Allsherjargoði (Ásatrúarfélagið)
The allsherjargoði is the chief religious official of the Icelandic neopagan organization Ásatrúarfélagið in Iceland. Office holders are elected; the title is a modern adoption of the medieval political title allsherjargoði, in use during the Icelandic Commonwealth from 930 to 1262. A goði was a local political leader, allsherjargoði can be translated as "all-people chieftain"; the original title was held by the goði who held the goðorð of the descendants of Ingólfr Arnarson, the first settler of Iceland. The role of the allsherjargoði was to sanctify the Althing; when Ásatrúarfélagið was founded in 1972, this historical Icelandic title was chosen for the chief official of the organization. Shortly after establishing the organization on the First Day of Summer of 1972, the founding members chose the poet and farmer Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson as the first holder of the title. Sveinbjörn remained in office until his death in 1993. An election for a new allsherjargoði was held in 1994; the two candidates were the founding member Jörmundur Ingi Hansen, who ran on a platform of continuity, the artist Haukur Halldórsson, who promised more innovation.
Jörmundur Ingi won with 59 votes against 34. In 2002, dissatisfaction with Jörmundur Ingi's way of running the organization resulted in his removal from office and he was replaced by Jónína Kristín Berg as a temporary allsherjargoði. A regular election was held the following year and the musician Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson was chosen, with Jörmundur Ingi's approval. Ásatrúarfélagið's presentations of the allsherjargoðar
Icelandic name
Icelandic names differ from most current Western family name systems by being patronymic or matronymic: they indicate the father of the child and not the historic family lineage. Iceland shares a common cultural heritage with the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and the Faroe Islands. Icelanders, unlike other Nordics, have continued to use their traditional name system, used by all Nordic countries except Finland; the Icelandic system is thus not based on family names. A person's second name indicates the first name of their father or in some cases mother. According to Icelandic naming tradition, second names end in -son or -dóttir with few exceptions; some family names do exist in Iceland, most adaptations from last name patronyms Icelanders took up when living abroad Denmark. Notable Icelanders who have an inherited family name include former prime minister Geir Haarde, football star Eiður Smári Guðjohnsen, entrepreneur Magnús Scheving, film director Baltasar Kormákur Samper, actress Anita Briem and member of parliament Elín Hirst.
Before 1925, it was legal to adopt new family names. Since 1925, one cannot adopt a family name unless one explicitly has a legal right to do so through inheritance. First names not used in Iceland must be approved by the Icelandic Naming Committee before being used; the criterion for acceptance of names is whether they can be incorporated into the Icelandic language. With some exceptions, they must contain only letters found in the Icelandic alphabet, it must be possible to decline the name according to the language's grammatical case system, which in practice means that a genitive form can be constructed in accordance with Icelandic rules. Gender-inappropriate names are not allowed, her mother Björk Eiðsdóttir did not realize at the time. A man named. Ólafur's last name will not be Einarsson like his father's. The same practice is used for daughters. Jón Einarsson's daughter Sigríður's last name would not be Jónsdóttir. Again, the name means "Jón's daughter". In some cases, an individual's surname is derived from a parent's middle name instead of the first name.
For example, if Jón is the son of Hjálmar Arnar Vilhjálmsson he may either be named Jón Hjálmarsson or Jón Arnarsson. The reason for this may be that the parent prefers to be called by the middle name instead of the first name, it may be that the parent's middle name seems to fit the child's first name better. In cases where two people in the same social circle bear the same first name and the same father's name, they have traditionally been distinguished by their paternal grandfather's name, e.g. Jón Þórsson Bjarnarsonar and Jón Þórsson Hallssonar; this practice features conspicuously in the Icelandic sagas. The vast majority of Icelandic last names carry the name of the father, but the mother's name is used: e.g. if the child or mother wishes to end social ties with the father. Some women use it as a social statement while others choose it as a matter of style. In all of these cases, the convention is the same: Ólafur, the son of Bryndís, will have the full name of Ólafur Bryndísarson. One well-known Icelander with a matronymic name is football player Heiðar Helguson, another is novelist Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir.
