Old Norse For Beginners

Old Norse Lesson Book
Table of Contents
Page 3:
The Norse and English Tongues
Page 7:
Some Common Features of Old Norse and German
Page 10:
Pronunciation of Old Norse
Page 18:
Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson One
Page 30:
Norse Toon: The Spearman
Page 31:
Solutions to Lesson One
Page 36:
Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Two
Page 54:
Norse Toon: The Thieves
Page 55:
Norse Toon: King Olafs Dream
Page 56:
Solutions to Lesson Two
Page 61:
Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Three
Page 74:
Norse Toon: King Olafs Cheese
Page 75:
Solutions to Lesson Three
Page 78:
Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Four
Page 90:
Solutions to Lesson Four
Page 92:
Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Five
Page 105:
Solutions to Lesson Five
Page 109:
Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Six
Page 133:
Solutions to Lesson Six
Page 135:
Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Seven
Page 149:
Solutions to Lesson Seven
Page 150:
Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Eight
Page 170:
Solutions to Lesson Eight
Page 175:
Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Nine
Page 187:
Solutions to Lesson Nine
The Norse and English Tongues

by skar Gulaugsson and Haukur orgeirsson 2000-2003
As most, or all, anglophone students of Old Norse will be aware of, Norse and English
are closely related languages. Apart from a common Germanic ancestry, the languages
came in intimate contact later, during the Viking age, when Nordic people invaded
and settled the north and east of England in great quantity. Many Old Norse words
will appear familiar, or even completely intelligible, to an English-speaker. Such as
"g" (good), "bl" (blood), "go" (god), and "taka" (take). The last word, "taka" is
an example of a direct Old Norse loan-word in the English language, a word which
did not exist in the English language prior to the Viking influence.
There is no need to go into complex etymological comparisons or endless rows of
sound changes to make practical use of this; the practically inclined student can easily
learn a few handy "equations" without necessarily understanding the whole extent of
the phonological development. Also, it is just as much a matter of spelling differences
as a matter of pronunciation differences. Many Old English and Modern English
words are pronounced alike, though spelled differently, OE featuring "" "" "" and
vowel length marks. Whichever reason for the difference, the most practical equations
are below. Note that they sometimes contradict and are by no means applicable in all
cases. They are not equations in the mathematical sense, but rather a set of reoccuring
patterns that are helpful for guessing and remembering ON words.
Key:
C- an initial consonant (or cluster of consonants), i.e. at the start of a word
-C- an intervocalic consonant (cluster), i.e. between two vowels
-C a final consonant (cluster), i.e. at the end of a word
MnE
wh
ON
hv
MnE
ON
sample sample
what
hvat
Notes
Old English spelled it 'hw'. Norman scribes had it
changed to their own fancy. Back in ON and OE
times, both languages pronounced it pretty much
the same (as the unvoiced 'w' heard in various
American English dialects and other English
speechforms around the world)

w
wit
vit
spelling difference
call
kall
spelling difference
th-
thick
ykk
spelling difference; '' was replaced with 'th' in

medieval times in English, because of it resembled
too closely another letter in the gothic script of
that time
-d
red
rau
to some degree a matter of spelling; ON didn't

always use '' and it's use fell out early on.
-th-
father
fair
spelling difference
-ay
-ag, -eg
day, way
dagr,
vegr
these English words have had the same changes as

the 'gh' words, only their spelling doesn't reflect it.
'Day' used to end in a 'g' but then the 'g' become a
'gh' (in pronunciation) and finally a glide ('y'
-nk
-kk
thank,
frank
akka,
frakkr
in ON, the 'n' disappeared and lengthened the 'k'
sh
sk
ship,
shall,
fish
skip,
skal,
fiskr
this reflects a very old development in English;

even in OE it was pronounced as today
y-
g-
yarn,
yard
garn,
garr
a development related to the sk > sh above.
rei(i)
this cluster had simplified in the (Western) ON

studied in this course, though it remains in Eastern
Norse even today; it is long gone in English too,
though it remains in spelling
lfr
the 'w' disappeared in Norse very early before

'back vowels' e.g. 'o, , u, ' cf. was = var, Woden
= inn
wr-
w-
r-
wrath
[nothing] wolf
y-
[nothing] young
ungr
the same phenomenon as the w- > above, but

before any vowel
e-
j-
earth
jr
as all j- disappeared in ON (see above), new jrolled in
-th
-nn
sooth,
tooth
sannr,
tnn
Proto-Germanic 'n' changed to 'nn' in ON and to

'' in OE
The following is a similar list of vowel equations; it is to be noted, however, that such
equations between languages are much more fickle than what regards consonants, as
vowels are the sounds that change most rapidly in languages. These are the general
tendencies, or the most useful equations:
oo blood bl may be considered a spelling difference
ou out
the long u became a diphthong in West Germanic (English, Dutch,

German) early on, but remained in the northern languages; note the
old pronunciation in North England and Scotland
ee tree
tr
may be considered a spelling difference
Old Norse -> Articles -> Some Common Features of Old Norse and German
Some Common Features of Old Norse and

German
by skar Gulaugsson 2000

Case System:
ON and German have the same four cases standard to Germanic case languages,
nominate, accusative, dative, and genitive. They differ considerably in the usage of
the latter two, though.
German tends to be very reserved in the usage of dative and especially genitive;
genitive in German is used only to mark possession. ON has, however, a much more
evenly spread case usage, with dative and genitive seeing much use; genitive can be
observed to follow prepositions and even verbs. Dative also follows many verbs
whose meanings would seem direct enough to call for a simple accusative. Some
examples of all this:
; ; hrinda + dat = to push someone (note how it doesn't take accusative, which would
seem logical)
tvstra + dat = to scatter something
ska + gen = to wish for something (takes genitive, which never happens in
German)
unna + gen = to love someone/something
sakna + gen = to miss someone/something
njta + gen = to enjoy something
Verbs will also often take either accusative or dative, with different meanings for each
case:
fela + acc = to hide someone/something
fela + dat (+ acc) = to give someone (something) for specific use
taka + acc = to take something
taka + dat = to to receive someone
Some prepositions even take genitive:
til + gen = to (allative)
n + gen = without
vegna + gen = because of
Some prepositions take either accusative or dative, with different meanings for each
case:
+ acc = onto (allative)

