The Migration Period (circa 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions , was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman kingdoms .
146-587: Blót ( Old Norse and Old English ) or geblōt (Old English) are religious ceremonies in Germanic paganism that centred on the killing and offering of an animal to a particular being, typically followed by the communal cooking and eating of its meat. Old Norse sources present it as a central ritual in Old Nordic religion that was intimately connected with many wider aspects of life. Large blót are often described as taking place in halls, organised by
292-417: A blót before he left Norway: Þórólfr Mostrarskegg fekk at blóti miklu ok gekk til fréttar við Þór, ástvin sinn, hvárt hann skyldi sættast við konung eða fara af landi brott ok leita sér annarra forlaga, en fréttin vísaði Þórólfi til Íslandi. Þórólfr Mostrarskeggi prepared a great sacrifice and enquired of Thór, his beloved friend, whether he should be reconciled with the king or leave the country to seek
438-720: A blót being performed every 9 years at Temple at Uppsala in Sweden in Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum , written in the mid 11th century CE: Rudolf Simek has argued that Adam of Bremen had a strong motive in his work to present both that a Christian mission to Scandinavia would be successful, while also emphasising the urgency as the heathens were still supposedly performing what he perceived as evil practices, such as performing blood sacrifices to idols. He proposes that he likely drew on accounts such as Thietmar of Merseburg's chronicle and this could have been
584-456: A seyðir (a cooking pit intended for ritual preparation of meat). The Old Gutnish cognate term is found as a prefix in Guta saga , which describes those who partook in blót together as suþnautar ("boiling companions") as they cooked their meals made from sacrificed animals together. Seyðir and suþ- are likely both related to Gothic : sauþs ("sacrifice"). More than just
730-696: A dialect continuum , with no clear geographical boundary between them. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway , although Old Norwegian 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
876-587: A "Dark Age" that set Europe back a millennium. In contrast, German and English historians have tended to see Roman–Barbarian interaction as the replacement of a "tired, effete and decadent Mediterranean civilization" with a "more virile, martial, Nordic one". The scholar Guy Halsall has seen the barbarian movement as the result of the fall of the Roman Empire, not its cause. Archaeological discoveries have confirmed that Germanic and Slavic tribes were settled agriculturalists who were probably merely "drawn into
1022-623: A "primeval urge" to push into the Mediterranean, the construction of the Great Wall of China causing a "domino effect" of tribes being forced westward, leading to the Huns falling upon the Goths who, in turn, pushed other Germanic tribes before them. In general, French and Italian scholars have tended to view this as a catastrophic event, the destruction of a civilization and the beginning of
1168-727: 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
1314-556: A common identity and ancestry. This was the Romantic ideal that there once had been a single German, Celtic or Slavic people who originated from a common homeland and spoke a common tongue , helping to provide a conceptual framework for political movements of the 18th and 19th centuries such as Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism . From the 1960s, a reinterpretation of archaeological and historical evidence prompted scholars, such as Goffart and Todd, to propose new models for explaining
1460-607: A component of guþ-blostreis ("worshipper of God"). Blót can also be used to mean "idol-worship" in general, an "idol" (often in the form blœti ) or metaphorically to mean "cursing" or "swearing" in Christian times due to the negative view of heathenry. The shared Germanic root has been proposed to be related to * blōtan ("to blow; to bloom; to blossom"), which is further connected to * blōđan ("blood"). A connection has been further proposed to Latin : flamen ("priest"), although it has been argued that
1606-427: A diverse range of sites, with groves , hofs and waterfalls being described as the recipients of blót , along with beings such as gods , elves and heathen vættir . Some nouns for places include blót as a prefix, suggesting them as sites where these ceremonies took place, such as blót-haugr ("sacrificial mound or cairn") and blót-hof ("heathen house of worship"). Kjalnesinga saga describes how there
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#17327828366141752-631: A family in Northern Norway at the beginning of the 11th century CE in which blót are performed each night in the autumn to the preserved penis of a horse that had been previously killed. An álfablót is recorded as having taken place in autumn in Svetjud in Austrfaravísur , written around 1020 CE. In Anglo-Saxon contexts, blót are recorded as occurring in Blōtmōnaþ , a month in
1898-417: 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
2044-412: 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
2190-409: 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
2336-491: A great sacrifice and sought omens for his destiny, but Hjorleifr would never sacrifice. The answer directed Ingólfr to Iceland. Hjörleif was later killed by his thralls which Ingólf attributed to his refusal to uphold heathen customs. The book later states that no one dared live where Hjörleif had settled for fear of the landvættir . The holding of blót and associated feasts were an opportunity for rulers to demonstrate their wealth and generosity and praise of these traits
2482-508: A local ruler, held a blót to give a good harvest. In Iceland, goðar ("chieftains") are often recorded as leading public religious activities including blót . Sources further describe how in both Norway and Svetjud, taking part in public blót was required for the ruler to be accepted by their subjects. Hákonar saga góða tells how the Christian King Hákon came to Trøndelag and did not want to take part in
2628-584: 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,
