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Volsungasaga, part 3
Apr. 6th, 2014 11:22 amThe Saga of the Volsungs, chapters 15 through 23.
In which a sword is forged, Sigurd is revenged for the death of his father, there's a fight with a dragon, Sigurd learns to understand the language of birds, and we meet Brynhild! Also, there is a chapter devoted to telling us how hot and awesome Sigurd is. And we have hopefully figured out by now that every time there's a mysterious old man with a beard, that's Odin.
There's a good bit of poetry in this section, which contains some kennings* and weird names, so I'm going to explain those under a cut. ( This one right here, in fact. )
Previous parts of this saga can be found here. Enjoy!
*Kennings are a common feature of Norse poetry. They're a kind of poetic, metaphorical way of referring to things - for instance, in a poem one might say "the whale road" instead of "the sea". Sometimes, kennings get more complex or contain kennings within kennings. So you might have "the feeder of the swan of wounds," where "swan of wounds" means "raven" and "feeder of ravens" means "warrior".
It's assumed that the listener would understand the kenning, much like we would assume that a modern reader would understand if we said something like "it's raining cats and dogs," but since we aren't 13th century Icelanders, I will endeavor to explain the kennings we come across that don't seem immediately obvious. (For example, though the kenning "battlefield's ruler" was used in chapter 21 (meaning warrior), I thought you could probably figure that out.) If I ever skip one that you don't get, please let me know. I've been reading sagas and Norse mythology for a while now, and I sometimes forget what isn't obvious to people who don't do that. 8)
In which a sword is forged, Sigurd is revenged for the death of his father, there's a fight with a dragon, Sigurd learns to understand the language of birds, and we meet Brynhild! Also, there is a chapter devoted to telling us how hot and awesome Sigurd is. And we have hopefully figured out by now that every time there's a mysterious old man with a beard, that's Odin.
There's a good bit of poetry in this section, which contains some kennings* and weird names, so I'm going to explain those under a cut. ( This one right here, in fact. )
Previous parts of this saga can be found here. Enjoy!
*Kennings are a common feature of Norse poetry. They're a kind of poetic, metaphorical way of referring to things - for instance, in a poem one might say "the whale road" instead of "the sea". Sometimes, kennings get more complex or contain kennings within kennings. So you might have "the feeder of the swan of wounds," where "swan of wounds" means "raven" and "feeder of ravens" means "warrior".
It's assumed that the listener would understand the kenning, much like we would assume that a modern reader would understand if we said something like "it's raining cats and dogs," but since we aren't 13th century Icelanders, I will endeavor to explain the kennings we come across that don't seem immediately obvious. (For example, though the kenning "battlefield's ruler" was used in chapter 21 (meaning warrior), I thought you could probably figure that out.) If I ever skip one that you don't get, please let me know. I've been reading sagas and Norse mythology for a while now, and I sometimes forget what isn't obvious to people who don't do that. 8)
