#Norsebinge

[nimblermortal]

Please tell me about the etymology of the word Shaman!

Thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuu

From The Archaeology of Shamanism by Neil S. Price:

When a dissident priest called Avvakum arrived in the lands of the nomadic, reindeer-herding Evenki in the early 1650s, having been exiled to central Siberia by the patriarch of the Russian Orthodoz Church, no outside had ever heard of a šaman, let alone written the word down or explored the cosmological understandings that underpinned its meaning. By the time of his execution for heresy in 1682, Avvakum's descriptions communicated during his sojourn among the Evenki had already laid the foundations for what anthropologists would later term the study of shamanism. Over the following 150 years, as Siberia was traversed by missionaries, political exiles (often highly educated intellectuals), Tsarist agents, and European travellers, more and more stories were recorded of the intriguing beliefs and practices to be found among the tribal peoples there: from the Nenets, Mansi, Khanty, Ngansan, and Enets of the Uralic group around the Yamal peninsula, the Ob and Yenisei river basins and the north Siberian coast; the Turkis-speaking Yakut and Dolgan on the lower Lena; the Tungusic-Mandchruian peoples of central Siberia, including the Even and the Evenki themselves; and the Yukaghir, Chukchi, Koryak, and Itelmen of eastern Siberia and the Pacific coast, amongst many others. The tales told by these early voyagers were startling, and aroused intense interest in Russia and Europe. A fragmentary picture emerged of an 'ensouled world'in which everything was alive, and filled with spirits - animals, natural features, even what to Western eyes were inanimate objects. To such beings could be linked almost every aspect of material life: sickness and health, the provision of food and shelter, success in hunting, and the well-being of the community. The maintenance of good relationships with these spirits was thus of crucial importance, and the most striking of the travellers' stories concerned the special individuals who attained states of trance and ecstasy in order to send out their souls to communicate with these beings, to enlist their aid or bind them to their will, sometimes even to engage them in combat. The operative sphere of these people, whom the Evenki called šaman, was revealed as a world of mediation, of negotiation between the realm of human beings and the adjacent, occasionally coincident, planes of existence in which dwelt the gods, the spirits of nature, and the souls of the dead. The complex variety of equipment used in these ceremonies was also described: the strange headgear and jackets hung with jingling amulets, the fur and feathers of animals, metal images; the masks and veils; the effigies and figurines; and above all, the drums. Some of this data was published and widely discussed in scholarly circles, and during the eighteenth century the Evenk concept of the šaman was taken up in Russia as a useful collective for the similar figures that were encountered from one tribe to another across the region. From the phonetic constructions used to record these concepts (the indigenous Siberians had no written language), šaman or sama:n was soon normalised via Russian to the western European languages, creating the more conventional 'shaman'(the Evenki pronounced the word with the accent on the second syllable, 'sha-márn', but the alternative forms of 'shár-man' or 'sháy-man' are now more common). At first, there were few that associated these individuals, and the role that they played within their communities, with 'religion' in the sense of an organised system of worship. The notion of a collective pattern of belief - shamanism - arose first when the Christian missions began to seriously target the Siberian peoples for conversion, and thus sought to identify a pagan religion towards the overthrow of which they could concentrate their efforts.

He's such a good writer, isn't he? Anyway that's the first section of the introduction, but I also wanted to include this next paragraph because it deals with the evolution of the term to deal with cultures outside of Siberia (emphases mine):