2774-553: A meaning related to sacrifice in pre-Christian Scandinavian contexts. The phrase véstallr ("sacred stand") is found in Skaldic poetry and there are attestations of blood being smeared on holy objects elsewhere in Western Scandinavia. In Hyndluljóð , Freyja says about how one of her worshippers has made a hǫrgr ("altar") for her, faced with stone that was turned to glass and reddened with ox blood. Similarly,
2920-603: A mythological context in the depictions of Valhǫll in Hákonarmál . Horses are often recorded as being eaten in blótveizlur and the eating of horsemeat was made an offence punishable by fines and outlawry by a number of medieval Scandinavian laws made after the adoption of Christianity, such as the Borgarthings-Lov , Den ældre Gulathings-Lov and the Frostathings-Lov . In Iceland, an exception
3066-565: A new destiny for himself; and the answer directed Þórólfr to Iceland. According to the Sturlubók and Hauksbók versions of Landnámabók , a man named Ingólf prepared to settle in Iceland with his brother Hjörleif by performing a blót in a similar way to Þórólf: Þenna vetr fekk Ingólfr at blóti miklu ok leitaði sér heilla um forlög sín, en Hjörleifr vildi aldri blóta. Fréttin vísaði Ingólfi til Íslands. That winter Ingólfr prepared
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#17327828366143212-474: 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
3358-464: A perceived connection between the killing during the blót and the killing of Ymir during the creation account told in Gylfaginning , which acted as its mythic counterpart. In this context, the bloodshed may have signalled a renewal of the world, in which conditions would improve for those who performed the blót . Sacrificial feasts ( Old Norse : blótveizlur or blótdrykkjur ) had
3504-883: A prefix such as blót-bolli ("sacrificial bowl") and blót-klæði ("garments worn at sacrifices"), and it can refer to religious concepts such as blót-dómr or blót-skapr ("idolatry"), and blótnaðr which is used to mean both "sacrificing to heathen gods" and "idolatry". It has been proposed that during the Migration Period , religious organisation drastically changed, with rulers gaining enough power to centralise sacrifices and ceremonies to their own homes rather than in outdoor spaces such as bogs and lakes, as had been done before. These indoor cultic buildings are referred to in Old Norse soures variously as hof , hǫrgar , goðahús , blóthús . Sources do still record Viking Age blót taking place
3650-514: A progressive Romanisation of barbarian society, but also an undeniable barbarisation of the Roman world." For example, the Roman Empire played a vital role in building up barbarian groups along its frontier. Propped up with imperial support and gifts, the armies of allied barbarian chieftains served as buffers against other, hostile, barbarian groups. The disintegration of Roman economic power weakened groups that had come to depend on Roman gifts for
3796-519: A prominent place in the ancient religious practices of the Scandinavians, and were part of the seasonal festivals attended by large numbers of people. Family rituals such as the álfablót in western Sweden mentioned by the Norwegian skald Sigvatr Þórðarson in an early 11th-century poem, were usually performed on farm homesteads. Feasts and ritual drinking at blót are also mirrored in
3942-433: A result of such an accommodation and were absorbed into Latinhood. In contrast, in the east, Slavic tribes maintained a more "spartan and egalitarian" existence bound to the land "even in times when they took their part in plundering Roman provinces". Their organizational models were not Roman, and their leaders were not normally dependent on Roman gold for success. Thus they arguably had a greater effect on their region than
4088-476: 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
4234-597: A simple sacrifice, blót was central to all the ritual activities that took place in Norse sacral structures. Bulls have been noted to have been often sacrificed when seeking help from the gods in legal matters. Blót are also often described as being performed in order to achieve good harvests, with some texts explicitly recording that they are held til árs ok friðar ("for a good harvest and peace"). The rituals are suggested to be effective by some sources such as Fagrskinna , which notes that Hákon Sigurðarson restored
4380-452: A site of a possible cult-house in Borg in Östergötland . Both of these sites had a significant enrichment of skulls relative to other bones. It has been proposed that there was a widespread practice to offer the heads to the gods, whilst cooking the meat for the feast that followed. It has also been suggested that the number of skulls that a hall displayed would act as a status signal, indicating
4526-608: 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
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4672-467: 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
4818-448: 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
4964-471: Is a German word, borrowed from German historiography, that refers to the early migrations of the Germanic peoples. In a broader sense it can mean the mass migration of whole tribes or ethnic groups. Rather than "invasion", German and Slavic scholars speak of "migration" (see German : Völkerwanderung , Czech : Stěhování národů , Swedish : folkvandring and Hungarian : népvándorlás ), aspiring to
5110-648: Is consistent with a wider Germanic context of some women playing central roles in ceremonies, the holding of feasts and running of the farm. This is attestedin written sources such as Beowulf , Egils saga and the Hassmyra Runestone and is potentially also represented in the archaeological record in high status female burials. Blót taking place at the beginning of winter in Norway and Iceland to celebrate vetrnætr ("winter-nights") are recorded in multiple sources, such as Gísla saga Súrssonar , in which
5256-465: 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
5402-458: Is meant to maintain his dignity after death. Similarly in another conversion þáttr, Ögmundar þáttr dytts , the author equates Freyr and the devil and explains that the constant offerings to the carving of Freyr have given the devil the ability to speak through it so as to strengthen their belief in Freyr. Later in the tale, Óláfr Tryggvason spiritually helps a Norwegian named Gunnar in defeating
