Saxo Grammaticus
Saxo Grammaticus known as Saxo cognomine Longus, was a Danish historian and author. He is thought to have been a clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, the main advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark, he is the author of the Gesta Danorum, the first full history of Denmark, from which the legend of Amleth would come to inspire the story of Hamlet by Shakespeare. The Jutland Chronicle gives evidence, it is unlikely he was born before 1150 and it is supposed that his death could have occurred around 1220. His name Saxo was a common name in medieval Denmark; the name Grammaticus was first given to him in the Jutland Chronicle and the Sjælland Chronicle makes reference to Saxo cognomine Longus. He lived in a period of warfare and Danish expansion, led by the Valdemars; the Danes were being threatened by the Wends who were making raids across the border and by sea. Valdemar I had just won a civil war and Valdemar II led an expedition across the Elbe to invade Holstein. Sven Aggesen, a Danish nobleman and author of a earlier history of Denmark than Saxo's, describes his contemporary, Saxo, as his contubernalis meaning tent-comrade.
This gives evidence that Saxo and Sven might have soldiered in the Hird or royal guard since Sven used the word contubernium in reference to them. There is a Saxo to be found on a list of clergy at Lund, where there was a Sven recorded as Archdeacon. There is Dean Saxo who died in 1190. Both arguments, for a secular or religious Saxo, would confirm that he was well educated, as clergy he would have received training in Latin and sons of great men were sent to Paris. Saxo writes that he is himself committed to being a soldier, he tells us that he follows "the ancient right of hereditary service," and that his father and grandfather "were recognized frequenters of your renowned sire's war camp."Saxo's education and ability support the idea that he was educated outside Denmark. Some suggest the title "Grammaticus" refers not to his education but rather his elaborate Latin style. We know from his writing that he was in the retinue and received the patronage of Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, the foremost adviser to King Valdemar I.
In his will Absalon forgives his clerk Saxo a small debt of two and a half marks of silver and tells him to return two borrowed books to the monastery of Sorø. The legacy of Saxo Grammaticus is the sixteen book. In the preface to the work, Saxo writes that his patron Absalon, Archbishop of Lund had encouraged him to write a heroic history of the Danes; the history is thought to have been started about 1185. The goal of Gesta Danorum was as Saxo writes "to glorify our fatherland," which he accomplishes on the model of the Aeneid by Vergil. Saxo may have owed much to Plato, Cicero and to more contemporary writers like Geoffrey of Monmouth. Saxo's history of the Danes was compiled from sources that are of questionable historical value but were to him the only ones extant, he drew on oral tales of the Icelanders, ancient volumes, letters carved on rocks and stone, the statements of his patron Absalon concerning the history of which the Archbishop had been a part. Saxo's work was not a history or a simple record of old tales, rather it was, in the parlance of Friis-Jensen, "a product of Saxo's own mind and times,".
The history is composed of sixteen books and extends from the time of the founders of the Danish people, Dan I of Denmark and Angul into about the year 1187. The first four are concerned with the history of the Danes before Christ, the next four with the history after Christ, books 9-12 Christian Denmark and 13-16 promote Lund and the exploits early before and during Saxo's own lifetime, it is assumed that the last eight books were written first, as Saxo drew on the work of Absalon for evidence of the age of Saint Canute and Valdemar I. The first eight volumes share a likeness with the works of Saxo's contemporary Snorri Sturluson, they deal with mythical elements such as the Scandinavian pantheon of gods. Saxo tells of Dan the first king of Denmark who had a brother named Angul who gave his name to the Angles, he tells the stories of various other Danish heroes, many who interact with the Scandinavian gods. Saxo's "heathen" gods however were not always good characters, they were sometimes treacherous such as in the story of Harald, legendary king of the Danes, taught the ways of warfare by Odinn and was betrayed and killed by the god who brought him to Valhalla.