One major trend however continues to polarise shamanic studies: the question of geographic frames of reference. Even now, echoing the debates of the early twentieth century, some historians of religion strongly resist the use of the term 'shamanism'beyond certain regions of central Siberia. In one sense these objections seem baffling, given that - as we have seen - the concept of shamanism has always been an externally imposed construction, and does not exist anywhere at all other than in the minds of its students. Not even the Evenki have an overall word for what the šaman does, though like several other Siberian peoples they have a broad vocabulary for the different components of the shamanic complex. As both a term and a notion, shamanism is entirely an academic creation, and as such it is certainly a useful tool serving to describe a pattern of ritual behavior and belief found in strikingly similar form across much of the arctic and sub-arctic regions of the world. Even within this broad understanding, the meaning of shamanism is entirely a matter of consensus, discussion, and continuing redefinition; this extends to terminology, many scholars now preferring to write of 'shamanhood' or 'shamanship'. The essential question is to whether we can truly speak of shamanism beyond the circumpolar sphere... in the broadest and most popular undestanding 'shamanism' has latterly come to cover virtually any kind of belief in 'spirits' and the existence of other worlds, states of being, or planes of consciousness - a definition that of course encompasses the majority of the world's religions, organised or otherwise, ancient and modern.

[nimblermortal]

OH BOY I was JUST reading about not this while translating the Saga of King Heidrek the Wise!

(warning: purported murder of child)

So Tyrfing is the classic 'cannot (must not?) be drawn without bloodshed' sword, voted world's best 1000 years running, etc. It's in the possession of one Heidrek, king of I-don't-know-where because I skipped the middle part of the saga. It's a whole thing.

Heidrek asks-volunteers-demands to foster the son of the king of Gardariki, who says no, and then his wife says, "Would you like to not die?" so he says yes. Heidrek dotes on this kid, until the king of Gardariki says, hey, why don't you come visit bring my kid?

So they go visit, and it's a big feast with much partying and they go hunting, and Heidrek finds himself alone in the forest with the kid.

"Huh," says Heidrek to himself. "Here I am, alone in the forest with a child and a magic sword. What should I do about this, I wonder. I'm going to have impulses."

So he sends the kid off to stay at a nearby farm and stay hidden until sent for, and then he goes back and looks ostentatiously gloomy at the feast that evening, until his mistress asks him what's wrong.

He's been told not to tell this mistress anything secret. Possibly that's the entire motivation for this, he wants to know whether she can keep a secret after all. Me, I skipped the middle of the saga, so I think he's just dumb. Also possibly they have decision-changing sex at this point, the sagas are very prudish about such things.

"Oh well, you know, you shouldn't tell anyone because my life hangs in the balance, but I kinda killed our host's son today," says Heidrek.

"Excuse me what?" says the mistress.

"Yeah, we were standing there by this tree and the kid wanted an apple, and it was just out of reach. So me, the silly bean that I am, drew my sword and knocked it out of the tree. And then I looked at the sword, and I looked at the kid, and it was just the two of us there, and, well..."

"Ah well," says his mistress. "Back to bed. These things happen."

The next day she goes straight to the queen of Gardariki and goes, "Oh. My. God. You would not believe why Heidrek's been looking so down. Ask me. Go on, ask. It's because he killed your son."

"Oh god," says the queen. "Oh god. My son is dead. And if anyone finds out, we'll go to war and everyone's son will be dead. Um. Excuse me a minute. Keep this quiet." And she walks out of the room.

"Huh," says the king of Gardariki. "Hey, mistress, how come my wife looked so sad after you talked to her?"

"Oh. My. God," says the mistress. "You would not believe the news I have. Heidrek totally killed your son. It was awful. You should have him put to death about it."

"Wow," says the king, who never wanted his son anywhere near Heidrek. "Good idea. Guards! Arrest this man!"

There's a lot of shuffling and lack of eye contact here, because apparently in the few days Heidrek has been here he has made himself so popular that nobody wants to arrest him for murdering a child for no reason.

"I ain't gon' do that," says one of the guards, laying the shackles at Heidrek's feet.

"What am I supposed to do with that?" says Heidrek.

"GUARDS! Hang this man from the gallows!" bellows the king of Gardariki.

"ohshitohshitIdidnotthinkthisthrough," says Heidrek to himself, and sends a man off to collect the kid from the farm.

"HEY DAD," says the kid, fulfilling the destined role of foster children everywhere, "PLEASE DON'T KILL MY AWESOME FOSTER FATHER."

