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Þorleifr Jarlsskáld
Þorleifr Rauðfeldarson, known by the epithet ''jarlsskáld'' or ''jarlaskáld'' ("earls'/earl's poet") was an Icelandic skald in the second half of the 10th century. He was one of the court poets of Jarl Hákon Sigurðarson and composed ''drápur'' on both the jarl and King Sweyn Forkbeard, but little of his work survives. He is the protagonist of ''Þorleifs þáttr jarlaskálds'', a largely fictional tale in the Flateyjarbók version of ''Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta'', and is also mentioned in '' Svarfdœla saga'' and as a skald in a number of other sources, including ''Landnámabók'' and ''Skáldatal''. Life According to ''Svarfdœla saga'', ch. 11 or 12, Þorleifr was one of twin sons of Ásgeir Rauðfeldarson oBrekkain Svarfaðardalur, born when their mother was out tending sheep. According to "Þorleifs þáttr jarlaskálds", written in the late 13th or early 14th century, he was the youngest of three sons. He went to Norway as a young man, but left after coming ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Þingvellir
Þingvellir (, anglicised as ThingvellirThe spelling ''Pingvellir'' is sometimes seen, although the letter "p" is unrelated to the letter thorn (letter), "þ" (thorn), which is pronounced as "th".) was the site of the Althing, Alþing, the annual parliament of Iceland from the year 930 until the last session held at in 1798. Since 1881, the parliament has been located within Alþingishúsið in Reykjavík. is now a national park in the municipality of in southwestern Iceland, about 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Iceland's capital, . is a site of historical, cultural, and geological significance, and is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Iceland. The park lies in a rift valley that marks the crest of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the boundary between the North American Plate, North American and Eurasian Plate, Eurasian tectonic plates. To its south lies , the largest natural lake in Iceland. National Park ( ) was founded in 1930, marking the 1000th anniversary o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Laing (travel Writer)
Samuel Laing (1780–1868) from Papdale in Orkney was a Scottish travel writer. He travelled in Scandinavia and northern Germany and published descriptions of these countries. Laing was the first translator of Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson. He unsuccessfully contested the Orkney and Shetland parliamentary constituency in 1832 against incumbent MP George Traill. Held after the passage of the Great Reform Act, this was the first election in which Shetlanders had the right to vote. Laing had won an early majority of votes counted in Orkney and was initially celebrated as the victor, however the delayed arrival of votes from Shetland produced a majority of 11 for Traill. The loss of Laing's majority provoked a riot in Kirkwall, leading to one fatality. Laing's subsequent attempt to lodge a legal challenge to his defeat was also unsuccessful. Laing's son, also named Samuel Laing, was a railway administrator and important writer on religion and science, and a Liberal m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The American-Scandinavian Foundation
The American-Scandinavian Foundation (ASF) is an American non-profit foundation dedicated to promoting international understanding through educational and cultural exchange between the United States and Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The Foundation's headquarters, Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America, is located at 58 Park Avenue, New York City. History ASF was founded in 1910 by the Danish-American industrialist Niels Poulsen, founder of the Hecla Iron Works. It is a publicly supported 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that carries out an extensive program of fellowships, grants, intern and trainee J-1 visa sponsorship, publishing, membership offerings, and cultural events. The foundation is governed by a board of trustees of individuals from the United States and Scandinavia, representing diverse interests, yet linked by personal or professional ties to the Scandinavian countries. The five Nordic heads of state serve as the organization's patro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heimskringla
() is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland. While authorship of ''Heimskringla'' is nowhere attributed, some scholars assume it is written by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson (1178/79–1241) 1230. The title was first used in the 17th century, derived from the first two words of one of the manuscripts (''kringla heimsins'', "the circle of the world"). is a collection of sagas about Swedish and Norwegian kings, beginning with the saga of the legendary Swedish dynasty of the Ynglings, followed by accounts of historical Norwegian rulers from Harald Fairhair of the 9th century up to the death of the pretender Eystein Meyla in 1177. Some of the exact sources of ''Heimskringla'' are disputed, but they include earlier kings' sagas, such as Morkinskinna, Fagrskinna and the 12th-century Norwegian synoptic histories and oral traditions, notably many skaldic poems. The author or authors explicitly name the now lost w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of the ''Prose Edda'', which is a major source for what is today known about Norse mythology and alliterative verse, and , a history of the Norsemen, Norse kings that begins with legendary material in ''Ynglinga saga'' and moves through to early medieval History of Scandinavia, Scandinavian history. For stylistic and methodological reasons, Snorri is often taken to be the author of ''Egil's Saga''. He was assassinated in 1241 by men claiming to be agents of the King of Norway. Biography Early life Snorri Sturluson was born in (commonly transliterated as Hvamm or Hvammr) as a member of the wealthy and powerful Sturlungar family clan, Sturlungar clan of the Icelandic Commonwealth, in AD 1179. His parents were Sturla Þórðarson the Elder o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lee M
