ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1087
http://www.s-gabriel.org/1087
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From: "S Friedemann" 
6 Sep 1998

Greetings,

Here's the information we found on <House of AEgir>, which you wanted to use
as a name for a Viking household with a lot of brewers, and about households
in general.

We use a number of conventions to depict Norse letters that can't be typed
in ASCII text.  <o,> represents an <o> with a reversed-comma-like hook
underneath it.  <dh> represents the letter "edh," which looks something like
a "d" with a crossed upper bar.  It is pronounced like <th> in <then>.  A
slash following a letter represents an accent over that letter.

You said that you were more interested in getting your name and badge passed
than in historical accuracy.  The Academy of S. Gabriel is concerned only
with historical accuracy, and so in a way we're not the best people to
advise you.  However, we think that you may find the historical information
about household and household names interesting and helpful, and so we're
including it.

SCA households can re-create almost any kind of medieval group, from a craft
guild to the house of a medieval nobleman.  The historical accuracy of a
household name depends largely on the kind of group that the household is
trying to re-create.

>From the description of your house, it sounds like you're not really
thinking about re-creating a medieval group.  However, the description of
your house made us think that you might want to think of yourselves as a
Norse settlement.  If you think of your house this way, Thorvald would be
the head man of the village and the other members of the household would be
inhabitants of the village.  Although we are not experts on Norse village
government, there were certainly habitations which were often led by one
person, so this would be a reasonable analogy to your household.  If you
wanted to go a step farther, you could even create a sort of "persona story"
for your household in which Thorvald leads a group of Vikings to the shores
of Trimaris and founds a settlement there.

Starting from that point, we looked at the names of Norse settlements to see
if <AEgir> would be a reasonable name.  We couldn't find examples of god's
names, on their own, used as place names.  However, we found the village
name <AEgissidha>.  We also found the following names for geographical
features that a village could have been named from, but it's of course a lot
better to choose the name that actually is known to have been a Viking age
village name. [1]

* AEgisfio,rdhr       "AEgir's fjord"
* AEgissida           "AEgir's coast"
* AEgisdyrr           "AEgir's dyrr" (literally "door," referring to a
                      narrow sea passage with islands on either side.)
* AEgissnes           "AEgir's headland"

These examples show that it would be reasonable to combine the element
<AEgis-> (which means, "AEgir's") with Norse words for geographical features
that are near the sea.  <AEgissness> in particular was specifically the name
of a town, not just the name of a geographical feature.  It would be
reasonable to have a household called, for example, <AEgissnes>, meaning
"AEgir's headland." [2]

Because you're more interested in having arms that can be registered than in
having arms which follow medieval style, we haven't commented on your
design.  However, at the bottom of this letter there is an email address
of a herald who can help you with questions of SCA registration.

We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you.
Walraven van Nijmegen, Talan Gwynek, Charles O'Connor, Lindorm Eriksson,
Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Rouland  Carre, Arval Benicoeur, and
Giles Leabrook contributed research and/or commentary on this letter.

In service,
Alan Fairfax & Aryanhwy Prytydes merch Catmael
Academy of S. Gabriel

[1] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla:ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n
Medeltiden_ (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn:
1931). s.n. {AE}gir.

[2] Rygh, Oluf, _Norske gaardnavne; oplysninger samlede til brug ved
matrikelens revision, efter offentlig foranstaltning udgivne med tilfoiede
forklaringer af O. Rygh ..._ (Kristiania) W. C. Fabritius & sonners
bogtrikkeri, 1897-1924).