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Deor
"Deor" (or "The Lament of Deor") is an Old English poem found on folio 100r–100v of the late-10th-century collection the Exeter Book. The poem consists of a reflection on misfortune by a poet whom the poem is usually thought to name Deor. The poem has no title in the Exeter Book itself; the modern title has been bestowed by modern editors. In the poem, Deor's lord has replaced him with another poet. Deor mentions various figures from Germanic tradition and reconciles his own troubles with the troubles these figures faced, ending each section with the refrain "that passed away, so may this." The poem comprises forty-two alliterative lines. Genre Attempts at placing this poem within a genre have proven to be quite difficult. Some commentators attempting to characterise the work have called it an '' ubi sunt'' ("where are they?") poem because of its meditations on transience. It can also be considered a traditional lament and poem of consolation. Christian consolation poems, how ...
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Hjaðningavíg
Hjaðningavíg (the 'battle of the Heodenings'), the ''legend of Heðinn and Hǫgni'' or the ''Saga of Hild'' is a Germanic heroic legend about a never-ending battle which is documented in ''Sörla þáttr'', '' Ragnarsdrápa'', ''Gesta Danorum'', ''Skíðaríma'' and in ''Skáldskaparmál''. It is also held to appear on the image stone at Stora Hammar on Gotland (see illustration). Moreover, it is alluded to in the Old English poems '' Deor'' and ''Widsið'', and in the Old Norse '' Háttalykill inn forni'', and a version of it survived down to the 18th century in the traditional Norn language ballad "Hildina". An altered version of the saga is found in the Middle High German poem ''Kudrun'', as a prologue to the story of Kudrun herself. Yet another version is found in the Old Yiddish '' Dukus Horant''. Like the names ''Heðinn'' ( O.E. ''Heoden'') and '' Hǫgni'' (O.E. ''Hagena''), the legend is believed to have continental Germanic origins.
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Niðhad
King Niðhad, ''Níðuðr'' or ''Niðungr'' was a cruel king in Germanic legend. He appears as Níðuðr in the Old Norse ''Völundarkviða'', as ''Niðung'' in the '' Þiðrekssaga'', and as ''Niðhad'' in the Anglo-Saxon poems ''Deor'' and ''Waldere''. The legend of Níðuðr and Wayland also appears on the Gotlandic Ardre image stone VIII from the 8th century and possibly on the front panel of the 7th century Anglo-Saxon Franks Casket. However, Austin Simmons has recently argued that it is not Niðhad who is depicted, but his daughter Beadohilde (twice). ''Völundarkviða'' In ''Völundarkviða'', Níðuðr appears to be a king of Närke (the Njars) and captures Völund. Níðuðr orders Völund hamstrung and imprisoned on the island of Sævarstaðir. There, Völund was forced to forge items for the king. Völund's wife's ring was given to the king's daughter, Bodvild, and Níðuðr wore Völund's sword. For revenge, Völund killed the king's sons when they visited hi ...
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Böðvildr
Böðvildr, Beadohild, Bodil or Badhild was a princess, the daughter of the evil king Níðuðr/Niðhad/Niðung who appears in Germanic legends, such as ''Deor'', ''Völundarkviða'' and '' Þiðrekssaga''. Initially, she appears to have been a tragic victim of Wayland the smith's revenge on her father, but in later Scandinavian versions, she becomes Wayland's wife and the mother of the hero Viðga of the ''Þiðrekssaga'' and medieval Scandinavian ballads. ''Deor'' Although preceded by the Ardre image stone, the oldest surviving textual source on her is the 10th century Anglo-Saxon poem ''Deor''. It deals with the fact that Wayland has just murdered her brothers and raped her. It is suggested by the poet that things will turn out bad for her: ''Völundarkviða'' In ''Völundarkviða'', she appears when her father Níðuðr has captured Wayland, and she receives from her father a gold ring that the smith had made for his lost Valkyrie lover. Wayland is hamstrung and put to wor ...
