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50-454: Hymiskviða (Old Norse: 'The lay of Hymir'; anglicized as Hymiskvitha , Hymiskvidha or Hymiskvida ) is a poem collected in the Poetic Edda . The poem was first written down in the late 13th century. The Æsir consult their augury twigs and decide, since Ægir owns a lot of kettles for making beer, that he should be their host frequently. Ægir has to reluctantly agree, but as this will be

100-667: A Latin -a suffix to the names of goddesses. Obviously the various permutations allow for many possible spellings for a given name. Some authors, for example, replace þ with th and ð with th , dh or d but keep the accents; others may not replace ǫ with ö but prefer o . Thus, in addition to the various versions below, the name of Hǫðr could come out as: A list of some commonly encountered Old Norse names with variant spellings. * marks anglicizations. Icelandic manuscripts Snorri Sturluson ( Old Norse : [ˈsnorːe ˈsturloˌson] ; Icelandic: [ˈsnɔrːɪ ˈstʏ(r)tlʏˌsɔːn] ; 1179 – 22 September 1241)

150-478: A chieftainship, and soon acquired more property and additional chieftainships. Snorri and Herdís were together for four years at Borg. They had at least two children, Hallbera and Jón. The marriage succumbed to Snorri's philandering, and in 1206, he settled without Herdís in Reykholt as the manager of an estate. He also made significant improvements to the estate, including an outdoor bath fed by hot springs . The bath

200-584: A consonant at the end of the word. Thus the Old Norse name Baldr comes out as Baldur in modern Icelandic . Other differences include vowel-shifts, whereby Old Norse ǫ became Icelandic ö , and Old Norse œ ( oe ligature) became Icelandic æ ( ae ligature). Old Norse ø corresponds in modern Icelandic to ö , as in sökkva , or to e , as in gera . There is also consonant lenition of final k and t to g and ð , e.g. mig for earlier mik and það for earlier þat . These distinct features are summarized in

250-528: A knife—intending, she said, to make him like his one-eyed hero Odin . Before the knife could strike its target, though, bystanders deflected the blow so it hit his cheek instead. The resulting settlement would have beggared Páll, but Jón Loftsson intervened in the Althing to mitigate the judgment and, to compensate Sturla, offered to raise and educate Snorri. Thus Snorri received an excellent education and forged connections he might not otherwise have been able to. He

300-453: A lot of work, he makes a condition (that he hopes they won't be able to meet) that they bring a kettle large enough for him to make beer for all of them at once. That presents a problem, until Týr remembers a particularly large kettle in the possession of his father Hymir . So the Æsir set off. Eventually they find Hymir's place, where Þórr (Thor) eats so much that Hymir and his guests have no alternative but to go fishing. The poem then tells

350-451: A meeting with them and Kolbein the Younger, Gissur brought out the letter. Orm refused. Shortly after, Snorri received a letter in cipher runes warning him of the plot, but he could not understand them. After Gissur led seventy men on a daring raid to his house, achieving complete surprise. Snorri Sturluson was assassinated in his house at Reykholt in autumn of 1241. It is not clear that he

400-459: A resolution of the Althing , where Snorri exerted much influence due to his political ties and legal acumen. In 1220, Snorri returned to Iceland and by 1222 was back as law speaker of the Althing, which he held this time until 1232. The basis of his election was entirely his fame as a poet. Politically he was the king's spokesman, supporting union with Norway, a platform that acquired him enemies among

450-528: Is marked and umlauted vowels are unambiguously represented. The standardized spelling employs a few characters that were not available in early electronic character sets , so replacements were often used. The most consequential was the use of ö instead of ǫ ; the latter being present in Unicode v1.0 (1991) as U+01EA. The following table associates the phonemes of the language to its orthographic representations. Vowel nasalization and length are not distinguished in

