"Norse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sub-title editor to use just as many words in a leader as might be necessary to make every point of the story entirely clear and interesting. Paramount's "The Devil Stone," showing the train of tragic events that followed the stealing by a wicked Norse queen of the great emerald belonging to a certain Breton priest, was one example of an intensely interesting detective story in which sub-titles supplied much more than a third of the story—and supplied it, apparently, quite unobtrusively. Here, again, only common ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... Germanic languages and in the Prussian-Lithuanian both genders occur. (Gothic sunnan and Old High-German sunno). Sol in the Norse Edda is a female deity, and the Anglo-Saxon sol is also feminine. The transition from the male to the female gender was achieved in the Middle-High-German language of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the German language is ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... Faroe I sailed away, When bright the summer burned, And I told in the old Norse kirk one day The lesson my heart had learned. Then the grizzly landvogt said to me: "Of strength we may not boast; But ever in life for you and me There's danger near the coast. Then think of the drifting dunes In the nights of the watery moons, And think of the Maelstrom's tide ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... I read through and through in early childhood to great profit. This was Cottle's "Alfred," an epic of some merit, but chiefly in this, that it sets forth tolerably clearly the old Norse life and religion. George Boker owned and gave me some time after a book entitled "Five Norse Poems," in the original, and translated. This with Grey's poems, which latter I possessed, laid the basis for a deep interest in ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... entire religion to poetry, and then set it to music. And it is one of the greatest of religions,—what Nature engraved on the heart of our own Teutonic ancestors. It is all there,—its thousand phantasmal years, from the first cowering cry of the Norse savage before the chariot of his storm-god to the last gentle hymn that rose to Freya under her new name of Mary,—all. It is interpreted as a purely human expression; and, I repeat, no man has done so vast and worthy an ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... vein I looked upon a dingy skilling species, with its rudely crossed hammers—a rough coin, bold, sturdy, and rigid as the old Norse character itself which formed the initial of my cabinet—a cabinet which has given to me new ideas of the low-browed Roman and elegant Greek; has admitted me to the arcana of their fascinating mythology; has whispered strange tales of a mummy's perfumed sleep in the shadow of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Carlyle in his Heroes, p. 18, draws out the spiritual significance of it and of Norse mythology generally.] ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... following the saintly recommendation to shape the figure of a head and place it on a cross. Fort tells us that "The introduction of Christianity among the Teutonic races offered no hindrance to a perpetuation, under new forms, of those social observances with which Norse temple idolatry was so intimately associated. Offering to proselytes an unlimited number of demoniacal aeons, similar in individuality and prowess to those peopling the invisible universe, Northern mythology readily united with ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... Denmark, has succeeded admirably in reproducing its national spirit in its pavilion. The building is a long story-and-a-half structure, in the ancient Norse style, dominated by a beautiful tower on which is emblazoned the Norwegian coat-of-arms. The lower floor contains three large dioramas of characteristic Norwegian scenery, and an exhibit hall wherein are ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... from a fruit-bearing tree (including, no doubt, tile beech; cp. book, German Buch, and Buchstabe, a letter of the alphabet); the slips were thrown down promiscuously on a white cloth. whence the expert picked them up at random and by them interpreted fate. In these slips we have the origin of the Norse kefli, the Scots kaivel, which were and are still used as lots. The fishermen of north-east Scotland, when they return after a successful haul, divide the spoil into as many shares as there are men in the boat, with one share more for ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... is hoped that some in the Red Fairy Book may have the attraction of being less familiar than many of the old friends. The tales have been translated, or, in the case of those from Madame d'Aulnoy's long stories, adapted, by Mrs. Hunt from the Norse, by Miss Minnie Wright from Madame d'Aulnoy, by Mrs. Lang and Miss Bruce from other French sources, by Miss May Sellar, Miss Farquharson, and Miss Blackley from the German, while the story of 'Sigurd' ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... a charming insolence. "Meryl and I both have Norse blood in us. If you go far enough back we probably are Norse. But where would be the sense in our professing to love our country by talking her tongue, when it served every reasonable purpose in the world better to talk English? You're so one idea'd, ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... the flap of Thora's tent was raised and out into the moonlight strode the old Swede. She was the great Norse type—tall, deep-breasted, moulded on the old Viking lines. Her sixty years had slipped from her. She looked like some ancient priestess ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... give way to your weaknesses. That is the problem of all of us. "I see two men looking from your eyes," said the Norse seeress, "a young man and an old man. Do not let the old man in you conquer the young man in you." Very well! Barring the loss of health, you can always make the young man ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... I question if Norse heroes of the sea could boast more thrilling adventure than the wild buffalo hunts of American plain-rangers. A cavalcade of six hundred men mounted on mettlesome horses eager for the furious dash through a forest of tossing buffalo-horns was quite as imposing as any clash ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... extended their expeditions to Spain, Italy, and even into Russia. In England, under the name of Danes, we find them forcing Alfred the Great to recognize them as the masters of northern England (878). The Norse pirates were often called vikings, from their habit of leaving their long boats in the vik, i.e., bay or inlet. A goodly number of the Northmen settled in Iceland, and our knowledge of their civilization and customs comes chiefly from the Icelandic sagas, or tales. Some of ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... market rules the supply of light literature in Great Britain. While Lang culls us tales and legends and lyrics from the Norse or Provensal, Stevenson will engage to supply us with tales and legends of his own—something just as good. The two men serve the ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... Vuffingus appellant"[196]). In some one or other of his forms, Woden (observes Mr. Kemble) "is the eponymus of tribes and races. Thus, as Geat, or through Geat, he was the founder of the Geatas; through Gewis, of the Gewissas; through Scyld, of the Scyldingas, the Norse Skjoldungar; through Brand, of the Brodingas; perhaps, through Baetwa, of the Batavians."