+ dat = on (locative)
vi + acc = to (only with verbs), beside, against
vi + dat = against
Prepositions are also very common elements in phrasal verbs:
koma at = arrive
koma vi = relate to, touch, pertain, bring up (as a subject)
Sound Changes (Umlaut):
In German, umlaut is comparatively easy and convenient to deal with. ON features a

much more extensive umlaut; in fact, umlaut pervades the whole morphological
system of the language. The ON orthography also does not account as well for the
umlaut as German does. ON umlauts are of two types, i-umlaut and u-umlaut,
identified by which sound originates the umlaut. The u-umlaut is simple, only
effecting the change a > , but can appear unpredictably, because in many cases the u
that originated the umlaut is no longer present. Examples of u-umlaut:
hafa(to have) ~ vr hfum (we have)
vala (a pebble) ~ vlur (pebbles)
haf (a sea) ~ hf (seas)
(older forms marked the plural with -u, which caused the
umlaut and subsequently disappeared)
r (a row, nom) ~ raar (gen)
(feminine nouns like these originally had a -u ending in the
nominative, which effected an umlaut and then disappeared)
I-umlaut is considerably more extensive; the basic list of umlauts is:
> ae
a>e
(correspond to German a > )
>
j >
u>y
o > y (some u had changed to o, but retained the umlaut)
(correspond to German u > )
> oe
o>
(correspond to German o > )
au > ey
(corresponds to German au > u)
In fact, the main difficulties with this is how inadequately the orthography
accommodates the umlaut, compared to German orthography.
ON umlaut appears just about anywhere. There are many correspondences with
German here, such as plurals, derived verbs, adjective comparatives, all having iumlaut. But generally the occurrences are too many for me to attempt to relate here;
the umlaut will have to be tackled as it appears.
Old Norse -> Articles -> Pronunciation of Old Norse (standard)
Pronunciation of Old Norse

The most effective way of identifying sound values in brevity is the use of phonetic
alphabets such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which uses various
characters from the Latin and Greek alphabets, capital and small, to represent all the
different sounds enunciable by human beings. There are sounds in the IPA chart that
most people will never have heard of, as the range of sounds used in human speech is
enormous.
The main problem with the IPA system is that, with its heavy use of unconventional
characters, phoneticizing with it is practically impossible in computer documents; no
normal keyboards support the less conventional IPA characters, and even if one
downloads the fonts available for it, the sheer amount of different IPA symbols makes
it impossible to type it fast enough. Not to mention problems with converting the
results onto other people's computer screens.
The solution to this has been the adoption of a new version of IPA, one whose
characters are all available on "normal" keyboards (such as American ones). Instead of
interchanging Greek, Latin, and various arcane letters, this new computer standard,
called SAMPA, fully exploits differentiation by capitals and small caps, and also uses
special characters such as { } @ & etc, as well as numbers.
For the purposes of this course, we will only present here relevant characters, i.e.
those representing sounds in Modern English and Old Norse. To begin with, here are
"standard" English sounds (both General American (GA) and Received Pronunciation
(RP)):
(in phonetics, [] is always used to contain phonetic transcriptions)
[:] following a vowel represents that vowel being long, i.e. of roughly double duration
to short of vowels (do not confuse with common English definitions of 'long a as in
date, short as in cat'). Diphthongs (two different vowels combined) are long by
default.
Orthographic
asin...
'a','ai', 'date'
or'ay'
'wait'
SAMPA Notes
[eI]
'day'
'a','ai' 'fair'
'hair'
[E:]
'e','ee', 'Pete'
'ea',etc 'feet'
[i:]
'pea'
'i'or'igh''bite'
'high'
[aI]
'o'or'oa' 'note'
'boat'
[@U]
'u'or'ew' 'cute'
'few'
[ju:]
'u'or'ew' 'Sue'
'sew'
[u:] after[s,n,l,r]
'oo'
'tool'
[U:]
'oo'
'foot
[U]
'ou'or'ow'
'louse'
'brown'
[AU]
'oi'or'oy'
'void'
'boy'
[OI]
'au'
'cause'
[O:]
'a'
'pat'
[{]
'e'
'pet'
[e]
'i'
'pit'
[I]
'o'
'pot'
[Q]
'u'
'cut'
[V]
anyvowel 'a'in
"schwa";theweak
'another' [@]
unstressedvowelthat
peoplehavetrouble
spelling
'ur'
'fur'
[3:] innonrhotic
dialect(withoutfinal
'r'sound,asinRP)
'ar'
'star'
[A:] nonrhoticdialect
'ere'or'ear'
'ear'
[I@]
nonrhotic
'air'
'air'
[e@] nonrhotic
'ure'
'cure'
[jU@] nonrhotic
I will not go into the proper transcription of the last few cases in rhotic dialects; it is
not relevant to the study of Old Norse.
It is very important to differentiate capitals vs small-caps in SAMPA (cannot be said

too often). [A] for example is a different sound to [a] (the latter being closer to [O]). It
is also very important to note that anything within [] represents phonetic transcription;
that must therefore not be read as English orthography!
You will probably be finding the SAMPA transcription for English rather "bulky" or
inconvenient; that is normal, since the transcription would not do well to define itself
by English sounds, which aren't necessarily "standard" in comparison to other
languages. Remember, phonetics is the science of all languages, not only English.
Regarding some English consonants:
Orthographic
asin...
SAMPA
description
'p'
'pick'
[p^h]
[^h]represents
aspiration
'p'
'spoil'
[p]
notaspirated
after[s]
't'
'tick'
[t^h]
't'
'store'
[t]
'c'or'k' 'cat'
[k^h]
'c'or'k' 'skull'
[k]
'k'before 'kin'
[c^h]
"palatalized"'k',i.e.
'i'or'e'
pronouncedmore
forward
'k'before 'skin'
[c]
'i'or'e'
'b'
'bay'
[b]
voiced
'd'
'day'
[d]
"
'g'
'good'
[g]
"
'g' 'gill'
[C]voiced
("soft")versionof[c]
'g'
'gin'
[dZ]
voicedversionof'ch'
[tS]
'ch'
'chin'
[tS]
unvoicedaffricate
'th''that'[D]voiced
'th''thick'[T]unvoiced
'j'
'jest'[dZ]
voicedversionof
'ch'[tS]
'y''you'[j]*note*
thatphonetic[j]isnotEnglish'j'!
'w''win'[w]
'wh''white[w^0]unvoiced,
onlyinsomedialects
'v''vine'[v]
'ng''young'[N]
's''see'[s]unvoiced
's''house'[z]
voiced
[^0] as in [w^0] means devoicing.
And now to the sounds of Old Norse, starting with vowels:
Once again, remember that phonetic vowel length, represented by [:], has nothing to
do with English definitions of long vowels, like 'a as in date'.
Orthographic
SAMPA Notes
[A:]notethelengthmark;nota
commonsoundinEnglish
a[A]dialects;see'ar'above,also
like
Spanish'a',forexample
[e:]
e[e]
[i:]
i[i]
[o:]doesnotexistonitsownin
English;like'o'inSpanish,
o[o]French,German,andmanyothers
[u:]
u[u]
[y:]thisisthedreaded'rounded
[i]';ifyoulackOldNorse
y[y]samplesforthis,lookforFrench
pronunciationof'u',
orGerman'',whicharealso
pronounced[y];itispronouncedby
rounding
thelips(aswhenonepronounces[u]or
[o])
andsaying[i]

