ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2770 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2770 ************************************ 7 Feb 2004 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a Viking in Cork in medieval Ireland. You also asked us to evaluate your heraldic design, "Per saltire sable and azure, four hammers crosswise within a bordure argent". Here is what we have found. Before we start, we'd like to apologize for the time it has taken to finish this report. You wrote that you want a name suitable for a Viking living in Ireland in the late 11th century, shortly before Brian Boru's rout of the Vikings at Clontarf. That chronology isn't quite right: The Battle of Clontarf was in 1014, in the early 11th century. The battle had Irish and Vikings on both sides, and it did not result in the complete explusion of the Vikings: the Norsemen "remained important to the country's trade and the development of its towns, had kings here and princes there, survived the military disasters of 1052, and were still royally led at the coming of the English in the 1160s and '70s" [1]. Ireland in this period was home to two distinct cultures, Norse and Irish, that had considerable contact. We find Norse names mentioned in Irish texts and Irish names in Norse runic inscriptions. Of course, when a name from one language was recorded in the other, it was written according to the spelling conventions and grammar of the second language. Many other documents were written in Latin; so a man's name could appear in different forms depending on the language being used. We will discuss all three possibilities. <{TH}orsteinn> is the standard scholarly spelling of the name; it is based on the spellings found in Old Icelandic manuscripts of the 12th and 13th centuries [2, 3]. (The symbol {TH} here standards for the letter thorn, written like a capital P with the loop shifted downward to the middle of the vertical stroke. It can reasonably be anglicized .) Old Icelandic is only one of the Old Norse dialects, however, and even in Old Icelandic the pronunciation of the name had probably changed a bit since your period, so <{TH}orsteinn> isn't actually an appropriate version for your period. Moreover, in your period Old Norse was not written in Roman letters, but rather in runes. We can't include runes in this letter, so we've used a modern scholarly encoding in Roman letters. Each letter in this encoding (and the symbol {th}) stands for one rune. You can find a table showing the runes and their letter representations on the web: http://www.arild-hauge.com/enruner.htm The futhark labeled Norwegian-Danish Runes from the 800's is a good choice. In your period there were two main dialects of Old Norse, both of which were probably spoken in Ireland. In Old East Scandinavian, which was spoken in Denmark and much of Sweden and eastern Norway, the runic form of your name was <{th}urstin>, pronounced approximately \THOR-stehn\ [6]. In modern works this is usually written in Roman letters. In Old West Scandinavian, spoken in western Norway, Iceland, Orkney, and the Hebrides, the runic form of the name was <{th}urstain>, pronounced roughly \THOR-staeyn\, where we've used \aey\ to represent a diphthong similar to the vowel sound in but starting with the vowel in rather than the one in . In modern works this is usually written <{TH}orst{ae}inn> in (mostly) Latin letters [4, 5]. The symbol {ae} here represents an 'a' and an 'e' squashed together so that they share a common vertical stroke. <{TH}orsteinn> does appear in Roman letters in your period in Old Irish texts, where it takes the forms and . It also appears occasionally in Latin documents as [7, 8]. The elements of this name are closely related to the name of the god Thor and the word for "stone", and that relationship must have been apparent to 10th and 11th century Norse-speakers in much the same way that we recognize origins of the modern names and . But it is a mistake to think that the name meant "Thor's stone": It was simply a name, much as is simply a name in our culture. Unfortunately, we do not think or its Norse translation is a plausible Norse byname. We do not find it in our extensive sources on Scandinavian names, nor do we find any comparable compound of "wing". Words for both "raven" and "wing" were used on their own as bynames, though. The word "raven" produced a prefixed byname, e.g. "Raven Floki", recorded around your period in Iceland. (The slash in the name represents an acute accent mark over the preceding letter.) It could also be placed after your name, <{TH}orsten hrafn>. We didn't find an example of that usage until the 15th century, but it is analogous to the byname "crow" recorded in Iceland at about the same time [9, 10]. The West Scandinavian name <{TH}orsten hrafn> would have been written in runes <{th}urstin hrafn>. was pronounced as one syllable, \HRAHVN\. The Eastern form of the same word was , pronounced \RAHVN\ and written in runes as [13]. The Norse word for "wing" was recorded as a byname in 12th century Orkney: and [9]. This is the western dialect form of the word, pronounced as a single syllable, \VENG(r)\, where (r) represents a lightly voiced, rolled \r\. In the eastern dialect we think taht it was most likely , pronounced \VING(r)\. In summary, we can offer several combinations that mean "Thorstein