112-692: Baldr ( Old Norse also Balder , Baldur ) is a god in Germanic mythology . In Norse mythology , he is a son of the god Odin and the goddess Frigg , and has numerous brothers , such as Thor and Váli . In wider Germanic mythology, the god was known in Old English as Bældæġ , and in Old High German as Balder , all ultimately stemming from the Proto-Germanic theonym * Balðraz ('hero' or 'prince'). During
224-461: A derivative of *balþaz , meaning 'brave' (cf. Old Norse ballr 'hard, stubborn', Gothic balþa* 'bold, frank', Old English beald 'bold, brave, confident', Old Saxon bald 'valiant, bold', Old High German bald 'brave, courageous'). This etymology was originally proposed by Jacob Grimm (1835), who also speculated on a comparison with the Lithuanian báltas ('white', also the name of
336-559: A book of Snorri Sturluson 's Prose Edda, Baldr's wife is Nanna and their son is Forseti . Baldr had the greatest ship ever built, Hringhorni , and there is no place more beautiful than his hall, Breidablik . The Old Norse theonym Baldr ('brave, defiant'; also 'lord, prince') and its various Germanic cognates – including Old English Bældæg and Old High German Balder (or Palter ) – probably stems from Proto-Germanic *Balðraz ('Hero, Prince'; cf. Old Norse mann-baldr 'great man', Old English bealdor 'prince, hero'), itself
448-727: A change known as Holtzmann's law . An epenthetic vowel became popular by 1200 in Old Danish, 1250 in Old Swedish and Old Norwegian, and 1300 in Old Icelandic. An unstressed vowel was used which varied by dialect. Old Norwegian exhibited all three: /u/ was used in West Norwegian south of Bergen , as in aftur , aftor (older aptr ); North of Bergen, /i/ appeared in aftir , after ; and East Norwegian used /a/ , after , aftær . Old Norse
560-681: A child. It is said that Frigg heard their prayers and told Odin what they asked." A 12th century depiction of a cloaked but otherwise nude woman riding a large cat appears on a wall in the Schleswig Cathedral in Schleswig-Holstein , Northern Germany . Beside her is similarly a cloaked yet otherwise nude woman riding a distaff . Due to iconographic similarities to the literary record, these figures have been theorized as depictions of Freyja and Frigg respectively. Due to numerous similarities, some scholars have proposed that
672-408: A day and slew Höðr. Baldr was ceremonially burnt upon his ship Hringhorni , the largest of all ships. On the pyre he was given the magical ring Draupnir . At first the gods were not able to push the ship out onto sea, and so they sent for Hyrrokin , a giantess , who came riding on a wolf and gave the ship such a push that fire flashed from the rollers and all the earth shook. As he was carried to
784-501: A deadly wound with a magic sword , named Mistletoe , which he had received from Mimir, the satyr of the woods; after lingering three days in pain Balderus died of his injury and was buried with royal honours in a barrow. A Latin votive inscription from Utrecht, from the 3rd or 4th century C.E., has been theorized as containing the dative form Baldruo , pointing to a Latin nominative singular * Baldruus , which some have identified with
896-417: A female raven or a male crow. All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms, and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals. The gender of some words' plurals does not agree with that of their singulars, such as lim and mund . Some words, such as hungr , have multiple genders, evidenced by their determiners being declined in different genders within
1008-412: A front vowel to be split into a semivowel-vowel sequence before a back vowel in the following syllable. While West Norse only broke /e/ , East Norse also broke /i/ . The change was blocked by a /w/ , /l/ , or /ʀ/ preceding the potentially-broken vowel. Some /ja/ or /jɔ/ and /jaː/ or /jɔː/ result from breaking of /e/ and /eː/ respectively. When a noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb has
1120-409: A given sentence. Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases – nominative , accusative , genitive , and dative – in singular and plural numbers. Adjectives and pronouns were additionally declined in three grammatical genders. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive
1232-467: A grand funeral attended by many beings—foremost mentioned of which are his mother and father, Frigg and Odin. During the funeral, Nanna dies of grief and is placed in the funeral pyre with Baldr, her dead husband. Hermóðr locates Baldr and Nanna in Hel. Hermodr secures an agreement for the return of Baldr and with Hermóðr Nanna sends gifts to Frigg (a linen robe) and Fulla (a finger-ring). Hermóðr rides back to
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#17327903279671344-410: A hall in a land of gods, Asgard . Frigg is one of the twelve ásynjur in attendance. In Ynglinga saga , the first book of Heimskringla , a Euhemerized account of the origin of the gods is provided. Frigg is mentioned once. According to the saga, while Odin was away, Odin's brothers Vili and Vé oversaw Odin's holdings. Once, while Odin was gone for an extended period, the Æsir concluded that he
1456-483: A light-god) based on the semantic development from 'white' to 'shining' then 'strong'. According to linguist Vladimir Orel , this could be linguistically tenable. Philologist Rudolf Simek also argues that the Old English Bældæg should be interpreted as meaning 'shining day', from a Proto-Germanic root * bēl - (cf. Old English bæl , Old Norse bál 'fire') attached to dæg ('day'). Old Norse also shows
1568-584: A long vowel or diphthong in the accented syllable and its stem ends in a single l , n , or s , the r (or the elder r - or z -variant ʀ ) in an ending is assimilated. When the accented vowel is short, the ending is dropped. The nominative of the strong masculine declension and some i-stem feminine nouns uses one such -r (ʀ). Óðin-r ( Óðin-ʀ ) becomes Óðinn instead of * Óðinr ( * Óðinʀ ). The verb blása ('to blow'), has third person present tense blæss ('[he] blows') rather than * blæsr ( * blæsʀ ). Similarly,
