Darraðarljóð

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Depiction of a figure interpreted as a Valkyrie (bottom center) on the Gotland image stone from Tjängvide , Alskog (Go 110)

The Darraðarljóð ( Dörruðs song ), or as a Valkyrie song titled, is a Norse anonymous skaldic song poetry of the 11th century. It is embedded in the prose text and the framework of chapter 157 of the Njáls saga , an Icelandic saga , against the narrative background of the Battle of Clontarf on Good Friday of the year 1014 AD.

The eleven stanzas song in Eddic meter Fornyrðislag describes in the form of a prize song the victory of an unnamed (young) king, who is referred to as the prince's son and Jarl, over another "powerful" king, in which both ultimately die in battle. Song and prose frame do not harmonize and differ in the presentation. The focus of the action is the description of the influence on the course of the armed conflict by a group of Valkyries , the mythical beings of Germanic mythology .

The titles in use today are of modern origin and are based, among other things, on the phrase from stanza 6: Vindum vindum vef darradar , in German we wind and wind the slaughtering fabric .

content

Framework story

In the dramatic narrative strand of Njála, with the culmination of the violent death of the eponymous protagonist Njáll (murderous fire, chap. 129), the following revenge of the sons of Njáll and especially the figure of the son-in-law Karí is described. The pursuit of the thieves leads Karí to the British Isles, since the main responsible Flosi and accomplices found shelter as a follower with Jarl Sigurð Hlǫðvesson of Orkney (Chapter 153). Together with the Jarl Sigtryggr Silkískegg of Dublin, he goes into battle against the Irish King Brjann / Brian, in which many of the perpetrators are killed; Flosi escapes the battle at Sigurð's previous orders not to take part as a fighter.

On the day of the Battle of Clontarf, supernatural signs occur in various places across the British Isles and the Faroe Islands and the Orcades. A man by the name of Drruðr in the Scottish region of Caithness witnessed one of these signs, a ghostly apparition . Dǫrruð observed how twelve women ( menn = people), who turn out to be Valkyries, ride to a house. Inquisitive he follows them and secretly observes them through a window and witnesses a gruesome scene. The twelve women / Valkyries work on a loom built by them , consisting of human body parts such as intestines as warp and weft threads , skulls as weights and weapons such as spears as crossbars and arrows as shuttles (prose frame and verse 2). This context is the framework for embedding the following Darraðarljóð. When the work is done, here the prose text starts again, the Valkyries tear the resulting “fabric” and leave the place separately in the opposite north and south directions.

literature

expenditure
  • Thomas Bartholin: Antiquitatum danicarum de causis contemptæ a Danis adhuc gentilibus mortis libri tres ex vetustis codicibus & monumentis hactenus ineditis congesti . JP Bockenhoffer, Copenhagen 1689.
  • Einar Ólaf Sveinsson (Ed.): Brennu-Njáls saga . In: ĺslenzk Fornrit. 12, 1954.
  • Finnur Jónsson (ed.): Den Norsk-Islandske Skjaldedigting A, I; B, I . 1912 (reprinted by Rosenkilde og Bagger, Copenhagen 1973).
  • Andreas Heusler, Wilhelm Ranisch: Eddica minora. Eddish poems from the Fornaldarsögur and other prose works . Dortmund 1903.
  • Russell Poole: Viking Poems on War and Peace. A Study in Skaldic Narrative . University of Toronto Press, Toronto / Buffalo / London 1991, ISBN 0-8020-5867-1 . (with English translation and commentary)
Transfers
  • Felix Genzmer: The Edda. Poetry of gods, proverbs and heroic songs of the Germanic peoples. Introduced by Kurt Schier . Eugen Diedrichs Verlag / Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Kreuzlingen / Munich 1981, 2006, ISBN 3-7205-2759-X .
  • Karl-Ludwig Wetzig: The saga of Brennu-Njál. Brennu-Njáls saga . In: Klaus Böldl, Andreas Vollmer, Julia Zernack (eds.): Isländersagas Vol. 1, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-10-007622-9 , pp. 449-814.
Research literature
  • Matthias Egeler: Celtic-Mediterranean perspectives on the Norse ideas of the Valkyries . In: Wilhelm Heizmann, Klaus Böldl, Heinrich Beck (eds.): Analecta Septentrionalia - Festschrift for Kurt Schier. ( Supplementary volume to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde , 65). de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2009, ISBN 978-3-11-021870-1 , pp. 393-466.
  • Matthias Egeler: Valkyries, Bodbs, Sirens. Thoughts on the religious-historical connection of northwest Europe to the Mediterranean region . ( Supplementary volume to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde , 71). de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-024660-5 .
  • Russell Poole: Valkyries Song . In: Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, Heiko Steuer (eds.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Vol. 33, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2006, ISBN 3-11-018388-9 , pp. 142-143.
  • Klaus von See: The Valkyries Song . In: Contributions to the history of the German language and literature .   81, 1959, pp. 1-15.
  • Klaus von See, Beatrice La Farge, Wolfgang Gerhold, Debora Dusse, Eve Picard. Katja Schulz: Commentary on the songs of the Edda. Vol. 4: Heldenlieder (Helgakviða Hundingsbana I, Helgakviða Hiörvarðssonar, Helgakviða Hundingsbana II) . Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-8253-5007-X .
  • Rudolf Simek , Hermann Pálsson : Lexicon of Old Norse Literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 490). Kröner, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-520-49001-3 .
  • Heiko Uecker: Darraðarljóð . In: Heinrich Beck, Herbert Jankuhn, Kurt Ranke, Reinhard Wenskus (eds.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Vol. 5, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1984, ISBN 3-11-085110-5 , pp. 254-256.
  • Jan de Vries: Old Norse literary history . ( Outline of Germanic Philology , 15/16). 3rd, unchanged. Edition in one volume with a preface by Stefanie Würth. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1999, ISBN 3-11-016330-6 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Rudolf Simek, Hermann Pálsson: Lexicon of Old Norse Literature (= Kröner's pocket edition. Volume 490). Kröner, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-520-49001-3 , p. 54.
  2. ↑ Heiko Uecker: Darraðarljóð . In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Vol. 5, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1984, p. 254.
  3. ↑ Russell Poole: Valkyries Song . In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde vol. 33, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2006, p. 142.
  4. ^ Rudolf Simek, Hermann Pálsson: Lexicon of Old Norse Literature (= Kröner's pocket edition. Volume 490). Kröner, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-520-49001-3 , p. 259.