ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2935 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2935 ************************************ 2 Oct 2004 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked how a 10th century Icelandic woman named would have been identified by the local population if she moved to Russia. Here is what we have found. was a rare name. (The symbol {dh} represents the letter edh, written like a backward '6' with a crossbar on the upper limb.) We have two examples in the same family in 10th century Iceland. The earlier of these woman is identified as Flemish and her husband was Gautish [1, 2], so it seems quite probable that was a Norse adaptation of a Flemish name something like [9, 10]. The other 10th century woman was the great grand-daughter of the first, and was probably given her ancestor's name. The next example we find of the name is in Norway in 1371, long after your period [3]. In your period, was pronounced \BRU"N-gairdhr\, where \U"\ stands for the sound of the u-umlaut in the German word "to feel" and of the in the French "on". \dh\ is the sound of the in . The final <-r> is lightly voiced and rolled, but is not a separate syllable. In your period, the Norse language had broken into two dialects which scholars call Old West Scandinavian (used in Iceland, Norway, and the Atlantic islands) and Old East Scandinavian (used in Denmark and Sweden). Names often took different forms in the two dialects, and the set of names used in each region differed [4]. All our examples of are West Scandinavian; we have not found it or a cognate in East Scandinavian [5, 6]. Most of the Scandinavian settlers in Russia were East Scandinavians. Some of the sagas describe trips from Iceland to Russia [7], so while it is less likely that an Icelandic woman would have moved there, it is not implausible. There is evidence that the Scandinavian settlers in Russia brought Scandinavian women to live with them rather than intermarrying with the local population [8]. We would therefore expect a Scandinavian woman living in Russia to spend most of her time among fellow Scandinavians, specifically ones who spoke the East Scandinavian dialect. She would therefore have been known most of the time by an East Scandinavian name, not a Russian name. As we noted above, we found no example of an East Scandinavian cognate of , which is not particularly surprising if the name was a foreign import in the first place. We can guess how it would have been adapted to fit the eastern dialect, but we have to warn you that this is a very speculative guess. The element is found in later Swedish names like ; and the West Scandinavian name appears in Swedish as [11]. (The symbol {ae} stands for the letter aesc, with as an 'a' and 'e' squashed together so that they share a vertical stroke.) These examples suggest as a possible East Scandinavian form of your name; but note that the examples are much later than your period. Based on studies of the history of Old Danish and Old Swedish, we believe is a more likely form for the Viking period [12, 13]. It might have been pronounced \BRU"N-gaerdhr\, where \ae\ here represents the vowel in the word . The first two \r\ sounds are trilled as in Italian or as Spanish ; and the last is very similar to the ordinary American \r\ sound. Note that the final \r\ is lightly voiced and is _not_ a separate syllable. 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 Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Gunnvor Silfraharr, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 2 Oct 2004 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Fleck, G. (aka Geirr Bassi Haraldsson), _The Old Norse Name_, Studia Marklandica (series) (Olney, Maryland: Yggsalr Press, 1977). [2] Arno/rsson, Einar, ed. _Landna/mabo/k I/slands_ (Reykjavi/k: Helgafell, 1948), ch. 65. There was a man called Fridhleif, a Gaut on his father's side, and his mother was called Bryngerdh and was Flemish. Fridhleif took all of Sle/ttahli/dh, and Fridhleifsdal between the Fridhleifsdal river and the Staf river, and settled at Holt. His son was THjo/dhar father of Ari and Bryngerdh, mother of Tongue-Stein. [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.v. Brynger{dh}r. [4] Talan Gwynek, A Very Brief History of the Scandinavian Languages (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2002) http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/scandinavianlang.html [5] Knudsen Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle Personnavne_, Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48). [6] Sveriges Medeltida Personnamn, Vol. 1- (Uppsala: 1967-. bd. 1, h. 3: isbn: 91-7192-123-8; bd. 1, h. 4: isbn: 91-7192-223-7; bd. 1, h. 5: isbn: 91-7402-044-7; bd. 2, h. 6: isbn: 91-7402-104-4; bd. 2, h. 7: isbn: 91-7402-136-2, h. 8: isbn: 91-7402-115-x; bd. 2, h. 9: isbn: 91-88096-00-9; bd. 2, h. 10: isbn: 91-88096-01-7; Bloms Boktryckeri AB: Lund 1983 bd. 2). [7] Ellis-Davidson, Hilda Roderick, _The Viking Road to Byzantium_ (London: George Allen & Unwin. 1976). p. 230: "Icelander Halldo/r Snorrason (son of Snorri go{dh}i) travelled in Russia and Byzantium with Harald har{dh}ra/da, returning to Iceland ca. 1051. Icelander U/lfr O/spaksson (brother of Gu{dh}ru/n, the heroine of Laxdaela saga) also traveled with Haraldr and stayed with him until he died." p. 232: "Bolli could hardly have been the first Northerner to serve in the Guard, but there could have been a family tradition that he was the first to go there direct from Iceland, and most of the early Varangians had been fighting in Russia." Palsson, Hermann and Paul Edwards, eds. and trans., _Vikings in Russia: Yngvar's Saga and Eymund's Saga_ (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press. 1989). p. 3: Regarding Yngvar's Saga, "... the saga author did not attempt to trace any part of the story back directly to the Icelander Ketil, who had accompanied Yngvar on the expedition, then come back to Sweden to describe the events and finally returned to his navtive land, and, according to the saga, 'was the first to tell of these events'..." p. 12: "Bjorn's saga tells of a young Icelander who travels to Russia and stays with King Valdimar over the winter. Then a huge army led by King Valdimar's close kinsman Kaldimar (evidently an invented name, a variation of Valdimar) suddently arrives on the scene and threatens national security. The Russians are helpless and there is no telling what would have happened if young Bjorn had not averted the impending disaster by killing Kaldimar in single combat." [8] Stalsberg, Anne. "Visible Women Made Invisible - Varangian Women in Old Russia: An Example of the Influence of Women's Finds on Historical Interpretation." in Gender and the Archaeology of Death. eds. Bettina Arnold and Nancy L. Wicker. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. California. 2001. pp. 65-79. [9] We can find no evidence that existed, but it is a plausible combination of known name elements. Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Siecle_, three volumes (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972). [10] does not appear in our other sources for early West Scandinavian names. The similar is probably a borrowing of the Continental Germanic name , imported to Scandinavia via the Frankish-Burgundian cycle of stories that were the basis of the Nibelungenlied. Insley, John, _Scandinavian personal names in Norfolk : a survey based on medieval records and place-names_ (Uppsala: Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy; Stockholm : Distributor, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1994). Fellows Jensen, Gillian, _Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire_ (Copenhagen: 1968). [11] Sveriges Medeltida Personnamn h.4 s.n. Brynhild and h.1 s.n. Ar)ng{ae}rdh. [12] Adolf Noreen, "Altschwedische Grammatik" (1904) (WWW: German Lexicon Project, accessed 2 Oct 2004), Sect. 404.1 (p.303). http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/oswed_noreen_about.html Noreen says that OSw names in <-g{ae}r{th}> usually still retain the ending <-r> (<-R>) in Runic Swedish, the earliest recorded form of the language. [13] Choosing between the earlier or and the later is difficult, but we think that the later form was probably available in the Viking period.