1680-469: A narrative about the fate of Frigg's son Baldr is told. According to High, Baldr once started to have dreams indicating that his life was in danger. When Baldr told his fellow Æsir about his dreams, the gods met together for a thing and decided that they should "request immunity for Baldr from all kinds of danger." Frigg subsequently receives promises from the elements, the environment, diseases, animals, and stones, amongst other things. The request successful,
1792-474: A noun must mirror the gender of that noun , so that one says, " heill maðr! " but, " heilt barn! ". As in other languages, the grammatical gender of an impersonal noun is generally unrelated to an expected natural gender of that noun. While indeed karl , "man" is masculine, kona , "woman", is feminine, and hús , "house", is neuter, so also are hrafn and kráka , for "raven" and "crow", masculine and feminine respectively, even in reference to
1904-450: A shoot of a tree to the west of Val-hall . It is called mistletoe . It seemed young to me to demand the oath from." Loki immediately disappears. Now armed with mistletoe, Loki arrives at the thing where the Æsir are assembled and tricks the blind Höðr , Baldr's brother, into shooting Baldr with a mistletoe projectile. To the horror of the assembled gods, the mistletoe goes directly through Baldr, killing him. Standing in horror and shock,
2016-476: A similar development influenced by Middle Low German . Various languages unrelated to Old Norse and others not closely related have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman language ; to a lesser extent, Finnish and Estonian . Russian, Ukrainian , Belarusian , Lithuanian and Latvian also have a few Norse loanwords. The words Rus and Russia , according to one theory, may be named after
2128-608: A voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in all cases, and others have that realisation only in the middle of words and between vowels (with it otherwise being realised [ɡ] ). The Old East Norse /ʀ/ was an apical consonant , with its precise position unknown; it is reconstructed as a palatal sibilant . It descended from Proto-Germanic /z/ and eventually developed into /r/ , as had already occurred in Old West Norse. The consonant digraphs ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ occurred word-initially. It
2240-404: A vowel or semivowel of a different vowel backness . In the case of i-umlaut and ʀ-umlaut , this entails a fronting of back vowels, with retention of lip rounding. In the case of u-umlaut , this entails labialization of unrounded vowels. Umlaut is phonemic and in many situations grammatically significant as a side effect of losing the Proto-Germanic morphological suffixes whose vowels created
2352-458: A wizard who seeks him should harm him, and that he would know this wizard by the refusal of dogs, no matter how ferocious, to attack the stranger. While it was not true that Geirröðr was inhospitable with his guests, Geirröðr did as instructed and had the wizard arrested. Upon being questioned, the wizard, wearing a blue cloak, said no more than that his name is Grímnir . Geirröðr has Grímnir tortured and sits him between two fires for 8 nights. Upon
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#17327903279672464-448: A word. Strong verbs ablaut the lemma 's nucleus to derive the past forms of the verb. This parallels English conjugation, where, e.g., the nucleus of sing becomes sang in the past tense and sung in the past participle. Some verbs are derived by ablaut, as the present-in-past verbs do by consequence of being derived from the past tense forms of strong verbs. Umlaut or mutation is an assimilatory process acting on vowels preceding
2576-464: Is Baldr, and good things are to be said of him. He is best, and all praise him; he is so fair of feature, and so bright, that light shines from him. A certain herb is so white that it is likened to Baldr's brow; of all grasses it is whitest, and by it thou mayest judge his fairness, both in hair and in body. He is the wisest of the Æsir, and the fairest-spoken and most gracious; and that quality attends him, that none may gainsay his judgments. He dwells in
2688-493: Is Vegtam ("Wanderer"). Odin asks the Völva for whom are the benches covered in rings and the floor covered in gold. The Völva tells him that in their location mead is brewed for Baldr, and that she spoke unwillingly, so she will speak no more: Here for Baldr | the mead is brewed, The shining drink, | and a shield lies o'er it; But their hope is gone | from the mighty gods. Unwilling I spake, | and now would be still. Odin asks
2800-488: Is a Baldersgatan (Balder's Street) in Stockholm . There is also Baldersnäs (Balder's isthmus), Baldersvik (Balder's bay), Balders udde (Balder's headland) and Baldersberg (Balder's mountain) at various places. Old Norse Old Norse , also referred to as Old Nordic , or Old Scandinavian , was a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse
2912-544: Is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden . In what is present-day Denmark and Sweden, most speakers spoke Old East Norse. Though Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations, it developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th-century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes , Norwegians , Icelanders , and Danes spoke
3024-558: Is cognate with Old Frisian Frīadei (≈ Fri(g)endei ), Middle Dutch Vridach (≈ Vriendach ), Middle Low German Vrīdach (≈ Vrīgedach ), and Old High German Frîatac . The Old Norse Frjádagr was borrowed from a West Germanic language. All of these terms derive from Late Proto-Germanic * Frijjōdag ('Day of Frijjō'), a calque of Latin Veneris dies ('Day of Venus '; cf. modern Italian venerdì , French vendredi , Spanish viernes ). The Germanic goddess' name has substituted for
3136-553: Is described as follows: Annarr sonr Óðins er Baldr, ok er frá honum gott at segja. Hann er beztr, ok hann lofa allir. Hann er svá fagr álitum ok bjartr, svá at lýsir af honum, ok eitt gras er svá hvítt, at jafnat er til Baldrs brár. Þat er allra grasa hvítast, ok þar eftir máttu marka fegurð hans bæði á hár ok á líki. Hann er vitrastr ásanna ok fegrst talaðr ok líknsamastr, en sú náttúra fylgir honum, at engi má haldast dómr hans. Hann býr þar, sem heitir Breiðablik. Þat er á himni. Í þeim stað má ekki vera óhreint[.] The second son of Odin
