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Old Norse Nicknames Old Norse Nicknames A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY PAUL R. PETERSON Paul R. Peterson IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Advisers: Anatoly Liberman, Kaaren Grimstad [April 2015] © Paul Peterson 2015 i Acknowledgements This dissertation owes a great debt to several entities and individuals without whom it could never have been written. First and foremost is my PhD advisor at the University of Minnesota, Anatoly Liberman, who originally suggested that I research the topic of Old Norse nicknames and whose steadfast support from start to finish has been the greatest boon to my research and scholarly development. Similar thanks are due to my co-advisor, Kaaren Grimstad, whose courses on the sagas and Old Norse led me into this direction in the first place, and whose thoughtful criticism of the parts of this dissertation pertaining to the literature has proven indispensible. It is with special thanks to the financial support of the Leifur Eiríksson Scholarship Foundation that I was able to spend a year studying at the University of Iceland in 2011-12, where I began research on nicknames and laid the groundwork of this dissertation. Immense gratitude is likewise due to the institutional support of Árnastofnun and the MIS program coordinators Torfi Tulinius and Haraldur Bernharðsson, whose program provided a thorough background in all aspects of Old Norse scholarship. A special mention is due personally to Haraldur Bernharðsson, the advisor to my MA thesis and an outstanding instructor of Old Icelandic. In terms of scholarship, great thanks are owed to Kendra Willson, whose dissertation (2007) on Modern Icelandic nicknames and personal correspondences provided a great background to this field of study. Last but not least, all of those who have in some capacity served as a mentor, teacher, colleague, or friend, this dissertation would have been impossible to write without you. ii Abstract Nicknames, which occur in all cultures and time periods, play an important role in highlighting identity and provide a window into popular culture. The function of nicknames in the Middle Ages is peculiar, however, when men (as in medieval Iceland) would kill for a carelessly dropped word if it was considered to be detrimental to their honor, yet often tolerated the most demeaning nicknames. The quantity of nicknames in Old Norse literature is incomparably rich, and recurring nicknames provide a tool for understanding saga transmission, cultural history, slang, and etymology. The pool of first names was limited in Old Norse society; thus, many people were identified by not only their first names but also their nicknames. Narrative explanations of nicknames in the literature are numerous, and, although most come in the form of a brief anecdote, several examples expand on a character‟s biography and play a role in the shaping the plot. Such explanations of nickname origins are often also found in other sagas and medieval Scandinavian literature. Several categories of nicknames are found in Old Norse literature, such as those describing physical features, mental characteristics, and one‟s deeds or habits (good or bad). An alphabetic list of the nicknames from the compendium of settlers in Iceland called Landnámabók (The Book of Settlements) provides examples of the many types of nicknames and describes them in light of their linguistic origin. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... i Abstract ............................................................................................................................ ii List of Tables ................................................................................................................... iv List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... v Chapter 1 ‒ Introduction, Prior Scholarship, and the Old Norse Literary Corpus I. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 II. Prior Scholarship ........................................................................................................... 7 III. The Corpus of Old Norse Literature – Origin of the Sagas ....................................... 15 Chapter 2 ‒ Terminology, Origins, and Some Features of Nicknames Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 29 I. Terminology ................................................................................................................. 29 II. Terminological Patterns in Nickname Narratives ....................................................... 39 III. Ancient and Medieval Thoughts on Nicknames ........................................................ 44 IV. Nicknames Turned First Names ................................................................................ 51 V. Slang – Nicknames Referring to Private Parts ............................................................ 65 Chapter 3 ‒ Nicknames in the Literature Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 71 I. Nicknames of Kings ..................................................................................................... 75 II. Nickname Explanations in Landnámabók ................................................................... 88 III. Miscellaneous Nickname Explanations ..................................................................... 98 IV. Explanations of Women‟s Nicknames ..................................................................... 105 V. Insulting and Ironic Nicknames in the Literature ..................................................... 112 Chapter 4 ‒ Nicknames in Landnámabók Introduction .................................................................................................................... 123 I. The Nicknames in Landnámabók ............................................................................... 124 List of Nicknames in Landnámabók .................................................................. 127 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 250 Bibliography Primary Sources ............................................................................................................. 254 Secondary Sources ......................................................................................................... 258 Appendix ‒ Register of Nicknames ............................................................................ 266 iv List of Tables Table 1.1 Systematic Classes of Nicknames and Bynames Table 1.2 Types of Bynames Table 1.3 Motivational Processes behind Giving Bynames v List of Abbreviations adj. adjective CV Cleasby/Vigfusson (1874) Dan. Danish DV de Vries (1962) Engl. English f. feminine Far. Faroese FJ Finnur Jónsson (1907) Ger. German Gmc. Germanic Go. Gothic HPE Hermann Pálsson and Edwards (1972) Icel. Modern Icelandic IE Indo-European ÍO Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989) Lat. Latin Lind Lind (1920-21) Lith. Lithuanian m. masculine ME Middle English MLG Middle Low German n. neuter NNorw. New Norwegian (nynorsk) Norw. Norwegian (bokmål) OE Old English OHG Old High German OI Old Icelandic OIr Old Irish ON Old Norse OS Old Saxon PN Proto-Norse Swed. Swedish 1 Chapter 1 Ŕ Introduction, Prior Scholarship, and the Old Norse Literary Corpus Kärt barn har många namn. (A dear child has many names.) - Scandinavian proverb I. Introduction One of the richest sources of linguistic and cultural data past and present lies in the field of onomastics, the study of names. This field owes its roots to traditional philology, which sought to explain the connections of language families by historical comparison of texts and attested linguistic data. The investigation is far from complete, and philology has branched out into numerous subfields, several of which could be considered fields of their own (such as historical linguistics and material philology). Philology remains particularly strong in its ability to interpret the linguistic data of languages both ancient and modern, as well as to provide a better understanding of literature from which the linguistic data are drawn. By philology, neither material philology nor new philology is meant, rather the traditional discipline which seeks to use all available evidence to understand literature of a given period. Senses of the word philology vary from country to country and university to university, but the American definition tends to follow more closely that of the Germans and Dutch (and not necessarily that of the Nordic countries, where it is usually connected to manuscript studies and material philology). It would be wrong to claim that onomastics, a sub-field primarily of linguistics and philology, has not seen its share of attention since its inception in the 19th century, but much of the work remains undone. After all, names play an integral part in language as a means to identify persons and places and how they are connected to and differentiated from one another. 2 Similarly, names can also be used as evidence of linguistic forms not attested otherwise, all the while enriching and preserving a language‟s stock of words. Nicknames,
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