5548-584: 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
5694-699: Is often followed by the aim of the blót , for example til friðar, sigrs, langlífis, árs, byrjar ("for peace, victory, long life, good season, fair wind"). Old Norse : Blót is found in many compound words relating to worship or sacrifice. These include adjectives such as blót-auðigr ("rich in sacrifices") and terms for individuals also include it is a prefix such as blót-biskup , blót-kennimaðr , or blót-goði ("heathen priest"), blót-hofðingi ("heathen chief"). Other compounds include recipients of worship such as blót-guð ("heathen god") and blót-kálfr ("calf worshipped with sacrifices"). Items with religious function can also include it as
5840-649: Is partly documented by Greek and Latin historians but is difficult to verify archaeologically. It puts Germanic peoples in control of most areas of what was then the Western Roman Empire . The Tervingi crossed the Danube into Roman territory in 376, in a migration fleeing the invading Huns . Some time later in Marcianopolis , the escort to their leader Fritigern was killed while meeting with Roman commander Lupicinus . The Tervingi rebelled, and
5986-407: Is recorded in sources such as the skaldic poem Sigurðardrápa . Giving of gifts at feasts, such as rings , is well attested in Germanic texts such as Egils saga and Beowulf and has been proposed to have been a central practice in building loyalty to the king and strengthening authority. Displaying of heads of eaten animals may have created a degree of competition between communities and played into
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6132-595: Is suggested to have occurred at some blót and is recorded in Ynglinga saga in connection to a sonarblót (" boar sacrifice"). This is not accepted universally by scholars, with Düwel arguing the link is only seen in Snorri's works. The link has been proposed to be seen elsewhere though, such as the compound word blótspánn ("chip used in divination"). According to Eyrbyggja saga , Þórólf Mostrarskeggi made preparations for his settlement of Iceland by performing
6278-459: 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
6424-557: 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⟩
6570-563: 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
6716-532: Is well attested in Old Norse texts. Certain elites are highlighted for their participation in blót such as Sigurðr Hlaðajarl who is called inn mesti blótmaðr ("the most ardent heathen worshipper") and is described as having maintained all the sacrificial feasts in Trøndelag on behalf of the king. This concept is also attested on the Stentoften stone which records that a man named HaþuwulfR, likely
6862-476: The Völkerwanderung may illustrate such [a] course of events, but it misleads. Unfolded over long periods of time, the changes of position that took place were necessarily irregular ... (with) periods of emphatic discontinuity. For decades and possibly centuries, the tradition bearers idled, and the tradition itself hibernated. There was ample time for forgetfulness to do its work. Völkerwanderung
7008-691: The blót , upsetting the local farmers and chieftains. At the Frostaþing he was asked to partake in them as his father had done and he was later strongly pressured to eat horse liver at a blótveizla ("sacrificial feast") in Mære. Similarly, the heathen king Blótsveinn took part in a horse sacrifice and ate horsemeat when becoming king of the Svear according to Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks . The U-version of this saga further tells how Blótsveinn became king after his brother-in-law, Ingi , refused to uphold
7154-486: The stallar ("altars" or "platforms"), the walls of the hof (both inside and outside) and the people who were present there. It is possible that this description was influenced by the ecclesiastical ceremonies of the medieval church in which holy water was sprinkled over the congregation, or the account in the Old Testament , in which Moses sprinkles blood on his people. Snorri in his description explicitly notes
7300-701: The Brittonic chieftains (whose centres of power retreated westward as a result). The Eastern Roman Empire attempted to maintain control of the Balkan provinces despite a thinly-spread imperial army relying mainly on local militias and an extensive effort to refortify the Danubian limes . The ambitious fortification efforts collapsed, worsening the impoverished conditions of the local populace and resulting in colonization by Slavic warriors and their families. Halsall and Noble have argued that such changes stemmed from
7446-644: The Burgundians , Vandals , Goths , Alemanni , Alans , Huns , early Slavs , Pannonian Avars , Bulgars and Magyars within or into the territories of the Roman Empire and Europe as a whole. The period is traditionally taken to have begun in AD ;375 (possibly as early as 300) and ended in 568. Various factors contributed to this phenomenon of migration and invasion, and their role and significance are still widely discussed. Historians differ as to
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#17327828366147592-580: The Hauksbók version of Landnámabók . The practice of collecting sacrificial blood and pouring it on altars is well attested in other cultures such as in Ancient Greek and religion and in Jewish burnt offerings . Along with having a role in divination, other suggestions for the importance of blood in blót have been put forward by scholars. It has been put forward that the violence used to kill
7738-535: 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
7884-630: The Old English calendar which roughly corresponds to the Gregorian month of November . Other blót are also recorded as having taken place in winter, such as the miðsvetrarblót in Trøndelag recorded in Heimskringla. Yule was celebrated in the middle of winter and had a diversity of religious components such as the performing of blót and heitstrengingar . The Þorrablót
