Old Norse News

Tolkien fans will hardly need Old Norse News to make them aware of this, but J.R.R. Tolkien’s previously unpublished Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún comes out next week.

Details from the jacket blurb:

Many years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien composed his own version, now published for the first time, of the great legend of Northern antiquity, in two closely related poems to which he gave the titles The New Lay of the Völsungs and The New Lay of Gudrún.

In the Lay of the Völsungs is told the ancestry of the great hero Sigurd, the slayer of Fáfnir most celebrated of dragons, whose treasure he took for his own; of his awakening of the Valkyrie Brynhild who slept surrounded by a wall of fire, and of their betrothal; and of his coming to the court of the great princes who were named the Niflungs (or Nibelungs), with whom he entered into blood-brotherhood. In that court there sprang great love but also great hate, brought about by the power of the enchantress, mother of the Niflungs, skilled in the arts of magic, of shape-changing and potions of forgetfulness.

In scenes of dramatic intensity, of confusion of identity, thwarted passion, jealousy and bitter strife, the tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild, of Gunnar the Niflung and Gudrún his sister, mounts to its end in the murder of Sigurd at the hands of his blood-brothers, the suicide of Brynhild, and the despair of Gudrún. In the Lay of Gudrún her fate after the death of Sigurd is told, her marriage against her will to the mighty Atli, ruler of the Huns (the Attila of history), his murder of her brothers the Niflung lords, and her hideous revenge.

Deriving his version primarily from his close study of the ancient poetry of Norway and Iceland known as the Poetic Edda (and where no old poetry exists, from the later prose work the Völsunga Saga), J.R.R. Tolkien employed a verse-form of short stanzas whose lines embody in English the exacting alliterative rhythms and the concentrated energy of the poems of the Edda.

It will be fascinating to see the Great Man’s take on the legend (though I have to confess to finding his poetry only bearable in small doses!)

[Apologies for the long gap between posts -- I've been away.]

Chris Callow writes to give us the very heartening news that Old Norse language is returning to the syllabus at the University of Birmingham, after a few year’s hiatus. Chris will be teaching an introductory level course in the School of History and Cultures. He hopes to extend the teaching to more advanced levels in the future.

Chris also thought that Old Norse News readers might be interested in Birmingham’s new  MA in Medieval History, which has its first
intake in September 2009:
http://www.postgraduate.bham.ac.uk/prog2009/taught/arts/medieval-history.shtml.

It is expected that this will be the precursor to a series of other taught, graduate-level programmes in medieval studies and Late Antiquity which will become available over the next few years.

Finally, he mentions that Old Norse and Viking-Age scholars will be more than welcome at the annual Gender and Medieval Studies conference held in Birmingham on 7th-10th January 2010 (see http://www.medievalgender.co.uk/). The theme of the conference next year will be the family.

Obviously exciting times for medievalists at Birmingham, and I’m grateful to Chris for letting us know about them.

Visiting Scholar in Old Norse Studies for Spring 2010

The Department of English and The Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of New Mexico have sponsored an annual stipend for a visiting Scholar in Medieval Scandinavian Studies for some years.

The Visiting Scholar in Medieval Scandinavian Studies is open to scholars who have published in Old Norse language and literature. The position carries with it visiting scholar status at the University of New Mexico and a stipend of $10,000. The successful candidate will teach a class in Scandinavian Mythology. We are seeking candidates for this position for Spring 2010. Please reply by May 1, 2009.

Those interested may apply to:

Professor Helen Damico

UNM Presidential Teaching Fellow

Director, Medieval Graduate Studies in English
Department of English Language and Literature

http.//www.unm.edu/hdamico.unm.edu
hdamico@unm.edu

Some time ago I announced our plans to ‘publish a directory of all Old Norse texts available on the Web’. It’s fair to say that this has taken longer to accomplish than I thought it would. But anyway, this list is now available at our new site:

• Old Norse Texts Online

At present, it simply takes the form of an alphabetical list of texts, drawn from the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, with links to all the online editions and translations that I’ve found of each. At some point in the future, I hope to convert this data into a properly searchable format. It excludes poetry, pretty much all of which is available at the Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages project website.

The list will grow over time; at present I can’t pretend it’s anything like comprehensive, but I hope people will find it useful to have a one-stop central location to help them find the texts and translations they need to consult.

Do let me know what you think … all suggestions gratefully received. And, of course, I’ll be particularly pleased to hear about any online texts that are currently missing from the directory.

A couple of quick links to recent Norse-related stories from the international press:

1. The Vikings: it wasn’t all raping and pillaging
From The Independent (UK) — quite a long feature in connection with last weekend’s Cambridge conference ‘Between The Islands’ (which I hear was a great success). The Vikings: Raiders or Traders? issue is revisited.

[Update: The Cambridge publicity machine was obviously in full swing over this conference. Medieval News also notes pieces on the conference in The Telegraph -- Rampaging hordes -- or darlings of the Dark Ages? -- and The Australian -- Historical rethink portrays Vikings as model migrants.]

2. Review of Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America (2007)
From The New York Times — A review of an intriguing-sounding new independent film about the Norse presence in America: featuring dialogue in Old Norse, no less! It hasn’t been widely released yet, but if any North American readers get a chance to see it, Old Norse News would love to do a review.

Part II of our series of summer 2009 Conference Previews.

It didn’t take very long to find the Scandinavian content in the programme for the 2009 Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America, which will be in Chicago from 26-29 March. It looks like there’s just one paper:

16.15 on Friday: Marianne Kalinke, ‘The Arthurian Legend in Breta sögur: Historiography on the Cusp of Romance’

The Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies’ meeting in Madison, Wisconsin (30 April-2 May) unsurprisingly has a stronger medieval Scandinavian component. It looks like being a strong strand in the programme this year: Read more »

Alaric Hall, the benefactor to society whose ‘Magic Sheet‘ of Old Norse paradigms has been one of the most popular links on Old Norse News, wrote a while back to advertise some more teaching materials that he’s put on line for the benefit of beginners in Old Norse language. Most excitingly, you can watch videos of Alaric explaining the Magic Sheet in person! There are also some texts to read, and some lectures on the cultural background to the subject. Enjoy!