One medieval example is the poet Eilífr Goðrúnarson. In the Icelandic film Bjarnfreðarson the title character's name is the subject of some mockery for his having a woman's name – as Bjarnfreður's son – not his father's. In the film this is connected to the mother's radical feminism and shame over his paternity, which form part of the film's plot; some people have both a matronymic and a patronymic: for example, Dagur Bergþóruson Eggertsson, the current mayor of Reykjavík. Another example is the girl Blær mentioned above: her full name is Blær Bjarkardóttir Rúnarsdóttir. In Iceland, listings such as the telephone directory are alphabetised by first name rather than surname. To reduce ambiguity, the telephone directory goes further by listing professions. In Russia, where name-patronyms of similar style were used, the much larger population necessitated the introduction of surnames, delegated the patronymic to record-keeping middle-name and conversational honorific. Icelanders formally address others by their first names.
By way of example, the former prime minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir would not be introduced as'Ms Sigurðardóttir
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern region of the United States of America. It is one of the Mountain States and shares the Four Corners region with Utah and Arizona. With a population around two million, New Mexico is the 36th state by population. With a total area of 121,592 sq mi, it is the fifth-largest and sixth-least densely populated of the 50 states. Due to their geographic locations and eastern New Mexico exhibit a colder, alpine climate, while western and southern New Mexico exhibit a warmer, arid climate; the economy of New Mexico is dependent on oil drilling, mineral extraction, dryland farming, cattle ranching, lumber milling, retail trade. As of 2016–2017, its total gross domestic product was $95 billion with a GDP per capita of $45,465. New Mexico's status as a tax haven yields low to moderate personal income taxes on residents and military personnel, gives tax credits and exemptions to favorable industries; because of this, its film industry contributed $1.23 billion to its overall economy.
Due to its large area and economic climate, New Mexico has a large U. S. military presence marked notably with the White Sands Missile Range. Various U. S. national security agencies base their research and testing arms in New Mexico such as the Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. During the 1940s, Project Y of the Manhattan Project developed and built the country's first atomic bomb and nuclear test, Trinity. Inhabited by Native Americans for many thousands of years before European exploration, it was colonized by the Spanish in 1598 as part of the Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain. In 1563, it was named Nuevo México after the Aztec Valley of Mexico by Spanish settlers, more than 250 years before the establishment and naming of the present-day country of Mexico. After Mexican independence in 1824, New Mexico became a Mexican territory with considerable autonomy; this autonomy was threatened, however, by the centralizing tendencies of the Mexican government from the 1830s onward, with rising tensions leading to the Revolt of 1837.
At the same time, the region became more economically dependent on the United States. At the conclusion of the Mexican–American War in 1848, the United States annexed New Mexico as the U. S. New Mexico Territory, it was admitted to the Union as the 47th state on January 6, 1912. Its history has given New Mexico the highest percentage of Hispanic and Latino Americans, the second-highest percentage of Native Americans as a population proportion. New Mexico is home to part of the Navajo Nation, 19 federally recognized Pueblo communities of Puebloan peoples, three different federally recognized Apache tribes. In prehistoric times, the area was home to Ancestral Puebloans and the modern extant Comanche and Utes inhabited the state; the largest Hispanic and Latino groups represented include the Hispanos of New Mexico and Mexican Americans. The flag of New Mexico features the state's Spanish origins with the same scarlet and gold coloration as Spain's Cross of Burgundy, along with the ancient sun symbol of the Zia, a Puebloan tribe.
These indigenous, Mexican and American frontier roots are reflected in the eponymous New Mexican cuisine and the New Mexico music genre. New Mexico received its name long before the present-day nation of Mexico won independence from Spain and adopted that name in 1821. Though the name “Mexico” itself derives from Nahuatl, in that language it referred to the heartland of the Empire of the Mexicas in the Valley of Mexico far from the area of New Mexico, Spanish explorers used the term “Mexico” to name the region of New Mexico in 1563. In 1581, the Chamuscado and Rodríguez Expedition named the region north of the Rio Grande "San Felipe del Nuevo México"; the Spaniards had hoped to find wealthy indigenous Mexica cultures there similar to those of the Aztec Empire of the Valley of Mexico. The indigenous cultures of New Mexico, proved to be unrelated to the Mexicas, they were not wealthy, but the name persisted. Before statehood, the name "New Mexico" was applied to various configurations of the U.