Saxo's world is seen to have had warlike values. He glorifies the heroes, his view of the period of peace under King Frode was low and was only satisfied when King Knut brought back the ancestral customs. Saxo's chronology of kings extends up to Saint Canute and his son Valdemar I. Saxo finished the history with the Preface, which he wrote last, about 1216 under the patronage of Anders Sunesen who replaced Absalon as Archbishop of Lund. Saxo included in the preface warm appreciation of both Archbishops and of the reigning King Valdemar II. Of particular interest for Shakespeare scholars is the story of Amleth, the first instance of the playwright's Hamlet. Saxo based the story on an oral tale of a son taking revenge for his murdered father. Christiern P
Runes
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets, which were used to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialised purposes thereafter. The Scandinavian variants are known as futhark or fuþark. Runology is the study of the runic alphabets, runic inscriptions and their history. Runology forms a specialised branch of Germanic linguistics; the earliest runic inscriptions date from around 150 AD. The characters were replaced by the Latin alphabet as the cultures that had used runes underwent Christianisation, by 700 AD in central Europe and 1100 AD in northern Europe. However, the use of runes persisted for specialized purposes in northern Europe; until the early 20th century, runes were used in rural Sweden for decorative purposes in Dalarna and on Runic calendars. The three best-known runic alphabets are the Elder Futhark, the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the Younger Futhark; the Younger Futhark is divided further into the long-branch runes.
The Younger Futhark developed further into the Medieval runes, the Dalecarlian runes. The runic alphabet is a derivation of the Old Italic scripts of antiquity, with the addition of some innovations. Which variant of the Old Italic family in particular gave rise to the runes is uncertain. Suggestions include Raetic, Etruscan, or Old Latin as candidates. At the time, all of these scripts had the same angular letter shapes suited for epigraphy, which would become characteristic of the runes; the process of transmission of the script is unknown. The oldest inscriptions are found in northern Germany. A "West Germanic hypothesis" suggests transmission via Elbe Germanic groups, while a "Gothic hypothesis" presumes transmission via East Germanic expansion; the runes were in use among the Germanic peoples from the 1st or 2nd century AD. This period corresponds to the late Common Germanic stage linguistically, with a continuum of dialects not yet separated into the three branches of centuries: North Germanic, West Germanic, East Germanic.
No distinction is made in surviving runic inscriptions between long and short vowels, although such a distinction was present phonologically in the spoken languages of the time. There are no signs for labiovelars in the Elder Futhark The term runes is used to distinguish these symbols from Latin and Greek letters, it is attested on a 6th-century Alamannic runestaff as runa and as runo on the 4th-century Einang stone. The name comes from the Germanic root run-, meaning "secret" or "whisper". In Old Irish Gaelic, the word rún means "mystery", "secret", "intention" or "affectionate love." In Welsh and Old English, the word rhin and rūn means "mystery", "secret", "secret writing", or sometimes in the extreme sense of the word, "miracle". Ogham is a Celtic script carved in the Norse manner; the root run- can be found in the Baltic languages, meaning "speech". In Lithuanian, runoti means both "to cut" and "to speak". According to another theory, the Germanic root comes from the Indo-European root *reuə- "dig".
The Finnish term for rune, means "scratched letter". The Finnish word runo means "poem" and comes from the same source as the English word "rune"; the runes developed centuries after the Old Italic alphabets from which they are historically derived. The debate on the development of the runic script concerns the question regarding which of the Italic alphabets should be taken as their point of origin and which, if any, signs should be considered original innovations added to the letters found in the Italic scripts; the historical context of the script's origin is the cultural contact between Germanic people, who served as mercenaries in the Roman army, the Italian peninsula during the Roman imperial period. The formation of the Elder Futhark was complete by the early 5th century, with the Kylver Stone being the first evidence of the futhark ordering as well as of the p rune; the Raetic alphabet of Bolzano is advanced as a candidate for the origin of the runes, with only five Elder Futhark runes having no counterpart in the Bolzano alphabet.