8030-663: The Ostrogoths , led by Theodoric the Great , who settled in Italy. In Gaul , the Franks (a fusion of western Germanic tribes whose leaders had been aligned with Rome since the 3rd century) entered Roman lands gradually during the 5th century, and after consolidating power under Childeric and his son Clovis's decisive victory over Syagrius in 486, established themselves as rulers of northern Roman Gaul. Fending off challenges from
8176-667: 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
8322-482: The U-version of Hervarar saga tells how a holy tree, referred to as a blóttre , is reddened with blood from a sacrificial horse. It is unclear if this is meant to be interpreted as a literal tree or as a platform or altar ( véstallr , stallr or véstalli ). In Ynglinga saga , the king Dómaldi is sacrificed in order to make their crops grow and they redden the stallar with his blood; Ynglingatal ,
8468-1004: The Vikings , the Normans , the Varangians , the Hungarians , the Arabs , the Turks , and the Mongols also had significant effects (especially in North Africa , the Iberian Peninsula , Anatolia and Central and Eastern Europe ). Germanic peoples moved out of southern Scandinavia and northern Germany to the adjacent lands between the Elbe and Oder after 1000 BC. The first wave moved westward and southward (pushing
8614-661: The goði Þorgrímr Þorsteinsson sacrifices to Freyr during the feast. This time has been suggested to have marked the beginning of the new year and may be the same as the dísablót , named for the disir , which is recorded in Ynglinga saga as having taken place in Uppsala . Two further blót are attested as having taken place in Scandinavia, each in a single source. Völsa þáttr , preserved in Flateyjarbók , describes
8760-668: 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
8906-498: 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
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#17327828366149052-784: 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
9198-460: 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
9344-409: The 6th century. They were later followed by the Bavarians and the Franks, who conquered and ruled most of the Italian peninsula. The Bulgars, originally a nomadic group probably from Central Asia , occupied the Pontic steppe north of Caucasus from the 2nd century. Later, pushed by the Khazars , the majority of them migrated west and dominated Byzantine territories along the lower Danube in
9490-439: The 7th century. From that time the demographic picture of the Balkans changed permanently, becoming predominantly Slavic-speaking, while pockets of native people survived in the mountains of the Balkans. Croats settled in modern Croatia and Western Bosnia, bringing with them the Serbs who settled in Rascia, an area around Montenegro - South-West Serbia. By the mid seventh century, Serb tribes were invading northern Albania. By
9636-487: The 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in 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
9782-517: The Alemanni, Burgundians, and Visigoths, the Frankish kingdom became the nucleus of what would later become France and Germany. The initial Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain occurred during the 5th century, when Roman control of Britain had come to an end. The Burgundians settled in northwestern Italy, Switzerland and Eastern France in the 5th century. Between AD 500 and 700, Slavic tribes settled more areas of central Europe and pushed farther into southern and eastern Europe, gradually making
9928-470: The Bulgars. During the Khazar–Arab Wars , the Khazars stopped the Arab expansion into Europe across the Caucasus (7th and 8th centuries). At the same time, the so-called Moors (consisting of Arabs and Berbers ) invaded Europe via Gibraltar ( conquering Hispania from the Visigothic Kingdom in 711), before being halted by the Franks at the Battle of Tours in Gaul. These campaigns led to broadly demarcated frontiers between Christendom and Islam for
10074-408: The Church and 5 to the king. Early Norwegian law codes explicitly forbid performing of blót , making it a punishable offence. The Older Gulaþing Law, dating to around the mid 11th century CE, bans performing of blót to heathen gods, howes or hǫrgar , listing it an offence for which the punishment is a fine, penance and if this is not followed, expulsion from the land. This is built upon in
10220-455: 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
10366-419: The Goths, the Franks or the Saxons had on theirs. Based on the belief that particular types of artifacts, elements of personal adornment generally found in a funerary context, are thought to indicate the ethnicity of the person buried, the "Culture-History" school of archaeology assumed that archaeological cultures represent the Urheimat (homeland) of tribal polities named in historical sources. As
10512-704: The Roman Balkans , and the Franks were settled south of the Rhine in Roman Gaul . In 406 a particularly large and unexpected crossing of the Rhine was made by a group of Vandals , Alans and Suebi . As central power broke down in the Western Roman Empire, the military became more important but was dominated by men of barbarian origin. There are contradictory opinions as to whether the fall of
10658-1064: The Roman Empire at that time. The first migrations of peoples were made by Germanic tribes such as the Goths (including the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths ), the Vandals, the Anglo-Saxons , the Lombards, the Suebi, the Frisii , the Jutes , the Burgundians , the Alemanni, the Sciri and the Franks; they were later pushed westward by the Huns, the Avars, the Slavs and the Bulgars. Later invasions, such as
10804-667: The Roman Empire in both its western and its eastern portions. In particular, economic fragmentation removed many of the political, cultural and economic forces that had held the empire together. The rural population in Roman provinces became distanced from the metropolis, and there was little to differentiate them from other peasants across the Roman frontier. In addition, Rome increasingly used foreign mercenaries to defend itself. That "barbarisation" parallelled changes within Barbaricum . To this end, noted linguist Dennis Howard Green wrote, "the first centuries of our era witness not merely