S. territory, to a Mexican state, to a province of New Spain, all in the same general area, but of varying extensions. With a total area of 121,699 square miles, the state is the fifth-largest state of the US, larger than British Isles. New Mexico's eastern border lies along 103°W longitude with the state of Oklahoma, 2.2 miles west of 103°W longitude with Texas. On the southern border, Texas makes up the eastern two-thirds, while the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora make up the western third, with Chihuahua making up about 90% of that; the western border with Arizona runs along the 109° 03'W longitude. The southwestern corner of the state is known as the Bootheel; the 37°N parallel forms the northern boundary with Colorado. The states of New Mexico, Colorado and Utah come together at the Four Corners in New Mexico's northwestern corner. New Mexico has no natural water sources
Jón Árnason (author)
Jón Árnason was an Icelandic writer and museum director who made the first collection of Icelandic folktales. Jón Árnason was educated at the Latin School in Bessastaðir. From 1848 to 1887, he was the first librarian at what became the National Library of Iceland in Reykjavík. Meanwhile he served as the first librarian of the Iceland branch of the Icelandic Literary Society, he was the first curator of the Forngripasafns Íslands, which became the National Museum of Iceland, when it was founded in 1863. For a long time he ran both the library. In addition, he supplemented his small salary by working as secretary to the Bishop and as a teacher and custodian of the library at the Latin School, which had moved to Reykjavík. In 1877, when he was put forward as one of 2 Icelandic representatives to the centennial celebration of Uppsala University, the government in Copenhagen objected to a "porter" representing Iceland because he was "janitor of the Iceland High School", as Guðbrandur Vigfússon anonymously worded it in an obituary.
Inspired by the brothers Grimm's Kinder- und Hausmärchen, Jón began to collect and record folktales, together with Magnús Grímsson, a friend, a schoolmaster and a clergyman. Their first collection, Íslenzk Æfintýri attracted little notice; the two only resumed collecting after Konrad Maurer, the German legal historian and scholar of Icelandic literature, toured the country in 1858 and encouraged them. After Magnús Grímsson died in 1860, Jón Árnason finished the collection on his own, it was published in 2 volumes in 1862 and 1864 in Leipzig with Maurer's help, as Íslenzkar Þjóðsögur og Æfintýri, comprising over 1300 pages. In 1954–61 it was reissued in Reykjavík in 6 volumes. Jón and Magnús lacked the time and means to travel much to collect tales, instead relying on present and former pupils and other contacts to send them tales in writing. Either they or Jón may have "touched up" the wording. However, the changes he is known to have made are slight, the universal admiration for the saga style and relative lack of educational and class differences in Iceland mean that stylistic tastes differed less there than elsewhere in Europe in the 19th century.
Jón Árnason wrote biographies of Martin Luther and Sveinbjörn Egilsson. Jón married late in life but his son died before he did, he died after a long illness. Jón Árnason and Magnús Grímsson Íslenzk Æfintýri. Reykjavík, 1852. Jón Árnason. Íslenzkar Þjóðsögur og Æfintýri. 2 vols. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1862, 1864. Jón Árnason. Ágrip af æfisögu Dr. Marteins Lúters. Reykjavík, 1852. OCLC 52435258 Jón Árnason. Sagan af Karlamagnúsi keisara. Copenhagen, 1853. OCLC 264953221 Selected folktales from Jón Árnason's collection at Netútgáfan Íslenzkar Þjóðsögur og Æfintýri reproduced online at bækur.is Works by or about Jón Árnason at Internet Archive Works by Jón Árnason at LibriVox
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and most populous city of Denmark. As of July 2018, the city has a population of 777,218, it forms the core of the wider urban area of the Copenhagen metropolitan area. Copenhagen is situated on the eastern coast of the island of Zealand; the Øresund Bridge connects the two cities by road. A Viking fishing village established in the 10th century in the vicinity of what is now Gammel Strand, Copenhagen became the capital of Denmark in the early 15th century. Beginning in the 17th century it consolidated its position as a regional centre of power with its institutions and armed forces. After suffering from the effects of plague and fire in the 18th century, the city underwent a period of redevelopment; this included construction of the prestigious district of Frederiksstaden and founding of such cultural institutions as the Royal Theatre and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After further disasters in the early 19th century when Horatio Nelson attacked the Dano-Norwegian fleet and bombarded the city, rebuilding during the Danish Golden Age brought a Neoclassical look to Copenhagen's architecture.
Following the Second World War, the Finger Plan fostered the development of housing and businesses along the five urban railway routes stretching out from the city centre. Since the turn of the 21st century, Copenhagen has seen strong urban and cultural development, facilitated by investment in its institutions and infrastructure; the city is the cultural and governmental centre of Denmark. Copenhagen's economy has seen rapid developments in the service sector through initiatives in information technology and clean technology. Since the completion of the Øresund Bridge, Copenhagen has become integrated with the Swedish province of Scania and its largest city, Malmö, forming the Øresund Region. With a number of bridges connecting the various districts, the cityscape is characterised by parks and waterfronts. Copenhagen's landmarks such as Tivoli Gardens, The Little Mermaid statue, the Amalienborg and Christiansborg palaces, Rosenborg Castle Gardens, Frederik's Church, many museums and nightclubs are significant tourist attractions.
