Princesses Gudrun and Sigrid Experiment with their Mother Tongues
UNDER THE HEADING DICTIONARIES – ANGLISH, NORSE, SAXON, ETC.:
We have just added:
Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Primer
Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Concise Dictionary
Hall’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
On-Going we shall be adding Icelandic and Old Norse Dictionaries and Primers.
Following that we shall be adding Runes and Rune Books.
SWEET’S ANGLO-SAXON PRIMER:
I studied Anglo-Saxon, a dialect of Old English, while attending University too many years ago. We used the 9th Edition, but the 8th Edition here is Public Domain and freely available.
FROM SWEET’S ANGLO-SAXON PRIMER (8th Edition)
“The oldest stage of English before the Norman Conquest is called ‘Old English,’ which name will be used throughout in this Book, although the name ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is still often used.
There were several dialects of Old English. This book deals only with the West-Saxon dialect in its earliest form.”
Commentary of Brian Howard Seibert:
The West Saxon dialect referred to above is the Wessex Dialect of King Alfred the Great and was used in his literary works. It is based on the Low German Saxon language from northwest Germany and is now a dead language, preserved essentially in the works of King Alfred. The Several Dialects referred to above would be Anglish Danish, a Low German language from Jutland, Denmark (Skioldung Danish) which has not been preserved because it is the language that survived and morphed from Old Anglish into Middle English and, as a living evolving language, nobody thought it necessary to preserve it. A third dialect was likely the Jutish of the Jutes from northern Jutland, which may have some presence in Middle English but is likely lost. Much of the above is still proving out, but the idea that Anglo-Saxon was a compromised language between the northern Angles and the southern Saxons is just so much, as the English are wont to say, rubbish. The languages, both being low German, were compatible, but the Angles and the Saxons were not. Historically, they fought all the time. In 1013 AD, King Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ of Anglish Denmark (aka Prince Svein ‘the Old’, aka Sviatoslav, of Kiev) conquered England and it was ruled by his son, King Canute ‘the Great’ (aka Grand Prince Valdamar, aka Vladimir, ‘the Great’ of Kiev) and his sons until 1042 AD. By this time, Anglish had become the predominant dialect and Saxon had died out. Over 80 % of the Vikings that attacked England between 793 and 1016 AD were Anglish Danish Vikings from Jutland who spoke an Anglish dialect that was very similar to their Anglish cousins in England.
Most Vikings of the Viking Period spoke Anglish, the language that morphed into Middle English, so when William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet in 1500 AD about the Danish Prince Amleth from Saxo’s Danish History, he was writing it in a language that the Danish prince may very well have spoken.
SWEET’S CONCISE ANGLO-SAXON DICTIONARY:
This concise dictionary is taken directly out of Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Primer for the convenience of a quick word search. I had forgotten it was even at the very back of the Primer.
HALL’S CONCISE ANGLO-SAXON DICTIONARY:
This concise dictionary is a much larger dictionary and is not really concise at all. It is very surprising how many words were in the West Saxon vocabulary, but it was closely related to the Low German Anglish of the Angles of Jutland Denmark. Circa 9 AD, King Skiold, originator of the ‘Old’ Skioldung Line of Danish Kings, married Princess Alfhild of Saxony and the Danish Kingdom took on several Saxon aspects, a combining of the two languages being one of them, but King Skiold ruled only the Jutland portion of Denmark, so this did not include Zealand or Skane, which was a part of Denmark at that time. This is covered in Book 0.1: The Saga of Ragnar ‘Lothbrok’ Sigurdson, in Chapter 0.1 Prologue – The Birth of Denmark, of The Varangians Series, taken from Book 1 of The Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus (Gesta Danorum). See the below Map for a clearer look at the country by country breakdown of the Germanic dialects:
Courtesy of Wikipedia, Varoon Arya and Jan Dobrowski
From the above Map, Norway, Zealand, Denmark, Skane, Gotland and Sweden were all North Germanic, while the Jute Jutland, Angle Jutland and Saxony were North Sea Germanic (Ingvaeonic). Although not shown, Southern England was the Saxon dialect of North Sea Germanic, while Northern and Middle England were the Anglish Jutland dialect of NSG and Kent and Southampton were of the Jute Jutland variant of NSG. These are the dialectic variants that Sweet is likely referring to in the Introduction of his Primer. See the Map below for further clarity:
First Phases of the Anglish, Saxon and Jutish Invasions of Romano Britain
Please Note: This website is about Vikings and Varangians and the way they lived over a thousand years ago. The content is as explicit as Vikings of that time were and scenes of violence and sexuality are depicted without reservation or apology. Reader discretion is advised.
