Jasper Pääkkönen
Jasper Pääkkönen is a Finnish film actor and entrepreneur. After his over two-decade career in Finnish movies his international breakthrough role was in 2015 in historical drama television series Vikings as Halfdan the Black, his next role was in Spike Lee's comedy-drama film BlacKkKlansman. Pääkkönen was born in Helsinki, the son of actor Seppo Pääkkönen and Virve Havelin, his uncle Antti Pääkkönen is an actor. Pääkkönen became famous as Saku Salin in the Finnish television soap opera Salatut elämät. According to a calculation published by Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, Pääkkönen is "the most profitable film actor in Finland" for having starred in numerous box office hits during his career. Many of Pääkkönen's films have made #1 at the Finnish box office, including Bad Boys, one of the most successful Finnish films at the national box office of all time. Other of Pääkkönen's commercial and critical successes include Frozen Land, Matti: Hell Is for Heroes and Lapland Odyssey. For his role in Bad Boys, Pääkkönen was given the Best Actor Award in the Brussels International Independent Film Festival.
He has earned international praise from film critic Michael Giltz from the Huffington Post, who called the actor "handsome and compelling" in his role in Lapland Odyssey. Film critic Leslie Felperin from Variety named Pääkkönen a "rising thesp, showing impressive range" in his starring role in Matti. In 2006 the European Film Promotion introduced Pääkkönen as the Shooting Star of Finland at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2013, Pääkkönen starred in Finnish drama film Heart of a Lion that earned him his first Jussi Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2015, Pääkkönen was cast in the fourth season of the History Channel TV series Vikings as Halfdan the Black. Pääkkönen co-starred as a KKK member in Spike Lee's drama BlacKkKlansman, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was released on August 10, 2018, he was subsequently cast to Lee's upcoming Netflix production Da 5 Bloods. In 2009 Pääkkönen founded the Pokerisivut.com poker magazine together with film producer Markus Selin.
In 2010 Pokerisivut.com was awarded Best Overall Affiliate at the London 2010 iGB Affiliate Awards. Pääkkönen is a member of Vision fly fishing world team and has appeared on fly fishing TV shows and DVDs as a celebrity guest. Pääkkönen has begun an entrepreneurship with MP Antero Vartia, they built a large sauna and restaurant complex called Löyly at the shore of Hernesaari, Helsinki which cost 6 million euros to build. Jasper Pääkkönen on IMDb "Pokerisivut - Suomen suurin pokeriyhteisö - tietoa pokerista". Pokerisivut.com. Retrieved 9 February 2019
Sogn
Sogn is a traditional district in Western Norway. It is located in the county of Sogn og Fjordane, surrounding the Sognefjord, the largest/longest fjord in Norway; the district of Sogn consists of the municipalities of Aurland, Hyllestad, Høyanger, Leikanger, Luster, Lærdal, Solund, Årdal. The district contains about 35 % of the county's population; the largest urban area in Sogn is the village of Sogndalsfjøra, with 3,455 residents. The second largest urban area is the village Øvre Årdal, with 3,397 people; the district of Sogn comprises the southern part of the county Sogn og Fjordane. The districts of Sunnfjord and Nordfjord are the other two districts in the county; the name Sogn is old, it belonged to the fjord. The name is derived from the verb súga which means "suck"—referring to the strong tidal streams at the mouth of the fjord. A parallel name for the district in Norse times was Sygnafylki; the first element in this name is the genitive of sygnir which means "people from Sogn" and the last element is fylki, an old form of "fylke" which translates as "county".
Since early in the Viking Age, Sogn was a petty kingdom called Sygnafylki. Some notable Kings of Sogn were Harald Gullskjegg, Halfdan the Black, Harald Fairhair. In 1662, Sogn fogderi was created as part of the Nordre Bergenhus amt. Sogn was further divided into Ytre Sogn. Indre Sogn consisted of the inner half of the district which included the present day municipalities of Aurland, Luster, Lærdal, Årdal; the village of Sogndalsfjøra was the administrative center. Ytre Sogn consisted of the present day municipalities of Balestrand, Hyllestad, Høyanger and Vik; the village of Høyanger was the administrative center. In 1919, Nordre Bergenhus amt was renamed Sogn og Fjordane fylke
Harald Fairhair
Harald Fairhair is portrayed by medieval Icelandic historians as the first King of Norway. According to traditions current in Norway and Iceland in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, he reigned from c. 872 to 930. Two of his sons, Eric Bloodaxe and Haakon the Good, succeeded Harald to become kings after his death. Most of Harald's biography remains uncertain, since the extant accounts of his life in the sagas were set down in writing around three centuries after his lifetime. Indeed, although it is possible to write a detailed account of Harald as a character in medieval Icelandic sagas, his life is described in several of the Kings' sagas, none of them older than the twelfth century. Their accounts of Harald and his life differ on many points, but it is clear that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Harald was regarded as having unified Norway into one kingdom. Old Norse hár translates straightforwardly into English as'hair', but fagr, the adjective of which fagri is a form, is trickier to render, since it means'fair, beautiful'.
