Because of the length of this story and the "typicality" of it, it's tought to 10th graders in Iceland as an entry into the Sagas. The other one being Gísla saga Súrssonar.
It's the same in the rest of the Scandinavian countries, in most of which it's also required in most schools to have at least read one of the sagas. I'm sad that they don't have us read more than one, and also that they don't even have us read any of the Eddas or other Old Norse literature. Or Gesta Danorum.
@Caramel Johnson Beowulf while having Scandivanian things in it, is an Old English work. Though some scholars argue that it might have been a story that came from the Norse area originally, perhaps orally.
In Norway too.. high school curriculum.. Apart from the.. language and culture and history and length - it kind of fits the age group.. just wanting to get to travel and get the girl and all that 👍❤️ (and it kind of suggests, being a "sassy" speaker and a great fighter - is kind of eternally cool) Long time I haven't read it .. obviously.. we read it in "gammel norsk" translations/adaptations - as an introduction... not the original form all the way through..
Worm meant snake in old English, still can be used in that sense if your audience is sufficiently literate. But for a general audience, I'd translate it "Snaketongue. "
@@laughingdaffodils5450 It could have kind of worked in German too. Wurm can refer to something snake-like but is then usually associated with snake-like dragons i.e. a Lindwurm. Schlangenzunge was certainly the better translation.
@@SchutzmarkeGMBH Actually, my Tyrolean German dialect refers to a snake as a "Beißwurm" (bite worm), which I'm mostly mentioning because I think it's both interesting and hilarious.
10:35 It is also mentioned that Gunnlaugr visits a jarl in Skara in Gautland. I used to live there and it so cool to be able to connect real life with the fantastical world of the sagas.
ah good old 'daughter lay-away' for three years - once again (and the times have been many) grateful that I live in a time and a place (aknowledging that not all women even now have this freedom) where who I love, who I bed, who I wed, is UP TO ME, and me alone
Just yesterday I finished binge-watching your Njal videos and was wondering if you'd cover more sagas. Maybe the Norns aren't so cruel after all. Also, my guess is that you chose Gunnlaug's saga for its poetry. Any chance you'll do Egil's saga for the same reason?
hmm bit late to this one - wonder if the 'wormtongue' was further inspiration for JRR Tolkien like the dwarf names were (including Gandalf) - i.e. Gríma Wormtongue
Dr Crawford, I want to thank you for introducing me to this world of Norse history. I'm a student of the Humanities Department (languages), and I think I would also love to be able to study and teach old Norse history and culture just as you do. I have a question; does it belong to the Department of Humanities or Social Sciences, given that it almost sounds like anthropology?
I think it's good how the introduction of the video is (from 0:00 to 0:22), you can see many others do the same, but I recon the last standardised part of the introduction (from 0:22 to 0:40) should be shorter. It is 18 seconds, which I see as too long. I would opt for something more like "landscape - jump out of car - landscape - walking - ancient leather scroll",
"ought not to limp while his legs are the same length" implying that the only thing sufficient to make him limp would be to have one of his feet cut off. Sounds like he's just trying to look hard
vikings must be losing there sense of humor. how about a viking man named alice. he'd have to be pretty tough eh. like johnny cash's song a boy named sue. harharhar. have fun gare
@@garychynne1377 when I went to college, there was a guy living in the dorms named Gunnar. From this video, I think it means "Wound"...is that right? Not a very nice name if that's correct. He was blonde, may have been Norse or Swedish or something.
The postfixed r in 'Gunnlaugr' tells that the infections are going to follow rules of masculine gender, and in most cases the gender of a noun is masculine if it ends with r. Notable exception is 'Hildr'. If you remove the r you'd get 'Gunnlaug' and hence would most probably be feminin.
Dang, how much contribution does it cost one pretty Scandinavian poet princess to tend the hearth of that there star-eyed and Sun-spun cowboy who dares master wind, weather, horse, and language as if borne of aeons and realms alden and dropped to hither from yon and better? Happy the heart who stokes the fire and prepares the porridge in far Wyoming where the fir gave offspring. Live, ye wanderer, and take what bounty ye may from the first heritage. I kin thee, though oft confusing thy ideas with Anglish of olde in expression. ....Alda be my name.
Do you have Norse Ancestry Dr. Crawford? I'm wondering why you chose to study this language. Also, please check out the band Heilung on their channel of the same name if you haven't already. I love the feel of their videos, it's a visual and audio feast.
You do not understand how that is an *awesome* and manly reply? You do not know the Norse as well as you think then. They were extremely stoic and not supposed to show pain and weakness, and not let such hinder them. A Drengr does not let pain slow them down or stop them. Edit, that looks harsher than it is intended. You are doing a great job and seem like a nice guy. It just seems so logical to me; raised in Denmark to many of the same "manly" values and having read all the sagas as well as an Ma in history and being a competetive fighting reenactor since 1993.
Aethelraed's name doesn't mean, "unready." That's a modern misconception. His name means "Good Advice" and he earned the moniker, "Unraed" which means, "Ill-Advice" because his advisors always had him do the wrong thing. "Raed" is even a direct cognate with the modern German word, "Rat." edit: fixed minor errors. Also, don't take this as an internet expert trying to show owff. I'm fairly well read on English history and want to stop misinformation from spreading.
Well, he never said that. Æþelræd means "noble counsel" while it's the moniker "unræd" which is misinterpreted as "ill advice" while it as you already point out actually means "well advised". So it's "Noble counsel the well advised"... pretty much. It also seems that the æþel- part can be and is spelled with both þ and ð.
The Prominent Hat in nearly all your videos: why? It confuses me: what have old Norse people and stories to do with cowboys? As far as I know: nothing at all. But maybe I am wrong?
sanne steers it's his fashion style. Just because he is telling old Norse stories doesn't mean he has to wear bear-skin cloaks and be covered in paint.
@@Atlas-pn6jv No, bear skins are not necessarily, but a cowboy hat is putting you in quite another setting of stories, if you are in a storybook of Karl May or something. A cowboy hat is just too pointing to another time period and another country. Better should be just being neutral in clothing and accessories. At least not pointing to any particular other period of time, it is now just like wearing a harness from the middle ages, or something else from any historical movie.
@@sannesteers The way he dresses, which is very typical for where he lives, has nothing to do with what he is teaching us. There is no good reason for him to change the way he dresses just to tell these stories.