10950-575: The Roman West and Byzantium gradually converted the non-Islamic newcomers and integrated them into Christendom. Analysis of barbarian identity and how it was created and expressed during the Barbarian Invasions has elicited discussion among scholars. Herwig Wolfram , a historian of the Goths, in discussing the equation of migratio gentium with Völkerwanderung , observes that Michael Schmidt [ de ] introduced
11096-473: 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
11242-705: The Visigoths, a group derived either from the Tervingi or from a fusion of mainly Gothic groups, eventually invaded Italy and sacked Rome in 410 before settling in Gaul. Around 460, they founded the Visigothic Kingdom in Iberia. They were followed into Roman territory first by a confederation of Herulian , Rugian , and Scirian warriors under Odoacer , that deposed Romulus Augustulus in 476, and later by
11388-550: The Western Roman Empire was a result of an increase in migrations, or if both the breakdown of central power and the increased importance of non-Romans created additional internal factors. Migrations, and the use of non-Romans in the military, were known in the periods before and after, and the Eastern Roman Empire adapted and continued to exist until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. The fall of
11534-486: The Western Roman Empire, although it involved the establishment of competing barbarian kingdoms, was to some extent managed by the Eastern emperors. The migrants comprised war bands or tribes of 10,000 to 20,000 people. Immigration was common throughout the time of the Roman Empire, but over the course of 100 years, the migrants numbered not more than 750,000 in total, compared to an average 40 million population of
11680-469: The animals found at Hofstaðir may have acted as a way to remove tensions in the community. Olof Sundqvist instead proposes that the blood was used in a performative setting, creating a feeling of spectacle and that the event was strongly separate from usual daily life. If true, those participating in the ceremony would likely have become emotionally engaged in the ritual drama. He further suggests, consistent with ideas by Bruce Lincoln , that there may have been
11826-541: 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,
11972-429: The breakdown in Roman political control, which exposed the weakness of local Roman rule. Instead of large-scale migrations, there were military takeovers by small groups of warriors and their families, who usually numbered only in the tens of thousands. The process involved active, conscious decision-making by Roman provincial populations. The collapse of centralized control severely weakened the sense of Roman identity in
12118-539: The ceremony. Sites suggesting religious feasting have been found in Scandinavia such as in Melhus where many cooking pits, mainly dating to between 900 and 1300 CE, were found containing bones of domesticated animals. The hearths in hall-room C at Borg in Lofoten has also been suggested to have been the site of ritual cooking of meat from sacrificed animals. One large pit measuring around 6 m by 3 m has been interpreted as
12264-411: 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/
12410-528: The community that performs them, function by empowering evil spirits that pose as the helpful beings in which the heathens believe. The conversion þáttr Óláfs þáttr Geirstaðaálfs gives an account of Óláfr digrbeinn, a king who the author says predicted his own death and warned his people not to perform blót to him after he dies, claiming that doing so turns the dead into trolls . Following this, Óláfr explains that these demons can bring good harvests but are also harmful. After his death, bad harvests occur and
12556-552: The construction of barbarian identity. They maintained that no sense of shared identity was perceived by the Germani ; a similar theory having been proposed for Celtic and Slavic groups. A theory states that the primordialist mode of thinking was encouraged by a prima facie interpretation of Graeco-Roman sources, which grouped together many tribes under such labels as Germanoi , Keltoi or Sclavenoi , thus encouraging their perception as distinct peoples. Modernists argue that
12702-535: The cult, given that these were commonly equated in Christian thought. The penitential further prohibits the eating of food offered in sacrifices to the recipient being. Similar prohibitions are seen throughout later law codes in England such as the laws of King Wihtred of Kent . In Norðhymbra preosta lagu , blót are explicitly forbidden along with other practices deemed heathen such as idol-worship, with those caught performing them being made to pay 5 half- marks to
12848-477: The dates for the beginning and ending of the Migration Period. The beginning of the period is widely regarded as the invasion of Europe by the Huns from Asia in about 375 and the ending with the conquest of Italy by the Lombards in 568, but a more loosely set period is from as early as 300 to as late as 800. For example, in the 4th century a very large group of Goths was settled as foederati within
12994-495: The devil, driving it out of the wooden carving. Gunnar then pretends to be Freyr, putting on the clothes of the cult image and accepting offerings of valuable gifts from the worshippers of the god, who stop sacrificing animals from then on. The Anglo-Saxon Penitential of Theodore imposes 1-10 years of penance for those qui immolant demonibus ("who sacrifice to demons"). In this context, "demons" would likely have been used to refer to heathen gods and other beings connected to
13140-449: 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
13286-532: The early 11th century CE, that the Danes had their main cult centre on Zealand at Lejre and gathered there every nine years and held a large sacrifice: It has been noted that at the time of Thietmar's writing, Denmark had been nominally Christian for nearly 50 years and it is unlikely that large scale blót were still being performed at the end of the 10th century in Lejre. It has been further noted that Thietmar
13432-524: The eastern half of Europe predominantly Slavic-speaking. Additionally, Turkic tribes such as the Avars and - later - Ugric-speaking Magyars became involved in this second wave. In AD 567, the Avars and the Lombards destroyed much of the Gepid Kingdom . The Lombards, a Germanic people, settled in Italy with their Herulian, Suebian, Gepid, Thuringian, Bulgar, Sarmatian and Saxon allies in