And the moral of the story is: If you are fostering children, gift them the fastest method of transportation you have available, because you are going to need them to have it.

So y’all know the classic edge trope of “my blade cannot be sheathed until it has tasted blood”? What if a magic sword that has that requirement, except it’s sort of inverted. A sword that, instead of being inhabited by an evil spirit which once awakened cannot be lulled back to sleep except by blood sacrifice, was inhabited by a benevolent spirit who would not allow the sword to be drawn unless bloodshed were the only possible solution. A sword whose power could never be misused because it would only allow itself to be used in situations where it was justified. What about a Paladin who spends their entire journey fighting with a sheathed sword, incapacitating but never killing or maiming. The party believes that the Paladin has taken an oath of no killing, until they face the big villain. And it is in that moment, and that moment alone, that the sword will allow itself to be drawn.

Idk, this image set my mindwheels a-turning.

But do y’all see the vision?

[nimblermortal]

The Yule boasting post that was going around is still bothering me, because it's not really boasting, as I understand it. So here's my take, as a self-taught student of Old Norse.

I think where it gets off the rails is because there was a ritual of making claims at Yule, and it centered around the braga(r)full, and you look right at that word and you see brag or boast. But it's a cup. What kind of cup? The one belonging to the bragningr. What's a bragningr? A hero or king.

So where does that brag actually come from? Well, that's not a word I know off the top of my head, but I'm willing to bet it's related to either braga, bragi, or bragr. Unlikely to be flickering, I could make an argument for poetry, but in context with bragningr it's pretty clearly bragr, the best or foremost. The bragningr is the best dude. For Yule you go stay with your best dude, and he gives you the best alcohol, and when you're thoroughly soused you announce your new year's resolutions.

It's not a boast, it's a declaration of intent. (The phrase used is strengja heit, to string an oath - strengja is the same verb used to string bows.) In the sagas this is generally used to get people in trouble; most frequently they make an oath at the new year that they're going to marry such-and-such a woman, who has not heard of them before, they go off to do it, someone else wants to marry her instead, and boom, duel's your uncle. (Yes, I'm still reading Hervor's saga, and you should too.)

I do think it's worth mentioning in passing that the Norse sense of being drunk was that it showed you at your most true-to-self - strips away your filters and makes you just be. So in that sense, it's the perfect time to make an oath! And also, "I was drunk" is not a defense because... if you were drunk, then that's who you really are and that's just underscoring whatever offense you committed.

[nimblermortal]

Hervor <3

Okay, so I am translating the Saga of Hervor and Heidrek, also known as the Saga of King Heidrek the Wise by people who a) have met King Heidrek and b) clearly have no taste and are absolutely sleeping on my beloved Hervor.

Hervor is the daughter of a berserk. She's not like other girls. She would rather train with shot and shield* and sword than with needle and thread. She would rather do bad than good, and when bad is banned, she leaps into the forest and starts killing men for money.

Your fave could never. Your fave probably has honor.

Her grandfather the jarl** takes a troop of men to deal with the highwayman, and has an off-screen awkward haha moment of discovering said highwayman is his granddaughter, in front of all his men, and drags her back to his house, where she goes right back to making life miserable for everyone around her.

Eventually the slaves get so fed up with her that one of them tells her of course she's always bad, it's perfectly in keeping with her breeding, her (maternal) grandfather the jarl won't let anyone speak of it but her mother lay with the lowest slave.

Hervor gets rather upset and goes to her grandfather to inquire about the truth of this. She gets a relieved, "Haha no of course not your father was known for being... strong** and his tomb lies on this one island where he lost a duel his brother instigated."

"Oh," Hervor replies instantly and in verse, "I want to go there and rob his grave."

Arguably the very next morning she has reworked her entire wardrobe*** and sailed off alone. Where does she go? TO FIND PIRATES†! She sails off to the land of the wild things (pirates) and they make her their king (captain). King because she's crossdressing now, she's tooootally a man named Hervard.

The instant she becomes their leader she says, "Cool, we're going to this island where I hear there's treasure."