[197] It could therefore scarcely be regarded as very exceptional at least, if Vetta, one of the grandsons of Woden, should have given, in the same ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... far-famed pagan battle flag, the Raven Standard, was unfurled, and floated freely over the host. The War-arrow had been industriously sent round to all the neighbouring shores, peopled largely at that time with men of Norse blood. As the fleet swept south it had gathered in contingents from every island along the Scotch coast, upon which Viking settlements had been established. Manx men, too, and men from the Scandinavian settlements of Angelsea, Danes under Carle Canuteson, representatives, in fact, ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... left incomplete: it only hides its records, while fire destroys them. In the Norse Edda, when the gods try their games, they find themselves able to out-drink the ocean, but not to eat like the flame. Logi, or fire, licks up food and trencher and all. This chimney is more voracious than the ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... poem of Gottfried von Strassburg, composed about 1210-20. 2. An old-Norse translation made in 1226 by command of King Hakon. 3. A Middle-English poem of the thirteenth century preserved in the so-called Auchinleck MS. of the library of the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, and familiar to English readers from the edition published by Sir Walter ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... the air of a Norse sea king for nothing!" They dipped into a bare, red gully, scrambled up the opposite bank, and fought again with the dewberry vines. "When the battle's over you're to report to General Jackson. Say that I sent you—that you're the man he ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... triumphs. The "Targum" consists of translations from the following languages: Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Tartar, Tibetian, Chinese, Mandchou, Russian, Malo-Russian, Polish, Finnish, Anglo-Saxon, Ancient Norse, Suabian, German, Dutch, Danish, Ancient Danish, Swedish, Ancient Irish, Irish, Gaellic, Ancient British, Cambrian British, Greek, Modern Greek, Latin, Provencal, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Rommany. A ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... slowly, in the old Norse tongue, but Father Johannes had studied it, and understood her ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... to believe that about the year 1000 A.D. the northeast coast of America was discovered by a Norse voyager named Leif Ericsson. The records are very meager; but the discovery of our country by such a people is possible and not improbable. For an account of the pre-Columbian discoveries see Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. I., ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... (Jones Collection) Writing Table (Riesener) The "Marie Antoinette" Writing Table Bedstead of Marie Antoinette A Cylinder Secretaire (Rothschild Collection) An Arm Chair (Louis XVI.) Carved and Gilt Settee and Arm Chair A Sofa En Suite A Marqueterie Escritoire (Jones Collection) A Norse Interior, Shewing French Influence A Secretaire with Sevres Plaques A Clock by Robin (Jones Collection) Harpsichord, ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... come from the British Isles and British America. Germany, including Bohemia, Holland and Switzerland, sums up 1,883,285; Scandinavia, 241,685; and France and Belgium, 128,955. The Celtic influx from Ireland, and the Teutonic and Norse together, form two currents of almost identical volume. Compared with either, the contribution of the Latin or the Romance races sinks into insignificance—an insignificance, however, that shows itself chiefly in numbers, the traces ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... great Norse harper, could give on his harp the Gyarslager, or stroke of the sea gods, which ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... duly folded. Without delay or haste, and with the minimum of speech, the whole great establishment turned on wheels like a machine. Nowhere have I seen order more complete and pervasive. And yet I was always reminded of Norse tales of trolls and ogres who kept their hearts buried in the ground for the mere safety, and must confide the secret to their wives. For these weapons are the life of Tembinok'. He does not aim at popularity; but drives and braves his subjects, with a simplicity of domination ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... may serve as a text for my whole lecture. Not only does it smack of the sea-breeze and the salt water, like all the finest old Norse sagas, but it gives a glimpse at least of the nobleness which underlay the grim and often cruel nature of the Norseman. It belongs, too, to the culminating epoch, to the beginning of that era when the Scandinavian peoples had their ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... lectured and read for a life-time. When the historian fully realizes his ignorance — which sometimes happens to Americans — he becomes even more tiresome to himself than to others, because his naivete is irrepressible. Adams could not get over his astonishment, though he had preached the Norse doctrine all his life against the stupid and beer-swilling Saxon boors whom Freeman loved, and who, to the despair of science, produced Shakespeare. Mere contact with Norway started voyages of thought, and, under ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... speculations tend to the same conclusions. One day it is a discovery of cinerary vases, the next, it is etymological research; yet again it is ethnological investigation, and the day after, it is the publication of unsuspected tales from the Norse; but all go to heap up proof of our consanguinity with the peoples of history—and of an original general belief, ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... interesting to note, too, that two scholars, well known in widely different fields, Monrad, the philosopher—for some years a sort of Dr. Johnson in the literary circles of Christiania—and Unger, the scholarly editor of many Old Norse