Scandinavian scholars tend to favor derivation from the Latin alphabet itself over Raetic candidates. A "North Etruscan" thesis is supported by the inscription on the Negau helmet dating to the 2nd century BC; this features a Germanic name, Harigast. Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante suggest that runes derived from some North Italic alphabet Venetic: but since Romans conquered Veneto after 200 BC, the Latin alphabet became prominent and Venetic culture diminished in importance, Germanic people could have adopted the Venetic alphabet within 3rd century BC or earlier; the angular shapes of the runes are shared with most contemporary alphabets of the period that were used for carving in wood or stone. There are no horizontal strokes: when
Proserpina
Proserpina or Proserpine is an ancient Roman goddess whose cult and mysteries were combined from those of Libera, an early Roman goddess of wine, the Greek Persephone and Demeter, goddesses of grain and agriculture. The Roman goddess Libera was daughter of the agricultural goddess Ceres and wife to Liber, god of wine and freedom. In 204 BC, a new "greek-style" cult to Ceres and Proserpina as "Mother and Maiden" was imported from southern Italy, along with Greek priestesses to serve it, was installed in Libera and Ceres' temple on Rome's Aventine Hill; the new cult and its priesthood were promoted by Rome's religious authorities as morally desirable for respectable Roman women, may have subsumed the temple's older, native cult to Ceres and Libera. Just as Persephone was thought to be a daughter of Demeter, Romans made Proserpina a daughter of Demeter's Roman equivalent, Ceres. Like Persephone, Proserpina is associated with its ruler, her name is a Latinisation of "Persephone" influenced by the Latin proserpere, with respect to the growing of grain.
Her core myths – her forcible abduction by the god of the Underworld, her mother's search for her and her eventual but temporary restoration to the world above – are the subject of works in Roman and art and literature. In particular, Proserpina's seizure by the god of the Underworld – described as the Rape of Proserpina, or of Persephone – has offered dramatic subject matter for Renaissance and sculptors and painters. In early Roman religion, Libera was the female equivalent of Liber, she was an Italic goddess. She enters Roman history as part of a Triadic cult alongside Ceres and Liber, in a temple established on the Aventine Hill around 493 BCE; the location and context of this early cult mark her association with Rome's commoner-citizens, or plebs. Otherwise, her relationship to her Aventine cult partners is uncertain. Libera was identified with Proserpina in 205 BCE, when she acquired a Romanised form of the Greek mystery rites and their attendant mythology. In the late Republican era, Cicero described Libera as Ceres' children.
At around the same time in the context of popular or religious drama, Hyginus equated her with Greek Ariadne, as bride to Liber's Greek equivalent, Dionysus. The older and newer forms of her cult and rites, their diverse associations, persisted well into the late Imperial era. St. Augustine observed that Libera is concerned with female fertility, as Liber is with male fertility. Proserpina was introduced to Rome around 205 BCE, along with the ritus graecia cereris, as part of Rome's general religious recruitment of deities as allies against Carthage, towards the end of the Second Punic War; the cult originated in southern Italy and was based on the women-only Greek Thesmophoria, a mystery cult to Demeter and Persephone as "Mother and Maiden". It arrived along with its Greek priestesses, who were granted Roman citizenship so that they could pray to the gods "with a foreign and external knowledge, but with a domestic and civil intention"; the new cult was installed in the ancient Temple of Ceres and Libera, Rome's Aventine patrons of the plebs.
Their joint cult recalls Demeter's search for Persephone, after the latter's rape and abduction into the underworld by Hades. At the Aventine, the new cult took its place alongside the old, it made no reference to Liber, whose open and gender-mixed cult continued to play a central role in plebeian culture, as a patron and protector of plebeian rights and values. The female initiates and priestesses of the new "greek style" mysteries of Ceres and Proserpina were expected to uphold Rome's traditional, patrician-dominated social hierarchy and traditional morality. Unmarried girls should emulate the chastity of the maiden, their rites were intended to secure a good harvest, increase the fertility of those who partook in the mysteries. A Temple of Proserpina was located in a suburb of Melite, in modern Mtarfa, Malta; the temple's ruins were quarried between the 17th and 18th centuries, only a few fragments survive. The best-known myth surrounding Proserpina is of her abduction by the god of the Underworld, her mother Ceres' frantic search for her, her eventual but temporary restitution to the world above.
