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85-546: The etymology of "Muspelheim" is uncertain, but may come from Mund-spilli , "world-destroyers", "wreck of the world". Muspelheim was described as a hot and glowing land of fire, home to the fire giants , and guarded by Surtr , with his flaming sword. It is featured in both the creation and destruction stories of Norse myth. According to the Prose Edda , a great time before the Earth was made, Niflheim existed. Inside Niflheim

170-727: 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

255-477: A disdain for the ringing of church bells. Similarities are also both seen in their role in the construction of stoneworks. Akin to the Old Norse tale of the jötunn who built the wall of Ásgarðr , giants often enter into wagers involved in the building of churches which they later lose, as with the tale of Jätten Finn who is attributed with the construction of Lund Cathedral . Ruins are also attributed to

340-417: 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

425-412: 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

510-409: 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

595-709: A group of wolves is referred to as "Gríðr's grey herd of horses". Wolf-riding gýgjar are referred to as myrkriður ("riders in the night") or kveldriður ("dusk riders"). Hræsvelgr is told in Vafþrúðnismál (37) and Gylfaginning (18) to be a jötunn in an arnarhamr (eagle-guise) who creates the wind by beating his wings. Other jötnar , such as Þjazi and Suttungr are able to become eagles by wearing their arnarhamir , or resemble them like Griðr in Illuga saga Gríðarfóstra who has hands like eagle talons. In later material composed during

680-584: 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,

765-437: A much wider semantic scope in Old Norse literature than solely jötnar , also including individuals with unusual or supernatural traits such as witches, abnormally strong, large or ugly people, ghosts and berserkers . Terms for jötnar are often translated into Modern English as "giant" or "giantess". John Lindow uses the glosses to contrast them with the gods but notes that they are not giant, being similar in size to

850-531: A naturalistic standpoint. Despite this, a system of motifs repeat when travelling to the jötnar . In the Prose Edda that the jötnar dwell in Jötunheimr which is at points located in the North or East and in Þrymskviða can only be reached by air, however jötnar are also found South and across water . Jötnar such as Suttungr and Skaði live in mountains, which is further reflected in

935-474: 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

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1020-476: 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

1105-576: A type of being. Old Norse risi and Old High German riso derive from the Proto-Germanic masculine noun * wrisjon . Orel observes that the Old Saxon adjective wrisi-līk 'enormous' is likely also connected. Old Norse þurs , Old English þyrs , and Old High German duris 'devil, evil spirit' derive from the Proto-Germanic masculine noun * þur(i)saz , itself derived from Proto-Germanic * þurēnan , which

1190-560: A visitable realm. In the former, the player and their companion battle through a gauntlet known as "Surtr's Trials," and in the latter, encounter Surtr himself and use him to begin Ragnarök, turning him into a monster of the same name. Jotunn A jötunn (also jotun ; in the normalised scholarly spelling of Old Norse , jǫtunn / ˈ j ɔː t ʊ n / ; or, in Old English , eoten , plural eotenas )

1275-608: 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

1360-467: 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

1445-448: 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

1530-657: Is a prevalent part of the game's second book, which heavily features the battle between Muspell and Niflheim . In the MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot there are three different realms based on different mythologies the players can choose to play in, one of them is called Midgard and is based on the Norse mythology. In Midgard there is a large region called Muspelheim which is an ashen wasteland with rivers of lava populated largely by giants and fire elemental beings. God of War (2019) and God of War: Ragnarök feature Muspelheim as

1615-550: Is a type of being in Germanic mythology . In Norse mythology , they are often contrasted with gods (the Æsir and Vanir ) and other non-human figures, such as dwarfs and elves , although the groupings are not always mutually exclusive. The entities included in jötunn are referred to by several other terms, including risi , þurs (or thurs ) and troll if male and gýgr or tröllkona if female. The jötnar typically dwell across boundaries from

1700-544: Is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden . In what is present-day Denmark and Sweden, most speakers spoke Old East Norse. Though Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations, it developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th-century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes , Norwegians , Icelanders , and Danes spoke

1785-616: Is etymologically connected to Sanskrit turá - 'strong, powerful, rich'. Several terms are used specifically to refer to female entities that fall into this wider category, including íviðja (plural íviðjur ), gýgr (plural gýgjar ) and tröllkona (plural tröllkonur ). Terms for jötnar are also found in Old Norse compound words such as bergrisi , ("mountain-risi") and hrímþurs ("rime-þurs", or "frost-þurs"). The cognates jötunn and eoten , and þurs and þyrs have been equated by scholars such as J. R. R. Tolkien and Rudolf Simek , with