500-901: Is often taken to be the author of Egil's Saga . He was assassinated in 1241 by men claiming to be agents of the King of Norway. Snorri Sturluson was born in Hvammur í Dölum  [ is ] (commonly transliterated as Hvamm or Hvammr) as a member of the wealthy and powerful Sturlungar clan of the Icelandic Commonwealth , in AD 1179. His parents were Sturla Þórðarson the Elder of Hvammur (also known as Hvamm-Sturla) and his second wife, Guðný Böðvarsdóttir . He had two older brothers, Þórðr ( b.  1165 ) and Sighvatr Sturluson ( b.  1170 ), two sisters, Helga and Vigdís, and nine half-siblings . Snorri

550-412: Is that several shortcut forms for common words, syllables, and grammatical endings developed. One example is the use of the rune named maðr (man) for the word maðr . Another is the use of a special glyph for the various r-endings so common in Old Norse. These scribal abbreviations are categorized as follows: These abbreviation conventions and a majority of the signs are inherited from

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600-718: The Hymiskviða and the Indian Samudra manthan have been pointed out by Georges Dumézil and others; see Samudra manthan § Comparative mythology . Old Norse orthography The first appearance of an ancestral stage of Old Norse in a written runic form dates back to c.  AD 200–300 (with the Øvre Stabu spearhead traditionally dated to the late 2nd century), at this time still showing an archaic language form (similar to reconstructed Proto-Germanic ) termed Proto-Norse . Old Norse proper appears by c.  AD 800 . While there are remains of Viking runestones from

650-536: The Latin language itself, and were common to the Latin alphabet in other languages. However, other signs or conventions are specifically Norse, such as the er zig-zag. "Normalized spelling" can be used to refer to normalization in general or the standard normalization in particular. With normalized spelling, the manuscript spelling is altered to adhere to be more strict and regular. These respellings are designed to be phonemically precise rather than representative of

700-515: The Viking Age , today they are rare, and vary in the use of orthography depending on when they were created. Rune stones created near the end of the Viking Age tend to have a greater influence from Old English runes. An understanding of the writing system of Old Norse is crucial for fully understanding the Old Norse language. Studies of remaining rune stones from the Viking Age reveal many nuances about

750-457: The glide j as in giald ("payment"). In this standard, the u-umlauted a represented by ǫ is not usually considered, but rendered as the underlying a , as in the name Anundʀ . Another difference is the representation of the phoneme ʀ , instead of simply r as in West Norse, where the ʀ phoneme merged with r earlier. However, even if they render the transcription according to

800-525: The 20th century and to date has been colored by the historical views adopted when Iceland sought to sever its ties with Denmark , any revision of which still has strong nationalistic sentiments to contend with. To serve such views, Snorri and other leading Icelanders of his time are sometimes judged with an element of presentism , drawing on concepts that came into vogue only centuries later, such as state , independence , sovereignty , and nation . Jorge Luis Borges and María Kodama studied and translated

850-478: The Icelandic commonwealth and a position of high respect. In the summer of 1218, he left the lawspeaker position and sailed to Norway , by royal invitation. There he became well acquainted with the teenage King Hákon Hákonarson and his co-regent, Jarl Skúli . He spent the winter as house guest of the jarl. They showered gifts upon him, including the ship in which he sailed, and he in return wrote poetry about them. In

900-540: The chiefs of Iceland. In 1262, the Althing ratified union with Norway and royal authority was instituted in Iceland. Each member swore an oath of personal loyalty to the king, a practice which continued as each new king came to the throne, until absolute and hereditary monarchy was formally accepted by the Icelanders in 1662. Snorri Sturluson's writings provide information and indications concerning persons and events influencing

950-414: The chiefs. In 1224, Snorri married Hallveig Ormsdottir (c. 1199–1241), a granddaughter of Jón Loftsson, now a widow of great means with two young sons, and made a contract of joint property ownership (or helmingafélag ) with her. Their children did not survive to adulthood, but Hallveig's sons and seven of Snorri's children did live to adulthood. Snorri was the most powerful chieftain in Iceland during

