ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2339 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2339 ************************************ 21 May 2001 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether "Hrut Lamefoot" is an appropriate name for an 8th or 9th century Norseman. This letter is a brief answer to your question. You'll notice we've used some specialized notation in writing your name. A slash represents an acute accent mark on the preceding letter. The symbol {ae} stands for the letter aesc, written as an a-e ligature, i.e. an 'a' and an 'e' squashed together to form a single letter. Another symbol we'll use is {TH} for the letter thorn, which is written like a lower-case 'p' and 'b' merged so that they create one loop on a long vertical stroke. You've chosen an excellent name, though it is more likely to have been used in the 10th century than the 9th. It is best supported for Iceland or Norway. Both the given name and the descriptive byname are recorded in early medieval Icelandic documents [1, 2]. lived in the 10th century, and other bearers of your given name are recorded in 11th and 13th century Iceland and 11th century Norway [3]. <{TH}o/ro/lfr b{ae}gifo/tr Biarnar son> lived in Iceland or Norway in the 10th c [4]. Since all this evidence is later than your period, we recommend you focus on the latest part of your period. Your name would have been pronounced \HROOTr BEH-gee-foe-tr\. The \R\ in your given name should be trilled, as in modern Spanish or Italian. The \OO\ should be pronounced as in . The vowel \EH\ should be pronounced somewhere between the vowels in and , but with longer duration. The final \r\ in each word should be very lightly pronounced as in American English. In your period, the Norse language was written with the runic alphabet (the futhark). In runes, your name might have been written . Since we can't print runes in this letter, we've used a conventional modern system for representing them with letters in the standard western alphabet. You can find five versions of the futhark, with the conventional labels we've used, on the web: http://www.algonet.se/~tanprod/zerunes1.htm Either version of the younger futhark (with sixteen runes each) would be appropriate for your period. We hope this brief letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Talan Gwynek, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Adelaide de Beaumont, Hartmann Rogge, and Juliana de Luna. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 21 May 2001 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Aryanhwy merch Catmael, "Viking Bynames Names found in the Landna/mabo/k" (WWW: privately published, 1999). http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/vikbynames.html [2] Aryanhwy merch Catmael, "Viking Names found in the Landna/mabo/k" (WWW: privately published, 1998). http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/landnamabok.html [3] 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. Hru/tr. [4] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla:ndska Personbinamn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala: 1920-21), s.n. B{ae}gifo/tr.