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1870-465: 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

1955-403: Is found well into the 15th century. Old Norse was divided into three dialects : Old West Norse (Old West Nordic, often referred to as Old Norse ), Old East Norse (Old East Nordic), and Old Gutnish . Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum , with no clear geographical boundary between them. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway , although Old Norwegian

2040-523: Is inhabited by jötnar and beings associated with them. A common motif is the journeying to obtain secret knowledge from the jötnar . In the Eddic poem Hyndluljóð , Freyja travels to the gýgr Hyndla to obtain understanding of the lineage of Ottar , and the "ale of remembrance" ( Old Norse : minnisǫl ) so that he does not forget it. In the Eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál , Óðinn travels to

2125-492: Is mentioned in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Marsh King's Daughter." Muspelheim appears in different kinds of Marvel Entertainment media. The game Puzzle & Dragons features a monster entitled Flamedragon Muspelheim and Infernodragon Muspelheim. In the game God of War , players can travel to Muspelheim where they can complete the six Trials of Muspelheim. When completing each trial,

2210-584: 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

2295-539: Is noted for having the likeness of a þurs . As the influence of Christianity grew, jötnar became demonised and typically portrayed as less intelligent, easier to outwit and more monstrous, as is common with giants in later Germanic folklore . In some later sagas, such as Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss , risar are clearly distinct from jötnar however in others the terms are used interchangeably, albeit with an overall trend that jötnar have begun to be seen negatively relative to risar . Troll has

2380-470: Is sometimes used to gloss the word " jötunn " and its apparent synonyms in some translations and academic texts, this is seen as problematic by some scholars as jötnar are not necessarily notably large. The terms for the beings also have cognates in later folklore such as the English yotun , Danish jætte and Finnish jätti which can share some common features such as being turned to stone in

2465-459: 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

2550-557: 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⟩

2635-499: 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

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2720-607: The jötunn Vafþrúðnir whereupon they engage in a wisdom contest. He also travels to the jötnar to obtain from Suttungr the Mead of poetry , which imparts skill in poetry to any who drink it. The völva who tells the Völuspá prophecy to Óðinn, while not explicitly described as a jötunn but was raised by them. Cosmology in Germanic mythology, as with other oral cultures, has many apparent contradictions when viewed from

2805-592: The Faroese and Shetlandic popular customs of dressing up as giantesses referred to as Grýla (plural grýlur ), or other similar terms, in costumes traditionally made from a combination of animal skins, tattered clothes, seaweed, straw and sometimes featuring masks. Grýla is a female creature described in Sturlunga saga as having fifteen tails, and listed as a tröllkona in the Nafnaþulur section of

2890-535: 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

2975-563: The Prose Edda who features in folklore throughout the North Atlantic islands settled by Scandinavians. Place-names derived from þurs or cognate: England Old Norse Old Norse , also referred to as Old Nordic , or Old Scandinavian , was a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with

3060-667: 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

3145-562: The Viking Age , the Christianization of Scandinavia , and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 8th to the 15th centuries. The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid- to late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse

3230-410: The jötunn Eggþér who has been interpreted as either a guardian of the gýgjar who live there or a herdsman of the wolves. Wolves are also taken as mounts by gýgjar such as Hyndla and Hyrrokkin , the latter of which using snakes as reins. This is further attested in skaldic poetry in which "wolf" is described by the kennings " Leikn's horse", " Gjálp's horse", " Gríðr's horse", while

3315-668: 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

3400-557: 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

3485-979: 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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3570-668: 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

3655-537: The Christian period such as the legendary sagas, jötnar are often portrayed as uncivilised and cannibalistic. In the case of Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss and Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra they specifically eat both human and horse meat , the latter of which was directly associated with heathen practices. The post-Christian association between jötnar and pre-Christian practices is also seen in Beowulf , in which

3740-494: The English ettin or yotun , thurse and hobthrust , Danish jætte , Swedish jätte and Finnish jätti . In Germanic folklore , giants often share traits with jötnar , particularly as depicted in legendary sagas, combined with motifs from other European giants and are often interchangeable with trolls . As with jötnar , Germanic giants live outside of human communities, in woods and mountains. They commonly show an aversion to Christianity, often showing