[O]
(i.e.tailedo)
oe
[2:]doesn'texistinEnglish;look
for'eu'asin'feu'inFrench
[2]
[E:]
au[Au]trivialdifferencetoEnglish
[AU];
morelikeSpanish'au'
ei[Ei]similartoSpanish'ei'
ey[9y]onceagain,looktoFrench:like
'euille'in'feuille'
On to the consonants:
Orthographic...asin... SAMPA Notes
p
prestr
[p^h] aspiratedasinEnglish
psp[p]samepatternas
inEnglish,
noaspirationafter[s]
papi[p]betweenvowels,
alsonot
aspirated(unlikeEnglish)
ttl[t^h]
tstanda
[t]
thata[t]notaspiratedin
intervocalic
position,like[p]
kkpa[k^h]
ksk[k]
kaka[k]
kkerti[c^h]
kskella[c]
khaki[c]
bbor[b]
ddagr[d]
gg[g]
ggeta[C] likeEnglish
'gill'
gjgjta[C]
gsaga[G]betweenvowels;
like
'g'inSpanish'fuego'
ykk[T]
ea[D]
jjl[j]not[dZ]as
English
'j',but[j]as'y'
vvandi[w]
hv
hvt
[w_0]
ff
[f]
fhafa[v]
hhafa[h]
rrs[r]trilled'r',as
in
Spanish;*not*tobe
pronounced
likestandardEnglish'r'
hrhrs[r^0]unvoiced[r];as
an
approximation,trysaying[r]
exhalingforcefullyatthe
sametime,asifsaying[h];
consideralsothe
relationship
between[w]and
[w^0],as
guidance
nn[n]
ngung[Ng]unlikeEnglish,
the'g'
isalsopronounced
hnhnefi[n^0]same
relationshipas
between[r]and[r^0]
ll[l]alwaysasSpanish
'l',notlikeEnglish'l'
in'cold'
hlhl[l^0]unvoiced,like
[r^0]
ss[s]never[z]
xsax[ks]likeEnglish
ptkrapt[ft]
ktrakt[xt][x]islike'ch'
in
Scottish'loch',or'j'
inSpanish'ojo'
gtsagt[Gt]
gghagga[gg]
[A:] [O:] aw (law)
a [A] [A] Brit ar (star)
[e:] [e:] e (pet), long
e [e] [e] e (pet)
[i:] [i:] ee (fee)
i [i] [I] i (pit)
[o:] [o:] Germ oh (wohnen)
O [o] [o] Sp o (hijo)
[u:] [u:] ue (Sue)
U [u] [U] oo (foot)
[y:] [y:] Fr u (rue)
Y [y] [Y] Ice u (kuti)
(o-tail) [O] [O] aw (law), short
[2:] [2:] Fr eu (feu), long
[2] [2] Fr eu (feu)
[E:] [E:] ai (fair)
ei [Ei] [Ei] ay (day)

ey [9y] [9y] Fr euil (feuille)
au [Au] [Au] ow (brow)
seebelow
Double consonants: pronounced with double length, i.e. 'alla' is [AllA]. This is not
normally done in English, though sequences of words may produce double consonants
(geminates), e.g. 'black cow' [bl{k kAU]. If you pronounce 'black cow' as one word,
you have [kk] in the middle.
Stress in Old Norse always falls on the first syllable, or rather, all stems are stressed.
ON words are always just <stem> + <ending>, stems never being more than one
syllable; longer words, i.e. with more than one stem syllable, are composed. In a
composed word, e.g. 'fingrbjrg', stress falls primarily on the first syllable (the first
stem), 'fing', and secondarily on the next stem, 'bjrg'. Endings only contain the short
vowels 'a, i, u'; syllables with long (accented) vowels or diphthongs can thus always
be recognized as stem syllables, and therefore entitled to stress.
Old Norse for Beginners - Lesson One

by Haukur orgeirsson and skar Gulaugsson
1. Miscellany
1. About this course

2. On learning languages in general
3. On learning arcane languages
4. Old Norse? Which Old Norse?
5. English grammatical vocabulary
2. Grammar
1. Declension of pronouns
2. Declension of nouns
3. Article
4. Gender of nouns
5. Notes on word order
3. Vocabulary
1. Nouns
2. Pronoun
3. Verbs
4. Adverbs
5. Conjunctions
6. Sample sentences
4. Exercises
1. Mark the pronouns' cases (optional)

2. Translate the phrases into English
3. Translate the phrases into Norse
4. Translate the text into English
5. Translate the text into Norse
5. Looking at real texts
1. A few words from Snorra-Edda

2. Two lines from the Vlusp
0. Miscellany
0.1 About this course
This course is designed for speakers of English. No previous knowledge of Old Norse
or any other language is needed or expected.
The aim of the course is to aid beginning students of Old Norse in building up
sufficient basic knowledge for the student to be able to start studying on his own after
the course. The method is to focus on building up a firm understanding of the
grammatical basics of the language, having the student use the language as much as
possible.
We will try throughout the course to spice it up with background information, as most
students of Old Norse have strong interest in Old Norse culture as well as language.
We will also refrain from using nonsensical sentences, preferring "real" made-up
sentences or simplified versions of actual texts.
Lessons are organised into four chapters. The first one (0) contains information that is
not really the core of the matter but can be useful and interesting to read. The next one
(1) contains the new grammar for the lesson, then (2) comes the vocabulary, all of
which you should memorise, and then (3) exercises to help you get a hands on feeling
for the subject. In the last chapter (4) we look at real texts or sentences from the
literature. Do not get discouraged if this is difficult at times, you don't have to
memorise everything there, just read through it.
0.2 On learning languages in general