Although it is convenient and conventional to render hárfagri in English as'fair-hair', in English'fair-haired' means'blond', whereas the Old Norse clearly means'beautiful-haired'. Accordingly, some translators prefer to render hárfagri as'the fine-haired' or'fine-hair' or even'handsome-hair'. Through the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, historians broadly accepted the account of Harald Fairhair given by Icelandic sagas. However, Peter Sawyer began to cast doubt on this in 1976, the decades around 2000 saw a wave of revisionist research that suggested that Harald Fairhair did not exist, or at least not in a way resembling his appearance in sagas; the key arguments for this are as follows: There is no contemporary support for the claims of sagas about Harald Fairhair. The first king of Norway recorded in near-contemporary sources is Haraldr Gormsson, claimed to be the king not only of Denmark but Norway on the Jelling stones; the late ninth-century account of Norway provided by Ohthere to the court of Alfred the Great and the history by Adam of Bremen written in 1075 record no King of Norway for the relevant period.
Although sagas have Erik Bloodaxe, who does seem to correspond to a historical figure, as the son of Harald Fairhair, no independent evidence supports this genealogical connection. The twelfth-century William of Malmesbury does have a Norwegian king called Haraldus visit King Æthelstan of England, which chimes with saga-traditions in which Harald Fairhair fostered a son, Hákon Aðalsteinsfóstri, on Æthelstan, but William is a late source and Harald a far from uncommon name for a Scandinavian character, William does not give this Harald the epithet fairhair, whereas he does give that epithet to the Norwegian king Haraldr Sigurðarsson. Although Harald Fairhair appears in diverse Icelandic sagas, few if any of these are independent sources, it is plausible that all these were participating in a shared textual tradition begun by the earliest Icelandic prose account of Harald, Ari Þorgilsson's Íslendingabók. Dating from the early twelfth century, this was written over 250 years after Harald's supposed death.
The saga evidence is pre-dated by two skaldic poems, Haraldskvæði and Glymdrápa, which have been attributed to Þorbjörn hornklofi or alternatively to Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, are according to the sagas about Harald Fairhair. Although only preserved in thirteenth-century Kings' sagas, they might have been transmitted orally from the tenth century; the first describes life at the court of a king called Harald, mentions that he took a Danish wife, that he won a battle at Hafrsfjord. The second poem relates a series of battles won by a king called Harald. However, the information supplied in these poems is inconsistent with the tales in the sagas in which they are transmitted, the sagas themselves disagree on the details of his background and biography. Meanwhile, the most reliable manuscripts of Haraldskvæði call the poem's honorand Haraldr Hálfdanarson rather than Haraldr hárfagri, Glymdrápa offers no epithet at all. All the poems show is that there was once a king called Haraldr. Sources from the British Isles which are independent of the Icelandic saga-tradition, are earlier than the sagas, do attest to a king whose name corresponds to the Old Norse name Haraldr inn hárfagri—but they use this name of the well attested Haraldr Sigurðarson.
These sources include manuscript D of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the related histories by Orderic Vitalis, John of Worcester, William of Malmesbury. Thus the Icelandic saga-tradition of Harald Fair-Hair can be seen as part of an origin myth created to explain the settlement of Iceland in which a cognomen of Haraldr Sigurðarson was transferred to a fictitious early king of all Norway. Sverrir Jakobsson has suggested that the idea of Iceland being set
Ynglingatal
Ynglingatal is a Skaldic poem cited by Snorri Sturluson in the Ynglinga saga, the first saga of Snorri's Heimskringla. Snorri quotes from this poem and cites it as one of the sources of the saga; the composition of the poem has variously been dated between the late 9th and the early 12th century. Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, a poet for Harald Fairhair, is traditionally credited with its authorship. The poem lists the mythical and historical ancient Swedish kings; the title Ynglingatal alludes to Yngling, who had the name Yngve-Frey—another name for Frey, the god, worshipped in Svealand. Yngling descended from Frey's son Fjölnir. Snorri portrayed Harald Fairhair as a descendant of the Ynglings; the poem was written on behalf of Ragnvald the Mountain-High, a cousin of King Harald Fairhair, its last stanza is about Ragnvald. Ynglingatal is composed in kviðuháttr. In this form of verse, the lines alternate between three and four syllables—the first line has three syllables, the next has four, the next three, so on.