Raven" or "Thorstein Wing", e.g. <{TH}orst{ae}inn hrafn>, , <{TH}orsten vingr>. Any of these is a fine choice for a Scandinavian in late 10th or 11th century Ireland. We have seen no evidence of names using two bynames, so we recommend against something like <{TH}orsten rafn vingr>. Depending on whether you want your persona to be a Dane or a Norwegian, you can choose the appropriate spelling and pronunciation of your name. As we explained earlier, the Vikings did not use anything equivalent to heraldry. The first evidence we know of heraldry used by Scandinavians is the arms of the king of Norway, which first appear shortly after 1200 [11]. We have examples of heraldic arms used by Norwegian noblemen in the late 13th century, and the custom seems to have been widely adopted in the 14th century [12]. It is therefore not possible to design arms appropriate for an 11th century Scandinavian; but we can certainly evaluate your design in the context of the style of heraldry of 14th century Norway. Your description of your design was ambiguous in one point: "Crosswise" could mean that the hammers are arranged to form a cross, with their handles to center; or it could mean that they are placed at the points of a cross but each one is vertical. Hammers were rather common in early Scandinavian heraldry, but we don't find examples of charges arranged with radial symmetry -- and indeed, that was quite rare in heraldry anywhere in Europe. Divided fields like "per saltire" are uncommon in our Norwegian data. When used, they tended to be used alone, without any charge on the field. Therefore, if you want to use hammers, we recommend a plain field [12]. Here are some designs using hammers that are consistent with the style of heraldry of 14th century Norway [12]. We think you could register any of these with the SCA College of Arms. Sable, three hammers argent. (two hammers side-by-side in the upper half of the field, with the third centered below them) Azure, a hammer bendwise argent. (One hammer on the diagonal, its head to upper-left) Azure, a hammer and tongs bendwise in bend sinister argent. (A hammer on the diagonal, and below it and parallel to it, a pair of tongs) Sable, an arm issuant from sinister maintaining a hammer palewise argent. (An arm reaching out from the righthand edge, holding a vertical hammer in the lefthand portion of the field) We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Richenda de Jardin, Talan Gwynek, Walraven van Nijmegen, Elsbeth Anne Roth, Julie Stampnitzky, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Juliana de Luna, and Mari neyn Brian. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur & Antonio de Escobar 7 Feb 2004 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Gwyn Jones, _A History of the Vikings_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), p.397. [2] 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. {TH}orsteinn. [3] Kruken, Kristoffer, ed. _Norsk personnamnleksikon_, 2nd ed. (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1995), s.n. Torstein. [4] Gordon, E.V., _An Introduction to Old Norse_ (Oxford: At the University Press, 1971), p.321. [5] Gutenbrunner, Siegfried, _Historische Laut- und Formenlehre des Altislaendischen_ (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitaetsverlag, 1951), p.15. [6] The vowel in the second syllable is the beginning of the diphthong in , i.e. that vowel without the \ee\ at the end. It is also the sound of the first vowel in German "soul" and a slightly prolonged version of the first vowel in French "summer". [7] De Vries, Jan, _Altnordisches Etymologisches Wo"rterbuch_, 2nd edn. (Boston: Brill, 2000), s.v. {TH}o/r-. [8] Knudsen Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle Personnavne_, Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48), s.n. Thorsten. [9] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla:ndska Personbinamn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala: 1920-21), s.nn. Hrafn, Hrafna-Flo/ki, V{ae}ngr. [10] Fleck, G. (aka Geirr Bassi Haraldsson), _The Old Norse Name_, Studia Marklandica (series) (Olney, Maryland: Yggsalr Press, 1977), p.24. [11] Wagner, Anthony Richard, ed. Aspilogia II: Rolls of Arms: Henry III (London: The Society of Antiquaries, 1967), p.35. The lion in the modern arms is first known on seals of Haakon IV (1217-63) and Magnus VI (1263-80), but it lacks the axe and the crown. These items were added by Magnus's son Erik Magnusson (1280-99) sometime before 1283, possibly at his accession in 1280. [12] Huitfeldt-Kass, Henrik Jo|rgen, _Norske Sigiller fra Middelalderen_, 8 vols. (Kristiania/Oslo: 1899-1950). A collection of heraldic seals from medieval Norway. The earliest is dated 1288. Two axes in saltire appear in figures 90 and 383; and a tongs and hammer in saltire in f.443. F.122 has two axes palewise in fess addorsed. Three axes appear in f.270, a single axe in f.297. A hammer and tongs often appear together, crossed or parallel, e.g. f.199. F.231 has an arms issuant from sinister maintaining an axe. [13] Knudsen Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle Personnavne_, Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48), s.n. Rafn. It shows runic in the accusative case; the nominative would be identical. This shows as a given name, but as far as know, the development of the noun was the same.