Re: Trees

Hello all,

As well as the example Patricia gave, Hazel posts are used in Egils
saga to mark out the boundaries of the area where the judges sit at
the Gulaþing assembly. They are used to mark out the boundaries of
the site where a "pitched" battle is to be fought in Egils saga and
Hervarar saga. And they mark the area in which a duel is fought in
Korma'ks saga. To "hazel (ON hasla) a field for someone" means to
challenge them to battle.

Tacitus, writing about the continental Germanic tribes in the 1st
century AD, describes the practice of divination with pieces of wood
from a "nut-bearing tree" (Mattingley translation) marked with
letters. Norse sources mention such "lot twigs", but I don't know
if any particular tree is specified.

At the end of one of the two extant versions of Ragnars saga, the
followers of Ogmund the Dane meet a giant moss-covered "wooden man"
(tre'maðr) on the Danish island of Samsø, who chants some verses at
them, lamenting the fact that people no longer make human sacrifices
to him. Certain groves were held sacred, both real (as can be seen
by placenames) and mythical (Glasir, Glasislundr). In the late 11th
century Adam of Bremen described a religious ceremony at Uppsala
involving large scale sacrifice with bodies hung on trees of a
sacred grove.

Völuspa' and Gylfaginning mention a wood in the east called
Ja'rnviðr "Iron Wood", but I don't know if the name is supposed to
indicate a particular type of tree, real or imaginary.

Llama Nom





--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Patricia"
<originalpatricia@...> wrote:

> Saell Michael -
> what a splendid reply, I shall not be going down to the

Cemetery, I shall be taking your words for it - so to say.

> A Hazel Branch was the usual post to use when constructing a

Niðstang, this would be the Insulting "message" unfortunately you
had to kill a horse and chop off the poor thing's head, in Egil
Skallagrimsson's Saga Egil did this and caused the horse's head to
be turned to face where King Eirik and his Srewish wife Gunnhild
were living http://nidstang.ragnarokr.com/ this is the link in case
you have a spare horse and hate someone enough, I fear the horse
would doubtless be worth the more, if ridden.

> Yggdrasil - the World Tree was a Giant ash of course, it's name

means "The Terrible One's horse" and no doubt the tree on which
Iduna's Apples grew would have been a guarded Treasure.

> So, from off the top of my head that's all I can call to mind at

present, I shall give it some thought, thank you for your input, it
was of value.

> Kveðja
> Patricia
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Michael Murphy
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 10:55 AM
> Subject: Re: [norse_course] Re: English to Norse (sword names)
>
>
> Hi, Patricia,
>
> For what it's worth, the explanation why cemeteries were

chosen as places to grow yew-trees is as follows. The wood of the
yew is particularly suitable for making bows (for archers) being
amazingly pliant and tough (try bending a yew sapling -- if you
don't mind nipping into the nearest cemetery -- and you'll see what
I mean). Unfortunately, once archers discovered this, every yew-tree
was fair game (so to speak) and the yew-tree population in the
British Isles soon began to plummet. Someone, probably a landowner
or, perhaps, a church official, hit on the bright idea of growing
them behind cemetery walls. No one would dare desecrate sacred
ground; besides, there was also the deep-seated fear of venturing
too close to the abode of the dead. From what I remember when I
first read this explanation -- somewhere -- the practice

> dates right back to the Middle Ages.
>
> Trees, of course, were also of sacred significance to the

Celts and their priests, the Druids. The oak, the hazel, the holly,
the ash, etc. were revered (the word 'druid' comes from the
Gaelic/Celtic word 'dar' -- an oak-tree + the suffix '-uid', roughly
meaning 'the people of').

>
> I haven't come across any specific reference to the place of

trees in Norse mythology, apart from the obvious 'ygdrasil.' Do you
have any information yourself ?

>
> Slan agus beannacht,
>
> Mike
> Patricia <originalpatricia@...> wrote:
> Xeon Saell,
> Yews are trees usually found in Cemeteries here in

England, but I know not why, and their branches were once used to
make Bows for Arrows, the rune Yr signifies a yew.

> Dales were and still are Valles between either medium tall

hills and are visualised as representing a countrified -
agricultural oops do I mean pastoral life

> Patricia
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: xeon_ies
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 1:05 PM
> Subject: [norse_course] Re: English to Norse (sword

names)

>
>
>
> Thanks a lot for your help, Llama! I must think of some

way to

> "beautify" these names as they seem kind of awkward to

the average

> reader, though.
>
> By the way, Ull's hall is called Ydalir and it

translates to "Yew

> Dales". What are Yews and Dales? Is it some kind of

magical morning

> dew or water droplet etc.?
>
> Thanks!
> Xeon.
>
>
> >
> > Hi Xeon,
> >
> > "Heiti" (poetic names) for bows:
> >
> > Almr, dalr, bogi, (elm, dale, bow)
> > ýr ok tvíviðr, (yew and two-wood)
> > sveigr, glær ok þrymr, (bent, sea?, stretch?)
> > sómr, skálgelmir. (honour/fitness, bowl-?)
> >
> > "Stinger" might be 'biti' or 'bítr', but these seem to

be prefered

> > for sword names. I don't know if there's a different

word

> > for "arch" that doen't mean "bow" as well, but 'bogi'

seems to cover

> > both. 'Dalr' must be from the curved shape of a

valley, and perhaps

> > by extension other curved things. I've read one

theory about the

> > name Heimdallr that relates it to this, in the sense

of "horn"--and

> > in Hervarar saga, the Huns are said to have horn-

bows. So maybe

> > that's the connection. Sveigr is related to the verb

sveigja "bend

> > [a bow]". Skál is a bowl--could that be a reference

to the bow's

> > curved shape too?
> >
> > 1) bogi/dalr/sveigr inn mikli (inn stóri).
> > 2) undrbiti
> > 3) biti inn efsti
> >
> > I don't know what -gelmir is. It occurs in a lot of

mythological

> > names. 'Gellr' means "shrieks, twangs" (gjalla "to

shriek/twang")

> > and is the word used for the noise of a bowstring, so

maybe you

> > could include that as one element: Undrgjalli, or

something like

> > that. Careful though: as we found out recently the

Icelandic Hobbit

> > translates Gollum as Gollnir!
> >
> > Not sure what 'sea' has to do with bows. Could there

be a

> > connection with similar words for "glistening,

splendour"

> > and "amber"?
> >
> > Llama Nom
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "xeon_ies"

<xeon@...> wrote:

> > >
> > > Hi Llama!
> > >
> > > I've decided to adopt the names Dugvandill and

Harmbrenna for the

> > > sword names.
> > > And one more thing in which I'm thinking of giving a

name to Ull's

> > bow
> > > too. :-D
> > >
> > > What does the following words translates to?
> > >
> > > 1) "The Great Arch"
> > > 2) "Wonderous Stinger"
> > > 3) "Final stinger"
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Xeon.
>
>
>
>
>
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