nostri Ascomannos regi Danico tributum solvunt. - :"There is much gold here (in Zealand), accumulated by piracy. These pirates, which are called wichingi by their own people, and Ascomanni by our own people, pay tribute to the Danish king."

Rune stones

Rune stones bear the letters or characters of old Teutonic and Scandinavian alphabets, that are supposed to be magical and mysterious at the same time. The runes are an ancient oracle, dating back to before the New Testament. The runes are the equivalent of the tarot, and the Chinese book of changes. According to Norse mythology, the creation of the runes came about at the beginning of the creation of the world when the first man emerged out of the ice. He was given the name Ymir. Another man was freed from the ice two days later, called Buri. He had a son named Bor who married Bestla, who was the daughter of the giant Bolthum. Bor and Bestla had three sons, Odin, Vili, and Ve. There was great strife between the offspring of Ymir and the children of Bor and Bestla. Odin led his brothers against Ymir and they killed him. Ever since that time, there has been hatred and enmity between the gods and the giants. Odin and his brothers dragged Ymir's body into the void (Ginnungagap). His flesh became the earth; his blood, the sea; his bones, the mountains; his hair, the trees; and his teeth became the rune stones. Viking magic was prevalent in Norse culture as it was practiced by diviners, also known as rune masters, magicians, and berserkers (magical warriors). When divining using the runes, a number of stones are drawn at random from a bag, and laid out in a pattern representing the past, present, and future. The pattern of symbols is then interpreted to provide insight and help with decision making. The Vikings had great respect for accomplished runemasters, considering them to be blood relatives to Odin. The traditional costume of a runemaster was a blue cloak and a brass-tipped wooden staff, mirrored in the same image of Odin’s cloak and blackthorn wood staff. However, most of the knowledge and wisdom died with the rune masters. Norse mythology and tradition is filled with magical elements such as earth, air, fire, water, and the spirit of the gods, giants, dwarves and ancestors. Odin is characterized as the god of magic, the god of the runes, and when the rune stones are raised, they are in memory of fallen warriors, making Odin the god of the dead as well. Yggdrasil is the world ash tree that connects all of the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology, namely, Asgard, Alfheim, Vanheim, Niflheim, Midgard, Muspelheim, Jotunheim, Svartalfheim, and Hel. The tree survives the torment of Nithog nibbling at its roots, while the stags and goats tear the leaves and bark from the tree. The Norse sprinkle water from Urd's Well upon the roots, which helps the tree stay fresh and green. Od has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, which he believes is power. He wants to bestow this gift to his followers. In order to discover the meaning of the runes, Odin sacrifices himself with his spear, named Gungnir, on the Yggdrasil, and remains hanging on the tree for nine days to discover the meanings of the runes. On the last day, an eagle drops words out of his mouth, including "egg, sword, and fire." Odin tells the bird that he knows about the existence of these objects already, but his plea is rendered helpless as the eagle flies away. Odin, by being the father of the gods and possessing so much power that he was feared all over Scandinavia, is able to act as the major link between the gods and mankind, passing on knowledge to the Norse people through the runes. Many rune stones in Scandinavia record the names of participants in Viking expeditions. Other rune stones mention men who died on Viking expeditions. "Today the runes are strange symbols scratched into ancient tools and weapons in some museum showcase; names of warriors, secret spells, even snatches of songs, appearing on objects as diverse as minute silver coins and towering stone crosses, scattered from Yugoslavia to Orkney, from Greenland to Greece." (Ralph W.V. Elliot, Runes)

Icelandic sagas

Norse mythology, Norse sagas and Old Norse literature tell us about their religion through tales of heroic and mythological heroes. However, the transmission of this information was primarily oral, and we are reliant upon the writings of (later) Christian scholars, such as the Icelanders Snorri Sturluson and Sæmundr fróði, for much of this. An overwhelming amount of the sagas were written in Iceland. Vikings in those sagas are described as if they often struck at accessible and poorly defended targets, usually with impunity. The sagas state that the Vikings built settlements and were skilled craftsmen and traders.
- Voluspá
- Beowulf

13th century

King Harald I of Norway finally was forced to make an expedition to the west to clear the islands and Scottish mainland of Vikings. Numbers of them fled to Iceland and the Faroe Islands, but the Norse sagas are rather subjective in their descriptions, and hence the Vikings in those sagas are sometimes characterized as heroes, later shaping the attitude towards Vikings during the 18th century Romantic period. Still, in Scandinavia, Vikings were not seen as an accepted part of society. They may even have been considered outlaws - several sources name Vikings in association with Jomsborg or Julin, which, according to modern history, was a refugee center for Slavic pirates, as opposed to the descriptions in the Norse saga.

Viking ships and Viking longships

There were no specific "Viking ships" or "Viking longships"; Vikings used any of the common Scandinavian longships. These boats were identical to those used by the Scandinavian defense fleets, known as the ledung. The term "Viking ships" has entered common usage, however, possibly because of its Romantic associations. It is suspected that most Viking ships had an average length/width ratio of 4.5:1. Scholars also debate whether or not Vikings had cooking fires aboard their ships. There is no evidence connecting any discovered longship to any particular classical Viking raid. Nor has any "Viking" boat construction site, or harbour, been found or excavated. Thus, our knowledge of the actual boats Vikings used is limited.

The Viking Age

See main article Viking Age. The period of North Germanic expansion, usually taken to last from the earliest recorded raids in the 790s until the Norman Conquest of England

Norse saga

Background

On the plots and writing style

The saga as a literary technique

Modern parallels

Classification of sagas

Kings' sagas

Icelandic saga (Íslendingasögur)

Short stories of the Norse Saga technique (Íslendinga þættir)

Legendary sagas

Other Norse sagas

See also

External links and references

Icelandic (language)

Sounds

Consonants

Vowels

Morphology

Syntax

Icelandic sign language

See also

References

External links

Germanic tribes

Etymology of "German"

History

Origin

Collision with Rome

Migration Period

Role of the Germanics in the Fall of Rome

Culture

Conversion to Christianity

Languages

List of Germanic tribes

Classification

The concept of Volk

See also

Further reading

Gutasaga

See also

External links

Gotland

County

Geography

History

Heraldry

Culture

Dukes of Gotlandia

See also

External links

Gotlander

Old Norse language

Geographical distribution

Modern descendants

Sounds

Vowels

Consonants

Orthography

Dialects and texts

Old West Norse

Text example

Old East Norse

Text example

Old Gutnish

See also

References

External links

Stanza

Vikings

Etymology

Historical records

Adam of Bremen

Rune stones

Icelandic sagas

13th century

Viking ships and Viking longships

The Viking Age