texts, assisted him in ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... Commissioner watched the bullet head; the points of that Norse rover's moustache, falling below the line of the heavy jaw; the whole full and pale physiognomy, whose determined character was marred by too much flesh; at the cunning wrinkles radiating from the outer corners of the eyes—and in that purposeful contemplation of the valuable and ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... poetry, if not characterised by uniformity of power, never descends into weakness. Triumphant in humour, he is eminently a master of the plaintive; his tender pieces breathe a deep-toned cadence, and his sacred lyrics are replete with devotional fervour. His Norse ballads are resonant with the echoes of his birth-land, and his songs are to be remarked for their deep ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... reckoned churls," one of the gentlemen exclaimed indignantly. "The fame of Harold's bravery, wisdom, and courtesy to all men is known in every court in Europe, and that the duke's vassal should have dared to imprison and chain him will excite universal indignation. Why, the rudest of our own Norse ancestors would not have so foully treated one so noble whom fate had cast into his hands. Had we been at war with England it would be shameful, but being at peace there are no words that can fitly describe ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... way, past the deliciously smelling, whispering pine-woods that sheltered the Norwegian homestead, starting a little aside when a great, tall, fair-faced, fair-haired Norse farmer came striding along, singing some old old song, as he carried a heavy log on his shoulder, past a seater or mountain meadow where the girls were pasturing their cows, much like Lucy's friends in the Tirol, out ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that the place was holy; Osiris was at times regarded as a Tree-spirit (1); and in inscriptions is referred to as "the solitary one in the acacia"—which reminds us curiously of the "burning bush." The same is true of others of the gods; in the old Norse mythology Ygdrasil was the great branching World-Ash, abode of the soul of the universe; the Peepul or Bo-tree in India is very sacred and must on no account be cut down, seeing that gods and spirits dwell among its branches. It is of the nature ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... their Influence on the English Race.—2. The Mythology.—3. The Scandinavian Languages.—4. Icelandic, or Old Norse Literature: the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, the Scalds, the Sagas, the "Heimskringla," The Folks-Sagas and Ballads of the Middle Ages.—5. Danish Literature: Saxo Grammaticus and Theodoric; Arreboe, Kingo, Tycho Brahe, Holberg, Evald, Baggesen, Oehlenschlaeger, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... scop would recite that part of Beowulf which tells of the monster Grendel. Again, he named Sigard the Volsung (the Siegfrid of the Niebelungenlied and of Wagner's opera), and this would recall the slaying of the dragon Fafnir, or some other story of the old Norse saga. So every name or place which Widsith mentioned was an invitation. When he came to a hall and "unlocked his word-hoard," he offered his hearers a variety of poems and legends from which they made their own selection. Looked at in this ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... Mifflin & Co., Dodd, Mead & Co., and the Macmillan Company, by means of which they have been enabled to reprint stories from Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" and "Tanglewood Tales," from "In the Days of Giants," from "Norse Stories," from Church's "Stories from Homer," and ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... positively cruel to turn Peyton loose among his folios, and invite him to afflict that innocent orphaned brute with some dreadful seven-syllabled abomination, which he will convince you is Arabic, or Sanscrit, classic or mediaeval, Gaelic, Finnish or Norse, but which I warn you will serve your jaws (more elegant form—'maxillary bones') very much as an attack of mumps would, and will torture the victim into hydrophobia. Be pitiful, and say Teazer, Tiger, Towser, but don't throw ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... present, it is urged, is a particularly favorable time to establish prosperous small farmers in many parts of the Highlands where sheep-farming has proved a failure. The inhabitants of the coasts and islands are largely a seafaring people. There is quite as much Norse as Celtic blood in the veins of many of them, and the Norseman's love of the sea leads them naturally to fishing or navigation. The herring-fisheries, with liberal encouragement on the part of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... depth of tranquil water, and the sea-birds, screaming and flickering from the ruined crags, alone disturb the silence and the sunshine. One such place has impressed itself on my memory beyond all others. On a rock by the water's edge, old fighting men of the Norse breed had planted a double castle; the two stood wall to wall like semi-detached villas; and yet feud had run so high between their owners, that one, from out of a window, shot the other as he stood in his own doorway. There is something in the juxtaposition ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chiefs stood when publicly invested with the insignia of office, is still, or was lately, in existence in Ladykirk, at Burwick, South Ronaldshay, Orkney. A local tradition, that originated long after the Pictish chiefs passed away, and a new Norse race, ignorant of the customs of their predecessors, came in, says that the stone in question was used by St. Magnus as a boat to ferry him over the Pentland Firth; while an earlier tradition looked upon it as a miraculous whale which opportunely appeared at ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... that so anomalous a system of government should have persisted as late as the eleventh century, in other words for a period of over 500 years. But we must take account of the Danish—or as we should rather call it, the Norse—invasion of Ireland. Danish ships first appeared off the Irish coasts about the year 800. From that time for two centuries Ireland was to a large extent cut off from intercourse with the rest of Europe. The aim of the northern hordes, as it seems, was not mere pillage, but the extinction ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... not uncommon among Norwegian peasants, was no doubt natural to Bjrnson, but was confirmed by the influence of the Old Norse sagas and skaldic poetry. The latter may also have increased his use of alliteration, masterly not only in the direct imitation of the old form, as in Bergliot, but also in the enrichment of the music of his rhymed verse in modern ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... something