‘The VARANGIANS’ Series (AKA ‘The Lying Sagas of Denmark’ Series):
‘The Varangians’ series (‘AKA ‘The Lying Sagas of Denmark’ series) of five (seven) books is about the Danish Varangian Princes of early Rus’ (Ukraine), based on The Nine Books of Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus and the Rus’ Primary Chronicle of Nestor. The Rus’ monk Nestor asserts that Rus’ was founded by three brothers, Rurik, Sineus and Truvor, but the Danish names in Book 5 of Saxo’s work are Erik, Sigfrodi (King Frodi) and Roller, three brothers from Denmark and Norway.
Book One of the five book Varangians Series places the Saga of King Frodi the Peaceful from Book Five of The First Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1200) into its proper chronological location in history. In 1984, when I first started the book, I had placed the main character, Erik’s (Hraerik’s) birth at circa 800 CE, but have since revised it to 810 to better fit with the timelines of the following books in the series. Saxo had originally placed the saga at the time of Christ’s birth and later experts have placed the story at about 400 CE to correspond with the arrival of the Huns on the European scene but when Attila was driven back to Asia, the Huns didn’t just disappear, they joined the Khazar Empire north of the Caspian Sea and helped the Khazars control the western end of the famous Silk Road trade route.
When King Frodi’s Danes started their ninth century ‘Southern Way’ incursions into the rivers of present day Russia, they ran into the Khazar Khaganate that was controlling Silk Road trade there and cooperation looked promising when he married King Hun’s daughter, Princess Hanund. But she cheated on him and he sent her back to Khazaria in disgrace and things got ugly, fast. Two Norwegian princes, Hraerik and Hraelauger Hraegunarson, sons of the famous Hraegunar Lothbrok, visited Frodi’s court in Liere with a dangerous plan to protect their own Nor’Way trade route to Khazaria, but that plan changed when Prince Hraerik fell in love with and married Princess Gunwar, King Frodi’s sister.
When news arrived in Liere that the Huns planned to attack Denmark, Prince Hraerik convinced King Frodi to assemble a Varangian Army of the North and lead a pre-emptive strike against the Khazar Empire. Following the capture of Kiev, the three brothers, Frodi, Hraerik and Hraelauger established the Hraes’ (Rus’) Trading Company and built an empire that exists in many forms to this very day, including Russia, Normandy, Great Britain and L’Anse Aux Meadows in America. The wealth of the Hraes’ Trading Empire they created powered the prolific Viking expansion in Medieval Europe that still fascinates us today.
Book One, “The Saga of Hraerik ‘Bragi’ Hraegunarson,” recreates Book Five of Saxo’s work to illuminate the origins of the name Rus’ and how it evolved from Hraes’ in ninth century Russia and how the name Varangians originally meant Va Rangers or Way Wanderers of the Nor’Way. The book examines the death of Princess Gunwar (Hervor) at the hands of the Hunnish Prince Hlod and how it drives Prince Hraerik ‘Bragi the Old’ Hraegunarson (Hraegunar Lothbrok’s son) to write a famous poem of praise that both saves his head and rallies the northern kingdoms to fight the infamous Battle of the Goths and the Huns on the Don Plain of Gardariki (Gnita Heath of Tmutorokan).
