Fjölnir ( Old Norse : Fjǫlnir [ˈfjɔlnez̠] ) is a legendary king in Norse mythology said to have been the son of Freyr (Frey) and his consort Gerðr (Gertha). The name appears in a variety of forms, including Fiolnir , Fjölner , Fjolner , and Fjolne . He was claimed as the progenitor of the Swedish Yngling dynasty , reigning from Gamla Uppsala . According to the Grottasöngr , Fjölnir lived from the 1st century BC to the early 1st century AD.
71-710: Grottasǫngr (or Gróttasǫngr ; Old Norse : 'The Mill's Songs', or 'Song of Grótti') is an Old Norse poem , sometimes counted among the poems of the Poetic Edda as it appears in manuscripts that are later than the Codex Regius . The tradition is also preserved in one of the manuscripts of Snorri Sturluson 's Prose Edda along with some explanation of its context. The myth has also survived independently in modified forms in northern European folklore . Gróttasǫngr had social and political impact in Sweden during
142-401: A Faroese ballad recorded in 1840 about Odin and his son Veraldur . It is believed that this Veraldur is related to Fjölnir and Freyr, as per Snorri's statement that Freyr was veraldar goð ("god of the world"). In this ballad Veraldur sets off to Zealand to seek the king's daughter in marriage despite Odin's warnings. The king of Zealand dislikes Veraldur and tricks him into falling into
213-696: 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
284-727: 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
355-417: 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
426-412: 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
497-409: 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
568-483: A great rage, the girls grind even harder until finally the grinding mechanism collapses and the magical stone splits in two. With the impending army soon to arrive, one of the girls finishes the song with: Frodi, we have ground to the point where we must stop, now the ladies have had a full stint of milling! Snorri relates in the Prose Edda that Skjöldr ruled the country that we today call Denmark. Skjöldr had
639-510: A host led by a sea-king named Mysing. Mysing attacked Fróði during the night, killed him, and left with rich booty. This was the end of the Fróði peace. Mysing took Grótti as well as Fenja and Menja and asked them to grind salt. At midnight, they asked Mysing if he did not have salt enough, but he asked them to grind more. They only ground for a short while before the ships sank. A giant whirlpool ( maelstrom from mal "mill" and ström "stream")
710-514: A life of dull grinding. The girls sing that they are tired, and call to King Frodi to wake up so that he may hear them. They announce that an army is approaching, that Frodi will lose the wealth they've ground for him, that he will also lose the magic grindstone, and that the army will burn the settlement and overthrow Frodi's throne in Lejre . They are grinding this army into existence via the magic stone. They then comment that they are "not yet warmed by
781-584: 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,
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#1732793894128852-421: A lower room. Above it was a loft, in the floor of which was an opening through which liquor was poured into this vessel. The vessel was full of mead, which was excessively strong. In the evening Fjolne, with his attendants, was taken into the adjoining loft to sleep. In the night he went out to the gallery to seek a certain place, and he was very sleepy and exceedingly drunk. As he came back to his room he went along
923-474: 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
994-476: 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
1065-569: A son named Friðleifr who succeeded him on the throne. Friðleifr had a son who was named Fróði who became king after Friðleifr, and this was at the time when Caesar Augustus proclaimed peace on earth and the Christian figure Jesus was born. The same peace ruled in Scandinavia, but there it was called Fróði's peace . The North was so peaceful that no man hurt another, even if he met his father's or his brother's killer, free or tied. No man
1136-608: 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
1207-467: 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
1278-593: A whirlpool in the Pentland Firth , named the Swelkie. Viktor Rydberg 's apprehension of unregulated capitalism at the dawn of the industrial age is most fully expressed in his acclaimed poem Den nya Grottesången ( The New Grotti Song ) in which he delivered a fierce attack on the miserable working conditions in factories of the era, using the mill of Grottasöngr as his literary backdrop. Grottasǫngr appears as part of Johannes V. Jensen 's novel The Fall of
1349-448: 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
1420-465: 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
1491-584: 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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#17327938941281562-459: 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
1633-557: 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⟩
1704-620: 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
1775-509: The Danish island. Fjölnir was then succeeded by his son Sveigðir . The etymology of the Old Norse name Fjǫlnir is unclear. It could stem from the verb fela ('to hide'), with Fjǫlnir as 'the concealer [of the mead of poetry ]', or it may have emerged as an abbreviation of fjǫlviðr ('the very wise'). A derivation from fjǫl ('crowd') has also been proposed, with Fjǫlnir as
1846-535: 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
1917-667: 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