like a rival, a man from Barra to be more than half a foreigner. Yet let us meet in some far country, and, whether we hail from the braes of Manor or the braes of Mar, some ready-made affection joins us on the instant. It is not race. Look at us. One is Norse, one Celtic, and another Saxon. It is not community of tongue. We have it not among ourselves; and we have it almost to perfection, with English, or Irish, or American. It is no tie of faith, for we detest each other's ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... young Olaf came of hardy Norse stock. His father, Harald Graenske, or "Gray-mantle," one of the tributary kings of Norway, had fallen a victim to the tortures of the haughty Swedish queen; and now his son, a boy of scarce thirteen, but a warrior already by training and from desire, came to avenge his ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... ultima Thule, "that they might pray to God in peace"; but whether they did any direct work of conversion is doubtful. The actual conversion came undoubtedly from Norway. A Christian queen lived in Iceland at the end of the ninth century, the wife of the Norse Olaf who was king in Dublin; but little if any impression was made on the heathenism of the people. Nearly a century later an Icelander called Thorwald Kothransson brought a Christian bishop Frederic from Saxony, who wrought some ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... town-meeting is to a very limited extent a legislative body; it can make sundry regulations for the management of its local affairs. Such regulations are known by a very ancient name, "by-laws." By is an Old Norse word meaning "town," and it appears in the names of such towns as Derby and Whitby in the part of England overrun by the Danes in the ninth and tenth centuries. ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... Norse legends we are sure to find the inevitable three brothers, to the youngest of whom, Grimmel, fall all the adventures, the dealings with the Devil, and the pot of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... and having neither a reading nor speaking acquaintance with the Norse language, I am unable to decide abstruse points on which such learned doctors disagree; but not being altogether without some practical experience of English and French drama, I venture to call in question not only the dramatic ability of the dramatist himself, but also, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... adverse conditions of his life, but he was not servile. The Norse blood in him had not entirely lost its self-reliance. He came of a proud fisher line, men who were not afraid of anything but the ice and the devil, and he had prospects before him when his father went down off the North Cape ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... and his attention divided between the tiller of a vessel, which flew up in the wind's eye with the slightest negligence, and his anxiety for the well-being of his own boat,—the countenance of the Norse tar was a book on whose leaves the student might have seen how truly "the ridiculous ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... went to Saratoga in July and August to study the analytical processes of chemistry. There was also a course there on the history of the Revolution. They went to Newport alternate years in the same months, to study the Norse literature and swimming. They went to the White Sulphur Springs and to Bath, to study the history of chivalry as illustrated in the annual tournaments. They went to Paris to study French, to Rome to study Latin, to Athens to study Greek. In all parts of the ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... used, I can refer my questioner to the little story of "Gertrude's Bird," or the woodpecker, that is said to "fly about with a red mutch on her head." The legend is in Dasent's "Popular Tales from the Norse." ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... face was red, and the glint of blue ice was in her eyes. Her eyelashes and eyebrows, as well as the almost imperceptible down that edged her cheek when she turned against the light, were blond almost to whiteness. What beauty she had was of the fine, hardy Norse type. Her hands were red and hard, and even beneath the coarse sleeve of the oilskin coat one could infer that the biceps and deltoids were large and powerful. She was coarse-fibred, no doubt, mentally as well as physically, but her coarseness, so Wilbur guessed, would prove to be the ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... bards of Wales and in the Scalds of the Sagas did he seem to find his kindred spirits, though it has been suggested that his complex nature took this means of informing the world that he could read both Cymric and Norse. But we must not be unkind behind the magic door—and yet to be charitable to the uncharitable is ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... subject of speech. The "Havamal" is full of teaching on this subject—the necessity of silence, the danger and the folly of reckless talk. You all know the Japanese proverb that "the mouth is the front gate of all misfortune." The Norse poet puts the same truth into a grimmer shape: "The tongue works death to the head." Here are a number of ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... feel (and I did feel uncommonly funny, you may take your oath!), under such circumstances. However, as the song says, "Home once more," and many a yarn shall I have to tell when I gather myself round the fireside, pipe all hands for grog, and sing you an old Norse song with real humour in it—though I dare say you'll say you don't see it—and so no more a present from yours seasickly (I am quite well, but I mean I'm sick of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... mere nine hundred years semi-civilisation? Two thousand years before the Conquest the fierce warrior Northmen lived by the might of the halbert, fighters one and all from the days when the war-inspired mother croned of the battle-axe to her babe. And in the Normans was that Norse spirit dormant; but one night of such hardship as yet undreamt of had sufficed for ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... of the Sussex dialect is derived from the Saxon. Its accessories can be traced to the Celts, to the Norse—thus rape, a division of the county, is probably an adaptation of the Icelandic hreppr—and to the French, some hundreds of Huguenots having fled to our shores after the Edict of Nantes. The Hastings fishermen, for example, often say boco for plenty, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... they had been discovered, had been named from Norse mythology—Odin and Baldur and Thor, Uller and Freya, Bifrost and Asgard and Niflheim. When the Norse names ran out, the discoverers had turned to other mythologies, Celtic and Egyptian and Hindu and Assyrian, and by the middle of ...