3825-572: 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

3910-801: The Loch of Scockness to drink. Orcadian folklore also explains the Ring of Brodgar as dancing giants who were turned to stone by the morning sun. This motif is also seen in Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar , in which the gýgr Hrímgerðr engages in a senna with Helgi Hundingsbane until the sun rises and she is turned to stone. The Orcadian tradition of Gyro Night derives its name from Old Norse : gýgr and consisted of two older boys dressing up as masked old women one night in February and chasing smaller boys with ropes. Similar to this are

3995-473: 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

4080-459: The appearance of jötnar are uncommon; however, the progenitor of the jötnar is described as having the form of a man. Some female jötnar are described as being beautiful, such as Gerðr and Hymir 's partner, while others are described as monstrous and having many heads. Some dwarfs are described as jötnar such as Regin and Fáfnir , while in Alvíssmál , the eponymous dwarf

4165-541: 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,

4250-579: The claimed ancestors of the Ynglings . Odin also seduces the jötnar Gunnlöð and Rindr and marries Jörð . In the cases when gods marry jötnar , they appear to be fully incorporated into the gods and are referred to as Ásynjur in Nafnaþulur . Consistent with this, reference to Skaði's vés in Lokasenna and toponyms such as Skedevi in Sweden suggests that despite being a jötunn , she

4335-411: 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/

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4420-418: The day and living on the periphery of society. Old Norse : jötunn and Old English eoten developed from the Proto-Germanic masculine noun * etunaz . Philologist Vladimir Orel says that semantic connections between * etunaz with Proto-Germanic * etanan ('to eat') makes a relation between the two words likely. The words are cognate with ettin , an archaic word for

4505-538: The descendants of jötnar . A common motif that often forms the core storyline of Eddic narratives is the unsuccessful attempts of jötnar to marry one of the goddesses, be it through either trickery or force. In contrast, the female jötunn Skaði chooses the male Vanr Njörðr as a husband. According to the Ynglinga saga , she later had children with Odin, from whom kings such as Earl Hakon were descended. The Vanr Freyr also marries Gerðr , who are

4590-449: 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

4675-476: The fight with mother of the eoten Grendel which has been noted by scholars to closely resemble the fight between a trollkona and Grettir in his eponymous saga , wherein the female beings may only be reached by crossing through water. The seemingly ununified location of the jötnar has been suggested to be an outcome of their intrinsically chaotic nature. Even within the same story, what seem like contradictions have been noted by scholars, prompting

4760-458: The first gods , resulting in a flood of Ymir's blood, in which all jötnar drowned except Bergelmir and his family, who survive this event by way of sailing upon a luðr . This has been linked to a runic inscription on a sword hilt in Beowulf which describes the eotenas being killed in an ancient flood and has been proposed to derive from Germanic and wider Indo-European mythology . According to Gylfaginning , after Ymir

4845-460: The gods and humans in lands such as Jötunheimr . The jötnar are frequently attested throughout the Old Norse record, with eotenas also featuring in the Old English epic poem Beowulf . The usage of the terms is dynamic, with an overall trend that the beings become portrayed as less impressive and more negative as Christianity becomes more influential. Although the term " giant "

4930-527: The gods, and are best conceived of as a kin or family group, separated by relation rather than physical appearance. Due to this issue, some scholars such as Terry Gunnell, Jeramy Dodds and Benjamin Thorpe either anglicise or leave untranslated terms for jötnar in translations and academic work. In a stanza of Völuspá hin skamma (found in the poem " Hyndluljóð ") all jötnar descend from Ymir . Gylfaginning elaborates on this, describing that

5015-399: 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

5100-505: The man-eating eoten Grendel is described as having a "heathen soul" and "heathenish hand-spurs". Female jötnar are explicitly described as being heathen in some later sources such as Orms þáttr Stórólfssonar , in which religion prevents her from being with the hero, and the legendary saga Þorsteins þáttr bæjarmagns , in which she must be baptised before marrying the hero. Giants with names cognate to terms for jötnar are found in later Northern European folklore , such as

5185-730: 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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5270-514: 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

5355-641: 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

5440-464: The player will receive rewards and will advance Kratos and Atreus closer to the top of a large volcano . In the Dawn of Ragnarök expansion for Ubisoft 's Assassin's Creed Valhalla , Surtr and massive armies of muspels from Muspelheim invade the dwarven realm of Svartalfheim, infecting large parts of it with pools and streams of magma. In the mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes , the land of Muspell

5525-523: The primeval being Ymir : "By the might of him who sent the heat, the drops quickened into life and took the likeness of a man, who got the name Ymir. But the Frost giants call him Aurgelmir". The Prose Edda section Gylfaginning foretells that the sons of Muspell will break the Bifröst bridge as part of the events of Ragnarök : In the midst of this clash and din the heavens are rent in twain, and