3248-465: Is expected to exist, such as in the male names Ragnarr , Steinarr (supposedly * Ragnarʀ , * Steinarʀ ), the result is apparently always /rː/ rather than */rʀ/ or */ʀː/ . This is observable in the Runic corpus. In Old Norse, i/j adjacent to i , e , their u-umlauts, and æ was not possible, nor u/v adjacent to u , o , their i-umlauts, and ǫ . At
3360-579: Is married to Odin and that the Æsir are descended from the couple, and adds that "the earth [ Jörðin ] was [Odin's] daughter and his wife." According to High, the two had many sons, the first of which was the mighty god Thor . Later in Gylfaginning , Gangleri asks about the ásynjur , a term for Norse goddesses. High says that "highest" among them is Frigg and that only Freyja "is highest in rank next to her." Frigg dwells in Fensalir "and it
3472-584: Is more common in Old West Norse in both phonemic and allophonic positions, while it only occurs sparsely in post-runic Old East Norse and even in runic Old East Norse. This is still a major difference between Swedish and Faroese and Icelandic today. Plurals of neuters do not have u-umlaut at all in Swedish, but in Faroese and Icelandic they do, for example the Faroese and Icelandic plurals of the word land , lond and lönd respectively, in contrast to
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3584-560: Is now Merseburg , Germany, features an invocation known as the Second Merseburg Incantation . The incantation calls upon various continental Germanic gods, including Old High German Frija and a goddess associated with her— Volla , to assist in healing a horse: In the Poetic Edda , compiled during the 13th century from earlier traditional material, Frigg is mentioned in the poems Völuspá , Vafþrúðnismál ,
3696-493: Is reconstructed as Proto-Germanic * Frijjō . Similar proof for the existence of a common Germanic goddess from which Freyja descends does not exist, but scholars have commented that this may simply be due to the scarcity of evidence outside of the North Germanic record. Frigg is referenced in art and literature into the modern period. In the 18th century, Gustav III of Sweden , king of Sweden, composed Friggja ,
3808-459: Is that the nonphonemic difference between the voiced and the voiceless dental fricative is marked. The oldest texts and runic inscriptions use þ exclusively. 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. Ablaut patterns are groups of vowels which are swapped, or ablauted, in the nucleus of
3920-556: Is the subject of the Eddic poem Baldr's Dreams . Among the visions which the Völva sees and describes in Völuspá is Baldr's death. In stanza 32, the Völva says she saw the fate of Baldr "the bleeding god": Henry Adams Bellows translation: I saw for Baldr, | the bleeding god, The son of Othin, | his destiny set: Famous and fair | in the lofty fields, Full grown in strength |
4032-557: Is unclear whether they were sequences of two consonants (with the first element realised as /h/ or perhaps /x/ ) or as single voiceless sonorants /l̥/ , /r̥/ and /n̥/ respectively. In Old Norwegian, Old Danish and later Old Swedish, the groups ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ were reduced to plain ⟨l⟩ , ⟨r⟩ , ⟨n⟩ , which suggests that they had most likely already been pronounced as voiceless sonorants by Old Norse times. The pronunciation of ⟨hv⟩
4144-620: Is unclear, but it may have been /xʷ/ (the Proto-Germanic pronunciation), /hʷ/ or the similar phoneme /ʍ/ . Unlike the three other digraphs, it was retained much longer in all dialects. Without ever developing into a voiceless sonorant in Icelandic, it instead underwent fortition to a plosive /kv/ , which suggests that instead of being a voiceless sonorant, it retained a stronger frication. Primary stress in Old Norse falls on
4256-495: Is very splendid." In this section of Gylfaginning , Frigg is also mentioned in connection to other ásynjur : Fulla carries Frigg's ashen box, "looks after her footwear and shares her secrets;" Lofn is given special permission by Frigg and Odin to "arrange unions" among men and women; Hlín is charged by Frigg to protect those that Frigg deem worthy of keeping from danger; and Gná is sent by Frigg "into various worlds to carry out her business." In section 49 of Gylfaginning ,
4368-535: The Latin alphabet , there was no standardized orthography in use in the Middle Ages. A modified version of the letter wynn called vend was used briefly for the sounds /u/ , /v/ , and /w/ . Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated. The standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century and is, for the most part, phonemic. The most notable deviation
4480-471: The Proto-Germanic theonym * Frijjō . Nearly all sources portray her as the wife of the god Odin . In Old High German and Old Norse sources, she is specifically connected with Fulla , but she is also associated with the goddesses Lofn , Hlín , Gná , and ambiguously with the Earth, otherwise personified as an apparently separate entity Jörð (Old Norse: 'Earth'). The children of Frigg and Odin include
4592-482: The Proto-Indo-European stem * priH-o- , denoting 'one's own, beloved'. The Proto-Germanic verb *frijōnan ('to love'), as well as the nouns * frijōndz ('friend') and * frijađwō ('friendship, peace'), are also related. An -a suffix has been sometimes applied by modern editors to denote femininity, resulting in the form Frigga . This spelling also serves the purpose of distancing the goddess from
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4704-667: The Rus' people , a Norse tribe, probably from present-day east-central Sweden. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi , respectively. A number of loanwords have been introduced into Irish , many associated with fishing and sailing. A similar influence is found in Scottish Gaelic , with over one hundred loanwords estimated to be in the language, many of which are related to fishing and sailing. Old Norse vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The standardized orthography marks