The process of learning languages is often somewhat misperceived, especially in
cultures with little tradition or need for it. Language learning is gradual, piece-bypiece, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, often rewarding, often frustrating. There is no
black and white in language learning, no set stage where one "speaks the language",
before which one understood and spoke nothing, after which one understands and
speaks everything. It's an open-ended process, from which one can enter and exit at
will, always benefitting from every minute effort. How this relates to our course, is to
make you understand that you will not exit from it completely fluent in Old Norse,
having "finished" that language, because there is no finish line; but neither will you
have wasted your time, because time invested in language study is never "lost". You
are to emerge from the course having achieved a certain point, a certain skill level,
from which you can benefit, even if it cannot be considered fluency. Most importantly,
the end results should be gratifying and the process fun, though unavoidably hard at
times.
0.3 On learning arcane languages

The study of arcane languages such as Old Norse has certain marked differences to
the study of modern languages; the most important factor is, naturally, that one can
never hear anybody speak the language. That can be a significant psychological
obstacle in memorizing words and reading text. Coming from an experienced
language learner, the problem with learning arcane languages is that one has no access
to the "sound of the language", its very soul. This makes it more difficult to get a feel
for its structure, to become comfortable with it, even to develop feelings for it, all
factors not to be taken lightly.
In studying arcane languages, one must deal with this by "reliving" and "realizing" the
language, by familiarizing oneself with the culture of the language's former speakers
and imagining the life behind it. One must understand that it was once the native
language of a whole nation of people of all kinds, to whom it was as dear and natural
as your first language is to you. Understand that those people thought in this language,
expressed their needs in it, their love, their anger and hate, their first and last words;
parent to child, friend to friend, husband to wife, foe to foe, any person to any other
person. It was as living once as any given language of today, complete with slang,
neologisms, swearing and nonsense, just as well as the more commonly known poetry
and literature. Once one genuinely and truly understands this, one has gained an
important psychological advantage in the learning process of an arcane language.
0.4 Old Norse? Which Old Norse?

The term Old Norse refers to the language spoken in Scandinavia and Scandinavian
settlements from about 800 to about 1350. It should be obvious that it was not exactly
the same language over a vast area and 550 years. It is usually split into two groups,
which are then split into two dialects.
West Norse
East Norse
Old Icelandic Old Norwegian
Old Danish Old Swedish
Of all these, the dialect which preserved the most interesting literature is Old
Icelandic. This course will teach Old Icelandic from the 13th century; when such
works as Heimskringla and the Edda were composed. The spelling of Old Icelandic
words is normalised to the accepted standard. When texts that are not from the 13th
century are quoted we will still use the same spelling.
The term 'Old Norse' is sometimes used to mean specifically what we here call 'West
Norse' or what we here call 'Old Icelandic'. It is sometimes applied to Icelandic up to
the 16th century.
0.5 English grammatical vocabulary

It is quite possible to teach and learn languages without the use of grammatical terms.
Indeed, a child does not learn to speak by first learning what a noun is. Yet, it is our
opinion that it is practical to use grammatical vocabulary in describing the Old Norse
language. This course assumes knowledge of the following words for parts of speech.
Very short descriptions follow.
Noun: A name of a person, place or thing (book, Paris, John).
Adjective: A word that describes a noun (good, bad, ugly).
Pronoun: A word used instead of a noun (he, we, which).
Verb: A word that describes what someone is doing (do, kill, say).
Adverb: A word that describes a verb (well, highly, badly).
Conjunction: A connecting word (and, but, or).
Preposition: A word placed before a noun to indicate place, direction etc. (to,
from, in).
As new terms are introduced make an effort at understanding them; it is essential for
making sense of the text.
1. Grammar
1.1 Declension of pronouns
In Norse, nouns and pronouns are declined in cases. What on earth does that mean?
We will use English as a starting point to explain. Consider the English sentence: "She
loves me." If you have learnt syntax you will know that the "subject" of this sentence
is the pronoun "she" and the "object" is the pronoun "me". If you haven't learnt syntax
I'll let you in on the trick; the subject in a sentence is the word that is doing stuff, the
object is the word stuff is done to. So, in our sentence "she" is doing stuff and it's
being done to "me". Simple.
Now let's look at another sentence: "I love her." Okay, now "I" is doing stuff, so "I" is
the subject, and it's being done to "her" which must then be the object. Now consider;
how does the English language distinguish between subject and object in a sentence?
As you will see from our example there are two methods:
1. Changing the word order. You will note that the word preceding the verb is the
subject whereas the word following the verb is the object.
2. Changing the form of the words. Aha! This is where things get interesting. Of
course the "she" in the first sentence is the same person as the "her" in the second
sentence, similarly the "I" and "me" refer to the same bloke. We say the word itself
hasn't changed, only the form of it. We'll make a little table:
Subject:
you
he
she
it
Object:
me
you
him
her
it
You will note that sometimes the word changes completely when switching between
the roles of subject and object, like "I" to "me", sometimes it changes but remains
recognisably the same, like "he" to "him", and sometimes it doesn't change at all, like
"you" to "you".
Now we have seen that English uses different forms of pronouns to represent subject
and object but those different forms are also used for other things. Let's look at the
sentence "I am he." Something strange has happened; preceding the verb there is a
pronoun in the subject form, well and good, but following the verb is a pronoun that is
also in the subject form. The explanation lies in the verb we're using; the verb "to be"
doesn't really describe "stuff being done" (as we have so eloquently put it in this
passage). It's more like an equals sign: "I = he". In such cases the word following the
verb is called neither object nor subject but "complement".
Now that we've found a new use for our subject form we'll have to redo our table:
Subject, complement:
you
he
she
it
Object:
me
you
him
her
it
Now we might wonder whether there is another use for the object form as well.
Indeed there is; consider the sentence "I saved it for him". Here "I" is the subject and
"it" is the object, as you will have realised, but what about "him"? It's not following a
verb so it can't be an object but it's still in the object form. We conclude that words
following a preposition take the object form. Again we have to redo our table:
Subject, complement:
you
he
she
it
Object, prepositional:
me
you
him
her
it
Now that we've found more than one use for both of our forms we'll name those forms
for easy reference. We'll call them nominative and accusative and we'll refer to them
collectively as the cases of the pronouns. We'll call this changing of forms by the
pronouns declension.
Nominative case:
you
he
she
it
Accusative case:
me
you
him
her
it
Remember what we stated at the beginning of this section? "In Norse, nouns and
pronouns are declined in cases". Now we can state: "In English, pronouns are declined
in cases". The beauty of it is that the Norse cases of nominative and accusative work
exactly like the English cases we have been defining. Thus the nominative in Norse
serves as subject and compliment and the accusative as object and prepositional. The
Norse table corresponding to the English table above looks like this:
Nominative case:
ek
hann
hon
at
Accusative case:
mik
ik
hann
hana
at
You notice a slight resemblance between the two tables. You also note that, as with
English, when the pronouns go from nominative to accusative they sometimes change
much (ek - mik), sometimes little (hon - hana) and sometimes not at all (hann - hann).
Now you can do exercise 3.1.
1.2 Declension of nouns