13578-415: The ecclesiastical Law of Sverrir Sigurðarson , which further forbids blót to heathen vættir , and is consistent with the Frostaþing law which likewise bans blót . When Christianity was adopted as the main religion of Iceland, blót were allowed for a short time, as long as they were performed in private, with the punishment being lesser outlawry if they were observed publicly. This exception
13724-657: The equation in his 1778 history of the Germans. Wolfram observed that the significance of gens as a biological community was shifting, even during the early Middle Ages and that "to complicate matters, we have no way of devising a terminology that is not derived from the concept of nationhood created during the French Revolution ". The "primordialistic" paradigm prevailed during the 19th century. Scholars, such as German linguist Johann Gottfried Herder , viewed tribes as coherent biological (racial) entities, using
13870-514: The heads displayed at the hall. Osteological analysis of the bones shows that the animals were killed with blows to the neck by axe or sword. This method was perhaps intended to produce the spectacle of a shower of arterial blood. Similar observations have been made at other sites such as the Viking Age birch stump found underneath the church at Frösön (" Freyr's island ") in Jämtland , and
14016-412: The holy sites that had been damaged by Christians and made more blót than before and soon a period of prosperity followed, with a greater grain harvest and abundance of herring. This has been argued to show an ideology that a legitimate ruler must protect holy places and uphold blót so as to maintain a good relationship with the gods, in turn leading to the good fortunes of the people. Divination
14162-446: The idea of "imagined communities"; the barbarian polities in late antiquity were social constructs rather than unchanging lines of blood kinship. The process of forming tribal units was called " ethnogenesis ", a term coined by Soviet scholar Yulian Bromley . The Austrian school (led by Reinhard Wenskus ) popularized this idea, which influenced medievalists such as Herwig Wolfram, Walter Pohl and Patrick J. Geary . It argues that
14308-490: The idea of a dynamic and "wandering Indo-Germanic people". In contrast, the standard terms in French and Italian historiography translate to "barbarian invasions", or even "barbaric invasions" ( French : Invasions barbares , Italian : Invasioni barbariche ). Historians have postulated several explanations for the appearance of "barbarians" on the Roman frontier: climate change, weather and crops, population pressure ,
14454-516: The idea that hlaut formerly had the meaning of "lot" in the context of divination . While Klaus Düwel has taken this argument further, arguing that the sprinkling of sacrificial blood had no influence from heathen Germanic culture and was derived wholly from other sources such as the Old Testament, this has been challenged. The word stallar (corresponding to one of the places sprinkled with blood in Snorri's account), likely did have
14600-459: The identity of the newcomers. In Gaul , the collapse of imperial rule resulted in anarchy: the Franks and Alemanni were pulled into the ensuing "power vacuum", resulting in conflict. In Hispania, local aristocrats maintained independent rule for some time, raising their own armies against the Vandals . Meanwhile, the Roman withdrawal from lowland England resulted in conflict between Saxons and
14746-399: 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
14892-471: The maintenance of their own power. The arrival of the Huns helped prompt many groups to invade the provinces for economic reasons. The nature of the barbarian takeover of former Roman provinces varied from region to region. For example, in Aquitaine , the provincial administration was largely self-reliant. Halsall has argued that local rulers simply "handed over" military rule to the Ostrogoths , acquiring
15038-638: The majority of cases which has been compared to modern executions . Scholars doubt the reliability of some claims of human sacrifice. In the case of Adam of Bremen 's account of the sacrifices at Uppsala, for example, the author likely exaggerated about the sacrifices of humans in order to demonise Germanic religion . Similarly, the accuracy of the account of human sacrifice in Kjalnesinga saga has been doubted by some scholars. In Hákonar saga góða , Snorri Sturluson describes hlautteinar ("sacrificial twigs") being used like sprinklers to spread blood over
15184-730: 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
15330-514: 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
15476-649: The next millennium. The following centuries saw the Muslims successful in conquering most of Sicily from the Christians by 902. The Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin from around AD 895 and the subsequent Hungarian invasions of Europe and the Viking expansion from the late 8th century conventionally mark the last large migration movements of the period. Christian missionaries from Ireland,
15622-430: The ninth century, the central Balkans (corresponding to modern Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia) and the area of southern and central Albania became invaded and settled by Bulgars. During the early Byzantine–Arab Wars , Arab armies attempted to invade southeast Europe via Asia Minor during the late 7th and early 8th centuries but were defeated at the siege of Constantinople (717–718) by the joint forces of Byzantium and
15768-752: The old customs due to him being Christian and was thus driven away by the Svear to Västergötland . This closely resembles Adam of Bremen's description of king Anunder who was also driven out for refusing to uphold the performing of blót . There is evidence of blót being led by women such as the húsfreyja ("housewife") in Vǫlsa þáttr and possibly the húsfreyja who is also mentioned as holding álfablót in Austrfararvísur . Whilst absent from detailed accounts such as those in Hákonar saga góða , this