In Latin literature, several versions are known, all similar in most respects to the myths of Greek Persephone's abduction by the King of the underworld, named variously in Greek sources as Hades or Pluto. "Hades" can mean both the hidden Underworld and its king, who in early Greek ver
Hel (being)
In Norse mythology, Hel is a being who presides over a realm of the same name, where she receives a portion of the dead. Hel is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. In addition, she is mentioned in poems recorded in Heimskringla and Egils saga that date from the 9th and 10th centuries, respectively. An episode in the Latin work Gesta Danorum, written in the 12th century by Saxo Grammaticus, is considered to refer to Hel, Hel may appear on various Migration Period bracteates. In the Poetic Edda, Prose Edda, Heimskringla, Hel is referred to as a daughter of Loki. In the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning, Hel is described as having been appointed by the god Odin as ruler of a realm of the same name, located in Niflheim. In the same source, her appearance is described as half blue and half flesh-coloured and further as having a gloomy, downcast appearance; the Prose Edda details that Hel rules over vast mansions with many servants in her underworld realm and plays a key role in the attempted resurrection of the god Baldr.
Scholarly theories have been proposed about Hel's potential connections to figures appearing in the 11th-century Old English Gospel of Nicodemus and Old Norse Bartholomeus saga postola, that she may have been considered a goddess with potential Indo-European parallels in Bhavani and Mahakali or that Hel may have become a being only as a late personification of the location of the same name. The Old Norse feminine proper noun Hel is identical to the name of the location over which she rules, Old Norse Hel; the word has cognates in all branches of the Germanic languages, including Old English hell, Old Frisian helle, Old Saxon hellia, Old High German hella, Gothic halja. All forms derive from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic feminine noun *xaljō or *haljō. In turn, the Proto-Germanic form derives from the o-grade form of the Proto-Indo-European root *kel-, *kol-:'to cover, save'; the term is etymologically related to Modern English hall and therefore Valhalla, an afterlife'hall of the slain' in Norse Mythology.
Hall and its numerous Germanic cognates derive from Proto-Germanic *hallō'covered place, hall', from Proto-Indo-European *kol-. Related early Germanic terms and concepts include Proto-Germanic *xalja-rūnō, a feminine compound noun, *xalja-wītjan, a neutral compound noun; this form is reconstructed from the Latinized Gothic plural noun *haliurunnae, Old English helle-rúne, Old High German helli-rūna'magic'. The compound is composed of two elements: *xaljō and *rūnō, the Proto-Germanic precursor to Modern English rune; the second element in the Gothic haliurunnae may however instead be an agent noun from the verb rinnan, which would make its literal meaning "one who travels to the netherworld".) Proto-Germanic *xalja-wītjan is reconstructed from Old Norse hel-víti'hell', Old English helle-wíte'hell-torment, hell', Old Saxon helli-wīti'hell', the Middle High German feminine noun helle-wīze. The compound is a compound of * * wītjan; the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, features various poems that mention Hel.
In the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá, Hel's realm is referred to as the "Halls of Hel." In stanza 31 of Grímnismál, Hel is listed as living beneath one of three roots growing from the world tree Yggdrasil. In Fáfnismál, the hero Sigurd stands before the mortally wounded body of the dragon Fáfnir, states that Fáfnir lies in pieces, where "Hel can take" him. In Atlamál, the phrases "Hel has half of us" and "sent off to Hel" are used in reference to death, though it could be a reference to the location and not the being, if not both. In stanza 4 of Baldrs draumar, Odin rides towards the "high hall of Hel."Hel may be alluded to in Hamðismál. Death is periphrased as "joy of the troll-woman" and ostensibly it is Hel being referred to as the troll-woman or the ogre, although it may otherwise be some unspecified dís. Hel is referred to in the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. In chapter 34 of the book Gylfaginning, Hel is listed by High as one of the three children of Loki and Angrboða.