1000-427: The continual transfer of their cultural memory, which was also closely tied to their language. The following table gives various attested spellings of sounds and their IPA transcription. In general usage, an orthographic distinction of phones or phonemes is not necessarily held by every writer. For example, an author may only distinguish some vowels by length, and orthographic devices could be mixed and matched. Where

1050-481: The discovery of Vinland . To an extent, the legacy of Snorri Sturluson also played a role in politics long after his death. His writings could be used in support of the claims of later Norwegian kings concerning the venerability and extent of their rule. Later, Heimskringla factored in establishing a national identity during the Norwegian romantic nationalism in mid-19th century. Icelandic perception of Snorri in

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1100-484: The eve of battle he dismissed those forces and offered terms to his brother. Sighvatur and Sturla drove Snorri into the countryside with a force of 1000 men, where he sought refuge among other goðar. Órækja undertook guerrilla operations in the fjords of western Iceland and fighting carried on. Haakon IV made an effort to intervene from afar, inviting all of Iceland's cheiftains to a peace conference in Norway. This maneuver

1150-491: The kettle and leave. There follows the slaying of hordes of jötnar , whereupon the Æsir leave with the kettle and booze contentedly at Ægir's place ever after (or at least until Lokasenna ). The poem contains fragments of a number of myths, and it shows. There is little structure to it, and scenes follow each other in a very rough logical order. Some of the allusions are not known from other sources and it contains unusually many kennings for an Eddic poem. Similarities between

1200-575: The king and questions of loyalty but he nevertheless managed to build up the Norwegian state from what it had been. When Snorri arrived in Norway for the second time, it was clear to the king that he was no longer a reliable agent. The conflict between Haakon and Skúli was beginning to escalate into civil war. Snorri stayed with the jarl and his son, and the jarl gave him the jarl title, hoping to command his allegiance. In August 1238, Sighvatur and four of his sons (Sturla, Markús, Kolbeinn, and Þórður Krókur,

1250-509: The latter two executed after the battle), were killed at the Battle of Örlygsstaðir in Iceland against Gissur Þorvaldsson and Kolbein the Young, chiefs whom they had provoked. Snorri, Órækja, and Þorleifur requested permission to return home. As the king now could not predict Snorri's behavior, permission was denied. He was explicitly ordered to remain in Norway on the basis of his honorary rank. Skúli on

1300-569: The local pronunciation, the Rundata project presents personal names according to the previously mentioned standardized spelling in English translations. Here follows an example from the Orkesta Runestone (U 344) : Standardized spelling: The rendering of Old East Norse: But when translating into English, the standardized spelling is used: In many modern Icelandic publications of Old Norse works,

1350-406: The manuscripts. The degree of normalization may vary, but in general the text is at the end reduced to limited deviation from a regularized system, perhaps at the expense of some dialectal character. For various reasons 19th century scholars came up with a standardized normalization of Old Norse which remains in use. It is primarily based on the so-called First Grammatical Treatise . Vowel length

1400-401: The modern Icelandic spelling is used. The orthography is essentially the same (since it was intentionally modelled after the aforementioned normalized Old Norse in the 19th century), but changes from Old Norse phonology to Icelandic phonology are incorporated in the translation that may not have been in the source text. One such difference is the insertion of u before r, when it is preceded by

1450-406: The necessity to confront Skúli, who declared himself king in 1239. Skúli was defeated militarily and killed in 1240. Meanwhile, Snorri resumed his chieftainship and made a bid to crush Gissur by prosecuting him in court for the deaths of his brother Sighvatr and nephew Sturla. After the jarl's defeat, Haakon sent two agents to Gissur bearing a secret letter with orders to kill or capture Snorri. Gissur

1500-411: The other hand gave permission and helped them book passage. Snorri must have had his own ideas about the king's position and the validity of his orders, but at any rate he chose to disobey them; his words according to Sturlunga saga , 'út vil ek' (literally 'out want I', but idiomatically 'I will go home'), have become proverbial in Icelandic. He returned to Iceland in 1239. The king was distracted by