In the Norse language, nouns, like pronouns, are declined in cases. Again we start by
discussing English. Consider the sentence "Peter calls Maggie." Here the subject is
"Peter" and the object is "Maggie". Now another sentence: "Maggie calls Peter." The
roles of subject and object have been switched, but how? Not by changing the forms
of the words, as with the pronouns, but solely by changing the word order. In contrast,
Norse solves the problem of distinguishing between subject and object with case
endings and not word order.
Now to the good stuff. Norse nouns are declined in cases. That is, the form of the
nouns change depending on whether they play the role of nominative or accusative.
The wonderful science of grammar puts nouns into different groups depending on
their declension pattern. The first group we will look at is called "strong masculine";
accept those terms as arbitrary for now.
The pattern of the strong masculine word is that they have the ending -r in the
nominative. We'll look at some examples from our vocabulary in 2.1.
Singular of the strong masculine declension:
Nominative:
lfr
baugr
Haukr
konungr
Accusative:
lf
baug
Hauk
konung
Note that proper names (like Haukr here) are declined in cases like any other nouns.
1.3 Article
In English there are two kinds of articles; the indefinite article "a and an" and the
definite article "the". The Norse language has no indefinite article, thus "draugr" by
itself means "a ghost". Norse, however, does have a definite article though it doesn't
work quite like the English one. Rather than being a small unchanging word preceding
nouns the Norse article is a suffix depending on case, gender and number. For the
masculine words we've introduced the article in both nominative singular and
accusative singular is "-inn" tacked on to the words. Thus:
Indefinite
Nominative
lfr
Definite
lfrinn
Accusative
lf
lfinn
or in so many words:
lfr = an elf (nominative)
lfrinn = the elf (nominative)
lf = an elf (accusative)
lfinn = the elf (accusative)
1.4 Gender of nouns

We said before that the group of nouns we're looking at is called strong masculine.
The "strong" classification is arbitrary but we're going to let you in on the masculine
thing. Every word in Norse has an arbitrary "gender", masculine, feminine or neuter.
When we refer to a word with a certain gender we have to use the pronoun with the
same gender. Thus masculine nouns take the masculine pronoun (hann=he), feminine
nouns take the feminine pronoun (hon=she) and neuter nouns take the neuter pronoun
(at=it). Since all the nouns used in this chapter are masculine you'll be concerned
with "hann" for now.
1.5 Notes on word order

Word order in English is quite rigid. For a simple sentence it's always "subject-verbobject". In Norse this is not so, the word order is quite free, mainly because the
information about which word plays which role is given by grammatical endings
(cases and more) whereas English relies on word order to convey this information.
Remember to check the grammatical ending of Norse words to find their place in the
sentence.
This is not to say that there aren't certain conventions on word order in Norse. Most
often there is one thing that is most natural but be prepared to meet anything.
In Norse, titles usually follow the name they refer to; thus 'king lfr' is 'lfr
konungr'.
2. Vocabulary
2.1. Nouns
All nouns here are of the strong masculine declension.
lfr
elf
baugr
ring
brandr
sword
dvergr
dwarf
draugr
ghost
hestr
horse
haukr
hawk
hjlmr
helmet
konungr
king
knfr
knife
ormr
worm, serpent
lfr
wolf
Names:
Haukr
lfr
Sigurr
Tyrfingr
2.2 Pronoun
hann
he, it
We gloss the word as both "he" and "it" as it can refer both to men and to things with
masculine gender. Remember that all the nouns given in this lesson are of masculine
gender.
2.3 Verbs
The forms given here are the third person singular of the verbs. This corresponds with
the English s-form (like "sees" and "hears"). This is all you need to know for now.
owns
er
is (takes a complement!)
heitir
is called (takes a complement!)
sr
sees
segir
says
tekr
takes
vegr
kills (usually in battle), slays
Sometimes the subject is dropped and the verb alone gives the meaning. Thus 'vegr'
alone might mean 'he kills'.
2.4 Adverbs
hr
here
eigi
not
ok
also
2.5 Conjunctions
These conjunctions are used much as in English. Note that 'ok' can be either an adverb
or a conjunction, depending on context.
ok
and
en
but
2.6 Sample sentences
The following sentences represent one approach to tackling Norse sentences. If you're
comfortable with it you can employ it yourself in the exercises.
1. Vegr orminn lfr.
o Subject: lfr [nominative, proper name]

o Object: orminn [accusative, with article]
o Meaning: lfr kills the serpent
2. Baug dvergr
o Subject: dvergr [nominative, without article]

o Object: baug [accusative, without article]
o Meaning: A dwarf has a ring.
3. Draugrinn sr konunginn.
o Subject: draugrinn [nominative, with article]

o Object: konunginn [accusative, with article]
o Meaning: The ghost sees the king.
4. Heitir konungrinn lfr.
o Subject: konungrinn [nominative, with article]

o Complement: lfr [nominative, proper name]
o Meaning: The king is called lfr.
After you finish studying the vocabulary you should take on the remaining exercises.
3. Exercises
3.1 Mark the pronouns' cases (optional)
In the following bible quotes there are many pronouns. Locate them and find out what
case they're in. Also note the reason they are in that case.
a) I am he that liveth.
b) Take now thy son whom thou lovest and offer him there for a burnt offering.
c) And when she had brought them unto him to eat, he took hold of her, and
said unto her: "Come lie with me, my sister".
d) Him that dieth of Baasha in the city shall the dogs eat.
e) Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise.
3.2 Translate the phrases into English.

a) Dvergrinn baug.
b) Hjlm Haukr.
c) lfrinn sr draug.
d) Hann er konungrinn.
e) Hann sr dverginn.
3.3 Translate the phrases into Old Norse

a) The ghost kills the king.
b) The elf kills a wolf.
c) The king sees a hawk.
d) lfr is a king.
e) A king is named lfr.
3.4 Translate the text into English
lfr heitir konungr. Hann brand. Heitir brandrinn Tyrfingr. lf sr lfr ok segir:
"Hr er lfr!". lfr tekr brandinn ok vegr lfinn. En hr er ok ormr. lfr sr hann
eigi. lf vegr ormrinn.
3.5 Translate the text into Old Norse

A king is called Sigurr. He owns a sword but not a horse. lfr is also a king. He
owns a horse. Sigurr kills lfr and takes the horse.