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Wayland Smith
In Germanic mythology, Wayland the Smith ( ang, Wēland; , ; Old Frisian: Wela(n)du; german: Wieland der Schmied; goh, Wiolant; ''Galans'' (''Galant'') in Old French; gem-x-proto, Wēlandaz, italic=no from ', lit. "crafting one") is a master blacksmith originating in Germanic heroic legend, described by Jessie Weston as "the weird and malicious craftsman, Weyland".Weston, J. (1929). 'Legendary Cycles of the Middle Age', in Tanner, J.R. (ed.), ''The Cambridge Medieval History'' Vol. VI, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, p. 841f. Wayland's story is most clearly told in the Old Norse sources ''Völundarkviða'' (a poem in the ''Poetic Edda'') and ''Þiðreks saga''. In them, Wayland is a smith who is enslaved by a king. Wayland takes revenge by killing the king's sons and then escapes by crafting a winged cloak and flying away. A number of other visual and textual sources clearly allude to similar stories, most prominently the Old English poem '' Deor'' and the Franks ...
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Ermanaric
Ermanaric; la, Ermanaricus or ''Hermanaricus''; ang, Eormanrīc ; on, Jǫrmunrekkr , gmh, Ermenrîch (died 376) was a Greuthungian Gothic king who before the Hunnic invasion evidently ruled a sizable portion of Oium, the part of Scythia inhabited by the Goths at the time. He is mentioned in two Roman sources: the contemporary writings of Ammianus Marcellinus, and in ''Getica'' by the sixth-century historian Jordanes. He also appears in a fictionalized form in later Germanic heroic legends. Modern historians disagree on the size of Ermanaric's realm. Herwig Wolfram postulates that he at one point ruled a realm stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea as far eastwards as the Ural Mountains. Peter Heather is skeptical of the claim that Ermanaric ruled all Goths except the Tervingi, and furthermore points to the fact that such an enormous empire would have been larger than any known Gothic political unit, that it would have left bigger traces in the sources and that ...
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Witege
Witege, Witige or Wittich ( ang, Wudga, Widia; Gotho- lat, Vidigoia) or Vidrik "Vidga" Verlandsson ( + ''Viðga'' or ''Videke'' + ''Verlandsson'', ''Vallandsson'', or ''Villandsson'') is a character in several Germanic heroic legends, poems about Dietrich von Bern, and later Scandinavian ballads.The article Vidrik Verlandsson' in ''Nordisk familjebok'' (1921). In German legends, he was one of the warriors of Dietrich von Bern, but betrayed him and took instead the side of his wicked Uncle Ermenrich. In one of the Scandinavian ballads ( TSB E 119), he won particular fame in his duel with Langben Rese/Risker (the giant Etgeir in the '' Þiðrekssaga''). During the Middle Ages, he became the son of Wayland the Smith and Böðvildr, and this entitled him to carry a hammer and tongs in his coat of arms. Later the origin of his name "Wayland's son" was forgotten, but the fame of the character prevailed. During the 16th and the 17th centuries, this led to the idea that his name ...
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Exeter Book
The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis or Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, is a large codex of Old English poetry, believed to have been produced in the late tenth century AD. It is one of the four major manuscripts of Old English poetry, along with the Vercelli Book in Vercelli, Italy, the Nowell Codex in the British Library, and the Junius manuscript in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The book was donated to what is now the Exeter Cathedral library by Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, in 1072. It is believed originally to have contained 130 or 131 leaves, of which the first 7 or 8 have been replaced with other leaves; the original first 8 leaves are lost. The Exeter Book is the largest and perhaps oldest known manuscript of Old English literature, containing about a sixth of the Old English poetry that has come down to us. In 2016, UNESCO recognized the book as "the foundation volume of English literature, one of the world's principal cultural artefac ...