For example: Ynglingatal has makes extensive use of acquaintance, such as rewriting and metaphors that give life to the poem, which otherwise contains much litany. The Icelandic philologist Finnur Jonsson believed the eight-line stanza defines Ynglingatal's structure, while Walter Akerlund believed the four-line helming—the half-stanza as in the example above—defines the poem's structure. Akerlund has said the bard Thjodolf learned the verse-form kviðuháttr by studying the Rök Runestone in present-day Sweden, which dates from around the year 800. Ynglingatal is preserved in its entirety in Snorri's Ynglinga saga, which Snorri wrote based on the poem. In the saga, Snorri expanded his text by quoting from the poem in addition to his own text. A stanza from Ynglingatal is quoted in Þáttr Ólafs Geirstaða Alfs. Stories that build on the poem are found in the Norwegian history, Historia Norvegiæ, written in Latin in the late 1100s, in the short saga Af Upplendinga konungum. Ynglingtal is indirectly preserved as a list of names in Íslendingabók from the early 1100s.
A few of the characters in Ynglingatal are mentioned in the Old English poem Beowulf. According to Snorri, Ynglingatal was composed by the scald Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, from Kvinesdal in what is now Vest-Agder, Norway. In the preamble to the Heimskringla, Snorri writes that Thjodolf, in addition to composing the poem Ynglingatal, was poet at Harald Fairhair's hird. Thjodolf appears in the Saga of Harald Fairhair, in the mythical story of Harald and the Sami girl Snøfrid Svåsedatter, who cursed Harald to marry her. According to the saga, Harald and Snøfrid had four sons but Harald sent them away when he woke up from the curse. Thjodolf raised one of Gudrod Ljome; when Thjodolf learned Harald had disowned his sons, he sided with the boys and said to Harald, "They would have liked better ancestry, if you had given them that". The saga contains no information about Thjodolf being Harald's scald. In the saga he is only referred as the son whom Godred fostered. Snorri quotes several other poems of Thjodolf in Harald Fairhair's saga.
The historian Claus Krag said the connection between Harald Fairhair and Thjodolf was constructed by Snorri because Thjodolf was an important person in the development of scaldic art, while according to tradition, Harald was Norway's first national king. To create a connection between them would thus enhance both their reputations. According to Finnur Jonsson, Thjodolf was Harald's scald without dwelling much on the subject. Finnur said Thjodolf was not a hird scald, but a scald who stayed home on the farm, where in another saga we meet Thjodolf's grandson. Snorri mentions a man named Torgrim from Kvine, "son" to Thjodolf in the Olav Tryggvasson saga. Beyond this there are no more references to Thjodolf in the sagas in Heimskringla. Snorri wrote the preamble and the saga in the 1220s, over 300 years after Thjodolf should have lived, so any information about him is uncertain. According to Yngling Saga, the first king described in Ynglingatal, was the son of the god Frey and a giantess named Gerd.
The actual poem mentions nothing about this. Frey, the great fertility god in the Nordic countries, entered into a sacred wedding with Gerd, retold in the poem Skirnismål; the mythological purpose of the holy wedding is to bear a child, the child of both the parents but is neither god or giant but something different that will be the first of a "new" species. With effort and tensions from this, the king, who has high status, is valued above all other people; the author of the myth gives the king a special destiny as the main symbol within the ruling ideology in the Norse-thought universe. Both major ruling families in Norway and Ladejarlsætten, legitimized their statuses by using a wedding myth. Just as Yngling had their legitimacy reinterpreted in Ynglingatal, the Ladejarlsætt got its equivalent in the poem Håleygjatal, written by the Norwegian poet Eyvindr skáldaspillir at the end of the 900s. In Håleygjatal it is Odin and the giantess Skade were of mythological origin, their son Sæming is the ancestor of Hákon jarl.