High continues that, once the gods found that these three children are being brought up in the land of Jötunheimr, when the gods "traced prophecies that from these siblings great mischief and disaster would arise for them" the gods expected a lot of trouble from the three children due to the nature of the mother of the children, yet worse so due to the nature of their father. High says that Odin sent the gods to bring them to him. Upon their arrival, Odin threw Jörmungandr into "that deep sea that lies round all lands," Odin threw Hel into Niflheim, bestowed upon her authority over nine worlds, in that she must "administer board and lodging to those sent to her, and, those who die of sickness or old age." High details that in this realm Hel has "great Mansions" with high walls and immense gates, a hall called Éljúðnir, a dish called "Hunger," a knife called "Famine," the servant Ganglati, the serving-maid Ganglöt, the entrance threshold "Stumbling-block," the bed "Sick-bed," and the curtains "Gleaming-bale."
High describes Hel as "half black
Viktor Rydberg
Abraham Viktor Rydberg was a Swedish writer and a member of the Swedish Academy, 1877–1895. "Primarily a classical idealist", Viktor Rydberg has been described as "Sweden's last Romantic" and by 1859 was "generally regarded in the first rank of Swedish novelists." Viktor Rydberg was of humble parentage. One biographer notes that: "He had a hard struggle to satisfy the thirst for learning, a leading passion of his life, but he attained distinction in several fields of scholarship." The son of a soldier turned prison guard, Johann Rydberg, a midwife, Hedvig Düker. Viktor Rydberg had three sisters. In 1834 his mother died during a cholera epidemic, her death broke the spirit of his father, who yielded to hypochondria and alcoholism, contributing towards his loss of employment and the family's apartment, forcing authorities to board young Viktor out to a series of foster homes, one of which burnt down, further traumatizing the youth. Despite his economic status, Rydberg was recognized for his talents.
From 1838 to 1847, Rydberg attended grammar school, studied law at the University in Lund from 1851 to 1852. Due to financial reasons, his university studies ended after one year, without a degree. Afterward, he took a job as a private tutor. In 1855, he was offered work at the Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning, a newspaper in Göteborg, where he would remain employed for more than 20 years, it was during this time. He soon become a central figure of late Romanticism in Sweden, Sweden's most famous living author. Throughout his adult life, Rydberg was active in politics. In 1859, he wrote a pamphlet on national defense, which inspired the "Sharpshooter's movement", a voluntary militia of some political importance during the 1860s. In 1870, he took a controversial pro-German stance during the Franco-Prussian War. Representing the traditional economic system of Sweden, from 1870 to 1872, Rydberg was a member of the Swedish Parliament as a supporter of the Peasant's Party. Having been a supporter of the Jewish cause since his youth, it was MP Viktor Rydberg who gave the keynote speech in the parliamentary debate to enact a law granting all non-Lutherans full civil rights.
He worked diligently for working-class people and in 1906 his works on the labor question in both prose and poetry were regarded as part of the "treasury of this class." He advocated language reform, purging foreign words from the Swedish language those of German origin. Around this time, he advocated a more Germanic spelling of his own name: Viktor, as opposed to Victor. Throughout his life and career, Rydberg would coin several Swedish words, such as "gudasaga" for the foreign "mythologi", still in use today. In 1884, he refused to support anarchist writer August Strindberg, in his blasphemy case; as a juror in an 1888 trial of socialist leader Hjalmar Branting, Rydberg voted to send him to jail for blasphemy. They would never speak to one another again, his apprehension of unregulated capitalism at the dawn of the industrial age is most expressed in his acclaimed poem Den nya Grottesången in which he delivered a fierce attack on the miserable working conditions in factories of the era, using the mill of Grottasöngr as his literary backdrop.
For his lifetime of literary achievement, Rydberg received an honorary doctorate from the University of Uppsala in 1877 and was elected a member of the Swedish Academy the same year. He served from 1883 as teacher, from 1884 as professor, of the History of Culture at Stockholms högskola, now Stockholm University, from 1889 as the first holder of the J. A. Berg Chair of the History and Theory of Art there. In 1889, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Rydberg died at the age of 66 on 21 September 1895 due to complications from diabetes and arteriosclerosis. Rydberg's passing was reported as far away as the United States of America, where the New York Times published an obituary titled: "Death of Prof. A. V. Rydberg and Remarkable works of one of Sweden's Leading Men." A national day of mourning would ensue all over Sweden. Today, his grave is a national monument. Many of his works remain in print, his works are read in schools throughout Sweden, his poem "Tomten" is a Christmas favorite, as well as the lyrics for Gläns över sjö och strand.