4816-465: The mistletoe —a detail which has traditionally been explained with the idea that it was too unimportant and nonthreatening to bother asking it to make the vow, but which Merrill Kaplan has instead argued echoes the fact that young people were not eligible to swear legal oaths, which could make them a threat later in life. When Loki , the mischief-maker, heard of this, he made a magical spear from this plant (in some later versions, an arrow). He hurried to
4928-668: The word stem , so that hyrjar would be pronounced /ˈhyr.jar/ . In compound words, secondary stress falls on the second stem (e.g. lærisveinn , /ˈlɛːɾ.iˌswɛinː/ ). Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark , runic Old Norse was originally written with the Younger Futhark , which had only 16 letters. Because of the limited number of runes, several runes were used for different sounds, and long and short vowels were not distinguished in writing. Medieval runes came into use some time later. As for
5040-557: The 11th century in most of Old East Norse. However, the distinction still holds in Dalecarlian dialects . The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes. Note: The open or open-mid vowels may be transcribed differently: Sometime around the 13th century, /ɔ/ (spelled ⟨ǫ⟩ ) merged with /ø/ or /o/ in most dialects except Old Danish , and Icelandic where /ɔ/ ( ǫ ) merged with /ø/ . This can be determined by their distinction within
5152-587: The 12th century, Danish accounts by Saxo Grammaticus and other Danish Latin chroniclers recorded a euhemerized account of his story. Compiled in Iceland during the 13th century, but based on older Old Norse poetry , the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda contain numerous references to the death of Baldr as both a great tragedy to the Æsir and a harbinger of Ragnarök . According to Gylfaginning ,
5264-979: The 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise but not within the early 13th-century Prose Edda . The nasal vowels, also noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, are assumed to have been lost in most dialects by this time (but notably they are retained in Elfdalian and other dialects of Ovansiljan ). See Old Icelandic for the mergers of /øː/ (spelled ⟨œ⟩ ) with /ɛː/ (spelled ⟨æ⟩ ) and /ɛ/ (spelled ⟨ę⟩ ) with /e/ (spelled ⟨e⟩ ). Old Norse had three diphthong phonemes: /ɛi/ , /ɔu/ , /øy ~ ɛy/ (spelled ⟨ei⟩ , ⟨au⟩ , ⟨ey⟩ respectively). In East Norse these would monophthongize and merge with /eː/ and /øː/ , whereas in West Norse and its descendants
5376-668: The 13th century there. The age of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland is strongly contested, but Swedish settlement had spread the language into the region by the time of the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century at the latest. The modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , and the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland , although Norwegian
5488-419: The 9th night, Grímnir is brought a full drinking horn by Geirröðr's son, Agnar (so named after Geirröðr's brother), and the poem continues without further mention or involvement of Frigg. In the poem Lokasenna , where Loki accuses nearly every female in attendance of promiscuity and/or unfaithfulness, an aggressive exchange occurs between the god Loki and the goddess Frigg (and thereafter between Loki and
5600-787: The Deacon 's 8th-century Historia Langobardorum derived from it, recount a founding myth of the Langobards , a Germanic people who ruled a region of what is now Italy (see Lombardy ). According to this legend, a "small people" known as the Winnili were ruled by a woman named Gambara who had two sons, Ybor and Agio . The Vandals , ruled by Ambri and Assi , came to the Winnili with their army and demanded that they pay them tribute or prepare for war. Ybor, Agio, and their mother Gambara rejected their demands for tribute. Ambra and Assi then asked
5712-510: The English word frig . Several place names refer to Frigg in what are now Norway and Sweden, although her name is altogether absent in recorded place names in Denmark. The connection with and possible earlier identification of the goddess Freyja with Frigg in the Proto-Germanic period is a matter of scholarly debate (see Frigg and Freyja common origin hypothesis ). Like the name of
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#17327903279675824-572: The Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Both Middle English (especially northern English dialects within the area of the Danelaw ) and Early Scots (including Lowland Scots ) were strongly influenced by Norse and contained many Old Norse loanwords . Consequently, Modern English (including Scottish English ), inherited a significant proportion of its vocabulary directly from Norse. The development of Norman French
5936-633: The Norse gods is provided. The author describes Frigg as the wife of Odin, and, in a case of folk etymology , the author attempts to associate the name Frigg with the Latin-influenced form Frigida . The Prologue adds that both Frigg and Odin "had the gift of prophecy." In the next section of the Prose Edda , Gylfaginning , High tells Gangleri (the king Gylfi in disguise) that Frigg, daughter of Fjörgynn (Old Norse Fjörgynsdóttir )
6048-721: The Norse/Germanic god, although both the reading and this interpretation have been questioned. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Baldr is named as the ancestor of the monarchy of Kent , Bernicia , Deira , and Wessex through his supposed son Brond . There are a few old place names in Scandinavia that contain the name Baldr . The most certain and notable one is the (former) parish name Balleshol in Hedmark county, Norway: "a Balldrshole" 1356 (where
6160-412: The Old Norse goddesses Frigg and Freyja descend from a common entity from the Proto-Germanic period. Regarding a Freyja-Frigg common origin hypothesis, scholar Stephan Grundy comments that "the problem of whether Frigg or Freyja may have been a single goddess originally is a difficult one, made more so by the scantiness of pre- Viking Age references to Germanic goddesses , and the diverse quality of
