Þorbjörn dísarskáld is a late-10th century

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

skald A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry in alliterative verse, the other being Eddic poetry. Skaldic poems were traditionally compo ...

(poet). Only one and a half stanzas of his poetry have been preserved in ''

Skáldskaparmál ''Skáldskaparmál'' (Old Norse: 'Poetic Diction' or 'The Language of Poetry'; ; ) is the second part of the ''Prose Edda'', compiled by Snorri Sturluson. It consists of a dialogue between Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and Bra ...

'' (The Language of Poetry).

Name

''Dísarskáld'' means "poet of the

dís In Norse mythology, a dís (Old Norse: , "lady", plural dísir ) is a female deity, ghost, or spirit associated with Fate who can be either benevolent or antagonistic toward mortals. Dísir may act as protective spirits of Norse clans. It ...

ir", which implies that he composed verses of the female deities (

ir). It has also been interpreted as an allusion to a now lost poem about

Freyja In Norse mythology, Freyja (Old Norse "(the) Lady") is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold, and seiðr (magic for seeing and influencing the future). Freyja is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a char ...

, whom

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 th ...

in ''

'' calls ''Vanadís'' ("lady of the

Vanir In Norse mythology, the Vanir (; Old Norse:, singular Vanr) are a group of gods associated with fertility, wisdom, and the ability to see the future. The Vanir are one of two groups of gods (the other being the Æsir) and are the namesake of the ...

" or "dís of the Vanir") or one of the dísir. His name is sometimes anglicized as Thorbjörn dísarskáld or Thorbiorn disarskald.

Poetry

One and a half

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...

s are found in ''

'' as a preserved part of a longer poem about the thunder-god

Thor Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred g ...

, celebrating his victories on a number of named gýgjar. Another fragment, dealing with the christening of an unknown person, is sometimes attributed to Þorbjörn, although the attribution remains uncertain. According to Anthony Faulkes, if both poems were written by the same author, it could mean that Þorbjörn became

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

Notes

References

* Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist (trans.). 1916.
Snorri Sturluson: The Prose Edda
'. New York:

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 Swe ...

. * *. * *

External links

Þorbjörn's poetry in the original language.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thorbjorn Disarskald 10th-century Icelandic poets