1988-668: 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
2059-418: The 'manifold' or the 'multiplier', although such an adverbial formation has no attested parallel. According to Lindow , the second etymology may be more fitting for a name of Odin, but the meaning remains uncertain in any case. Fjölnir is indeed also frequently mentioned as a name of Odin . In Grímnismál ('The Lay of Grímnir'), Odin mentions it to Geirröðr as one of his many names that constitute
2130-557: 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
2201-979: 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
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2272-668: 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
2343-400: The 20th century as it was modernized in the form of Den nya Grottesången by Viktor Rydberg , which described conditions in factories using the mill of Grottasǫngr as a literary backdrop. Though not originally included in the Codex Regius , Gróttasǫngr is included in many later editions of the Poetic Edda . Gróttasǫngr is the work song of two young slave girls bought in Sweden by
2414-487: 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
2485-587: The Danish King Frodi (cf. Fróði in the Prose Edda ). The girls are brought to a magic grindstone to grind out wealth for the king and sing for his household. The girls ask for rest from the grinding but are commanded to continue. Undaunted in their benevolence, the girls proceed to grind and sing, wishing wealth and happiness for the King. The King, however, is still not pleased and continues to order
2556-572: 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
2627-698: The King . The author edited his prose text into a prose poem that was included in his first poetry collection published in 1906. Jensen later reflected on the Grottasǫngr in his book Kvinden i Sagatiden . The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie also draws inspiration from the Grottasǫngr in the character of the Strength and Patience of the Hill. Verses of the poem were used for the song Grótti by French neofolk group Skáld in 2020. Old Norse Old Norse , also referred to as Old Nordic , or Old Scandinavian ,
2698-680: The Swedes and the Upsal domains . He was powerful, and lucky in seasons and in holding the peace. Fredfrode ruled then in Leidre , and between them there was great friendship and visiting. Once when Fjolne went to Frode in Sealand , a great feast was prepared for him, and invitations to it were sent all over the country. Frode had a large house, in which there was a great vessel many ells high, and put together of great pieces of timber; and this vessel stood in
2769-473: 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
2840-431: The beginning of his epiphany. In Reginsmál ('The Lay of Reginn '), a man who is clearly Odin uses Fjölnir to refer to himself as he is standing on a mountain addressing Sigurd and Regin . In Gylfaginning ('The Beguiling of Gylfi '), Fjölnir appears among the 12 names given for Alfödr , another name of Odin. Grottasöngr informs that Fjölnir was the contemporary of Caesar Augustus (63 BC – AD 14). He
2911-541: 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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2982-514: The blood of slaughtered men". The girls continue to grind even harder and the shafts of the mill-frame snap. They then sing a prophecy of vengeance mentioning Hrólfr Kraki , Yrsa , Fróði and Halfdan : Mölum enn framar. Mun Yrsu sonr, niðr Halfdanar, hefna Fróða; sá mun hennar heitinn verða burr ok bróðir, vitum báðar þat. Let us grind on! Yrsa's son, Hálfdan's kinsman, will avenge Fródi: he will of her be called son and brother: we both know that. Now filled with
3053-411: 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/
3124-449: 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
3195-486: The gallery to the door of another left, went into it, and his foot slipping, he fell into the vessel of mead and was drowned. Snorri also quoted some lines of Ynglingatal , composed in the 9th century: Varð framgengt, þars Fróði bjó, feigðarorð, es at Fjǫlni kom. Ok sikling svigðis geira vágr vindlauss of viða skyldi. The Historia Norwegiæ provides a Latin summary of Ynglingatal , which precedes Snorri's quotation. It also informs that Fjölnir
3266-663: The girls to grind without interruption. King Frodi is ignorant of their lineage and the girls reveal that they are descended from mountain-risar . The girls recount their past deeds, including moving a flat-topped mountain and revealing that they had actually created the grinding stone they are now chained to. They tell him that they had advanced against an army in Sweden and fought "bearlike warriors", had "broken shields", supported troops, and overthrown one prince while supporting another. They recount that they had become well known warriors. The girls then reflect that they have now become cold and dirty slaves, relentlessly worked, and living
3337-946: The king of Zealand . Fjölnir, son Yngvifreys, réð þá fyrir Svíum ok Uppsala auð; hann var ríkr ok ársæll ok friðsæll. Þá var Friðfróði at Hleiðru; þeirra í millum var heimboð ok vingan. Þá er Fjölnir fór til Fróða á Selund, þá var þar fyrir búin veizla mikil ok boðit til víða um lönd. Fróði átti mikinn húsabœ; þar var gert ker mikit margra alna hátt, ok okat með stórum timbrstokkum; þat stóð í undirskemmu, en lopt var yfir uppi, ok opit gólfþilit, svá at þar var niðr hellt leginum, en kerit blandit fult mjaðar; þar var drykkr furðu sterkr. Um kveldit var Fjölni fylgt til herbergis í hit næsta lopt, ok hans sveit með honum. Um nóttina gékk hann út í svalir at leita sér staðar, var hann svefnœrr ok dauðadrukkinn. En er hann snerist aptr til herbergis, þá gékk hann fram eptir svölunum ok til annarra loptdura ok þar inn, missti þá fótum ok féll í mjaðarkerit, ok týndist þar. Fjolne, Yngve Frey's son, ruled thereafter over