6272-580: The Roman name of a comparable deity, a practice known as interpretatio germanica . Although the Old English theonym Frīg is only found in the name of the weekday, it is also attested as a common noun in frīg ('love, affections [plural], embraces [in poetry]'). The Old Norse weekday Freyjudagr , a rare synonym of Frjádagr , saw the replacement of the first element with the genitive of Freyja . The 7th-century Origo Gentis Langobardorum , and Paul
6384-473: The Swedish plural land and numerous other examples. That also applies to almost all feminine nouns, for example the largest feminine noun group, the o-stem nouns (except the Swedish noun jord mentioned above), and even i-stem nouns and root nouns , such as Old West Norse mǫrk ( mörk in Icelandic) in comparison with Modern and Old Swedish mark . Vowel breaking, or fracture, caused
6496-772: The Völva to not be silent and asks her who will kill Baldr. The Völva replies and says that Höðr will kill Baldr, and again says that she spoke unwillingly, and that she will speak no more: Hoth thither bears | the far-famed branch, He shall the bane | of Baldr become, And steal the life | from Othin's son. Unwilling I spake, | and now would be still. Odin again asks the Völva to not be silent and asks her who will avenge Baldr's death. The Völva replies that Váli will, when he will be one night old. Once again, she says that she will speak no more: Rind bears Vali | in Vestrsalir, And one night old | fights Othin's son; His hands he shall wash not, | his hair he shall comb not, Till
6608-402: The Winnili, including their whiskered women, and asked "who are those Long-beards?" Frea responded to Godan, "As you have given them a name, give them also the victory". Godan did so, "so that they should defend themselves according to his counsel and obtain the victory". Thenceforth the Winnili were known as the Langobards ( Langobardic "long-beards"). A 10th-century manuscript found in what
6720-558: The bale-blaze | Baldr's foe. But in Fensalir | did Frigg weep sore For Valhall's need: | would you know yet more? In stanza 62 of Völuspá, looking far into the future, the Völva says that Höðr and Baldr will come back, with the union, according to Bellows, being a symbol of the new age of peace: Then fields unsowed | bear ripened fruit, All ills grow better, | and Baldr comes back; Baldr and Hoth dwell | in Hropt's battle-hall, And
6832-541: The beginning of words, this manifested as a dropping of the initial /j/ (which was general, independent of the following vowel) or /v/ . Compare ON orð , úlfr , ár with English word, wolf, year . In inflections, this manifested as the dropping of the inflectional vowels. Thus, klæði + dat -i remains klæði , and sjáum in Icelandic progressed to sjǫ́um > sjǫ́m > sjám . The * jj and * ww of Proto-Germanic became ggj and ggv respectively in Old Norse,
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#17327903279676944-553: The boat and a breeze came. The boat returned to the harbor of their father. Geirröðr, forward in the ship, jumped to shore and pushed the boat, containing his brother, out and said "go where an evil spirit may get thee." Away went the ship and Geirröðr walked to a house, where he was greeted with joy; while the boys were gone, their father had died, and now Geirröðr was king. He "became a splendid man." The scene switches to Odin and Frigg sitting in Hliðskjálf , "look[ing] into all
7056-411: The cluster */Crʀ/ cannot be realized as /Crː/ , nor as */Crʀ/ , nor as */Cʀː/ . The same shortening as in vetr also occurs in lax = laks ('salmon') (as opposed to * lakss , * laksʀ ), botn ('bottom') (as opposed to * botnn , * botnʀ ), and jarl (as opposed to * jarll , * jarlʀ ). Furthermore, wherever the cluster */rʀ/
7168-449: The diphthongs remained. Old Norse has six plosive phonemes, /p/ being rare word-initially and /d/ and /b/ pronounced as voiced fricative allophones between vowels except in compound words (e.g. veðrabati ), already in the Proto-Germanic language (e.g. * b *[β] > [v] between vowels). The /ɡ/ phoneme was pronounced as [ɡ] after an /n/ or another /ɡ/ and as [k] before /s/ and /t/ . Some accounts have it
7280-656: The gleaming god Baldr . The English weekday name Friday (ultimately meaning 'Frigg's Day') bears her name. After Christianization , the mention of Frigg continued to occur in Scandinavian folklore . During modern times, Frigg has appeared in popular culture, has been the subject of art and receives veneration in Germanic Neopaganism . The theonyms Frigg (Old Norse), Frīja ( Old High German ), Frīg ( Old English ), Frīa ( Old Frisian ), and Frī ( Old Saxon ) are cognates (linguistic siblings from
7392-623: The god Godan for victory over the Winnili, to which Godan responded (in the longer version in the Origo ): "Whom I shall first see when at sunrise, to them will I give the victory." Meanwhile, Ybor and Agio called upon Frea, Godan's wife. Frea counseled them that "at sunrise the Winnil[i] should come, and that their women, with their hair let down around the face in the likeness of a beard should also come with their husbands". At sunrise, Frea turned Godan's bed around to face east and woke him. Godan saw
7504-470: The goddess Freyja about Frigg). A prose introduction to the poem describes that numerous gods and goddesses attended a banquet held by Ægir . These gods and goddesses include Odin and, "his wife", Frigg. Frigg is mentioned throughout the Prose Edda , compiled in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson . Frigg is first mentioned in the Prose Edda Prologue , wherein a euhemerized account of
7616-399: The gods are initially only able to weep due to their grief. Frigg speaks up and asks "who there was among the Æsir who wished to earn all her love and favour and was willing to ride the road to Hel and try if he could find Baldr, and offer Hel a ransom if she would let Baldr go back to Asgard." Hermóðr , Baldr's brother, accepts Frigg's request and rides to Hel. Meanwhile, Baldr is given
7728-437: The gods holding a council discussing why Baldr had had bad dreams: Henry Adams Bellows translation: Once were the gods | together met, And the goddesses came | and council held, And the far-famed ones | the truth would find, Why baleful dreams | to Baldr had come. Odin then rides to Hel to a Völva's grave and awakens her using magic. The Völva asks Odin, who she does not recognize, who he is, and Odin answers that he