— Graveyard of Dreams • Henry Beam Piper
... chronologically interjected among the saga-plays, and dealing with the more definite history of the hapless Queen of Scots in much of the saga-spirit. Bjoernson felt that the Scots had inherited no little of the Norse blood and temper, and believed that the psychology of his saga-heroes was adequate to account for the group of men whose fortunes were bound up with those of Mary Stuart in Scotland. He finds his key to the problem of her career in the fact that she was by nature incapable of yielding herself ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... mentioned in the record itself. The not exterminated germs of the nature-worship (with the adoration of fire) spring up again, but the moral life remained. (1.) Therefore the Veda language is to me the precipitate of the Old Bactrian (as the Edda language of the Old Norse). (2.) The Zend language is the second step from the Northern Old Bactrian. (3.) The Sanskrit is one still further advanced from the Southern Old Bactrian, or from the Veda language. (4.) All Indian literature, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... it is stated that the ballads are translated from Oehlensloeger, and from the Kiaempe Viser, the old Norse book referred ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... worked that the four-and-twenty immortal blackbirds could not have put more music into a pie than she did. Saul was piling wood into the big oven, and Sophie paused a moment on the threshold to look at him, for she always enjoyed the sight of this stalwart cousin, whom she likened to a Norse viking, with his fair hair and beard, keen blue eyes, and six feet of manly height, with shoulders that looked broad and strong enough to ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... Scandinavian in Russia Rurik Oleg Igor Olga's Vengeance Olga a Christian Sviatoslaf Russia the Champion of the Greek Empire in Bulgaria Norse Dominance in Heroic Period ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... that relates to the history of the Normans, confirms what is said by Sir F. Palgrave of the ignorance of the North and the indifference to it which characterized the Normans. Speaking of the Norman literature, he observes: "In vain we seek herein imitations of the old Norse poesy, or allusions to the history or customs of Scandinavia. There may, perhaps, exist more resemblance between the heroic sagas of the North and the romances of chivalry of the South of Europe, both ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... again, their hearts now filled with ardent expectation. At length rose again the stirring cry of "Land!" or its Norse equivalent, and as the dragon-peaked craft glided swiftly onward there rose into view a long coast-line, flat and covered with white sand in the foreground, while a dense forest spread over the rising ground in ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... goodness, something true From sun and spirit shining through All faiths, all worlds, as through the dark Of ocean shines the lighthouse spark, Attests the presence everywhere Of love and providential care. The faith the old Norse heart confessed In one dear name,—the hopefulest And tenderest heard from mortal lips In pangs of birth or death, from ships Ice-bitten in the winter sea, Or lisped beside a mother's knee,— The wiser world hath not outgrown, And the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... from Norse sources that may be classed as "Original Narratives of Early American History" are the Icelandic sagas (prose narratives) that tell of the voyages of Northmen to Vinland. There are two sagas that ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... Fraser from the French "fraise," a strawberry (the Frasers have a strawberry in their coat-of-arms); Chisholm is English and means "gravel-holm,"—the Anglo-Saxon ceosol (pebble) is preserved in Chesil Beach and Chiselhurst; MacLeod signifies "son of Ljot"; and ljotr is the Norse word for "ugly." Campbell is probably Norman-French, though Dr. Macbain suggests cam-beul, Gaelic for "crooked mouth." In olden times an external conqueror would sometimes subdue a district, and call the natives ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... ode that follows" (Gray). This ode (The Fatal Sisters, translated from the Norse) describes the Valkyriur, "the choosers of the slain," or warlike Fates of the Gothic mythology, as weaving the destinies of those who were doomed to perish in battle. It ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... wonderfully meaningless sensation to know nobody and to discover myself equally unknown amid that matchless companionship. We were like a mixed bunch of gods, Greek, Norse, Hindu, Hottentot—all gathered on Olympus, having never heard of each other but taking it for granted that we were all gods together and all ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... was the English national weapon in early times. It was originally used by the Norse tribes, and was brought into Western Europe by Rollo, first Duke of Normandy, a direct ancestor of William the Conqueror. When the Normans invaded England they carried the long-bow with them, and as the Saxons had no weapon so powerful, they readily adopted it. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... riddles with them. When he does attack them, it is because he is stung by personal injuries; and it is only with his own arm that he strikes. His exploits have a mixture of grim humour and fierce hatred quite unlike anything else in Scripture, and more resembling the horse-play of Homeric or Norse heroes than the stern purpose and righteous wrath of a soldier who felt that he was God's instrument. We seem to hear his loud laughter as he ties the firebrands to the struggling jackals, or swings the jaw-bone. A strange champion for Jehovah! But we ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... steeple-chimney yet got on end from sea to sea! North of the Humber, a stern Willelmus Conquaestor burnt the Country, finding it unruly, into very stern repose. Wild fowl scream in those ancient silences, wild cattle roam in those ancient solitudes; the scanty sulky Norse-bred population all coerced into silence,—feeling that, under these new Norman Governors, their history has probably as good as ended. Men and Northumbrian Norse populations know little what has ended, what is but beginning! The Ribble and the Aire roll down, as yet ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... primroses, and cowslips, grew around; these Edith began to pluck. Singing, as she wove, a simple song, that, not more by the dialect than the sentiment, betrayed its origin in the ballad of the Norse [11], which had, in its more careless composition, a character quite distinct from the artificial poetry of the Saxons. The song ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Fair Head, and then later at Rathlin Island, where their fate met them at last, as Deirdre had prophesied. It is a sad story, and we can easily weep at the thrilling moment when, there being no man among the Ultonians to do the king's bidding, a Norse captive takes Naisi's magic sword and strikes off the heads of the three sons of Usnach with one swift blow, and Deirdre, falling prone upon the dead bodies, chants a lament; and when she has finished singing, she puts her pale cheek against Naisi's, and dies; and a great cairn is piled over ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Fozlan, sent by the caliph Al Moktader, in the tenth century, as ambassador to a Scandinavian king established on the banks of the Volga (Journal Asiatique, 1825, vol. vi. pp. 16 ff.). In some cases there was an interment but no incineration, and thus it is that Norse ships have been found. Two of these precious relics are preserved in the museum of Christiania. One of them, discovered in 1880, constructed out of oaken planks held together by iron nails, still retained several of its oars; ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... 169: The proper division of this Old Norse word is not into v[i]-king, but into v[)i]k-ing. The first syllable means a "bay" or "fiord," the second is a patronymic termination, so that "vikings" are "sons of the fiord,"—an eminently appropriate ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... deepest claim to my gratitude if I did not here acknowledge it. Mr. Laing was or is of a stock which deeply appealed to my sympathies, for he is the son of the famous translator of the Heimskringla, a great collection of Norse sagas, which I had read, and in which he himself somewhat aided. Of late years, since he has retired from more active financial business, Mr. Laing has not merely turned his attention to literature; he has deservedly distinguished himself by translating, as I may say, into the ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... shout from the other boat, for the last of the flying herd had been overtaken by hard pulling; and, watching his opportunity so as to pick out a finely tusked head, the Norse harpooner there had made a successful thrust, and they, too, were fast ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... contains certain animal pairs which seem to reflect the two dualities, sun and moon, and day and night. There is here no certainty as to detail; the Norse myth is advanced and congealed, if not spurious, as Professor Bugge and his school would have us believe. At the feet of Odin lie his two wolves, Geri and Freki, "Greedy" and "Voracious." They hurl themselves across the lands when peace is broken. Who shall ...
— Cerberus, The Dog of Hades - The History of an Idea • Maurice Bloomfield
... of the Sun. Moreover, when the early Christians prayed, they turned to the East. Their holy day was, as the holy day of Christendom still is, Sunday, day of the Sun, an expression that comes from the Norse, on whom also shone the light of ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... shows no results while accomplishing great ends. It cannot be made easy. The gale and the lee-shore are the same as when the sea-kings of old dared them and did battle with them in the heroic energy of their old Norse blood. The wet, the cold, the exposure must be, since you cannot put a Chilson's furnace into a ship's forecastle, nor wear India-rubbers and carry an umbrella when you go aloft. But men will brave all such discomforts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... saved Europe from the Saracens. England had not been recreated by a Norman Conqueror. The Crusades were still undreamed of. Art, science, letters, were in custody in the East. These armed children ran riot,—passionate, intense, uncontrolled, loving fight and finery as the Trojans, or the Norse heroes ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... should take it into her head to accept him! No logic could take account of a woman's whimsies. Then what a pretty fix he would have got himself into, just by a foolhardy freak! But there was a strain of Norse blood in Hunt, and in spite of occasional touches of ague, the risk of the scheme had in itself a certain fascination for him. And yet he could n't help wishing he had carried out a dozen desperate devices for disgusting her with him, which at the time had seemed to ...