4.1 A few words from the Snorra-Edda
En er Jrmunrekkr konungr s haukinn...
Glossary:
er
when
saw (past tense of 'sr')
Meaning: "But when king Jrmunrekkr saw the hawk..."

The subject of the sentence 'Jrmunrekkr konungr' is in the nominative case whereas
the object 'haukinn' is in the accusative case.
To find out just what happened when king Jrmunrekkr saw the hawk you will have to
look up chapter 50 of the Skldskaparml.
4.2 Two lines from the Vlusp

In Vlusp (The Prophecy of the Seeress) the seeress says:
Ask veit ek standa.
Heitir Yggdrasill.
Glossary:
askr
ash tree
veit ek
I know
standa
(to) stand
There are some things you should notice here. The first word of the sentence, 'ask', is
the object. You can see that because it is in the accusative form. Then comes the verb
'veit' and then the subject 'ek'. Thus the word order is 'object-verb-subject'.
The second sentence has no subject. Instead of 'Hann heitir Yggdrasill.' we have only
'Heitir Yggdrasill.' It is quite normal in poetry that the subject be dropped.
Meaning:
"I know an ash tree to stand. It is called Yggdrasill."
lfr heitir konungr. Hann brand.

Geirr heitir mar. Hann er Normar.
lfr sr Geir.
: "Geirr!"
G: "Geirr heiti ek, konungr."
lfr tekr geirinn.
: "Geir vil (want) ek!"
N hefir Geirr eigi Geir.
Solutions to Lesson One

by Haukur orgeirsson 2001
3.1 Mark the pronouns' cases (optional)
b) Take now thy son whom thou lovest and offer him there for a burnt
offering.
nominative
subject
he
nominative
complement
b) Take now thy son whom thou lovest and offer him there for a burnt
offering.
thy
genitive
(ignore for now)
whom
accusative
object
thou
nominative
subject
him
accusative
object
she
nominative
subject
them
accusative
object
him
accusative
prepositional
he
nominative
subject
her
accusative
prepositional
her
accusative
prepositional
me
accusative
prepositional
my
genitive
(ignore for now)
him
accusative
object

thou
nominative
subject
he
nominative
complement
thy
genitive
(ignore for now)
In particular note the use 'I am he'. It may be more normal English to say 'I am him'
but we feel it is important to familiarise you with the idea of a complement in the
nominative case.
3.2 Translate the phrases into English.

b) Hjlm Haukr.
c) lfrinn sr draug.
a) Dvergrinn baug.
The dwarf owns/has a ring.
The verb '' is often used where English would use 'owns'. In general, Norse uses '' to
indicate possession and 'hefir' to indicate that something is being held or carried.
b) Hjlm Haukr.
Haukr owns/has a helmet.
Same case here. If it had been 'Hjlm hefir Haukr.' we would assume not only that
Haukr had a helmet but that he was wearing it right now.
c) lfrinn sr draug.
The elf sees a ghost.
The norse mythological creature 'lfr' is perhaps not completely accurately translated
by 'elf' but the word is of the same root and is usually translated like this. The meaning
of 'draugr' is captured by 'ghost' fairly accurately.
He is the king.
Notice that since the verb 'er' takes a complement there is a word in nominative on
both sides.
He sees the dwarf.
Once more 'dwarf' may mistranslate 'dvergr' but only slightly.

d) lfr is a king.
Draugrinn vegr konunginn.
Vegr draugrinn konunginn.
Konunginn vegr draugrinn.
Since the subject is the ghost and the object is the king the ghost gets the nominative
ending but the king doesn't. Word order is irrelevant. The three above are all equally
possible.
lfrinn vegr lf.
Vegr lfrinn lf.
lf vegr lfrinn.
This case is analogous to the one above, the only difference is that now the object has
not got the definite article.

Konungrinn sr hauk.
Sr konungrinn hauk.
Hauk sr konungrinn.
More of the same.
d) lfr is a king.
lfr er konungr.
Er lfr konungr.
Konungr er lfr.
The verb 'er' doesn't behave like 'sr' and 'vegr' above. Instead of taking an object it
takes a complement. Complements belong in the nominative case - so does the subject
which means that both words are in nominative.
lfr heitir konungr.
Konungr heitir lfr.
Heitir konungr lfr.
The verb 'heitir' works like 'er' above. Those verbs work like an equals sign.

lfr heitir konungr. Hann brand. Heitir brandrinn Tyrfingr. lf sr lfr ok segir:
"Hr er lfr!". lfr tekr brandinn ok vegr lfinn. En hr er ok ormr. lfr sr hann
eigi. lf vegr ormrinn.
A king is named lfr. He has a sword. The sword is called Tyrfingr. lfr sees a wolf
and says: "Here is a wolf!". lafr takes the sword and slays the wolf. But here is also
a worm. lfr doesn't see it. The worm kills lfr.
When you are writing an English text using an ON name you should always
keep it in the same case; I chose the nominative but some people prefer the
accusative. The nominative form is the one you find in dictionaries.
English has the habit of using 'does' in it's denying sentences; that makes for the
most natural translation here.
Note that we have "lfr sr _hann_ eigi." translated as "lfr doesn't see
_it_." The masculine pronoun can refer to all nouns of the (arbitrarily
distributed) masculine gender.
3.5 Translate the text into Norse

A king is called Sigurr. He owns a sword but not a horse. lfr is also a king. He
owns a horse. Sigurr kills lfr and takes the horse.
Heitir konungr Sigurr. hann brand en hest eigi. lfr heitir ok konungr. Hest
hann. Sigurr vegr lf ok tekr hestinn.
There are many possibilities in the translation since the word order is free.
The correspondance between the words 'ok, en' and 'and, but' is not absolute.
Sometimes 'ok' is best translated as 'but' and 'en' as 'and'.
Old Norse for Beginners - Lesson Two

1. Grammar
1. First and second person personal pronouns

2. Plural of third person pronouns
3. Plural of nouns
4. Slightly irregular nouns
5. Mar - an irregular noun
6. Verbal conjugation
7. "Er" - an all purpose relative pronoun
8. The present tense
9. Word order
2. Vocabulary
1. Nouns
2. Pronouns
3. Verbs
4. Adverbs
5. A greeting
6. Yes or no questions
7. Sample sentences
3. Exercises

2. Translate the phrases into Old Norse
4. Translate the text into Old Norse
5. Translate the play into English
6. Translate the play into English
1. Half a stanza by Snorri Sturluson