7840-451: The group of gods to which Freyja belongs, the Vanir , the name Freyja is not attested outside of Scandinavia . This is in contrast to the name of the goddess Frigg , who is also attested as a goddess among West Germanic peoples. Evidence is lacking for the existence of a common Germanic goddess from which Old Norse Freyja descends, but scholars have commented that this may simply be due to
7952-462: The hand of Nanna, daughter of Gewar, King of Norway . Balderus was a demigod and common steel could not wound his sacred body. The two rivals encountered each other in a terrific battle. Though Odin and Thor and the other gods fought for Balderus, he was defeated and fled away, and Høtherus married the princess. Nevertheless, Balderus took heart of grace and again met Høtherus in a stricken field. But he fared even worse than before. Høtherus dealt him
8064-779: The last element is hóll m "mound; small hill"). Others may be (in Norse forms) Baldrsberg in Vestfold county, Baldrsheimr in Hordaland county Baldrsnes in Sør-Trøndelag county—and (very uncertain) the Balsfjorden fjord and Balsfjord Municipality in Troms county. In Copenhagen , there is also a Baldersgade, or "Balder's Street". A street in downtown Reykjavík is called Baldursgata (Baldur's Street). In Sweden there
8176-399: The long vowels with an acute accent. In medieval manuscripts, it is often unmarked but sometimes marked with an accent or through gemination . Old Norse had nasalized versions of all ten vowel places. These occurred as allophones of the vowels before nasal consonants and in places where a nasal had followed it in an older form of the word, before it was absorbed into a neighboring sound. If
8288-590: The meaning "shining one, white one, a god" derived from the meaning of Baltic baltas , further adducing Slavic Belobog and German Berhta . One of the two Merseburg Incantations names Balder (in the genitive singular Balderes ), but also mentions a figure named Phol , considered to be a byname for Baldr (as in Scandinavian Falr , Fjalarr ; (in Saxo) Balderus : Fjallerus ). The incantation relates of Phol ende Wotan riding to
8400-544: The mid- to late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century. Old Norse was divided into three dialects : Old West Norse (Old West Nordic, often referred to as Old Norse ), Old East Norse (Old East Nordic), and Old Gutnish . Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum , with no clear geographical boundary between them. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway , although Old Norwegian
8512-463: The mighty gods: | would you know yet more? Baldr is mentioned in two stanzas of Lokasenna, a poem which describes a flyting between the gods and the god Loki . In the first of the two stanzas, Frigg, Baldr's mother, tells Loki that if she had a son like Baldr, Loki would be killed: Jackson Crawford translation: You know, if I had a son like Balder, sitting here with me in Aegir's hall, in
8624-462: The mistletoe stood. In the next two stanzas, the Völva refers to Baldr's killing, describes the birth of Váli for the slaying of Höðr and the weeping of Frigg : Stanza 33: From the branch which seemed | so slender and fair Came a harmful shaft | that Hoth should hurl; But the brother of Baldr | was born ere long, And one night old | fought Othin's son. Stanza 34: His hands he washed not, | his hair he combed not, Till he bore to
8736-679: The most conservative language, such that in present-day Iceland, schoolchildren are able to read the 12th-century Icelandic sagas in the original language (in editions with normalised spelling). Old Icelandic was very close to Old Norwegian , and together they formed Old West Norse , which was also spoken in Norse settlements in Greenland , the Faroes , Ireland , Scotland , the Isle of Man , northwest England, and in Normandy . Old East Norse
8848-514: The nasal was absorbed by a stressed vowel, it would also lengthen the vowel. This nasalization also occurred in the other Germanic languages, but were not retained long. They were noted in the First Grammatical Treatise , and otherwise might have remained unknown. The First Grammarian marked these with a dot above the letter. This notation did not catch on, and would soon be obsolete. Nasal and oral vowels probably merged around
8960-592: The new earth together with Thor's sons . Besides these descriptions of Baldr, the Prose Edda also explicitly links him to the Anglo-Saxon Beldeg in its prologue. Writing during the end of the 12th century, the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus tells the story of Baldr (recorded as Balderus ) in a form that professes to be historical. According to him, Balderus and Høtherus were rival suitors for
9072-460: The ocean and, during the darkness of night, their boat wrecked. The brothers went ashore, where they met a crofter . They stayed on the croft for one winter, during which the couple separately fostered the two children: the old woman fostered Agnar and the old man fostered Geirröðr. Upon the arrival of spring, the old man brought them a ship. The old couple took the boys to the shore, and the old man took Geirröðr aside and spoke to him. The boys entered
9184-641: The other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic ( Scottish and/or Irish ). Although Swedish, Danish and Norwegian have diverged the most, they still retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, particularly if speaking slowly. The languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having
9296-534: The place called Breidablik, which is in heaven; in that place may nothing unclean be[.] Apart from this description, Baldr is known primarily for the story of his death, which is seen as the first in a chain of events that will ultimately lead to the destruction of the gods at Ragnarök . Baldr had a dream of his own death and his mother, Frigg , had the same dream. Since dreams were usually prophetic, this depressed him, and so Frigg made every object on earth vow never to hurt Baldr. All objects made this vow, save for