A group of three charter high schools and one middle school in Stockholm, as well as a street in Götesborg, a student dormitory, other buildings carry his name. He is still listed in many English language encyclopedias as an individual entry. Since the late 1920s, scholars and critics have speculated about Rydberg's private life and sexual orientation. Referring to a failed engagement, Judith Moffett writes: We can construct a story of backdoor illicit liaisons and front door respectability from these fragments and others— Rydberg would hardly be the first, if it were true— but he never spoke about his private life at any time, our best guess would still be guesswork. Svanberg and Stolpe suggested that Rydberg had a homosexual orientation, based on their interpretations of Rydberg's published works. Moffett endorsed Stolpe's theory, speculating that Rydberg's sexual orientation was the result of the early loss of his mother, concluding that Rydberg was homosexual but celibate. In her opinion, Rydberg found all sexual expression "despicable, impossible, or, at best, delicious but lethal."
Sven Delblanc argued that the novel Singoalla "reflected homosexual desires and impulses in Rydberg himself", that the protagonist's slaying of his unackno
Mímir
Mímir or Mimir is a figure in Norse mythology, renowned for his knowledge and wisdom, beheaded during the Æsir-Vanir War. Afterward, the god Odin carries around Mímir's head and it recites secret knowledge and counsel to him. Mímir is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson of Iceland, in euhemerized form as one of the Æsir in Heimskringla written by Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century. Mímir's name appears in the names of the well Mímisbrunnr, the tree Mímameiðr, the wood Hoddmímis holt. Scholars have proposed that Bestla may be Mímir's sister, therefore Mímir Odin's uncle. Mímir is mentioned in Sigrdrífumál. In Völuspá, Mímir is mentioned in two stanzas. Stanza 28 references Odin's sacrifice of his eye to Mímir's Well, states that Mímir drinks mead every morning "from the Father of the Slain's wager." Stanza 46 describes that, in reference to Ragnarök, the "sons" of Mím are at play while "fate burns", that the god Heimdallr blows the Gjallarhorn, that Mímir's severed head gives counsel to Odin.
The single mention in stanza 14 of Sigrdrífumál is a reference to Mímir's speaking, decollated head. Stanzas 20 and 24 of the poem Fjölsvinnsmál refer to Yggdrasil as Mímameiðr. In chapter 15 of the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning, as owner of his namesake well, Mímir himself drinks from it and gains great knowledge. To drink from the well, he uses the Gjallarhorn, a drinking horn which shares its name with the sounding horn used by Heimdallr intended to announce the onset of Ragnarök; the section further relates that the well is located beneath one of the three roots of Yggdrasil, in the realm of the frost jötnar. Chapter 51 relates that, with the onset of Ragnarök, "Heimdall stands up and blows the Gjallarhorn with all his strength, he wakens all the gods who hold an assembly. Odin now rides to Mimir's Well, seeking council for both his followers; the ash Yggdrasil shakes, nothing, whether in heaven or on earth, is without fear."In the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál, Mímir's name appears in various kennings.
These kennings include "Mím's friend" in three places, "mischief-Mímir", among a list of names for jötunn. Mímir is mentioned in chapters 7 of the saga Ynglinga Saga, as collected in Heimskringla. In chapter 4, Snorri presents a euhemerized account of the Æsir-Vanir War. Snorri states that the two sides tired of the war and both agree to meet to establish a truce; the two sides exchanged hostages. Vanaheimr are described as having sent to Asgard their best men: Njörðr—described as wealthy—and his son Freyr in exchange for Asaland's Hœnir—described here as large and thought of by the people of Vanaheimr well suited to be a chieftain. Additionally, the Æsir send Mímir—described as a man of great understanding—in exchange for Kvasir, who Snorri describes as the wisest man of Vanaheimr. Snorri continues that, upon arrival in Vanaheimr, Hœnir was made chief and Mímir gave him good counsel. However, when Hœnir was at meetings and at the Thing without Mímir by his side, he would always answer the same way: "Let others decide."
