General Discussion Thread

[Laufey]

How to know you're in one:
- You have started a bloody multi-generational feud by stealing cheese.
- The current feud in which you are embroiled seems likely to be resolved by prodding a blindfolded horse off a cliff with poles. This horse is known for its malice.
- You have enraged a family of Sami wizards, who like to stand on your roof and sing all night.
- You think a summer of raiding and mercenary warfare will curb the violent tendencies of your young relative.
- At the age of three, you were already composing skaldic verse and outdrinking grown men. Your grandparents are very proud of you.
- Everyone you have ever loved, been related to, or looked at flirtatiously during the summer parliament has died in a feud. You are raising your sons to continue the feud.
- If you can compose a sufficiently good poem praising the king, you’re off the hook for killing his infant son.
- No man in Iceland was your equal, so you became a zombie-killing nun instead.

It's not even funny how many sagas I recognized immediately. There's Brennu-Njals saga with the cheese, Egils saga (though he didn't outdrink people at age three yet, he just stole a horse, rode to a party, drank and composed a poem), the other poem-one might also be Egils saga, Laxdæla is probably the "everyone you love dies"-one, Guðrúns husbands do die a lot. In the end she becomes Iceland's first nun and kills a zombie. The one about calming down your young relative by a summer of raiding could be many sagas.

[SectoBoss]

Especially if you have a British accent.
"Reeeview Myrrha"

Depends on the accent. In my Northern drone it becomes something more like "reervoo mirrah"...
Also if you really want to hear something butchered in the UK, ask a Scot (especially a Glaswegian, I think) to say "burglar alarm".

[Fimbulvarg]

It's not even funny how many sagas I recognized immediately. There's Brennu-Njals saga with the cheese, Egils saga (though he didn't outdrink people at age three yet, he just stole a horse, rode to a party, drank and composed a poem), the other poem-one might also be Egils saga, Laxdæla is probably the "everyone you love dies"-one, Guðrúns husbands do die a lot. In the end she becomes Iceland's first nun and kills a zombie. The one about calming down your young relative by a summer of raiding could be many sagas.

Which one is the one involving Sami wizards?

Depends on the accent. In my Northern drone it becomes something more like "reervoo mirrah"...
Also if you really want to hear something butchered in the UK, ask a Scot (especially a Glaswegian, I think) to say "burglar alarm".

Or have a scouser pronounce "chicken and a coke".

[IKEA]

"Greenland is horrible, but you have persuaded people to move there with false advertising".
Somehow this reminded me of the Silent World and Sigrun seeing it as a vacation. Course, for her it was...

[Róisín]

Anybody remember from which saga comes that quote 'And so after years of fighting and feud, (one side, don't remember the name) hired a Finnish wizard, and that was the end of that war.' I read it nearly fifty years ago, and I remember being highly amused at the time, but don't remember who was fighting whom.

[Purple Wyrm]

I don't know why but for some reason it's really hard to pronounce "rear view mirror".

Oh yes, and Eyjafjallajökull is so much easier

Anybody remember from which saga comes that quote 'And so after years of fighting and feud, (one side, don't remember the name) hired a Finnish wizard, and that was the end of that war.'

Lalli the peacemaker! 

[viola]

Oh yes, and Eyjafjallajökull is so much easier

Eyjafjallajökull is simple! It's phonetic. You just eyja - fjalla - jökull

[Ana Nymus]

Eyjafjallajökull is simple! It's phonetic. You just eyja - fjalla - jökull

...
If you say so...

[Róisín]

Wyrm, I think in the context it was more implied that the 'wizard' put a more - permanent - end to the dispute. For one thing, the Finns were notorious for weather magic, which in a seafaring culture can do great damage for minimal expenditure of power. All those folktales where the sailors buy a bag or knotted rope containing winds from a Finnish mage, then somebody gets impatient or messes it up.....

Damn, wish I could remember which saga it was! Hate it when I forget things!

[Purple Wyrm]

Wyrm, I think in the context it was more implied that the 'wizard' put a more - permanent - end to the dispute. For one thing, the Finns were notorious for weather magic, which in a seafaring culture can do great damage for minimal expenditure of power. All those folktales where the sailors buy a bag or knotted rope containing winds from a Finnish mage, then somebody gets impatient or messes it up.....

Oh, I presumed as such, I just had the vision of them hiring Lalli and figured it was slightly more likely for him to end the war (somehow!) peacefully, rather than by destroying the other side.

Onni on the other hand...

[Laufey]

Which one is the one involving Sami wizards?

Nothing comes to mind, sorry! Not that having a party on the roof was rare, just that usually it was done by ghosts. I'm curious too so I'll look more into it, maybe I'm just overlooking something here.

Wyrm, I think in the context it was more implied that the 'wizard' put a more - permanent - end to the dispute. For one thing, the Finns were notorious for weather magic, which in a seafaring culture can do great damage for minimal expenditure of power. All those folktales where the sailors buy a bag or knotted rope containing winds from a Finnish mage, then somebody gets impatient or messes it up.....

Damn, wish I could remember which saga it was! Hate it when I forget things!

I can look into this one too. The wizard they hired was likeliest a Sami though, as back when the sagas were written Sami people were called Finns. The people now called Finns weren't one people at all but a group of tribes, each one bearing their own tribe name, and to this day Finns use these area-coded names (and call these groups tribes, heimo). For example I'm a Häme girl because most of my family is from Häme, but I also have a Karelian side because that's where my grandma on father's side came from.

Eyjafjallajökull is simple! It's phonetic. You just eyja - fjalla - jökull

Don't forget the double L sound and the vowel length rules though, Icelandic is rarely phonetic. 

Eyjafjallajökull = eyya - fyathla - jöökthll.

EDIT oops skipped over one:

"Greenland is horrible, but you have persuaded people to move there with false advertising".
Somehow this reminded me of the Silent World and Sigrun seeing it as a vacation. Course, for her it was...

Grænlendinga saga, or Greenland Saga.

[Róisín]

Yeah, I can see Onni doing 'don't make me come over there'. And Lalli? Probably trickery or strategy of some kind, whether for peacemaking or victory. If he thought it was worth the having to talk to people that much!

[Purple Wyrm]

"Don't make me come over there!"

"Seriously, please don't make me come over there. I hate traveling!"

 

[Lazy8]

Wyrm, I think in the context it was more implied that the 'wizard' put a more - permanent - end to the dispute. For one thing, the Finns were notorious for weather magic, which in a seafaring culture can do great damage for minimal expenditure of power. All those folktales where the sailors buy a bag or knotted rope containing winds from a Finnish mage, then somebody gets impatient or messes it up.....

Damn, wish I could remember which saga it was! Hate it when I forget things!

This happened in The Odyssey as well. Maybe it's one of those myths that just pops up all over the world?

[JoB]

"Don't make me come over there!"
"Seriously, please don't make me come over there. I hate traveling!"

"It seems that I'm allergic to stupid thoughts of coming over to you."