3408-467: The kingdom after Njord , and was called drot by the Swedes, and they paid taxes to him. He was, like his father, fortunate in friends and in good seasons. Frey built a great temple at Upsal , made it his chief seat, and gave it all his taxes, his land, and goods. Then began the Upsal domains , which have remained ever since. Then began in his days the Frode- peace ; and then there were good seasons, in all
3479-420: The land, which the Swedes ascribed to Frey, so that he was more worshipped than the other gods, as the people became much richer in his days by reason of the peace and good seasons. His wife was called Gerd, daughter of Gymir , and their son was called Fjolne. Then Snorri tells that after Freyr's death, Fjölnir became the king of Sweden. However, he drowned in a vat of mead visiting Peace-Fróði ( Friðfróði ),
3550-399: 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
3621-730: 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
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#17327938941283692-514: 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
3763-641: 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
3834-536: 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
3905-441: 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
3976-453: The story is a little different. It relates how King Hundingus of Sweden believed a rumor that King Hadingus of Denmark had died and held his obsequies with ceremony, including an enormous vat of ale. Hundingus himself served the ale, but accidentally stumbled and fell into the vat, choked, and drowned. When word came to King Hadingus of this unfortunate death, King Hadingus publicly hanged himself (see Freyr ). Dumézil (1973, Appendix I) cites
4047-497: 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/
4118-482: 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
4189-493: Was a mighty king and the crops were bountiful and peace was maintained. At his time, King Fróði , the son of Friðleifr , ruled in Lejre in Zealand . Grottasöngr relates that when Fróði once visited Uppsala he brought two giantesses, Fenja and Menja : However, the two giantesses were to be his undoing (see Grottasöngr ). The Ynglinga saga tells that Fjölnir was the son of Freyr himself and his wife Gerd , but he
4260-404: 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
4331-405: Was a robber and a golden ring could rest on the moor of Jelling for a long time. King Fróði visited Sweden and its king Fjölnir , and from Fjölnir he bought two enslaved gýgjar named Fenja and Menja who were big and strong. In Denmark, there was a pair of magical mill stones ; the man who ground with them could ask them to produce anything he wished. However, they were so big that no man
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#17327938941284402-566: 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
4473-400: 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
4544-482: Was formed as the sea started rushing through the center of the mill stone. Then the sea begun turning salt. Modified forms of the tale are found as stories such as Why the Sea Is Salt , collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in their Norske Folkeeventyr . In Orcadian and Shetlandic folklore, the gýgjar are renamed 'Grotti Finnie' and 'Grotti Minnie' who are two witches that create
4615-583: 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
4686-535: 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
4757-766: 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
4828-455: Was strong enough to use them. This mill was called "Grótti" and it had been given to Fróði by Hengikjopt. Fróði had Fenja and Menja tied to the mill and asked them to grind gold, peace and happiness for himself. Then he gave them neither rest nor sleep longer than the time of a song or the silence of the cuckoo. In revenge Fenja and Menja started to sing a song named the "song of Grótti" (the poem itself) and before they ended it, they had produced
4899-635: Was the first of his house who was not to be deified. Freyr tók þá ríki eptir Njörð; var hann kallaðr dróttinn yfir Svíum ok tók skattgjafir af þeim; hann var vinsæll ok ársæll sem faðir hans. Freyr reisti at Uppsölum hof mikit, ok setti þar höfuðstað sinn; lagði þar til allar skyldir sínar, lönd ok lausa aura; þá hófst Uppsala auðr, ok hefir haldizt æ síðan. Á hans dögum hófst Fróða friðr, þá var ok ár um öll lönd; kendu Svíar þat Frey. Var hann því meir dýrkaðr en önnur goðin, sem á hans dögum varð landsfólkit auðgara en fyrr af friðinum ok ári. Gerðr Gýmis dóttir hét kona hans; sonr þeirra hét Fjölnir. Frey took
4970-735: Was the son of Freyr, the father of Svegder and that he drowned in a vat of mead: Froyr vero genuit Fiolni, qui in dolio medonis dimersus est, cujus filius Swegthir [...] Frøy engendered Fjolne, who was drowned in a tun of mead. His son, Sveigde, [...] The even earlier source Íslendingabók cites the line of descent in Ynglingatal and also gives Fjölnir as the successor of Freyr and the predecessor of Svegðir . In addition to this it summarizes that Fjölnir died at Friðfróði 's (i.e. Peace-Fróði): iii Freyr. iiii Fjölnir. sá er dó at Friðfróða. v Svegðir :. In Gesta Danorum , Book 1, Frodi corresponds to Hadingus and Fjölnir to Hundingus , but
5041-413: 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 : Fj%C3%B6lnir Fjölnir was said to have drowned in a vat of mead while visiting Peace-Fróði, a similarly legendary king of Zealand ,
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