Subsequently, the Vanir suspected they had been cheated in the exchange by the Æsir, so they seized Mimir and beheaded him and sent the head to Asgard. Odin took the head of Mímir, embalmed it with herbs so that it would not rot, spoke charms over it, which gave it the power to speak to him and reveal to him secrets; the head of Mímir is again mentioned in chapter 7 in connection with Odin, where Odin is described as keeping Mímir's head with him and that it divulged information from other worlds. On the basis of Hávamál 140 – where Odin learns nine magic songs from the unnamed brother of his mother Bestla – some scholars have theorized that Bestla's brother may in fact be Mímir, Odin's maternal uncle; this means that Mimir's father would be Bölþorn. In the theories of Viktor Rydberg, Mímir's wife is Sinmara, named in the poem Fjölsvinnsmal. According to Rydberg, the byname Sinmara refers to "Mímir-Niðhad"'s "queen ordering Völund's hamstrings to be cut". Mimir, a 1980 bronze and concrete sculpture in Portland, Oregon Nine Herbs Charm, an Anglo-Saxon charm featuring Woden and herbs.
Brazen head
Jötunn
In Norse mythology, a jötunn is a type of entity contrasted with gods and other figures, such as dwarfs and elves. The entities are themselves ambiguously defined, variously referred to by several other terms, including risi and troll. Although the term giant is sometimes used to gloss the word jötunn and its apparent synonyms in some translations and academic texts, jötnar are not notably large and may be described as exceedingly beautiful or as alarmingly grotesque; some deities, such as Skaði and Gerðr, are themselves described as jötnar, various well-attested deities, such as Odin, are descendants of the jötnar. Norse myth traces the origin of the jötnar to the proto-being Ymir, a result of growth of asexual reproduction from the entity's body. Ymir is killed, his body dismembered to create the world, the jötnar survive this event by way of sailing through a flood of Ymir's blood; the jötnar dwell in Jötunheimr. In Scandinavian folklore, the ambiguity surrounding the entities gives way to negative portrayals.
Old Norse jötunn and Old English eóten developed from the Proto-Germanic masculine noun *etunaz. Philologist Vladimir Orel says that semantic connections between *etunaz with Proto-Germanic *etanan makes a relation between the two nouns likely. Proto-Germanic *etanan is reconstructed from Old Norse etall'consuming', Old English etol'voracious, gluttonous', Old High German filu-ezzal'greedy'. Old Norse risi and Old High German riso derive from the Proto-Germanic masculine noun *wrisjon. Orel observes that the Old Saxon adjective wrisi-līke'enormous' is also connected. Old Norse þurs, Old English ðyrs, Old High German duris'devil, evil spirit' derive from the Proto-Germanic masculine noun *þursaz, itself derived form Proto-Germanic *þurēnan, etymologically connected to Sanskrit turá-'strong, rich'. For discussion regarding Old Norse troll and its development, see troll. Several terms are used to refer to female entities that fall into this category, including íviðja and gýgr; the jötnar are attested throughout the Old Norse record.
For example, in a stanza of Völuspá hin skamma, a variety of origins are provided: völvas are descended from Viðòlfr, all seers from Vilmeiðr, all charm-workers from Svarthöfði, all jötnar descend from Ymir. List of jötnar in Norse mythology Trollhunter Jeramy; the Poetic Edda. Coach House Books. ISBN 978 1 55245 2967. Bellows, Henry Adams; the Poetic Edda. Princeton University Press. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation. Orel, Vladimir. A Handbook of Germanic Etymology. Brill. ISBN 9004128751 Thorpe, Benjamin. Edda Sæmundar Hinns Frôða: The Edda of Sæmund the Learned. Part I. London: Trübner & Co