Book Two, “The Saga of Helgi ‘Arrow Odd’ Hraerikson,” recreates Arrow Odd’s Saga of c. 1200 to illustrate how Arrow Odd was Prince Helgi (Oleg in Slavic) Hraerikson of Kiev, by showing that their identical deaths from the bite of a snake was more than just coincidence. The book investigates the true death of Hraegunar Lothbrok by poisoned blood-snakes (kenning for swords) and how his curse of ‘calling his young porkers to avenge the old boar’ sets up a death spiral between swine (Sveinald) and snakes (Gorm ‘the Old’) that lasts for generations. It then goes on to depict the famous Battle of the Berserks on Samso, where Arrow Odd and Hjalmar the Brave slay the twelve berserk grandsons of King Frodi on the Danish Island of Samso, setting up a death struggle that takes the Great Pagan Army of the Danes from the ravaged coast of Norway to England and on to Helluland in Saint Brendan’s Newfoundland.
Book Three, “The Saga of Ivar ‘the Boneless’ Hraerikson,” reveals how Ivar ‘the Boneless’ Ragnarson was actually Prince Eyfur (Ivar in Danish, Igor in Slavic) Hraerikson of Kiev and then King Harde Knute of Denmark. By comparing a twenty year lacuna in the reign of Prince Igor in the Russian Chronicles with a coinciding twenty year appearance of a King Harde Knute I (Hard Knot or Knytling) of Denmark in European Chronicles, Prince Igor’s death by sprung trees, which reportedly tore his legs off, may have rather just left him a boneless and very angry young king. Loyal Danes claimed, “It was a ‘hard knot’ indeed that sprung those trees,” but his conquered English subjects, not being quite as polite, called him, Ivar ‘the Boneless’. And the Danish ‘Knytling’ line of kings carried on for ‘the Old’ Fridleif/Frodi line of kings.
Books Four, Five and Six, “The Saga of Svein ‘the Old’ Ivarson“, “The Saga of Valdamar ‘the Great’ Sveinson” and “The Saga of Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ Ivarson” demonstrate how Prince Sviatoslav ‘the Brave’ of Kiev was really Prince Svein Ivarson of Kiev, who later moved to Norway and fought to become King Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ of Denmark and England. But before being forced out of Russia, the Swine Prince sated his battle lust by crushing the Khazars and attacking the great great grandfather of Vlad the Impaler in a bloody campaign into the Heart of Darkness of Wallachia that seemed to herald the coming of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with the 666 Salute of the Army of the Impalers. The campaign was so mortifying that the fifteen thousand pounds of gold that the Emperor of Constantinople paid him to attack the Army of the Impalers seemed not nearly enough, so Prince Svein attacked the Eastern Roman Empire itself. He came so close to defeating the greatest empire in the world, that later Danish Christian Kings would call his saga, and the sagas of his kin, “The Lying Sagas of Denmark” and would set out to destroy them, claiming that, “true Christians will never read this saga”.
Book Seven, “The Saga of Canute ‘the Great’ Sweynson”, establishes how Grand Prince Vladimir ‘the Great’ of Kiev was also known as Prince Valdamar Sveinson of Gardar, who supported his father, Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’, in attacks upon England and later became King Canute ‘the Great’ of England and also King Knute ‘the Great’ of Denmark and Norway. Unlike his father, he came to the aid of a Roman Emperor, leading six thousand picked Varangian cataphracts against Anatolian rebels, and was rewarded with the hand of Princess Anna Porphyrogennetos, a true Roman Princess born of the purple who could trace her bloodline back to Julius and Augustus Caesar. She was called Czarina, and after her, all Rus’ Grand Princes were called Czars and their offspring were sought matrimonially by European royalty.
Conclusion:
By recreating the lives of four generations of Russian Princes and exhibiting how each generation, in succession, later ascended to their inherited thrones in Denmark, the author proves the parallels of the dual rules of Russian Princes and Danish Kings to be cumulatively more than just coincidence. And the author proves that the Danish Kings Harde Knute I, Gorm ‘the Old’ and Harald ‘Bluetooth’ Gormson/Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ were not Stranger Kings, but were Danes of the Old Jelling Skioldung Fridlief/Frodi line of kings who only began their princely careers in Rus’ and returned to their kingly duties in Denmark with a lot of Byzantine Roman ideas and heavy cavalry and cataphracts.
SeiberTeck: 'The Varangians Series' 