Posted on 10/05/2013 9:09:22 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Academics at Coventry University have uncovered complex social networks within age-old Icelandic sagas, which challenge the stereotypical image of Vikings as unworldly, violent savages.
Pádraig Mac Carron and Ralph Kenna from the University's Applied Mathematics Research Centre have carried out a detailed analysis of the relationships described in ancient Icelandic manuscripts to shed new light on Viking society.
In a study published in the European Physical Journal, Mac Carron and Kenna have asked whether remnants of reality could lurk within the pages of the documents in which Viking sagas were preserved.
They applied methods from statistical physics to social networks -- in which nodes (connection points) represent individuals and links represent interactions between them -- to home in on the relationships between the characters and societies depicted therein.
The academics used the Sagas of Icelanders -- a unique corpus of medieval literature from the period around the settlement of Iceland a thousand years ago -- as the basis for their investigation.
Although the historicity of these tales is often questioned, some believe they may contain fictionalised distortions of real societies, and Mac Carron's and Kenna's research bolsters this hypothesis.
They mapped out the interactions between over 1,500 characters that appear in 18 sagas including five particularly famous epic tales. Their analyses show, for example, that although an 'outlaw tale' has similar properties to other European heroic epics, and the 'family sagas' of Icelandic literature are quite distinct, the overall network of saga society is consistent with real social networks...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Socialist and savage. Still are. Bane of Christianity and Jews everywhere.
Yes, the shortness certainly was due to diet.
sailing that thing across the ocean with only a primitive compass, no charts, the mind boggles.
North Dakota? Nope, that’s a new one to me. Any pics?
I lived in Denmark from 1960-1963 and became fluent in Danish. The interesting thing is that when you have your “ear” for the language you will find there are amazing differences. For instance when speaking with a farmer in southern Jylland you will hear “old English” pronunciations of lots of words and phrases.
On the other hand the Danish spoken in Copenhagen is very different. Nevertheless it is an interesting language to say the least.
It’s also an advantage when someone is coming in your house/building they have to duck their head.
Makes it a lot easier to cut it off if you don’t really want them in there.
Everything that anyone could conceivably want to know about the Vikings has already been described in that epic work, Hägar the Horrible.
The are many words of Norse origin that remain in spoken English today.
While many have their history in warfare, a very many of them are about are about everyday life:
The following link lists some of the English words of norse origin. You can see in the list that many are not about war. The lists expresses the result of settlement by and intermarriage with the norse in parts of northern and eastern England.
Of course the biggest tales of the “Vikings” told in England and later recorded came from the Anglo-Saxons who had just a few centuries earlier been invaders to the British Isles from the east.
Viking Words in English - The Viking Rune.com
http://www.vikingrune.com/2009/10/viking-words-in-english/
“Viking origin of the words ‘ransack’ and ‘slaughter’ probably would not surprise anyone, but very “peaceful” words like ‘leg’, ‘sky’ or ‘window’ are also of Scandinavian provenance. The verb ‘get’, one of the most used in English, was actually borrowed from Old Norse...”
“The list of Old Norse loanwords below is far from being complete. However, it gives rather representative examples of Viking cultural assimilation in England.”
anger – (Old Norse angr ‘grief’) [1220-1250]
birth – (ON burðr) [1016-1150]
bleak – (ON bleikr ‘pale’) [1250-1300]
bloom – (ON blóm) [1016-1150]
call – (ON kalla) [before 1016]
cast – (ON kasta) [1016-1150]
crawl – (ON krafla) [c.1350]
crook – (ON krókr) [1016-1150]
die – (ON deyja) [1016-1150]
fellow – (ON félagi) [before 1016]
gear – (ON gervi ‘equipment’) [1300-1450]
get – (ON geta) [c.1250]
hit – (ON hitta ‘to come upon’) [1016-1150]
husband – (ON hús ‘house’ and bóndi ‘householder’) [before 1016]
ill – (ON illr) [1016-1150]
kid – (ON kiþ) [1220-1250]
kindle – (ON kynda) [1016-1150]
knife – (ON knífr) [1016-1150]
law – (ON lag ‘law’)
leg – (ON leggr) [1016-1150]
lift – (ON lypta) [1250-1300]
loan – (ON lán) [1016-1150]
loose – (ON lauss) [1300-1450]
low – (ON lágr) [1016-1150]
meek – (ON mjúkr ‘gentle, soft’) [1016-1150]
rag – (ON rögg) [1016-1150]
raise – (ON rísa to rise) [1016-1150]
ransack – (ON rann-saka ‘to search a house’) [1220-1250]
sale – (ON sala) [1016-1150]
scare – (ON skjarr ‘timid’) [1016-1150]
seem – (ON sæma ‘to conform to’) [1250-1300]
skill – (ON skil) [1016-1150]
skin – (ON skinn) [1016-1150]
skirt – (ON skyrt) [after 1450]
sky – (ON skie ‘cloud’) [1220-1250]
slaughter – (ON sláter ‘butcher’s meat’) [1300-1450]
sly – (ON slœgr) [c.1250]
snare – (ON snara) [1016-1150]
take – (ON taka) [1016-1150]
thrive – (ON þrífa ‘to grasp’) [1016-1150]
trust – (ON traust) [c.1250]
ugly – (ON uggr ‘fear’) [1220-1250]
wand – (ON vöndr) [1016-1150]
want – (ON vanta) [1016-1150]
weak – (ON veikr) [1250-1300]
window – (ON vindauga ‘wind eye’) [1220-1250]
wing – (ON vengr) [1016-1150]
wrong – (ON rangr ‘awry, unjust’) [before 1016]
oops
I said I was including a link, and then I forgot to.
Here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Old_Norse_origin
There are some similarities with the list you posted.
In the list at the link I posted from wiki, the English word gift was included which has in old norse means dowry. It’s standardization in English is another testament to intermarriage between Norse and earlier inhabitants and settlers in the British Isles.
HOWEVER, one of the problems with exact derivation of some words is that not only the Norse, but the Angles (Anglos) and the Saxons, and the Frisians (from whom both the Angles and the Saxons borrowed some load words) as well as the Franks (before they entered Gaul and mixed with the Romans and natives of Gaul) ALL were Germanic peoples that, if taken far enough back have a common ancestral and language history with all “Germans” and all Scandanavians by way of their Germanic orgins.
Many old Norse words are only slightly altered from and slightly different from the same words in other Scandanavian languages or old German. It can be somewhat contestable if a word of some Germanic origin in English actually arrived into English with the Angles, the Saxons, the Frisians or the Norse.
Your post about the attributes of Vikings sounds very like The President’s description of Tea Party conservatives, eg. hostage taking, ransoms and arsons.
I guess he’s holding back on the murder and rape charges so he can claim to be civil in his discourse about them.
Viking Kitty attacking Betty Page. Kinky . . .
Um, I think that stereotype would still hold if you were among the raidees rather than the raiders.
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