1550-506: The peoples inhabiting North Europe during periods for which relevant information is scarce: thus, for example, he can be used to illuminate relations between England and Scandinavia during the 10th and 11th centuries. Snorri is considered a figure of enduring importance in this regard, Halvdan Koht describing his work as "surpassing anything else that the Middle Ages have left us of historical literature". He also provided an early account of

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1600-466: The short vowel, or no general spelling is used, e.g. when short and long vowels are always spelled differently. Legend: The low/low-mid vowels may be indicated differently: Dialect-specific sounds: When dialectal mergers such as OEN monophthongization took place, regional spelling often changed to reflect this. Sometimes, both phonemes' spellings would be used, but confused. The epenthetic vowel had different regional spellings. In East Norse it

1650-489: The slight variances resulted in various spellings. Thus the same name might be spelled several different ways even in the original manuscripts. Letters unique to the language existed, such as a modified version of the letter Wynn called Vend that was used briefly for the sounds /u/ , /v/ , and /w/ . In particular, the length of vowels was only sporadically marked in many manuscripts and various umlauted vowels were often not distinguished from others. Another complication

1700-449: The spoken language, such as the constant use of alliteration . A comparison of various whetstones from this time period with the works of Snorri Sturluson reveals that alliteration was common in many Old Norse writings, and were not only present in skaldic works. This would then suggest that the Vikings closely tied their language to their auditory sense, which in turn would have helped with

1750-523: The story of how Þórr almost caught the Jörmungandr , which is also recounted in the Prose Edda . Þórr shows off his strength, but Hymir taunts him and says that he could hardly be called strong if Þórr couldn't break Hymir's chalice. The chalice was a magic one and could not be broken unless slung against Hymir's head. Þórr is eventually told so and proceeds to do it. Hymir is annoyed but says that they can take

1800-570: The summer of 1219, he met his Swedish colleague, the lawspeaker Eskil Magnusson , and his wife, Kristina Nilsdotter Blake , in Skara . They were both related to royalty and probably gave Snorri an insight into the history of Sweden . Snorri was mainly interested in history and culture. The Norwegian regents, however, cultivated Snorri, made him a skutilsvein , a senior title roughly equivalent to knight , and received an oath of loyalty. The king hoped to extend his realm to Iceland, which he could do by

1850-464: The table below: For the convenience of English writers and readers the Old Norse characters not used in English are commonly replaced with English ones. This can lead to ambiguity and confusion. Diacritics may be removed (á → a, ö → o). The following character conversions also take place: Another common convention in English is to drop consonant nominative endings : Sometimes a j is dropped after ey . Other quirks sometimes seen include adding

1900-400: The table lists a long-or-short phoneme /(ː)/ , a specifically short // or long /ː/ phoneme represents additional spellings not covered by length marking rules. Likewise, a phonetic entry only lists spellings not used by the equivalent phoneme(s). N/A is used when no specific spelling is used, e.g. where all long vowel spellings are found using the rules for deriving long vowel spellings from

1950-476: The table when distinguished in neither orthography, nor is /æi/ distinguished from /æ/+/i/ . When transcribing Old Norse texts from Danish and Swedish runestones , many scholars, but not all, use an orthography that is adapted to represent Old East Norse, the dialect of Old Norse in Denmark and Sweden . The main differences are the diphthong æi instead of ei as in stæinn ("stone") and i instead of

2000-533: The year before Snorri married Hallveig. A period of clan feuding followed. Snorri raised an armed party under his nephew Böðvar Þórðarson, and another under his son Órækja, with the intent of executing a first strike against his brother Sighvatur and Sturla Sighvatsson. It is possible that Snorri perceived that only resolute, saga -like actions could achieve his objective, but if so he proved unwilling or incapable of carrying them out. Alternatively, he might have done this as military posturing or performance of power. On