The largest lake of Denmark, Arresø, lies around 27 miles northwest of the City Hall Square. Copenhagen is home to the University of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen Business School and the IT University of Copenhagen; the University of Copenhagen, founded in 1479, is the oldest university in Denmark. Copenhagen is home to the FC Brøndby football clubs; the annual Copenhagen Marathon was established in 1980. Copenhagen is one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world; the Copenhagen Metro launched in 2002 serves central Copenhagen while the Copenhagen S-train, the Lokaltog and the Coast Line network serves and connects central Copenhagen to outlying boroughs. To relieve traffic congestion, the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link road and rail construction is planned, because the narrow 9-9.5 mile isthmus between Roskilde Fjord and Køge Bugt forms a traffic bottleneck. The Copenhagen-Ringsted Line will relieve traffic congestion in the corridor between Roskilde and Copenhagen.
Serving two million passengers a month, Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup, is the busiest airport in the Nordic countries. Copenhagen's name reflects its origin as a place of commerce; the original designation in Old Norse, from which Danish descends, was Kaupmannahǫfn, meaning "merchants' harbour". By the time Old Danish was spoken, the capital was called Køpmannæhafn, with the current name deriving from centuries of subsequent regular sound change. An exact English equivalent would be "chapman's haven". However, the English term for the city was adapted from Kopenhagen. Although the earliest historical records of Copenhagen are from the end of the 12th century, recent archaeological finds in connection with work on the city's metropolitan rail system revealed the remains of a large merchant's mansion near today's Kongens Nytorv from c. 1020. Excavations in Pilestræde have led to the discovery of a well from the late 12th century; the remains of an ancient church, with graves dating to the 11th century, have been unearthed near where Strøget meets Rådhuspladsen.
These finds indicate. Substantial discoveries of flint tools in the area provide evidence of human settlements dating to the Stone Age. Many historians believe the town dates to the late Viking Age, was founded by Sweyn I Forkbeard; the natural harbour and good herring stocks seem to have attracted fishermen and merchants to the area on a seasonal basis from the 11th century and more permanently in the 13th century. The first habitations were centred on Gammel Strand in the 11thcentury or earlier; the earliest written mention of the town was in the 12th century when Saxo Grammaticus in Gesta Danorum referred to it as Portus
Morgunblaðið
Morgunblaðið is an Icelandic newspaper. Morgunblaðið's website, mbl.is, is the fifth most popular website in Iceland, the most popular Icelandic website. Morgunblaðið was founded by Vilhjálmur Finsen and Ólafur Björnsson, brother of Iceland's first president; the first issue, only eight pages long, was published on 2 November 1913. In 1919, the Árvakur corporation bought the company; the paper had a close relationship with the conservative Independence Party during the Cold War, its editors or their parliamentary reporters sat in on meetings of the parliamentary party until 1983 when Geir Hallgrímsson, Chairman of the Board of Árvakur and the Chairman of the Independence Party, decided that this relationship was neither in the best interests of the party nor the newspaper. Although its connection with the Independence Party is not as direct as in previous decades, the newspaper is sometimes criticised for leaning too much towards the party at election times. Although the paper shares the mainstream conservative values of the Independence Party, it has shown its independence on some key issues in the debate on fishing rights distribution.
The paper has made a point of recruiting left-leaning journalists and has echoed feminist policies on its op-ed pages. Morgunblaðið is opposed to Icelandic membership of the European Union. Since its initial publication, Morgunblaðið was until 2003 not published on Mondays, it soon established itself as the newspaper of record. It was always the number one newspaper in Iceland, it took an absolute lead in the early 1970s and routed most of the competition, enjoying an unchallenged superiority for the next three decades. During this period, Morgunblaðið launched a number of special sections on finance, food etc. After the rival Fréttablaðið, delivered free to homes, took the competition to a new level by starting a Monday edition, Morgunblaðið responded to the challenge and has since 2003 been published every day of the week, with 60 to 120 pages. Advertising accounts for 30% to 40% of the column space. Daily circulation hovers between 20,000 and 30,000, the bulk being paid subscriptions. Circulation is focused on the southwestern part of the country the capital Reykjavík and nearby settlements.
