No Yolking

I know, it is a sad play on words but I could not help myself. I did not have a great title ready for today's blog which is about the phrase 'egging on'.

This week's reading in Old Norse was sections of The Volsung Saga and, in keeping with Signy's rather determined efforts to avenge her father's death, she was egging her brother on. The verb in the Old Norse was eggja, that is "to incite, to urge one on" so the phrase is an old one. I don't know which came first the noun egg or the verb but there are two egg's in Old Norse. One is "egg" of course and the other is "edge". It is the edge that is the relative to the verb because you can whet a knife and that creates an edge. If that does not make sense, think about whetting your appetite. So now you know, egging some one on has nothing to do with eggs and everything to do with sharpening your knife to avenge your father. No yolking.

Twelve Dictionaries

No, this is not like the twelve days of Christmas. I was looking at my bookshelves and, although I have more reference works than these dictionaries, for a book that can be properly called a dictionary I have twelve. Non-electronic. If I factor digital ones then I have even more.

For my entertainment and your astonishment, I shall list them here in no particular order:

Brewer's Britain and Ireland, meaning of place names

Collins German Concise, German/English

Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Geir T. Zoëga

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

The New College Latin and English Dictionary

Collins Pocket French, French/English

Cassell's Latin Dictionary, Latin/English

The Pelican Rhyming Dictionary

A Concise Anglo Saxon Dictionary, J.R. Clark

Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Stelton

The Oxford Concise English Dictionary

The Oxford Latin Dictionary

and I use them all. Well, except that Rhyming Dictionary. It has been years since I looked at that one. Now you know.

Leif the Lucky had a sister named Freydis

It is probably a big shock to many who think that women don't get mentioned in chronicles and sagas. They do. Not as much as men but they are not completely invisible. Their complete absence from history books probably reflects a bias from 19th century and many 20th century historians.

Eirik the Red left Iceland around 985 A.D. to colonize Greenland. That colony survived for centuries and there are the Vinland Sagas that tell of the early days: Eirik the Red's Saga and The Saga of the Greenlanders. Eirik had a daughter, who was likely a half sister to Leif the Lucky. The sagas do not agree on this. She rated more than a little mentioning in the sagas because she was such a wild thing. Her name was Freydis.

There was a sister in law Gudrid, who is also mentioned at length. She gave birth to the first European born in the New World, Snorri Thorfinsson, and became a nun. This balances the account of Freydis. There are a few other women mentioned in the sagas because they sailed with the men to explore Vinland.

Freydis headed her own expedition to Newfoundland and asked her brother Leif if she could have the houses he built there. He told her that she could borrow them only. Another group went on the expedition in their own ship. For whatever reason, Freydis would not share the houses with them so they had to build their own. Then she told her husband that the leader of the other group had insulted her so that her husband and their men need take vengeance. So they attacked the other group and killed them all for no reason. No reason was ever given for why Freydis wanted them dead. Greed, perhaps? There were five women with the other group whom Freydis' men refused to kill so Freydis killed all five personally with an ax.

On another trip to Vinland, the group was attacked by natives and some of the men were killed and they were making a rapid retreat. Freydis was pregnant so she could not move fast and she could not keep up with the fleeing men. So she picked up a sword and decided to fight. She faced the natives alone by baring her breasts and slapping the sword against them. This startled the natives and they decided to run away rather than attack her.

The sagas do not tell much more of her. She was married to a man called Thorvard. "She was a domineering woman, but Thorvard was a man of no consequence. She had been married to him mainly for his money."

The history books that I read when I was a child never mentioned her. She commanded a few expeditions to the New World but we only ever heard of her brother. Mind you, should those two stories be included in a history book written for children?

I should mention that I was using the Penguin Deluxe Edition of The Sagas of the Icelanders with Keneva Kunz's translations of the two quoted sagas.

How long does winter have to be to be a Fimbulwinter?

I was lurking somewhere on the net being distracted by someone (I forget who) 's conjecture about the length of the fimbulvetr (really big/terrible winter) which would be only a year and a half because there is no summer in between. However, the Norse measured years by winters. The Zoëga entry on 'vetr' lists year as an alternative definition.
Then there is the word for season 'misseri' which lasts for six months, giving the Norse two seasons-summer and winter only much like us Canadians. In the plural, however misseri means a twelve month period. So, you could make an argument for an eighteen month winter which would be terrible enough but it could very well be three years. Snorri stated in Gylfaginning that the fimbulwinter would be preceded by three winters (years) of fighting. Then a wolf swallows the sun, after which it won't just be cold but dark, too, since another wolf swallows the moon. The gods will be fighting in the dark. Or by the flame of Surt's sword, which everyone would want to crowd around being the only thing giving off heat for a while.

Anyway, since Snorrie mentions the other three years while discussing fimbulwinter, I think he is saying it lasts for three years.