9408-401: The place where the gods were indulging in their new pastime of hurling objects at Baldr, which would bounce off without harming him. Loki gave the spear to Baldr's brother, the blind god Höðr , who then inadvertently killed his brother with it (other versions suggest that Loki guided the arrow himself). For this act, Odin and the ásynja Rindr gave birth to Váli , who grew to adulthood within
9520-409: The presence of these gods, I declare you would never come out alive, you'd be killed shortly. In the next stanza, Loki responds to Frigg, and says that he is the reason Baldr "will never ride home again": You must want me to recount even more of my mischief, Frigg. After all, I'm the one who made it so that Balder will never ride home again. The Eddic poem Baldr's Dreams opens with
9632-422: The prose of Grímnismál , Lokasenna , and Oddrúnargrátr . Frigg receives three mentions in the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá . In the first mention the poem recounts that Frigg wept for the death of her son Baldr in Fensalir . Later in the poem, when the future death of Odin is foretold, Odin is referred to as the "beloved of Frigg" and his future death is referred to as the "second grief of Frigg". Like
9744-444: The pyre. Upon Frigg's entreaties, delivered through the messenger Hermod , Hel promised to release Baldr from the underworld if all objects alive and dead would weep for him. All did, except a giantess , Þökk (often presumed to be the god Loki in disguise), who refused to mourn the slain god. Thus Baldr had to remain in the underworld, not to emerge until after Ragnarök, when he and his brother Höðr would be reconciled and rule
9856-434: The reference to Frigg weeping in Fensalir earlier in the poem, the implied "first grief" is a reference to the grief she felt upon the death of her son, Baldr . Frigg plays a prominent role in the prose introduction to the poem, Grímnismál . The introduction recounts that two sons of king Hrauðungr , Agnar (age 10) and Geirröðr (age 8), once sailed out with a trailing line to catch small fish, but wind drove them out into
9968-536: The root vowel, ǫ , is short. The clusters */Clʀ, Csʀ, Cnʀ, Crʀ/ cannot yield */Clː, Csː, Cnː, Crː/ respectively, instead /Cl, Cs, Cn, Cr/ . The effect of this shortening can result in the lack of distinction between some forms of the noun. In the case of vetr ('winter'), the nominative and accusative singular and plural forms are identical. The nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural would otherwise have been OWN * vetrr , OEN * wintrʀ . These forms are impossible because
10080-441: The same language, dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue"; speakers of Old East Norse would have said dansk tunga ). Another term was norrœnt mál ("northern speech"). Today Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , Danish , Swedish , and other North Germanic varieties of which Norwegian, Danish and Swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Icelandic remains
10192-528: The same origin). They stem from the Proto-Germanic feminine noun * Frijjō , which emerged as a substantivized form of the adjective * frijaz ('free') via Holtzmann's law . In a clan-based societal system, the meaning 'free' arose from the meaning 'related'. The name is indeed etymologically close to the Sanskrit priyā and the Avestan fryā ('own, dear, beloved'), all ultimately descending from
10304-640: The scarcity of surviving sources. Regarding the Freyja–Frigg common origin hypothesis, scholar Stephan Grundy writes that "the problem of whether Frigg or Freyja may have been a single goddess originally is a difficult one, made more so by the scantiness of pre- Viking Age references to Germanic goddesses , and the diverse quality of the sources. The best that can be done is to survey the arguments for and against their identity, and to see how well each can be supported." The English weekday name Friday comes from Old English Frīġedæġ , meaning 'day of Frig'. It
10416-476: The ship, Odin whispered something in his ear. The import of this speech was held to be unknowable, and the question of what was said was thus used as an unanswerable riddle by Odin in other sources, namely against the giant Vafthrudnir in the Eddic poem Vafthrudnismal and in the riddles of Gestumblindi in Hervarar saga . Upon seeing the corpse being carried to the ship, Nanna, his wife, died of grief. She
10528-486: The slayer of Baldr | he brings to the flames. Unwilling I spake, | and now would be still. Odin again asks the Völva to not be silent and says that he seeks to know who the women that will then weep be. The Völva realizes that Vegtam is Odin in disguise. Odin says that the Völva is not a Völva, and that she is the mother of three giants. The Völva tells Odin to ride back home proud, because she will speak to no more men until Loki escapes his bounds. In Gylfaginning , Baldr
10640-583: The source of most surviving information about her, she is associated with marriage, prophecy, clairvoyance and motherhood, and dwells in the wetland halls of Fensalir . In wider Germanic mythology, she is known in Old High German as Frīja , in Langobardic as Frēa , in Old English as Frīg , in Old Frisian as Frīa , and in Old Saxon as Frī , all ultimately stemming from
10752-476: The sources. The best that can be done is to survey the arguments for and against their identity, and to see how well each can be supported." Unlike Frigg but like the name of the group of gods to which Freyja belongs, the Vanir , the name Freyja is not attested outside of Scandinavia , as opposed to the name of the goddess Frigg , who is attested as a goddess common among the Germanic peoples, and whose name
10864-497: The umlaut allophones . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , /ɛ/ , /ɛː/ , /øy/ , and all /ɛi/ were obtained by i-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /o/ , /oː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , /au/ , and /ai/ respectively. Others were formed via ʀ-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , and /au/ . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , and all /ɔ/ , /ɔː/ were obtained by u-umlaut from /i/ , /iː/ , /e/ , /eː/ , and /a/ , /aː/ respectively. See Old Icelandic for information on /ɔː/ . /œ/