Both poems were thus used as genealogies and served as mythological propaganda and grounds for alliances. According to religious historian Gro Steinsland, the myth has an erotic element and is thus a fertilit
Nobility
Nobility is a social class ranked under royalty and found in some societies that have a formal aristocracy. Nobility possesses more acknowledged privileges and higher social status than most other classes in society; the privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be honorary, vary by country and era. As referred to in the Medieval chivalric motto "noblesse oblige", nobles can carry a lifelong duty to uphold various social responsibilities, such as honorable behavior, customary service, or leadership positions. Membership in the nobility, including rights and responsibilities, is hereditary. Membership in the nobility has been granted by a monarch or government, unlike other social classes where membership is determined by wealth, lifestyle, or affiliation. Nonetheless, acquisition of sufficient power, military prowess, or royal favour has enabled commoners to ascend into the nobility. There are a variety of ranks within the noble class.
Legal recognition of nobility has been more common in monarchies, but nobility existed in such regimes as the Dutch Republic, the Republic of Genoa, the Republic of Venice, the Old Swiss Confederacy, remains part of the legal social structure of some non-hereditary regimes, e.g. Channel Islands, San Marino, the Vatican City in Europe. Hereditary titles and styles added to names, as well as honorifics distinguish nobles from non-nobles in conversation and written speech. In many nations most of the nobility have been un-titled, some hereditary titles do not indicate nobility; some countries have had non-hereditary nobility, such as the Empire of Brazil or life peers in the United Kingdom. The term derives from the abstract noun of the adjective nobilis. In ancient Roman society, nobiles originated as an informal designation for the political governing class who had allied interests, including both patricians and plebeian families with an ancestor who had risen to the consulship through his own merit.
In modern usage, "nobility" is applied to the highest social class in pre-modern societies, excepting the ruling dynasty. In the feudal system, the nobility were those who held a fief land or office, under vassalage, i.e. in exchange for allegiance and various military, services to a suzerain, who might be a higher-ranking nobleman or a monarch. It came to be seen as a hereditary caste, sometimes associated with a right to bear a hereditary title and, for example in pre-revolutionary France, enjoying fiscal and other privileges. While noble status conferred significant privileges in most jurisdictions, by the 21st century it had become a honorary dignity in most societies, although a few, residual privileges may still be preserved and some Asian and African cultures continue to attach considerable significance to formal hereditary rank or titles. Nobility is a historical and legal notion, differing from high socio-economic status in that the latter is based on income, possessions or lifestyle.
Being wealthy or influential cannot ipso facto make one noble, nor are all nobles wealthy or influential. Various republics, including former Iron Curtain countries, Greece and Austria have expressly abolished the conferral and use of titles of nobility for their citizens; this is distinct from countries which have not abolished the right to inherit titles, but which do not grant legal recognition or protection to them, such as Germany and Italy, although Germany recognizes their use as part of the legal surname. Still other countries and authorities allow their use, but forbid attachment of any privilege thereto, e.g. Finland and the European Union, while French law protects lawful titles against usurpation. Although many societies have a privileged upper class with substantial wealth and power, the status is not hereditary and does not entail a distinct legal status, nor differentiated forms of address. Not all of the benefits of nobility derived from noble status per se. Privileges were granted or recognised by the monarch in association with possession of a specific title, office or estate.
Most nobles' wealth derived from one or more estates, large or small, that might include fields, orchards, hunting grounds, etc. It included infrastructure such as castle and mill to which local peasants were allowed some access, although at a price. Nobles were expected to live "nobly", that is, from the proceeds of these possessions. Work involving manual labour or subordination to those of lower rank was either forbidden or frowned upon socially. On the other hand, membership in the nobility was a prerequisite for holding offices of trust in the realm and for career promotion in the military, at court and the higher functions in the government and church. Prior to the French Revolution, European nobles commanded tribute in the form of entitlement to cash rents or usage taxes, labour or a portion of the annual crop yield from commoners or no
Hadeland
Hadeland is a traditional district in the south-eastern part of Norway. It is centered on the southern part of Randsfjorden in Oppland, consists of the municipalities Gran and Lunner. Hadeland occupies the area north of the hills of Nordmarka close to the Norwegian capital Oslo; the soil around the Randsfjord is amongst the most fertile in Norway. Hadeland accounts for just 5 % of the country's area. Farmers harvest potatoes. Pigs, dairy cattle and horses are bred by farms there. Jevnaker is located to the western side of the Randsfjord. Gran's rolling countryside is home to about two-thirds of the 30,000 people living in Hadeland; the village of Gran serves as the area's main center of commerce. The municipality of Gran is divided by the Randsfjord, its western part is known as the Fjorda district. Most of the northern parish Brandbu has been absorbed into today's municipality Gran; the Hadeland area includes large stretches of woodland. 69% of Lunner is covered by forest. Nearly half of the wooded area in Lunner and Jevnaker is common land.