"We don't want to go there," say all of her men, sailing there anyway but refusing to get off the boat. "That island is haunted. It's scary. No."

So after a great deal of argument lasting all day until sunset, they drop the anchor and Hervor gets in the boat and rows to shore herself, where she starts interrogating the natives, who are all, "You should not have come here, it's dangerous, we don't go outside at night, you need to go to somebody's house" and she's all, "I didn't ask you if it was 'scawy,' I asked you where the lich king's burial mound is."

Every day reading about Hervor Angantyrsdottir is a fresh gift.

----------

*side note, why have we stopped using this as a phrase?? It alliterates!

**the jarl has an interesting unspoken story going on. The first part of the saga deals with Hervor's dad's younger brother deciding he's going to marry a Swedish princess, and scheduling a duel over it. While they're preparing for this duel the (twelve, berserk) brothers drop in on a jarl and Hervor's dad Angantyr declares he's going to marry the jarl's daughter. The unspoken undercurrent is that Hervor's mother didn't have anyone to speak up for her, as the Swedish princess did, and her father also did not defend her from this jarl because he was afraid of the berserk brothers. And then said brothers went off, lost a duel, and Hervor was born only after they all died. So Hervor is this living reminder that the jarl wasn't brave enough to stand up to berserks, not even for his daughter, not even for the few months it would have taken for the berserks to die - he didn't even suggest waiting a year or so to have the wedding. Basically just let the berserks ride in and rape his daughter. And then he gets this grandchild who sullies his honor further by being a highwayman... I'm not saying he's a good man, but he's in an interesting position. And it also puts us in the position of seeing this conflict in Hervor: her grandfather the jarl's ought to be the side of her lineage she can be proud of, but her berserk viking father is the one who actually left a bold legacy.

***Privilege of the Sword, anyone?

†I use this word because I can never predict when my audience will have the right association with the word viking. Viking is a summer job for young men, like camp counselor. It's also illegal and disreputable, when it's done to you/inside your kingdom's borders, but cool and honorable when it's done to foreigners who had it coming and also you get their riches now.

[nimblermortal]

The Saga of Hervor Getting What She Wants

in entertaining light retelling this time

for the poetry in translation, click here

Hervor: WAKEY WAKEY RISE AND SHINE, LICHES! Hervor's here and she's ready! for! gifts!

Hervor: I said WAKEY WAKEY I WANT PRESENTS. There are twelve vikings in this burial mound and I will not stop until somebody answers me.

Hervor: Nobody? Okay, then the curses are coming out on three. One, two -

Angantyr: What are you saying, daughter? You're becoming hysterical. Waking up dead men is not a good idea. None of my other kinsmen made such a scene, and there was no reason to. The magic sword Tyrfing that you're looking for, my killers took it.

Hervor: Liar liar pants on (bale)fire. For shame, holding out on your only child!

Angantyr: It is literally Hel all around you. You should run away.

Hervor: I came here to talk to ghosts and you think I'm afraid of a little fire?

Angantyr: I don't want you to have the sword because it will be the ruin of our entire family. Your son could carry Tyrfing.

Hervor: Jesus, what does a girl have to do to qualify as a man? I didn't ask you for advice, I asked you for a magic sword.

Angantyr: It's, uh, right here. Wrapped in fire. No girl would ever dare to put her hand in -

Hervor: *sticks her entire arm into the fire*

Angantyr: *snatching the fire back* Jesus, girl, grow some self-preservation! Hervor: Sword? Angantyr: Fine. Sword.

Hervor: Sick blade :D

Angantyr: No really, you don't understand, the sword will be the death of your entire family, all your sons -

Hervor: That sounds like a them problem. I've got a sick blade.

Angantyr: Enjoy. Don't touch the edges, they're poison. God, you're drengr, I wish I could give you the lives of every man here, but, uh, we're already dead.

Hervor: Ha, yeah, you all stay in your pussy little "graves," I'm gonna go do some great deeds.