2. Two half-strophes from the Sigdrfuml
1. Grammar
1.1 First and second person personal pronouns
Now you have to learn those singular personal pronouns:
1.person
2.person
Nominative
ek
Accusative
mik
ik
The corresponding English table looks like this:

1.person
2.person
Nominative
you
Accusative
me
you
The forms '' and 'ik' are the relatives of the English forms 'thou' and 'thee'.
And then there are the plural pronouns, still fairly similar to English:
1.person
2.person
Nominative
vr
Accusative
oss
yr
1.person
2.person
Nominative
we
you
Accusative
us
you
And finally a concept that doesn't exist in Modern English, dual pronouns:
1.person
2.person
Nominative
vit
it
Accusative
okkr
ykkr
1.person
2.person
Nominative
we two
you two
Accusative
us two
you two
1.2 Plural of third person pronouns

We will now introduce the plural of the third person pronouns. As before we begin
with English.
Singular
Plural
Nominative
he
she
it
they
they
they
Accusative
him
her
it
them
them
them
The reason for writing "they" out three times is that the plural of "he" is the same as
the plural of "she" or the plural of "it", unlike Old Norse :
Singular
Plural
Nominative
hann
hon
at
eir
au
Accusative
hann
hana
at
au
Thus, many "hons" make a "r" and many "hanns" make a "eir" (to put it in silly
terms). We are still only using the masculine pronoun as all nouns we have introduced
are masculine.
1.3 Plural of nouns

Nouns, of course, have a plural form. The plural form declines in cases and can be
with or without definitive article. We'll write up a table showing the declension of our
strong masculine words. This time we will use a {stem + ending} scheme. The
grammatical stem of a word is the word without grammatical ending.
Without article
With article
Singular
Plural
Singular
Plural
Nom.
stem + r
stem + ar
stem + r + inn
stem + ar + nir
Acc.
stem
stem + a
stem + inn
stem + a + na
And then with the good old elf as the example.

Without article
With article
Singular
Plural
Singular
Plural
Nom.
lfr
lfar
lfrinn
lfarnir
Acc.
lf
lfa
lfinn
lfana
Now you know eight different forms of each noun. This might be a bit overwhelming
at first but if you immediately begin memorising the table above and work hard at the
exercises it will soon be very familiar.
1.4 Some slightly irregular nouns
Some words of the strong masculine declension lack the nominative singular ending
'r'.
In order to make it completely clear what we mean we decline a sample word from
this group. The word is 'jarl' and means 'earl'. The reason is probably that pronouncing
"jarlr" would not be comfortable.
Without article
With article
Singular
Plural
Singular
Plural
Nom.
jarl
jarlar
jarlinn
jarlarnir
Acc.
jarl
jarla
jarlinn
jarlana
The vocabulary also introduces the word 'geirr'. It is completely regular, so do not get
confused by the two r's at the end. The first r is part of the stem whereas the second
one is the nominative singular ending.
1.5 Mar - an irregular noun

We will now introduce a masculine noun that in its declension does not follow the
patterns already described. The word is 'mar' and means 'human being' or 'person'.
Without article
With article
Singular
Plural
Singular
Plural
Nom.
mar
menn
marinn
menninir
Acc.
mann
menn
manninn
mennina
Notice how the irregularity is similar to that of the corresponding English word, 'man'.
Also notice that the endings for the article are very similar to those for the regular
words. This is no coincidence, in fact the article declines in the same basic way for
every word of the same gender.
The word 'mar' is a very useful one and will help us make more interesting
sentences.
1.6 Verbal conjugation
The form of a verb depends upon the subject in the sentence, so in Old Norse as it is
in English. Let us give an example
Infinitive: (to) be
I am
we are
thou art
you are
he/she/it is
they are
We will now give the corresponding Old Norse verb; like its English counterpart, it is
completely irregular.
Infinitive: (at) vera
ek em
vit/vr erum
ert
it/r eru
hann/hon/at er
eir/r/au eru
Remember what everything means here. The plural of 'hann' is 'eir' et cetera. Also
note that the dual pronouns have the same conjugation as the plural ones.
Now we will look at more regular verbs. We don't have to remember every form of
every verb; for now it will be sufficient for us to remember two; the infinitive and the
first person singular. The endings are tacked on in the following way.
Infinitive: [form 1]
ek [form 2]
vit/vr [form 1] - a + um
[form 2] + r
it/r [form 1] - a + i
hann/hon/at [form 2] + r
eir/r/au [form 1]
This code may be a bit cryptic. When I say " - a + um" I mean "subtract 'a' and add
'um'". This is best illustrated with examples:
vega, veg
ek veg
vit/vr vegum
vegr
it/r vegi
hann/hon/at vegr
eir/r/au vega
heita, heiti
ek heiti
vit/vr heitum
heitir
it/r heiti
hann/hon/at heitir
eir/r/au heita
taka, tek
ek tek
vit/vr tkum (explained below)
tekr
it/r taki
hann/hon/at tekr
eir/r/au taka
segja, segi
ek segi
vit/vr segjum
segir
it/r segi (explained below)
hann/hon/at segir
eir/r/au segja
kalla, kalla (to call)

ek kalla
vit/vr kllum
kallar
it/r kalli
hann/hon/at kallar
eir/r/au kalla
hafa, hefi (to have, wear, carry)
ek hefi
vit/vr hfum
hefir
it/r hafi
hann/hon/at hefir
eir/r/au hafa
And now for one verb that is almost regular, but not quite:
sj, s (to see)
ek s
vit/vr sjm (not *sjum)
sr
it/r s (not *sji)
hann/hon/at sr
eir/r/au sj
A u in a grammatical ending always changes a preceding 'a' to an ''. This is

known as u-mutation and is treated in more detail later.
The letters 'j' and 'i' cannot coexist; for this reason we have 'segi' and not
'*segji'.
We won't use the infinitive just yet but it is still one of two forms of each verb
you need to memorise.
The verb '' does not follow this pattern, it is conjugated in lesson 3.
The forms 'sjum' and 'sji' are correct in later Icelandic.
1.7 "Er" - an all purpose relative pronoun

Relative pronouns are words like 'who, which, that'. In Norse we have one very useful
word that can play the role of all those. The word is 'er' and it should not be confused
with the 3rd person singular of the verb "to be". An example will be in order.
The people (that) he sees are Norwegians.
Relative pronoun can be dropped.
Menninir, er hann sr, eru Normenn.
Relative pronoun cannot be dropped.
We say that the relative pronoun represents a word from the main sentence in the case
appropriate for the verb in the relative clause. Since the word 'er' is the same in all
cases this is mostly a technical thing and need not be worried overly about. We will,
somewhat arbitrarily, separate all relative clauses in Norse with commas.
1.8 The present tense