— Potts's Painless Cure - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... not found in the original notes we are chiefly indebted to Prof. R. B. Anderson, of the University of Wisconsin, and to his valuable work, NORSE MYTHOLOGY. We are also under obligations to Mrs. E. Hasselqvist, of the Augustana ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... their Harp, was suggested by the digging up of a mail-clad skeleton at Fall River—a circumstance which the poet linked with the traditions about the Round Tower at Newport, thus giving to the whole the spirit of a Norse viking song of war and of the sea. The Wreck of the Hesperus was occasioned by the news of shipwrecks on the coast near Gloucester and by the name of a reef—"Norman's Woe"—where many of them took place. It was written one night between twelve and three, and cost ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... help in her tribal fights, notwithstanding the rubbish she talked about the chief, Rezu, who according to her account of him, must resemble one of the fabulous "trolls," half-human and half-ghostly evil creatures, of whom I have read in the Norse Sagas, who could only be slain by some particular hero ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... in the beginnings of dusk, and hear them out on the Lake where they moor at night, a bedtime music that makes for strange dreaming—we know well what kind of a gift to the community Jack Miner is; and we are almost as sorry as he, when the keen, hardy Norse blood of the birds calls them ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... knew his gift of the ring to be our safety, and surely he had given it to me for this. So I grew confident, and even longed to see the sharp bow of the boat cleave the mist, if only her crew knew of our friend by name at least. Yet they might be Norse—not Danish. ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... quite innocent so long as you surrender to them simply without any admixture of interested motive.—But there were men of a more worldly type who only played the game of set purpose: the popular movement was to them only a road to success. Like the Norse pirates, they made rise of the rising tide to carry their ships up into the land: they aimed at reaching the innermost point of the great estuaries so as to be left snugly ensconced in the conquered cities when the sea fell back once more. The channel was narrow and the tide was capricious: ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... B. somewhat out of countenance), 'Oh! Aye! Keatinge is THE authority; a most extraordinary writer.' 'Well, I should call him the Geoffrey of Monmouth of Ireland.' (Mr B. changing the VENUE), 'I delight in Norse-stories; they are far grander than the Greek. There is the story of Olaf the Saint of Norway. Can anything be grander? What a noble character!' 'But,' I said, 'what do YOU think of his putting all those poor Druids on the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... the meaning of, e.g. 'the Dark One.' Before there can be a myth, ex hypothesi the words Dark One must have become hopelessly unintelligible, must have become a proper name. Thus suppose, for argument's sake only, that Cronos once meant Dark One, and was understood in that sense. People (as in the Norse riddle just cited) said, 'Cronos [i.e. the Dark One—meaning mist] swallows water and wood.' Then they forgot that Cronos was their old word for the Dark One, and was mist; but they kept up, and understood, all the rest of the phrase about ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... copy down any folk tale that he found surviving in the more isolated districts. In 1842-1844 appeared Norwegian Folk Tales by Moe and Asbjoernsen; in 1845, Norwegian Fairy Tales and Folk Legends; and there were subsequent additions. The five tales following are from these Norse collections. They were first made accessible in English in Dasent's Popular Tales from the Norse (1858). This book with its long introductory essay on the origin and diffusion of popular tales constitutes a landmark in the study of folklore. It and Dasent's later volume, Tales from ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... brought farming, and Scandinavians who taught nautical skill. The Celts revolted more than once, but Malcolm Canmore and his successors crushed them and confiscated their lands. In the reign of Alexander I. (d. 1124) mention is first made of Aberdeen (originally called Abordon and, in the Norse sagas, Apardion), which received its charter from William the Lion in 1179, by which date its burgesses had alfeady combined with those of Banff, Elgin, Inverness and other trans-Grampian communities to form a free Hanse, under which they enjoyed exceptional trading privileges. By ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Napoleon of 1792 and 1813, but during the long interval between devoted himself actively to intellectual culture and literary pursuits. He began his career as an author by translating the "Numancia" of Cervantes, but his admiration of the ancient Norse sagas and the old German legends led him into the composition of exquisitely beautiful and tender, though exceedingly fantastic, romances which speedily gained immense popularity. In these productions fairy and magical elements predominate. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... A.D. 875 that Ingolf, a jarl of Norway, came to Iceland with Norse settlers. They built their habitation at first where a pleasant headland seemed attractive, the present Ingolfshofdi, and later founded Reikjavik, where the signs directed them; for certain carved posts, which they had thrown overboard as they approached the island, were found ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... the sublime philosophic poem. In the Purusha Sukta, the ninetieth hymn of the tenth book of the Rig-Veda Sanhita, we have a description of the creation of all things out of the severed limbs of a magnified non-natural man, Purusha. This conception is of course that which occurs in the Norse myths of the rent body of Ymir. Borr's sons took the body of the Giant Ymir and of his flesh formed the earth, of his blood seas and waters, of his bones mountains, of his teeth rocks and stones, of his hair ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... small o above, used in one Middle High German passage] [This form was used in place of the expected [ou] because "uo" is often found in transliterations.] [e,] [e with tilde-shaped "tail", used in a few Old Norse words] [] [dagger, used only ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... devastating expeditions of the Norse or Northmen, the Carlovingian empire, now weakened by division, became an easier prey for the invaders. Emboldened by success, the Northmen at length commenced to settle in the regions they invaded, no longer returning, as formerly, to their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... The Norse conception of death as a vast, cloudy presence, darkly sweeping on its victims, and bearing them away wrapped in its sable folds, is evidently a free product of imagination brooding not so much on the distinct phenomena of an individual case as on the melancholy ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... a fair Norse maiden in Horlingdal. The father of the maid favoured the elder warrior; the maid herself ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the version here given, is a fine old English story, evidently very popular with the common people. Earlier versions were probably familiar to the Norse in the tenth century, at which time Dublin was the capital of a Norse kingdom. Suddenne was possibly ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... palace on Mount Takachiho, which is one of the two highest peaks in Kyushu, situated in the province of Hyuga, nearly in the middle of the southern extension of the island of Kyushu. It was from this place that the two brothers started on their expedition. It was no doubt such an expedition as the Norse Vikings of a later day often led into the islands of their neighbors. They had with them a force composed of the descendants of the invaders who had come with their grandfather from the continent. They marched ...
