--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Fernando Guerrero"
<cualfer@...> wrote:

>
> Cleasby confuses me sometimes! As for Vallandi he says that it

is "the land of the 'Welsh' or foreigners, especially in the sagas
related to France."

Me too! Not a very clear definition, is it? But I think there's a
certain amount of vagueness in the word itself. The entry is
probably trying to say that Valir (the inhabitants of Valland) is
cognate with the English word Wales, but that in Old Norse
prose, 'Valland' usually means "France". However, it's also been
applied to Italy and (as Fritzner has it) Normany. What we call
Wales is referred to as 'Bretland', the Welsh language Brezka. It's
possible Valland somewhere refers to Wales, I don't know. Of
course, a lot of the time, especially in legendary sagas and poems,
it might not be possible to pin down an exact location.

Ólafur Halldórsson in "Danish Kings and the Jomsvikings in the
Longest Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason" glosses Valland as "France" in one
place, but "Wales?" in the line: "Svá er sagt at Loðbrókarsynir hafi
rekit mestan hernað í forneskiu um öll þessi lönd: England, Valland,
Frakkland..." On the other hand, a note to an online Russian
translation of Ragnarssona þáttr [
http://norse.net.ru/texts/ragnarssynir.html#_edn14 ], which contains
the same list of countries, suggests "the French speaking part of
Belgium"--or so I'm told; I haven't studied Russian.

Hollander renders 'serki valrauða' in Atlakviða 4 as "Welsh sarks
gory red", a scattergun style double translation, perhaps a gift of
Roman mail-shirts [red with gold] might make a more likely present.
The name Kjár in Völundarkviða and Hlöðskviða (in Hervarar saga) has
been equated with Caesar. His people are the Valir in Hlöðskviða,
his land Valland in Völundarkviða, but were these seen as Romans or
the subjects of the Frankish Holy Roman Emperor? Did the authors
even make such a distinction?

> Anyway, do you think that it may be realated to "vallari"

pilgrim, traveller in a foreign land.


I don't know, maybe, but the root seems to have a long history of
positively connotations, implying wealth and fine things. The
Tjurkö bracteate runic inscription uses WALHAKURNE = ON *valkorn,
thought to be a kenning for gold. As you've probably heard, it´s
even been suggested that Valhöll is really the Roman hall, exotic
foreign luxiorious hall(?), the Colloseum(?), rathen than "the hall
of the slain".

> Fritzner locates this land a bit better, I thik as being most

probably Normandy. He renders it as "Nordfrankrige" giving the
example of "hann vann þat ríki í Vallandi, er s´síðan var kallat
Norðmandi" taken from Fsk. 210.

>
> So actually she was the daughter of the king of Normandy????????
>
> A bit odd

Legendary geography. Anything is possible! Not the oddest thing in
this saga, anyway. That's still to come...

> I think it is "Sigurdr, the kinks son,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kinks

:-)



Sorry, could´t resist.

Llama Nom