{"id":1854,"date":"2012-11-14T13:42:10","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T13:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/?p=1854"},"modified":"2012-11-14T13:42:10","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T13:42:10","slug":"a-long-time-ago-on-an-island-far-far-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/2012\/11\/14\/a-long-time-ago-on-an-island-far-far-away\/","title":{"rendered":"A long time ago on an island far far away…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>J\u00f3\u00f0i h\u00e9t ma\u00f0r, sonr Gorm\u00f3ar. J\u00f3\u00f0i var ma\u00f0r l\u00edtill, en sv\u00e1 sterkr, at eigi v\u00e1ru hans jafningjar. En er hann var \u00e1 unga aldri, l\u00e1 hann \u00ed v\u00edkingu ok herja\u00f0i<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“The man’s name was Yoda, he was Gormo’s son. Yoda was a small man but so strong that no one was his match. When he was of young age he went a-viking and raided.”<\/p>\n

Tatt\u00fa\u00edn\u00e1rd\u00e6la saga<\/em>\u00a0(= the saga of the Tatt\u00fain river valley people) is Star Wars translated into Old Norse<\/a>, as if the story were told in an Icelandic viking era saga.* As Icelandic is still very similar to Old Norse I thought this one would definitely be of interest to you, dear readers! An English translation is included as well so it’s a really fun way of comparing the two languages and to see how Old Norse works.<\/p>\n

The translator is Jackson Crawford and the saga itself both had me rolling in laughter while it also held me in awe over how skillfully it’s done; it even includes samples of the type of poetic metre that is typical for Icelandic poetry to this very day. The rhyming is not done at the ends of the lines but rather in the sounds that begin the words: the idea is that the first letter of the first stressed word of each line has to repeat twice on that line and once in the line next to it. \u00a0Here’s an example of how it works.<\/p>\n

\u00deat m<\/strong>\u00e6lti m\u00edn m<\/strong>\u00f3\u00f0ir,
\nat m<\/strong>\u00e9r skyldi kaupa
\nf<\/strong>ley ok f<\/strong>agrar \u00e1rar,
\nf<\/strong>ara \u00e1 brott me\u00f0 je\u00f0um,
\ns<\/strong>tanda upp \u00ed s<\/strong>tafni,
\ns<\/strong>t\u00fdra d\u00fdrum krossv\u00e6ngi,
\nh<\/strong>alda sv\u00e1 til h<\/strong>afnar,
\nh<\/strong>\u00f6ggva mann ok annan.<\/p>\n

(My mother said that
\nThey should buy me
\nA warship and fair oars,
\nThat I should go abroad
\nWith the men from the Je\u00f0ifjords,
\nStand up in the stern,
\nSteer the magnificent X-Wing,
\nHold a course to the harbor,
\nCut down one man after another)<\/p>\n

There are a couple of exceptions to this rule in the old texts. The oldest ones only have the same letter repeat once per line because the lines used to be a lot shorter in texts such as the V\u00f6lusp\u00e1<\/em>, Prophecy of the seeress (v\u00f6lva = seeress, sp\u00e1 = prophecy). Later on one of Iceland’s national heroes, Egill Skallagr\u00edmsson, was such an amazing poet that he began as the first Nordic poet to add the rhyming to the ends of the lines while also using the traditional metre. His most famous poem H\u00f6fu\u00f0lausn<\/em> (= Head’s ransom – he literally ransomed his own life in exchange of this poem) begins thus:<\/p>\n

Vestr f\u00f3rk of ver,
\nen ek Vi\u00f0ris ber
\nmunstrandar mar,
\nsv\u00e1-s mitt of far;*\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jedi Fjords? Alas, this is just the snowy peaks of the mountains that you see from in from in front of the university. Coming from a country that has no real mountains I never get tired of watching them. Somehow they always look a little bit unreal to me, like a giant screen saver.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Interestingly another one of the many poems Egill wrote as a young man goes:<\/p>\n

\u00deat m\u00e6lti m\u00edn m\u00f3\u00f0ir,
\nat m\u00e9r skyldi kaupa
\nfley ok fagrar \u00e1rar,
\nfara \u00e1 brott me\u00f0 v\u00edkingum,
\nstanda upp \u00ed stafni,
\nst\u00fdra d\u00fdrum knerri,
\nhalda sv\u00e1 til hafnar
\nh\u00f6ggva mann ok annan.<\/p>\n

Even though it has no mention of jedis or X-Wings I daresay I see where the influence is drawn from for the first poem in Tatt\u00fa\u00edn\u00e1rd\u00e6la saga.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*That Line goes “Ok em ek fa\u00f0ir \u00feinn<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

**Translation can be found on the Icelandic Saga Database<\/a>. Note how it uses the same metre in the English translation as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

J\u00f3\u00f0i h\u00e9t ma\u00f0r, sonr Gorm\u00f3ar. J\u00f3\u00f0i var ma\u00f0r l\u00edtill, en sv\u00e1 sterkr, at eigi v\u00e1ru hans jafningjar. En er hann var \u00e1 unga aldri, l\u00e1 hann \u00ed v\u00edkingu ok herja\u00f0i. “The man’s name was Yoda, he was Gormo’s son. Yoda was a small man but so strong that no one was his match. When he…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":1856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[91060],"tags":[178,91390,2401,8035,9933,91400],"class_list":["post-1854","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-icelandic-history","tag-history","tag-icelandic-versus-other-languages","tag-poetry","tag-review","tag-sagas","tag-viking-era"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1857,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854\/revisions\/1857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}