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Westeremden Yew-stick
The Westeremden yew-stick is a yew-wood stick found in Westeremden in the Groningen province of the Netherlands in 1917. It bears an Old Frisian runic inscription, dated to the second half of the 8th century. With a total of 41 letters, this is the longest of the extant Frisian runic inscriptions. Transliteration The inscription is divided into three lines, as follows: :ᚩᛈᚻᚳᛗᚢᛡᛁᛅᛞᚪᚳᛗᛚᚢᚦ: :ᚹᛁᛗᛟᚳᚻᚦᚢᚴᛅ :ᛁᚹᛁᚩᚢᛞᚢᚿᚩᛚᛖ: Runes with unfamiliar shapes or uncertain values are: * , a '' Spiegelrune'' of ᛒ, similar to a variant of ᛥ ''stan'', transliterated as ''B'' below * , a ''Spiegelrune'' of ᛈ, similar to a variant of ᛥ ''stan'', transliterated as ''P'' below * , like Younger Futhark ''kaun'', transliterated as ''K'' below *ᚳ (like Anglo-Saxon ''cen'', occurring three times); it apparently represents a vowel, likely ''æ'', replacing absent ᚫ ''æsc'' *ᛅ (like Younger Futhark ''ar''), transliterate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother. ''Hamlet'' is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others". There are many works that have been pointed to as possible sources for Shakespeare's play—from ancient Greek tragedies to Elizabethan plays. The editors of the Arden Shakespeare question the idea of "source hunting", pointing out that it presupposes that authors always require ideas from other works for their own, and suggests that no author can have an original idea or be an originator. When ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amleth
Amleth (; Latinized as ''Amlethus'') is a figure in a medieval Scandinavian legend, the direct inspiration of the character of Prince Hamlet, the hero of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Hamlet, Prince of Denmark''. The chief authority for the legend of Amleth is Saxo Grammaticus, who devotes to it parts of the third and fourth books of his ''Gesta Danorum'', completed at the beginning of the 13th century. Saxo's version is similar to the one in the 12th-century ''Chronicon Lethrense''. In both versions, prince Amleth (''Amblothæ'') is the son of Horvendill (''Orwendel''), king of the Jutes. It has often been assumed that the story is ultimately derived from an Old Icelandic poem, but no such poem has been found; the extant Icelandic versions, known as the ''Ambales-saga'', or ''Amloda-saga'' are considerably later than Saxo. Name The Old Icelandic form ''Amlóði'' is recorded once in the Prose Edda. The 12th-century ''Amlethus'', ''Amblothæ'' may easily be latinizations of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artificial Dwelling Hill
A ''terp'', also known as a ''wierde, woerd, warf, warft, werf, werve, wurt'' or ''værft'', is an artificial dwelling mound found on the North European Plain that has been created to provide safe ground during storm surges, high tides and sea or river flooding. The various terms used reflect the regional dialects of the North European region. In English sources, ''terp'' appears to be by far the most common term used. These mounds occur in the coastal parts of the Netherlands (in the provinces of Zeeland, Friesland and Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...), in southern parts of Denmark and in the north-western parts of Germany where, before Dyke (construction), dykes were made, floodwater interfered with daily life. These can be found especially in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eihwaz
Eiwaz or Eihaz is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the rune , coming from a word for " yew". Two variants of the word are reconstructed for Proto-Germanic, ''*īhaz'' (''*ē2haz'', from Proto-Indo-European '), continued in Old English as (also ), and ''*īwaz'' (''*ē2waz'', from Proto-Indo-European '), continued in Old English as ''īw'' (whence English '). The latter is possibly an early loan from the Celtic, compare Gaulish ''ivos'', Breton ''ivin'', Welsh ''ywen'', Old Irish '' ēo''. The common spelling of the rune's name, "Eihwaz", combines the two variants; strictly based on the Old English evidence, a spelling "Eihaz" would be more proper. Following the convention of Wolfgang Krause, the rune's standard transliteration today is ''ï'', though this designation is somewhat arbitrary as the rune's purpose and origin is still not well understood. Elmer Antonsen and Leo Connolly theorized that the rune originally stood for a Proto-Germanic vowel lost by the time of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spiegelrune
Cipher runes, or cryptic runes, are the cryptographical replacement of the letters of the runic alphabet. Preservation The knowledge of cipher runes was best preserved in Iceland, and during the 17th–18th centuries, Icelandic scholars produced several treatises on the subject. The most notable of these is the manuscript ''Runologia'' by Jón Ólafsson (1705–1779), which he wrote in Copenhagen (1732–1752). It thoroughly treats numerous cipher runes and runic ciphers, and it is now preserved in the Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen. Jón Ólafsson's treatise presents the Younger Futhark in the Viking Age order, which means that the m-rune precedes the l-rune. This small detail was of paramount importance for the interpretation of Viking Age cipher runes because in the 13th century the two runes had changed places through the influence of the Latin alphabet where ''l'' precedes ''m''. Since the medieval runic calendar used the post-13th-century order, the early runolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taxus
''Taxus'' is a genus of coniferous trees or shrubs known as yews in the family Taxaceae. They are relatively slow-growing and can be very long-lived, and reach heights of , with trunk girth averaging . They have reddish bark, lanceolate, flat, dark-green leaves long and broad, arranged spirally on the stem, but with the leaf bases twisted to align the leaves in two flat rows either side of the stem. The oldest known fossil species are from the Early Cretaceous. Morphology The seed cones are highly modified, each cone containing a single seed long partly surrounded by a modified scale which develops into a soft, bright red berry-like structure called an aril, long and wide and open at the end. The arils are mature 6–9 months after pollination, and with the seed contained are eaten by thrushes, waxwings and other birds, which disperse the hard seeds undamaged in their droppings; maturation of the arils is spread over 2–3 months, increasing the chances of successful seed d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Younger Futhark
The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet and a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, with only 16 characters, in use from about the 9th century, after a "transitional period" during the 7th and 8th centuries. The reduction, somewhat paradoxically, happened at the same time as phonetic changes that led to a greater number of different phonemes in the spoken language, when Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse. Also, the writing custom avoided carving the same rune consecutively for the same sound, so the spoken distinction between vowel length, long and short vowels was lost in writing. Thus, the language included distinct sounds and minimal pairs that were written the same. The Younger Futhark is divided into long-branch (Danish) and short-twig (Swedish and Norwegian) runes; in the 10th century, it was further expanded by the "Hälsinge Runes" or staveless runes. The lifetime of the Younger Futhark corresponds roughly to the Viking Age. Their use decl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palaeography
Palaeography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, UK) or paleography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysis of historic handwriting. It is concerned with the forms and processes of writing; not the textual content of documents. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of Scriptorium, scriptoria. The discipline is one of the auxiliary sciences of history. It is important for understanding, authenticating, and dating historic texts. However, it generally cannot be used to pinpoint dates with high precision. Application Palaeography can be an essential skill ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