Lee Mulhern (born 12 June 1988), now known as Lee Matthews, is a singer-songwriter from Northern Ireland. Starting age 8, Lee Mulhern (his birth name) had performed as a child star prodigy covering pop and country songs on many Irish and UK radio and television shows. At age 17, he embarked on a series of music projects like Streetwize, Streetside and Access All Areas, in a bid to be launched as an "international boy band" made up of singers from various nationalities. After the boy band projects fell through, he relaunched a solo music career adopting the name Lee.M, and for a short time formed NXT-GEN, an electropop duo collaboration with Pete Doherty. In 2013, as Lee Matthews, he became part of the country music scene in Ireland in the Country and Irish genre releasing two albums, ''A Little Bitty Country'' in 2014 and ''It's a Great Day to Be Alive'' in 2015 and a string of singles releases. Beginnings as a child star Lee Mulhern was born in Omagh, Northern Ireland. He no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Óláfr Tryggvason
Olaf Tryggvason (960s – 9 September 1000) was King of Norway from 995 to 1000. He was the son of Tryggvi Olafsson, king of Viken ( Vingulmark, and Rånrike), and, according to later sagas, the great-grandson of Harald Fairhair, first King of Norway. He is numbered as Olaf I. Olaf was important in the conversion of the Norse to Christianity, but he did so forcibly within his own kingdom. He is said to have built the first Christian church in Norway in 995, and to have founded the city of Trondheim in 997. A statue dedicated to him is located in the city's central plaza. Historical information on Olaf is sparse. He is mentioned in some contemporary English sources, and some skaldic poems. The oldest narrative source mentioning him briefly is Adam of Bremen's '' Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum'' of ''circa'' 1070. In the 1190s, two Latin versions of ''" Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar"'' were written in Iceland, by Oddr Snorrason and Gunnlaugr Leifsson – these are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oddr Snorrason
Oddr Snorrason whose name is also sometimes Anglicized as Odd Snorrason was a 12th-century Icelandic Benedictine monk at the Þingeyraklaustur monastery (''Þingeyrarklaustur''). The monastery was founded in 1133 and was the first in Iceland. Work One Latin version of the ''Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar'' is attributed to Oddr – the original work has been almost completely lost but a translation into Old Norse is preserved in two nearly complete versions and a fragment of a third. Oddr made use of previous written works including those of Sæmundr fróði and Ari Þorgilsson as well as '' Acta sanctorum in Selio'' and possibly ''Historia de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium''. In turn Snorri Sturluson made use of Oddr's work when writing the ''Heimskringla'', as did the author of ''Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta''. ''Yngvars saga víðförla ''Yngvars saga víðförla'' (also known as ''Sagan om Ingwar Widtfarne och hans Son Swen'') is a legendary saga said to have been written ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermann Pálsson
Hermann Pálsson (26 May 1921 – 11 August 2002) was an Icelandic language scholar and translator, "one of the most distinguished scholars of Icelandic studies of his generation". Often working in collaboration with others such as Magnus Magnusson or Paul Edwards, he translated around 40 works of medieval Icelandic literature. Life Hermann Pálsson was born at Sauðanes á Ásum, a farm near Blönduós and the Húnafjördur in the north of Iceland in 1921. Though he was the sixth of 12 children, and the family was not rich, he managed to gain a degree in Icelandic Studies at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík in 1947. From there he moved to take another honours degree, in Irish Studies, at the National University of Ireland in Dublin in 1950. His first books reflected his Celtic interests: a volume of ancient Irish tales, ''Irskar fornsögur'' (1953), and another of Gaelic poetry from the Hebrides, ''Söngvar frá Sudureyjum'' (1955), both translated into Icelandic. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudolf Simek
Rudolf Simek (born 21 February 1954) is an Austrian philologist and religious studies scholar who is Professor and Chair of Ancient German and Nordic Studies at the University of Bonn. Simek specializes in Germanic studies, and is the author of several notable works on Germanic religion and mythology (including Old Norse religion and mythology), Germanic peoples, Vikings, Old Norse literature, and the culture of Medieval Europe. Biography Since 1995, Simek has been Professor and Chair of Ancient German and Nordic Studies at the University of Bonn. Simek was appointed Professor of Comparative Religion at the University of Tromsø in 1999, and Professor of Old Nordic Studies at the University of Sydney in 2000. Simek has held a number of visiting professorships, having had long research stays at the universities of Reykjavik, Copenhagen, London, Oxford and Sydney. From 2000 to 2003, Simek was Chairman of the International Saga Society (German: Internationalen-Saga-Gesellscha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