As a result of the Icelandic financial crisis, 24 stundir, published by Morgunblaðið, ceased publication on 10 October 2008, resulting in 20 jobs being cut. In a controversial decision, the owners of the paper decided in September 2009 to appoint Davíð Oddsson, a member of the Independence Party, Iceland's longest-serving Prime Minister and former Governor of the Central Bank, as one of the two editors of the paper. List of newspapers in Iceland List of non-English newspapers with English language subsections Morgunblaðið website Morgunblaðið in the VESTNORD project - archive with all issues from 1913-1993
Paganism
Paganism, is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism. This was either because they were rural and provincial relative to the Christian population, or because they were not milites Christi. Alternate terms in Christian texts for the same group were hellene and heathen. Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Graeco-Roman religion and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. Paganism was a pejorative and derogatory term for polytheism, implying its inferiority. Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry", During and after the Middle Ages, the term paganism was applied to any non-Abrahamic or unfamiliar religion, the term presumed a belief in false god. Most modern pagan religions existing today - Modern Paganism, or Neopaganism - express a world view, pantheistic, polytheistic or animistic; the origin of the application of the term pagan to polytheism is debated.
In the 19th century, paganism was adopted as a self-descriptor by members of various artistic groups inspired by the ancient world. In the 20th century, it came to be applied as a self-descriptor by practitioners of Modern Paganism, Neopagan movements and Polytheistic reconstructionists. Modern pagan traditions incorporate beliefs or practices, such as nature worship, that are different from those in the largest world religions. Contemporary knowledge of old pagan religions comes from several sources, including anthropological field research records, the evidence of archaeological artifacts, the historical accounts of ancient writers regarding cultures known to Classical antiquity, it is crucial to stress right from the start that until the 20th century, people did not call themselves pagans to describe the religion they practised. The notion of paganism, as it is understood today, was created by the early Christian Church, it was a label that Christians applied to others, one of the antitheses that were central to the process of Christian self-definition.
As such, throughout history it was used in a derogatory sense. The term pagan is derived from Late Latin paganus, revived during the Renaissance. Itself deriving from classical Latin pagus which meant'region delimited by markers', paganus had come to mean'of or relating to the countryside','country dweller','villager', it is related to pangere and comes from Proto-Indo-European *pag-. The adoption of paganus by the Latin Christians as an all-embracing, pejorative term for polytheists represents an unforeseen and singularly long-lasting victory, within a religious group, of a word of Latin slang devoid of religious meaning; the evolution occurred only in the Latin west, in connection with the Latin church. Elsewhere, Hellene or gentile remained the word for pagan. Medieval writers assumed that paganus as a religious term was a result of the conversion patterns during the Christianization of Europe, where people in towns and cities were converted more than those in remote regions, where old ways lingered.
However, this idea has multiple problems. First, the word's usage as a reference to non-Christians pre-dates that period in history. Second, paganism within the Roman Empire centred on cities; the concept of an urban Christianity as opposed to a rural paganism would not have occurred to Romans during Early Christianity. Third, unlike words such as rusticitas, paganus had not yet acquired the meanings used to explain why it would have been applied to pagans. Paganus more acquired its meaning in Christian nomenclature via Roman military jargon. Early Christians saw themselves as Milites Christi. A good example of Christians still using paganus in a military context rather than religious is in Tertullian's De Corona Militis XI. V, where the Christian is referred to as paganus: Paganus acquired its religious connotations by the mid-4th century; as early as the 5th century, paganos was metaphorically used to denote persons outside the bounds of the Christian community. Following the sack of Rome by the Visigoths just over fifteen years after the Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I, murmurs began to spread that the old gods had taken greater care of the city than the Christian God.
In response, Augustine of Hippo wrote De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos. In it, he contrasted the fallen "city of Man" to the "city of God" of which all Christians were citizens. Hence, the foreign invaders were "not of the city" or "rural"; the term pagan is not attested in the English language until the 17th century. In addition to infidel and heretic, it was used as one of several pejorative Christian counterparts to gentile as used in Judaism, to kafir and mushrik as in Islam. In the Latin-speaking Western Roman Empire of the newly Christianizing Roman Empire, Koine Greek became associated with the traditional polytheistic religion of Ancient Greece, regarded as a foreign language in the west. By the latter half of the 4th century in the Greek-speaking Eastern Empire, pagans were—paradoxically—most called Hellenes; the word entirely