[nimblermortal]

The lamps in the room I shared with my mother

I'm gonna stop you right there, we do not do 'rooms' in this period of history

The closest you're gonna get is a bed-closet, which I'm not gonna pretend to be an expert on, but it's more like a bed in a wardrobe. Really fancy people, like the lord and lady of the house, might have one of these. Everybody else is having sex on a bench, or finding a bush. Room with your mother? idk what you're thinking of.

Mind, I'm making some assumptions there about when and where this is occurring, so let's move on!

[nimblermortal]

I should have thoughts about the many names of the gods, shapeshifting, gender, and transient identity some time.

[nimblermortal]

TRANS NJORD HEADCANON NO TAKE BACKS

Tacitus said Nerthus was female and was pretty definite about it

Snorri Sturluson said Njord was male and was pretty definite about it

Njord trans calling it now

[nimblermortal]

AND LAWYERS!!!

You don’t have an Angel or a Devil on your shoulder. You have an Angry Viking and 50’s House Wife.

[nimblermortal]

It must be so annoying to Norse scholars to add lines like "The fact that the horse on the stone has eight legs supports this interpretation, since Odin’s horse Sleipnir had that shape in the Old Norse traditions." Everyone knows about Sleipnir having eight legs. Why do we have to repeat this in every inscription. Can't we just make like a chemist and reference the periodic table of how Loki's effin' children are built. What is this xkcd 2501 BS.

[nimblermortal]

Apparently the sentence I was translating as "There were then many questions about her peacefulness" is supposed to be "There were then many rumors/much fame about her beauty"

Disappointing

[nimblermortal]

MR BADGE SIR

May I propose, as a scary medieval weapon, the atger?

It shows up in Njal's saga (fourteenth-century Icelandic historical fiction about the tenth/eleventh centuries) as the famed weapon of one of the main characters. It's a polearm. We don't know what it is beyond that. There is no description and it doesn't show up anywhere else.

My personal conspiracy theory is that it's got the same root as atgervimaðr (excellent, accomplished person) and the type of polearm it is is A Good One, but my Old Norse isn't good enough for anything other than 'oh hey look what's in my vocabulary list!'

It's not Mediterranean or Welsh at all, but it is "Order of the Thing We Don't Know What It Is but It's Good."

I just finished binge reading all the books in the Shivadverse and first off: these books are fantastic and I really enjoyed them and look forward to more! Second, does the monarchy of Askazer-Shivadlakia knight people? Or have they in the past? Also, as a queer Jewish person, I love that you’ve created a predominantly Jewish country that is super open and friendly towards queer people.

I'm so glad you're enjoying the books! I have a ton of fun with them.

The royals gave up some forms of power when the country democratized, but one of the odd quirks that remains is that the king can grant peerages and, indeed, knight people. There's a joke about it in the next novel -- Monday, Eddie's sister, is asked to be their surrogate for a royal baby, and she's excited to get to try all the weird folk recipes for having twins that she's picked up. Gregory jokes that if she manages twins he'll knight her. :D Mind you, he's planning to anyway, it's a pretty big deal to carry your brother's husband's baby for them.

(The other running joke is that Ceece, Eddie and Monday's mother, has a friends group that is doing fertility rituals to help Monday get pregnant, and nobody can decide if it's a coven or a book club.)

I imagine, given the Shivadh love of a good party, that Gregory finds an excuse to knight at least a few people a year. I'll have to come up with the formal title. "Knight of the [dramatic noun goes here]" or possibly "Sibling of the Order of the [scary medieval weapon]".

I bet Jerry has invented one to go with his fake medallion of office. Officer of the Vizier's Cavalry. (His drag queen friends get to be Dragoons.)

[nimblermortal]

Just. As reinforcement that this author is really paying attention to his tone. King Gudmund rules a country that borders Jotunheim (on the edge of fairyland, let us say, for the uninitiated), and his speech is noticeably more difficult than the standard prose. The syntax is weird, it's more poetic, far more difficult to parse. He's different, because he's not quite human, and that's in the prose.

