Naglfari

Naglfari is the name of a mythical, literary figure in the Prose Edda ( Gylfaginning chap. 9) of Snorri Sturluson .

Snorri describes Naglfari as the first husband of the Nótt , the personified night ; their son was Auðr . The figure of Naglfari is Snorri's invention, as it is only mentioned here as an insert and is otherwise omitted in the entire Nordic-Germanic mythography.

"Nörfi was the name of a giant [...] He had a daughter named" Nacht "[...] black and dark by virtue of an innate nature. She was married to a man named Naglfari and their son was named Aud. Then she was married to another named Anar, and their daughter was named Jörd. "

- Gustav Neckel, The Younger Edda: with the so-called first grammatical treatise, Eugen Diedrichs, Düsseldorf / Cologne 1966, pp. 57–58.

The name Naglfari is ambiguous, it appears in the sources next to this in two other places. The basic meaning is in German "row of nails " from the Old Norse composition members nagl- for nail with an l-formation as is often the case for terms of body parts and from the limb masc . -Fari to fara "drive, track, drive, driver". In Gylfaginning in Chapter 51 in the form "Hrymr stýrir Naglfara" as the name of the giant Hymir's death ship , which is built from the nails of the dead.

"... made from the nails of the dead, and caution is advised when a person dies with uncut nails, because in doing so he is contributing a lot to the Naglfar ship, which gods and men want it not to be finished for a long time."

Naglfari is a sword of the Skald Bragi Boddason meaning "sword decorated with a row of nails" . In the Ragnarsdrápa (verse 5) he paraphrases the term “the warriors” through the kenning “segls naglfara siglur saums andvanar” ( “the masts of the sails of the sword that are not fringed” ). The two uses by Snorri and Bragi are related to marine life, shipping, so that the use as a personal name cannot be separated from the semantics of the other two.

literature

Rudolf Simek : Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 368). 3rd, completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X , p. 293.
Jan de Vries : Old Norse Etymological Dictionary. 2nd unchanged edition, Brill, Leiden / Boston 1977.

Remarks

↑ Jan de Vries: Old Norse Etymological Dictionary. Brill, Leiden / Boston 1977, pp. 112, 403-404.
↑ Jan de Vries: Old Norse Etymological Dictionary. Brill, Leiden / Boston 1977, p. 404.
↑ Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages: 5 Ragnarsdrápa
↑ Wolfgang Krause : The Kenning as a typical stylistic figure of the Germanic and Celtic poetic language. In: Ders .: Writings on runology and linguistics. (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde - supplementary volumes, volume 84). De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014, p 573. ( fee Germanic Altertumskunde Online at de Gruyter )

[1] Jan de Vries: Old Norse Etymological Dictionary. Brill, Leiden / Boston 1977, pp. 112, 403-404.

[2] Jan de Vries: Old Norse Etymological Dictionary. Brill, Leiden / Boston 1977, p. 404.

[3] Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages: 5 Ragnarsdrápa

[4] Wolfgang Krause : The Kenning as a typical stylistic figure of the Germanic and Celtic poetic language. In: Ders .: Writings on runology and linguistics. (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde - supplementary volumes, volume 84). De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014, p 573. ( fee Germanic Altertumskunde Online at de Gruyter )