Hello -
I'm on the last few pages of an English translation of one of the three
variants of Hervarar saga og Heidreks. In addition, I've been writing about
the some of the themes in the saga and their corollaries in the traditions
of other Indo European cultures, in history, etc. I am curiousto what extent
linguistic evidence could further indicate the origin of various elements of
the text. For instance, the final episode, wherein there is a confrontation
between Hunnish and Gothic armies, is frequently noted to be based on real
conflicts between these groups that likely took place in the late 4th
century, but certainly before a significant degree of assimilation into
Roman culture took place. I read in the Wikipedia entry for the saga that
the forms of the Gothic names used in the saga precede Roman influence,
including that of the sword Tyrfing. The Gothic episode in the saga is
extremely different in character from the preceding text, and gives an
immediate and pronounced impression of composition seperate from the rest of
the saga. I noticed one case where this can be quantitatively established in
the language of the Gothic/Hunnish episode, in that compound adjectives
starting with "all" are used frequently, such as allbuin as the past
participle of bjugga, in this case meaning "all prepared".
I am wondering to what extent ON text can be dated on linguistic grounds. I
know the compositional dates of the poetic Eddas is not a matter of
scholarly consensus and that deliberate archaism is always going to be an
issue in this kind of material, particularly fornaldsaga. Can anyone refer
me to a good text on analyzing linguistic features of ON text to establish
dating? Also, does anyone know of good papers on the dates of Hervarar saga
og Heidreks and on dating sagas in general? Any assistance would be greatly
appreciated.
Thank you.
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