5610-468: The primordial jötunn Ymir formed in the warm waters that arose in Ginnungagap when the rime of Niflheim was melted by the heat of Muspelheim . He lay there asleep, fed by milk from Auðumbla , whereupon from his left armpit he sweated a male and a female, and his legs begat a son with one another. Together, these children became the ancestors of all other jötnar . Later, he was killed by

5695-450: The primordial void, Ginnungagap . This made the northern portion of Ginungagap thick with ice, and storms begin to form within. In the southern region of Ginnungagap, however, glowing sparks were still flying out of Muspelheim. When the heat and sparks from Muspelheim met the ice, it began to melt. The sparks would go on to create the Sun, Moon, and stars, and the drops of melted ice would form

5780-503: The proposal of a model that the otherworld where the jötnar dwell can be reached from a number of passages or boundaries that cannot be traversed under normal conditions, such as the mountains, darkness and "flickering flame" crossed by Skírnir in Skírnismál . In Eddic sources, jötnar present a constant threat to gods and humans, often leading them to confrontation with Thor . Hárbarðsljóð and Þrymskviða tell that if it

5865-536: 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

5950-441: 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

6035-470: The sons of Muspell come riding through the opening. Surtr rides first, and before him and after him flames burning fire. He has a very good sword, which shines brighter than the sun. As they ride over Bifrost it breaks to pieces, as has before been stated. The sons of Muspel direct their course to the plain which is called Vigrid ... . The sons of Muspel have there effulgent bands alone by themselves. Muspelheim – called "Surt's sea of fire" –

6120-408: The terms Old Norse : bergrisar (mountain risar) and Old Norse : bergbúi (mountain dweller), a kenning for jötunn . Their lands of inhabitation are not restricted to this, also including forests, underground, and the shore. Sometimes they are referred to as living in specific geographical locations such as Ægir on Læsø . These motifs are also seen in the section of Beowulf concerning

6205-497: 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/

6290-482: 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

6375-537: The words being used to describe the being in either Old Norse or Old English respectively. In the Eddas , jötnar are beings typically with similar power to the gods and may also be referred to by the negative terms troll and þurs . The harmful nature of þursar is also described in the Icelandic and Norwegian rune poems , where they are identified for causing strife to women. Descriptions of

6460-568: The works of both beings, as in the Old English poem The Ruin and the aetiological story of Wade's Causeway in Yorkshire . Some standing stones in northern Europe are explained as petrified giants such as the Yetnasteen in Orkney which derives its name from Old Norse : Jǫtna-steinn ( Jötunn's stone). According to folklore, it awakens every New Year at midnight whereupon it visits

6545-404: 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

6630-533: Was a well called Hvergelmir , from this well flowed numerous streams known as the Élivágar . Their names were Svol , Gunnthro, Form, Finbul, Thul, Slid and Hrid, Sylg and Ylg, Vid, Leipt and Gjoll. After a time these streams had traveled sufficiently far from their source in Niflheim , that the venom that flowed within them hardened and turned to ice. When this ice eventually settled, rain rose up from it, and froze into rime. This ice then began to layer itself over

6715-400: 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

6800-583: 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

6885-505: Was killed, his body was wrought into the world and a sea surrounded it. The gods then gave the surviving families jötnar lands along the shore to settle, placing them in the periphery. Ymir's brows were then used to build Midgard and protect it from the jötnar due to their known aggression. Most stories in Old Norse mythology show a clear division between "This World", pertaining to that of gods and men, and "The Other", which

6970-510: Was not for Thor and Mjöllnir , jötnar would soon overrun Midgard and Asgard respectively. Nonetheless, Thor also has a positive relationship with some gýgjar , such as Gríðr and the unnamed wife of Hymir , who provide magical items and council that enable him to overcome other jötnar . The distinction between gods and jötnar is not clearly defined and they should be seen as different culturally rather than biologically, with some gods, such as Odin , Thor and Loki being

7055-535: 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

7140-766: 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

7225-460: Was worshipped in Old Norse religion . One of the tröllkonur who dwell in the wood Járnviðr is a mother of jötnar in the forms of wolves and from whom are descended all wolves. This tröllkona has been suggested to be Angrboða , the gýgr who begat with Loki the monstrous wolf Fenrir and venomous worm Jörmungandr who become enemies of the gods. Also in Járnviðr dwells

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