15914-726: The opposite coast of the Baltic Sea , moving up the Vistula near the Carpathian Mountains . During Tacitus ' era they included lesser-known tribes such as the Tencteri , Cherusci , Hermunduri and Chatti ; however, a period of federation and intermarriage resulted in the familiar groups known as the Alemanni , Franks , Saxons , Frisians and Thuringians . The first wave of invasions, between AD 300 and 500,
16060-641: 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
16206-405: The people ignore his requests and worship him, calling him "Geirstaðaálfr" ("the elf of Geirstad"). Shortly after this, the harvests improve though when they stop their blót , the evil spirits that were receiving the gifts become angered. It has been proposed that this tale is the result of the author imperfectly trying to combine the ideas of Christian demonology and "the noble heathen", who
16352-556: The poem upon which this narrative is built, does not reference stallar but it does emphasise that the ground was reddened with blood. It has been suggested that the pouring of blood on the ground below stallar may be related to the taking of soil from below the stallr by Þórólfr from Norway to Iceland during the settlement of the island , as described in Eyrbyggja saga . Religious objects are recorded as being reddened with blood during blót , like oath-rings according to
16498-502: The politics of an empire already falling apart for quite a few other causes". Goffart argues that the process of settlement was connected to hospitalitas , the Roman practice of quartering soldiers among the civilian population. The Romans, by granting land and the right to levy taxes to allied (Germanic) armies, hoped to reduce the financial burdens of the empire. The Crisis of the Third Century caused significant changes within
16644-555: The practice were likely incorporated into local Christian culture and continued into the modern period. Conscious reviving of blót has also been revived in the modern period as part of the practice of modern heathens . The verb form is seen in Old Norse : blóta ("to worship; to sacrifice"), Gothic : blotan ("to serve ( God ); to worship"; to honour (through sacrifice)"), Old English : blōtan ("to sacrifice") and Old High German : blōzan . The Proto-Germanic form of
16790-422: The provinces, which may explain why the provinces then underwent dramatic cultural changes even though few barbarians settled in them. Ultimately, the Germanic groups in the Western Roman Empire were accommodated without "dispossessing or overturning indigenous society", and they maintained a structured and hierarchical (but attenuated) form of Roman administration. Ironically, they lost their unique identity as
16936-482: The resident Celts west to the Rhine around 200 BC), moving into southern Germany up to the Roman provinces of Gaul and Cisalpine Gaul by 100 BC, where they were stopped by Gaius Marius and later by Julius Caesar . It is this western group which was described by the Roman historian Tacitus (AD 56–117) and Julius Caesar (100–44 BC). A later wave of Germanic tribes migrated eastward and southward from Scandinavia, between 600 and 300 BC, to
17082-536: 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
17228-425: The rulers of the region who were expected to carry out the practice on behalf of the people. Blót were central to the legitimacy of rulers and Christian rulers refusing to hold them were at times replaced by more willing alternatives and driven out of the land. Smaller, household blót were sometimes recorded as being led by women. Beyond strengthening legitimacy for the ruling elites, the performance of blót
17374-494: The sacrifice of animals , particularly pigs and horses , played a significant part in the blót . Closer in conception to a gift, it usually involved killing animals, and sometimes humans, in ritual fashion. Adam of Bremen 's account of the temple at Uppsala notes that only the heads were offered. This practice is possibly supported by the archaeological record. At the temple-hall of Hofstaðir in northern Iceland, oxen were decapitated in seasonal rituals for many years and
17520-418: The sacrificing of captive enemies to Óðinn. In depositions of remains found near Uppland, most of the human bodies are of young males with healed bone trauma, a possible congruence with the sacrificed captives of war mentioned in the written corpus. In almost all instances, human sacrifices occurring in the context of the Old Norse texts are related to Óðinn. Criminals and slaves are the humans being sacrificed in
17666-441: 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
17812-453: The similarity between hlautteinar and stǫklar (" aspergillum "). Building on this, it has been proposed that the use of terms such as hlaut , hlautolli and hlautteinn to mean "sacrificial blood", "sacrificial twig" and "sacrificial bowl" respectively does not accurately reflect their use in pre-Christian times. This is partly based on the absence of the terms from Skaldic poetry and Eddic poems . Olof Sundqvist supports
17958-465: The size of the feast that could be hosted within. The written sources speak of sacrifices made of prisoners of war; Roman descriptions of Germanic tribes sacrificing their defeated enemies to Mars or Mercury have a similarity with customs related to the cult of Óðinn in Old Norse religion. The Icelandic skáld Helgi Trausti mentions his killing an enemy as a sacrifice to Óðinn; Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana and Orkneyinga saga describe
18104-574: The source of certain details such as it recurring every nine years, although the possibility does remain that similar sacrifices were held at both religious sites. Despite this, he argues there that the account is still informed by reliable sources and notable details are not found in sources that he would have had access to, such as the hanging of the sacrificed in trees. Several conversion þættir , short stories concerned with reconciling Christian doctrine and heathen beliefs, present blót as harmful practices that, whilst effective in bringing benefits to
18250-511: The stimulus for forming tribal polities was perpetuated by a small nucleus of people, known as the Traditionskern ("kernel of tradition"), who were a military or aristocratic elite. This core group formed a standard for larger units, gathering adherents by employing amalgamative metaphors such as kinship and aboriginal commonality and claiming that they perpetuated an ancient, divinely-sanctioned lineage. The common, track-filled map of