— Japan • David Murray
... originally a symbol of the Sun, perhaps of the vernal sun as opposed to the autumnal sun, the Sauvastika, and therefore a natural symbol of light, life, health, and wealth. That in ancient mythology the sun was frequently represented as a wheel is well known. Grimm identifies the Old Norse hjol or hvel, the A.-S. hvehol, English 'wheel,' with {kappa|upsilon with tonos|kappa|lambda|omicron|rho}, Sk. Kakra, wheel; and derives jol, 'yule-tide,' the time of the winter solstice, from hjol, 'the ...
— The Non-Christian Cross - An Enquiry Into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion • John Denham Parsons
... in his youth with English songs, and most probably knew the old Norse sagas; but he had to learn Latin in his later life. We must remember that most of the literature which Alfred could get at was locked up in Latin; even the invaluable Church History of St Bede needed a ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... a daughter of the gods, or the old Norse Vikings before they were Anglicised, with fair hair. And you have the ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... twelve pillars at Sinai. The Mandan Indians celebrated the Flood with twelve typical characters, who danced around the ark. The Scandinavians believed in the twelve gods, the Aesir, who dwelt on Asgard, the Norse Olympus. Diligent investigation may yet reveal that the number of a modern jury, twelve, is a survival of the ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... cordially welcomed. He was afterwards joined by his son, who, curiously enough, married a Shetland lady, and thus, even in the days of my father, who was his grandson, a constant communication was kept up with our Norse connections. I, also, have more than once heard of them since my father's death, and have determined to become more intimately acquainted with my relatives during this northern voyage of ours. But where are we getting to? What with the strong tide, and the favourable breeze, we positively ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... dull, it is regaining credit.—3. Aeschylus, the grandest of the three tragedians, who has given us under a thin veil the first plantation of Europe. The "Prometheus" is a poem of the like dignity and scope as the book of Job, or the Norse "Edda."—4. Of Plato I hesitate to speak, lest there should be no end. You find in him that which you have already found in Homer, now ripened to thought,—the poet converted to a philosopher, with loftier strains of musical wisdom than Homer reached, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... of artistic materials for household decoration. His work in this direction has improved the beauty of all household fabrics, and has affected the taste in household art in both England and America. Nevertheless he is best known as a poet. His finest poems are "The Earthly Paradise," a series of Norse legends, "Three Northern Stones," translated from Icelandic poems, and his translations of "The Odyssey." ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... Celts, and spoke Celtic; when they were conquered by the Romans, Latin words crept into the tongue; and as Romans gave place to the Saxons, and the Saxons to the Danes, words from the German and Norse tongues were added to the language. Finally, came the Norman Conquest, and with it a flood of French words. The English we speak to-day is a mixture of Celtic, Latin, Saxon, ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 58, December 16, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Great Eastern and Great Central lines also afford communications. The land is extremely fertile. The name, properly Axeyholm (cf. Haxey), is hybrid, Ax being the Celtic uisg, water; ey the Anglo-Saxon for island; and holm the Norse word with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... and why the goddess should put herself out to allay tempests in his behalf, or why hostile deities should be disturbed to tumble seas into turbulence for such a voyager, is a query. He merits neither their wrath nor their courtesy. I confess to liking heroes of the old Norse mythology better. They, at least, did not cry nor grow voluble with words when obstacles obstructed the march. They possess the merit of tremendous action. Aeneas, in this regard, is the inferior of Achilles. Excuse us from hero worship, if Aeneas be hero. In this old company of heroes, Ulysses ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... came in contact, or of infusing their own energy into them. During the long reign of Duke Richard the Fearless, the son of William Longsword, a reign which lasted from 945 to 996, the heathen Norman pirates became French Christians and feudal at heart. The old Norse language lived only at Bayeux and in a few local names. As the old Northern freedom died silently away, the descendants of the pirates became feudal nobles and the "Pirates' land" sank into the most loyal ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green |