10976-424: The usage of the word as an honorific in a few cases, as in baldur î brynju ( Sæm. 272b) and herbaldr (Sæm. 218b), in general epithets of heroes. In continental Saxon and Anglo-Saxon tradition, the son of Woden is called not Bealdor but Baldag (Saxon) and Bældæg, Beldeg (Anglo-Saxon), which shows association with "day", possibly with Day personified as a deity. This, as Grimm points out, would agree with
11088-482: The verb skína ('to shine') had present tense third person skínn (rather than * skínr , * skínʀ ); while kala ('to cool down') had present tense third person kell (rather than * kelr , * kelʀ ). The rule is not absolute, with certain counter-examples such as vinr ('friend'), which has the synonym vin , yet retains the unabsorbed version, and jǫtunn (' giant '), where assimilation takes place even though
11200-604: The woods, where the foot of Baldr's foal is sprained. Sinthgunt (the sister of the sun), Frigg and Odin sing to the foot in order for it to heal. The identification with Balder is not conclusive. Modern scholarship suggests that the god Freyr might be meant. Unlike the Prose Edda, in the Poetic Edda the tale of Baldr's death is referred to rather than recounted at length. Baldr is mentioned in Völuspá , in Lokasenna , and
11312-449: The worlds ." Odin says: "'Seest thou Agnar, thy foster-son, where he is getting children a giantess [Old Norse gȳgi ] in a cave? while Geirröd, my foster son, is a king residing in his country.' Frigg answered, 'He is so inhospitable that he tortures his guests, if he thinks that too many come.'" Odin replied that this was a great untruth and so the two made a wager. Frigg sent her "waiting-maid" Fulla to warn Geirröðr to be wary, lest
11424-400: The Æsir and tells them what has happened. However, the agreement fails due to the sabotage of a jötunn in a cave named Þökk (Old Norse 'thanks'), described as perhaps Loki in disguise. Frigg is mentioned several times in the Prose Edda section Skáldskaparmál . The first mention occurs at the beginning of the section, where the Æsir and Ásynjur are said to have once held a banquet in
11536-617: The Æsir make sport of Baldr's newfound invincibility; shot or struck, Baldr remained unharmed. However, Loki discovers this and is not pleased by this turn of events, so, in the form of a woman, he goes to Frigg in Fensalir. There, Frigg asks this female visitor what the Æsir are up to assembled at the thing . The woman says that all of the Æsir are shooting at Baldr and yet he remains unharmed. Frigg explains that "Weapons and wood will not hurt Baldr. I have received oaths from them all." The woman asks Frigg if all things have sworn not to hurt Baldr, to which Frigg notes one exception; "there grows
11648-404: Was a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection. Most of the fused morphemes are retained in modern Icelandic, especially in regard to noun case declensions, whereas modern Norwegian in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures. Old Norse had three grammatical genders – masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives or pronouns referring to
11760-400: Was also influenced by Norse. Through Norman, to a smaller extent, so was modern French. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much in Icelandic as in
11872-583: Was heavily influenced by the East dialect, and is today more similar to East Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) than to Icelandic and Faroese. The descendants of the Old East Norse dialect are the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish . Among these, the grammar of Icelandic and Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, though their pronunciations both have changed considerably from Old Norse. With Danish rule of
11984-403: Was not coming back. His brothers started to divvy up Odin's inheritance, "but his wife Frigg they shared between them. However, a short while afterwards, [Odin] returned and took possession of his wife again. In Völsunga saga , the great king Rerir and his wife (unnamed) are unable to conceive a child; "that lack displeased them both, and they fervently implored the gods that they might have
12096-535: Was obtained through a simultaneous u- and i-umlaut of /a/ . It appears in words like gøra ( gjǫra , geyra ), from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną , and commonly in verbs with a velar consonant before the suffix like søkkva < *sankwijaną . OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic ʀ while OWN receives ʀ-umlaut. Compare runic OEN glaʀ, haʀi, hrauʀ with OWN gler, heri (later héri ), hrøyrr/hreyrr ("glass", "hare", "pile of rocks"). U-umlaut
12208-532: Was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age , the Christianization of Scandinavia , and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 8th to the 15th centuries. The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in
12320-711: Was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, Kievan Rus' , eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language , ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga River in the East. In Kievan Rus' , it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod , probably lasting into
12432-485: Was then placed on the funeral fire (perhaps a toned-down instance of Sati , also attested in the Arab traveller Ibn Fadlan's account of a funeral among the Rus' ), after which it was set on fire. Baldr's horse with all its trappings was also laid on the pyre. As the pyre was set on fire, Thor blessed it with his hammer Mjǫllnir . As he did a small dwarf named Litr came running before his feet. Thor then kicked him into
12544-434: Was used partitively and in compounds and kennings (e.g., Urðarbrunnr , the well of Urðr; Lokasenna , the gibing of Loki). There were several classes of nouns within each gender. The following is an example of the "strong" inflectional paradigms : Frigg Frigg ( / f r ɪ ɡ / ; Old Norse : [ˈfriɡː] ) is a goddess , one of the Æsir , in Germanic mythology . In Norse mythology ,
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