2050-557: The years 1224–1230. Many of the other chiefs found his position as royal office-holder contrary to their interests, especially the other Sturlungar . Snorri's strategy seems to have been to consolidate power over them, at which point he could offer Iceland to the king. His first moves were civic. On the death in 1222 of Sæmundur, son of Jón Loftsson, he became a suitor for the hand of his daughter, Sólveig . Herdís' silent vote did nothing for his suit. His nephew, Sturla Sighvatsson, Snorri's political opponent, stepped in to marry her in 1223,

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2100-680: Was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing . He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of the Prose Edda , which is a major source for what is today known about Norse mythology and alliterative verse , and Heimskringla , a history of the Norse kings that begins with legendary material in Ynglinga saga and moves through to early medieval Scandinavian history . For stylistic and methodological reasons, Snorri

2150-428: Was being invited now to join the unionist movement. A meeting at the Althing was arranged for the summer of 1241 but Gissur and Kolbein arrived with several hundred men. Snorri and 120 men formed around a church. Gissur chose to pay fines rather than to attack. Hallveig died of natural causes. When the family bickered over the inheritance, Hallveig's sons, Klaeing and Orm, asked assistance from their uncle Gissur. Holding

2200-415: Was commonly spelled as ⟨e⟩ or ⟨a⟩ , while in West Norse it was often spelled ⟨u⟩ , just like in Iceland. The original Icelandic manuscripts , which are the main source of knowledge of Norse mythology , did not employ a unified system of spelling. During the Viking Age, many dialects of Old Norse were spoken. While they appear to have been mutually intelligible,

2250-400: Was deserted by Snorri on the battlefield in a flare-up over the chain of command. In 1237, Snorri thought it best to travel to Norway and join the king. The reign of Haakon IV (Hákon Hákonarson), King of Norway , was troubled by civil war relating to questions of succession and was at various times divided into quasi-independent regions under rival contenders. There were always plots against

2300-424: Was educated by Sæmundr fróði , grandfather of Jón Loftsson, at Oddi, and never returned to his parents' home. His father died in 1183 and his mother, as his guardian, soon squandered Snorri's share of the inheritance. Jón Loftsson died in 1197. The two families then arranged a marriage in 1199 between Snorri and Herdís, the daughter of Bersi Vermundarson. From her father, Snorri inherited an estate at Borg, as well as

2350-628: Was given the option of surrender. He fled to the cellar. There, Símon knútur asked Arni the Bitter to strike him. Then Snorri said: Eigi skal höggva! —"Do not strike!" Símon answered: "Högg þú!" — "You strike now!" Snorri replied: Eigi skal höggva! —"Do not strike!" and these were his last words. This act was not popular in either Iceland or Norway. To diminish the odium, the king insisted that if Snorri had submitted, he would have been spared. The fact that he could make such an argument reveals how far his influence in Iceland had come. Haakon went on suborning

2400-410: Was known as Snorralaug  [ is ] , and the buildings have been preserved to some extent. During his initial years at Reykholt he fathered another five children, with three different women: Guðrún Hreinsdóttir, Oddný, and Þuríður Hallsdóttir. Snorri quickly became known as a poet, and also functioned as a lawyer. In 1215, he became lawspeaker of the Althing , the only public office of

2450-484: Was raised from the age of three or four by Jón Loftsson , a relative of the Norwegian royal family, in Oddi , Iceland. Key to his political and cultural education was his fosterage at Oddi, which resulted from a settlement regarding his father's legal dealings. As Hvamm-Sturla was trying to settle a lawsuit with the priest and chieftain ( Goðorðsmaðr ) Páll Sölvason, Páll's wife Þorbjörg Bjarnardóttir lunged suddenly at him with

2500-503: Was transparent to Sighvatur, who suspected, as apparently Snorri did not, that the king was planning a maneuver against the goðar in Norway. Instead of killing his opponents he began to insist that they take the king up on his offer. Órækja's fate was capture by his cousin Sturla during an ostensible peace negotiation at Reykjaholt. Þorleifur Þórðarson, a cousin of Snorri's, was also captured. Þorleifur had come to his assistance with 800 men, but

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