The local forestry cooperative plays a key role in the economies of the two areas. Their woods are home to a variety of flora and fauna, host a number of species of birds, deer and other wildlife. Populations of trout, char and other freshwater fish have dwindled in the inland lakes and streams, but restocking efforts are now made; the name of Hadeland comes from the Old Norse name for the inhabitants, haðar, assumed to be connected to war. The name would mean "the land of the warriors." A number of Stone Age sites have been discovered around the Randsfjord and over 200 artefacts - including jewellery and weapons - have been unearthed. During this period the people here, as in most of southern Norway, lived as hunter-gatherers, exploiting the resources of the large forests. By the end of the Bronze Age, agriculture had evolved and archaeological evidence points to the division of land into family or clan-based farms. Several Bronze Age burial mounds have been identified in Hadeland. Roman references to this area as Hadeland may be found in documents dating from AD200-400.
The name refers to the haðar people. It is thought that haðar may relate to one of the many tribes or clans in the area, thus Hadeland would mean land of the haðar. Archaeologists have found a wide variety of weapons in Iron Age burial sites throughout Hadeland. In the late Iron Age, Hadeland was a petty kingdom. One of the more prominent kings of Hadeland was Halfdan Hvitbeinn. According to the Icelandic sagas early Viking Age chieftains enjoyed hunting and entertaining their entourages in the forests and on the lakes in this area. King Halfdan the Black, father of king Harald Fairhair who united Norway visited Hadeland. According to historical sources he and his men attended a banquet here in the winter of 860; as they were crossing the ice on Randsfjord on their way home to Ringerike, the ice gave way and horses and the 40-year-old king himself drowned. The Hadeland Folkemuseum is built around a Viking burial mound at Granavollen which according to folklore contains the torso of King Halvdan.
The name Hadeland appears on the Dynna stone, a runestone from about 1040-1050. Norway formally adopted Christianity in 1030, the Dynna stone, with its scenes from the Nativity is one of the first Christian monuments in Norway. A number of medieval churches survive in Hadeland. Notable among them is the Tingelstad old church; this was built in the 13th century. Other churches include the Sister Churches at Granavollen; the Black Death arrived in Norway in the mid 14th century, it is estimated that two-thirds of the population of Hadeland was wiped out. The Sister Churches Granavollen Runestone The Dynna stone Hadeland Glassverk Hadeland Folkemuseum Lunner church Tingelstad old church Harestua Solar Observatory Helmen, Aksel. Hadeland: bygdenes historie 4. Oslo: Komiteen
Hadeland Folkemuseum
Hadeland Folkemuseum is a regional museum for Hadeland. It was founded in 1913, is located in Tingelstad in Gran; the museum is situated along the road from Oslo to Bergen which passes through Hadeland. Hadeland Folkemuseum is a subsidiary of Randsfjordmuseene, a regional institution which manages Lands Museum and the Kittilbu Open-Air Museum in Vestre Gausdal. Hadeland Folkemuseum is an open-air museum containing more than 30 buildings from the 17th to the 20th centuries. All the items in the museum are original and have been collected from various farms and other locations in the area; the Documentation Center for Hadeland consist of photographs, objects from Hadeland and a library. Hadeland Folkemuseum has a collection of farm implements as well as a copy of the Dynna stone which dates from the 11th century; the Dynna stone originated in Gran but was relocated to the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History in Oslo in 1879. Hadeland Folkemuseum is located near Tingelstad old church known as St. Petri Church.
The Romanesque stone church was built around 1220 and known for its intact interior from the 16th and 17th century. Granske Kompagni, a local regiment in Gran municipality during the 16th and 17th century, had its exercise ground nearby at Granavollen; the regimental arsenal building or Tent house has been relocated to Hadeland Folkemuseum. Located within the museum area is Halvdanshaugen, the reputed grave of a local king from the Viking Age. Halvdanshaugen, is one of several burial sites attributed to Halfdan the Black. Lands Museum Østby, Leif Norges Kunsthistorie Bugge, Dr. Anders Hadeland Bygdebok Official website
