Brännö is an island in the Southern Göteborg Archipelago and a

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localities (Australia), in which a locality is a geographic subdivis ...

situated in

Göteborg Municipality Gothenburg Municipality (''Göteborgs kommun'' or ''Göteborgs stad'') is a municipality in Västra Götaland County in western Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Gothenburg. When the first Swedish local government acts were implemente ...

, Västra Götaland County, Sweden. It had 708 inhabitants in 2010 and belongs to the parish of

Styrsö Styrsö () is a small island and a locality situated in Göteborg Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden. It had 1,304 inhabitants in 2010. It lies in the Southern Göteborg Archipelago of Sweden with about 1,400 inhabitants. Regulaferrie ...

within Gothenburg Municipality.

History

Due to its geographical location, Brännö has throughout the centuries been a strategic location for seafarers and chieftains, from both Sweden and the adjacent

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

and

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

. It is believed that its inhabitants are the same as the Brondings who are referred to in the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

poems ''

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. ...

'' and ''

Widsith "Widsith" ( ang, Wīdsīþ, "far-traveller", lit. "wide-journey"), also known as "The Traveller's Song", is an Old English poem of 143 lines. It survives only in the '' Exeter Book'', a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the late-10th ...

''. ''Beowulf'', England's

national epic A national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic scope which seeks or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation—not necessarily a nation state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group with a ...

, relates that Breca the Bronding was the childhood friend of the hero

and ''Widsith'' tells that Breca later was the lord of the Brondings. Brännö is mentioned in the

icelandic Saga The sagas of Icelanders ( is, Íslendingasögur, ), also known as family sagas, are one genre of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives mostly based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early e ...

s as the location of several important

thing Thing or The Thing may refer to: Philosophy * An object * Broadly, an entity * Thing-in-itself (or ''noumenon''), the reality that underlies perceptions, a term coined by Immanuel Kant * Thing theory, a branch of critical theory that focuse ...

assemblies in the

Viking Age The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Germ ...

and later. The '' Laxdæla saga'' relates that the beautiful Irish princess Melkorka was sold as a

thrall A thrall ( non, þræll, is, þræll, fo, trælur, no, trell, træl, da, træl, sv, träl) was a slave or serf in Scandinavian lands during the Viking Age. The corresponding term in Old English was . The status of slave (, ) contrasts wi ...

to the

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its ...

ic chieftain Hoskuld Dala-Kollsson, during a fair on Brännö, in the 10th century. The jetty on the island is also mentioned in the song '' De' ä' dans på Brännö brygga''.

References

External links

*Note 1: The Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, the posthumous dictionary by

Joseph Bosworth Joseph Bosworth (1788 – 27 May 1876) was an English scholar of the Anglo-Saxon language and compiler of the first major Anglo-Saxon dictionary. Biography Born in Derbyshire in 1788, Bosworth was educated at Repton School as a 'Poor Scholar ...

(1898), se
bróc - brot
*Note 2:

Local fan site dedicated to Brännö (in Swedish) Populated places in Västra Götaland County Populated places in Gothenburg Municipality Southern Gothenburg Archipelago Islands of Västra Götaland County Saga locations {{VästraGötaland-geo-stub