[nimblermortal]

Tyrfing

So Tyrfing is the best sword ever. It's beautiful, it's sharp, it makes one suspiciously good at combat, it shines with the light of the sun whenever its blade is drawn.

It also requires, every time it's drawn, that it draws blood.

And every time it draws blood, it kills.

I can understand why this sword is described as 'cursed', and also why it's compelling for authors to want Tyrfing in their story. There's a lot of situations you can draw up where "oh no the sword's been drawn" is a big drama.

[nimblermortal]

There isn't actually any textual evidence for it, but I choose to believe that Hervor was pregnant when she left King Gudmund's court the first time.

Saga writers are very prudish about sex. What we have is a mention that Hofund exists and is an adult in the area, and you know from context that he's a love interest. (Well, he's an adult and a lawyer, what more could you ask?)

Then Hervor gets in a fight and leaves.

Not long after, Hofund decides he wants to marry and asks his dad to arrange something. There are a couple options for this: his dad knew what was going on and will make it happen. Hofund didn't know Hervor was pregnant but his dad had a pretty good guess. It's also a very... prudish, love interest sort of way to go about things. Men propose marriage to the girl's dad, and then the girl, if she approves, bats her eyelashes and says, "Oh, I don't know, whatever you think, Dad." So I feel like there's a mirror in Hofund going, "Oh, I'd like to marry, Dad - who do you think would be good?"

Anyway, if I were writing an adaptation, I'd have Hervor pick the fight semi-deliberately - make it obvious that she allows no one to touch her sword and is never without it. Make eyes at Hofund a few times. And then deliberately cross the crowded room to stand behind the king and be 'absorbed' in his game, leaving her sword at the other side of a room. And then she storms out, cut to Hofund's stricken face. Hofund leaving a suspiciously short time afterwards to chase after her as she goes rebound a-viking. (God I love this woman) And then the hasty marriage.

[nimblermortal]

Every paragraph with this woman is a delight

So, I mentioned that she has Penric problems, by which I mean Orphans of Raspay, by which I mean while she was screaming WAKEY WAKEY COUGH UP THE GOODS at liches in their own tombs, her crew was trembling on the deck of a ship off the coast of the relevant island, and they got skeered and scarpered. So she had to live on the island until she could get passage, and wound up at the court of King Gudmund of Glasisvellir.

Now, sagas differ on just where Glasisvellir is, but in this saga it's between the northernmost regions of Norway and, uh, Jotunheim. It's on the border with fairyland. And Hervor obviously becomes the darling of the king's court, and he just haaaappens to have a fully-grown son who's a lawyer.

Now that's boyfriend material.

But! She does not date him! In fact, she just hangs out claiming to be Hervard again, until King Gudmund is losing at board games And How, until he asks the open court if anybody can advise him out of this dilemma, and Hervor wanders over. She's excelling at the task when some rando notices she left her sword (her magic sword! that she worked so hard for!) at the table (Tyrfing! that cannot be drawn without being the death of someone!) and has the bright idea to draw it and marvel at what a good blade it is.

So Hervor steps back, takes Tyrfing from him, whacks off his head, and leaves.

Now King Gudmund's court is trying to egg each other on to go kill this most excellent champion when Gudmund, with the prescience of kings, suggests that maybe killing him would be a bad idea.

An interesting aspect of Gudmund is that he speaks in poetry, by which I mean his syntax is all over the place and I think this is intentional to make him seem more ethereal/foreign, but it's dratted annoying. Here's my current best shot at a translation, because I think it's fascinatingly trans:

"It will seem to y'all a lesser revenge on this man than you intend, because I understand him to be a woman."

so they decide not to kill Hervor/Hervard again, and instead:

Hervor went to be a viking and was raiding a while, and when she tired of being so she went to Jarl Bjarmar (the granddad she grew up with) and sat down with her embroidery. There were then many questions about her peacefulness.

Yeah, I bet there were. The balls on this woman.