| Paper 1031-a | Aldrnari in Völuspá and Its Old English Correspondents
(Language: English)
Þórhallur Eyþórsson, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Literature & Linguistics, University of Iceland, Reykjavík
Index terms: Language and Literature - Comparative, Language and Literature - Old English, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Religious Life |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
The word aldrnari occurs once in Old Icelandic, in Völuspá 54. On the traditional account the word means 'fire'. It has long been noticed, however, that aldrnari is similar to the Old English form ealdorner, aldorner, found, for example, in the Exeter Book (10th century), which means 'life-salvation, life’s safety, refuge, asylum'. In this paper these rare words in Old Icelandic and Old English are compared in the light of the available linguistic and literary evidence, as well as recent proposals on a religious interpretation of Völuspá (Pétursson 2013).
Paper -b:
Translated sagas show sometimes considerable alterations and augmentations compared to their assumed source texts. Further, the amount of variance between versions might surprise. The paper will deal with a certain kind of augmentations: biographical additions. I will focus on the classical hero Hercules and ask how this narrative is told in the different texts of Trójumanna saga. I would like to discuss the possible reasons for these additions and ask if we can derive from the comparison with related texts something about the specifics of the cultural contacts and the literary transfer.
Paper -b:
The aim of this paper is to show how speech act theory (Austin 1962, Searle 1969) can be used to illuminate passages which strike the modern reader as strange or obscure. The example focused on in this paper is a short passage from Morkinskinna (2000:158), an Old Icelandic kings' saga, which tells of an exchange of words between a king and his subject. By analyzing this passage in terms speech act theory, and keeping in mind some underlying social rules in medieval society, the motivation behind the exchange of words between these two individuals can be fleshed out.
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