18396-475: The term to refer to discrete ethnic groups. He also believed that the Volk were an organic whole, with a core identity and spirit evident in art, literature and language. These characteristics were seen as intrinsic, unaffected by external influences, even conquest. Language, in particular, was seen as the most important expression of ethnicity. They argued that groups sharing the same (or similar) language possessed
18542-497: 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/
18688-454: The uniqueness perceived by specific groups was based on common political and economic interests rather than biological or racial distinctions. Indeed, on this basis, some schools of thought in recent scholarship urge that the concept of Germanic peoples be jettisoned altogether. The role of language in constructing and maintaining group identity can be ephemeral since large-scale language shifts occur commonly in history. Modernists propose
18834-399: The validity of this is dependent on the exact root of flamen which cannot be determined with certainty. In the context of "to worship" or "to worship with sacrifice", the Old Norse verb blóta is typically used with that being worshipped in the accusative case , and rarely with it in the dative case . The dative case is more typically used for the object being sacrificed. The verb
18980-482: 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
19126-485: The verb can be reconstructed as the strong verb * blōtanan , or * blōtan meaning "to sacrifice". The noun form is seen in Old English : blót and ge-blót ("sacrifice"), and Old Norse : blót ("sacrifice; worship"). A Proto-Germanic form of the noun can be similarly reconstructed as * blōtan . A similar and related form can be reconstructed as * blōtan from Old High German : bluostar ("sacrifice") and Gothic : blostreis ,
19272-594: The wider strategy of rulership in Viking Age Iceland. Scholars have debated the concept of religious leaders in Late Iron Age Scandinavia, with some such as Folke Ström supporting the idea that there was no professional priesthood and that rulers instead held this role. While this remains debated by scholars, there is no strong evidence for formal training into religious role whilst the organisation of sanctuaries and blót by elites
19418-404: 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
19564-429: Was a site near a large hof called Blótkelda ("sacrificial fen/bog/well/spring" or "fen near the heathen temple") into which sacrifices were thrown during sacrifical feasts. This idea is also reflected in Icelandic placenames such as Blótkelda at Möðrudalur and Goðakelda ("fen/spring of the gods") at Mývatn . The written sources and the archaeological record indicate that in Old Norse religious practice,
19710-508: Was a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse 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
19856-400: 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
20002-540: Was determined to show the heathen Danes as being as ferocious and backwards as possible, using large numbers to show their barbarity. He further potentially based his description on existing literature available to him, which formed part of a long tradition of supposing that heathens in general commonly sacrificed humans. Such sources would have allowed him to further dehumanise the Danish heathen population and depict them as evil. The chronicler Adam of Bremen has described
20148-583: 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
20294-507: Was held at midwinter in the month of Þorri . The Orkneyinga saga tells in an aetiological story that the blót got its name from the son of King Snær who held a blót every year at this time but it is more likely it got its name from the month. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar mentions a miðsumarsblót ("midsummer sacrifice") at Mære . Furthermore, Ynglinga saga describes how Odin instituted three festivals in Sweden, one of which
20440-455: Was made for eating horsemeat in private for a short time after the establishment of Christianity but was later repealed. The ritual killing of animals was followed by feasts on the meat, as described in the Eddic and Scaldic poetry , the Icelandic sagas, and on rune stones. The meat was boiled in large cooking pits with heated stones, either indoors or outdoors, and ale or mead was drunk in
20586-535: 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
20732-436: Was often in order to ensure the fertility of the land, a good harvest and peace, although they are also recorded as being performed for divination or to achieve desired results in legal matters. After the establishment of Christianity , blót were routinely made punishable offences, as seen in early Germanic legal codes, with the recipients of the worship and sacrifice often equated with demons. Despite this, some aspects of
20878-628: Was soon repealed and the practice was fully banned. The Af blotan section of Gutalagen , the legal code for Gotland, imposes fines for those who perform blót , along with those who follow heathen customs more widely. It further specifies that it is forbidden to make invocations with food or drink if they are not following Christian customs. In Sweden, the Upplandslagen forbade veneration of groves and stones, and sacrificing to affguþum ("idols"). Old Norse Old Norse , also referred to as Old Nordic , or Old Scandinavian ,
21024-766: 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
21170-534: Was the sigrblót ("sacrifice for victory"), which was to take place at the start of summer. Saxo Grammaticus 's Gesta Danorum tells how Hadding , after having his fleet destroyed in a storm began sacrificing dark-coloured victims to Frey to regain his favourof the gods. The sacrifice was repeated yearly, being called by the Swedes the Frøblot Thietmar of Merseburg wrote in his chronicle, dated to
21316-411: 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 : Migration Period The term refers to the important role played by the migration, invasion, and settlement of various tribes, notably
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