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Seafarer (poem)
''The Seafarer'' is an Old English poem giving a first-person account of a man alone on the sea. The poem consists of 124 lines, followed by the single word "Amen". It is recorded only at folios 81 verso – 83 recto of the tenth-century Exeter Book, one of the four surviving manuscripts of Old English poetry. It has most often, though not always, been categorised as an elegy, a poetic genre commonly assigned to a particular group of Old English poems that reflect on spiritual and earthly melancholy. Summary Much scholarship suggests that the poem is told from the point of view of an old seafarer who is reminiscing and evaluating his life as he has lived it. The seafarer describes the desolate hardships of life on the wintry sea. He describes the anxious feelings, cold-wetness, and solitude of the sea voyage in contrast to life on land where men are surrounded by kinsmen, free from dangers, and full on food and wine. The climate on land then begins to resemble that of the win ...
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Harpans Kraft
Harpens kraft (Danish) or Harpans kraft, meaning "The Power of the Harp", is the title of a supernatural ballad type, attested in Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic variants. In ''The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad'' it is catalogued type A 50, "Man saves his bride from merman by playing his harp". The ballad type tells of a hero whose betrothed has premonitions of a fall from a bridge into the river, which despite the hero's assurances and precautions comes true. But by the power of his harp-playing, he regains his bride from the river creature, which is referred to as a "merman" in the TSB catalog: while "merman" (') occurs in a variant, it is called a troll in the older Danish text, and a "neck (nix)" in the Swedish text. The ballad of this type occur under the following titles. Danish: "Harpens kraft" ('' DgF'' 40); Swedish: "Harpans kraft" ('' SMB'' 22); Norwegian: ''Villemann og Magnhild'' ('' NMB'' 26); ''Gaute og Magnild'' and ''Guðmund og Signelita'' ( ...
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The Wanderer (Old English Poem)
''The Wanderer'' is an Old English poem preserved only in an anthology known as the Exeter Book, a manuscript dating from the late 10th century. It comprises 115 lines of alliterative verse. As is often the case with Anglo-Saxon verse, the composer and compiler are anonymous, and within the manuscript the poem is untitled. Origins The date of the poem is impossible to determine, but scholarly consensus considers it to be older than the Exeter Book itself, which dates from the late 10th century. The inclusion of a number of Norse-influenced words, such as the compound ''hrimceald'' (ice-cold, from the Old Norse word ''hrimkaldr''), and some unusual spelling forms, has encouraged others to date the poem to the late 9th or early 10th century. As is typical of Old English verse, the metre of the poem is alliterative and consists of four-stress lines, divided between the second and third stresses by a caesura. Each caesura is indicated in the manuscript by a subtle increase in ch ...
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10th Century In Poetry
This page is part of the List of years in poetry. The List of years in poetry and List of years in literature provide snapshots of developments in poetry and literature worldwide in a given year, decade or century, and allow easy access to a wide range of Wikipedia articles about movements, writers, works and developments in any timeframe. Please help to build these lists by adding and updating entries as you use them. You can access pages for individual years within the century through the navigational template at the bottom of this page, and you can access pages for other centuries through the navigational template to the right. To access the poetry pages by way of a single chart, please see the Centuries in poetry page or the List of years in poetry page. Years link to the corresponding " earin poetry" articles. Arabic and Persian World Events * Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula * While imprisoned in Constantinople, from November 962 (or earlier) to 966, ...
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Old English Poetry
Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work ''Cædmon's Hymn'' is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede's text, the '' Ecclesiastical History of the English People''. Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English. Adherence to the grammatical rules of Old English is largely inconsistent in 12th-century work, and by the 13th century the grammar and syntax of Old English had almost completely deteriorated, giving way to the much larger Middle English corpus of literature. In descending order of quantity, Old English literature consists of: sermons and saints' lives; biblical translations; translated Latin works of the early Church Fathers; chronicles and narrative hist ...
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