So far we have only been discussing the present tense of verbs. The ON present tense
actually corresponds to two forms in English.
Vkingarnir koma.
The vikings come.
Vkingarnir koma.
The vikings are coming.
When translating remember to use the most natural English form.
1.9 Word order

While word order in Old Norse is fairly free there are usually some things that are
more normal than others. The normal word order in a simple sentence is, as in
English: "subject verb object". Another common word order is "verb subject object".
The greatest emphasis in a sentence is usually on the first word. Thus, if we want to
draw special attention to the object we can use "object verb subject". Other wordorder schemes are usually reserved for elaborate poetry.
Where do you put the negating word "eigi"? Those examples will illustrate the variety
of normal structures. Do not be overwhelmed by this, there is little need to memorise
every possible pattern, you will slowly become familiar with normal word order in
reading the translation exercises.
Subject-verb-object
o Hann sr eigi lfinn.

o Hann sr lfinn eigi.
Verb-subject-object
o Sr hann lfinn eigi.

o Sr hann eigi lfinn.
o Eigi sr hann lfinn.
Object-verb-subject
o lfinn sr hann eigi.

All the legal sentences above have one thing in common: "The verb is always the first
or the second word in the sentence." This phenomenon is known as V2 and is treated
in more detail later in the course.
Other adverbs are usually placed in the same way.
2. Vocabulary
2.1 Nouns
mar
person, man, human being (declension described in 1.5)
Normar
Norwegian (declines like mar)
Then two words whose declension we described in 1.4.

hrafn
raven
jarl
earl
The rest of the words given are regular strong masculine.

btr
boat
geirr
spear
slendingr
Icelander
vargr
wolf
vkingr
viking
jfr
thief
And for good measure we also list the names used in the lesson. You should never
forget that names behave as any other nouns. They decline according to their
declension group.
Eirkr
Erlingr
2.2 Pronouns
er
that, which, who, whom
Also remember to memorise the masculine pronoun in plural.

Nom. eir (they)
Acc. (them)
2.3 Verbs
The verbs from lesson one are reiterated here for easy reference.
hafa, hefi
have, hold, wear
hata, hata
hate
heita, heiti
be called
deyja, dey
die
ba, b
wait
koma, km
come
mla, mli
talk
sj, s
see
vega, veg
slay
segja, segi
says
taka, tek
take
sj (irregular)
see
vera (irregular)
be
owns (only form of this verb yet presented)
2.4 Adverbs
n
now
ar
there
2.5 A greeting
The following forms can be used as greetings. This is actually an adjective that is
declining according to gender and number but we'll talk about that later.
Heill! - to greet one man
Heil! - to greet one woman
Heilir! - to greet a group of men
Heilar! - to greet a group of women
Heil! - to greet a group including both sexes
2.6 Yes or no questions

To change a statement into a question you use the word order
Verb-subject-(object/complement)
And often you add the word 'hvrt' in front.
Hvrt er hann hr?
Er hann hr?
But it's not good fashion to answer a yes or no question with yes or no! That's almost
never done in the Old Icelandic texts. Instead you just repeat the question as a
statement.
Question: Hvrt er hann hr?
Answer: Hann er hr.
Oh, alright, we can tell you the words:
j
yes
nei
no
2.7 Sample sentences

1. Normenn hata slendinga.
o Subject: Normenn [nominative, plural, without article]

o Object: slendinga [accusative, plural, without article]
o Meaning: Norwegians hate Icelanders.
2. Hatar konungrinn lfa.
o Subject: konungrinn [nominative, singular, with article]

o Object: lfa [accusative, plural, without article]
o Meaning: The king hates wolfs.
3. eir eru Normenn.
o Subject: eir [nominative, plural]

o Complement: Normenn [nominative, plural, without article]
o Meaning: They are Norwegians.
4. Brandrinn, er hann , heitir Tyrfingr.
o Subject in main sentence: brandrinn [nominative, singular, with

article]
o Complement in main sentence Tyrfingr [nominative, singular,
proper name]
o Subject in relative clause: hann [nominative, singular]
o Object in relative clause: er [accusative, singular]
o Meaning: The sword which he has is called Tyrfingr.
5. Vit hfum hjlma.
o Subject: vit [nominative, dual]

o Object: hjlma [accusative, plural]
o Meaning: We two have (are wearing) helmets.
3. Exercises
3.1 Translate the phrases into English
Sj jarlarnir konungana.
lfrinn knfa.
lfar heita ok vargar.
Baugana sj menninir.
Hrafnarnir deyja.

The raven sees a hawk.
The king hates thieves.
A viking is called Erlingr.

The earls are called Erlingr and Eirkr.
You (pl.) are coming.

Note: As our vocabulary and knowledge of grammar expands we will find better
things to do with our exercises than killing lfr.
Normenn hafa konung; hann heitir lfr. Mar heitir Eirkr; hann er jarl ok vkingr.
lf hatar Eirkr. lfr bt. Hann heitir Ormr. N sr Eirkr btinn. Segir hann: "Hr
er btrinn, er lfr ." Eirkr hatar lf en hann tekr eigi btinn, er lfr . Hann br.
lfr kmr. Eirkr segir: "N deyr , lfr konungr! Ek veg ik!" ok vegr lf. lfr
segir " vegr mik! Ek dey! ! ! (exclamation of pain)

A man is called Eirkr. He owns (some) helmets, (some) boats and a spear. He is a
viking. He kills people and takes boats. But Eirkr is not a thief. Thieves don't kill.
Now Eirkr sees lfr and the Serpent. He kills lfr and takes the Serpent.
3.5 Translate the play into English

[lfr br.]
lfr: Ek s mann!
[mar kmr]
Mar: Heill lfr konungr! Ek heiti Eirkr ok ek em slendingr.
lfr: Heill Eirkr!
Eirkr: Hvrt sr orminn ar, konungr?
lfr: Eigi s ek orm.
Eirkr: En hann er hr!
[n sr lfr orminn]
lfr: Ormr! Ek s orm!
Ormr: lfr! Ek s lf!
Eirkr: Segir ormrinn "lfr"?
Ormr: Nei. Ormar mla eigi.

[lfr ok Eirkr flja]

[Eirkr, jfr ok vkingr, sr Orm, bt er lfr ]
Eirkr: "ar er btr!"
[Haukr, slendingr, mlir]
Haukr: "lfr btinn."
[lfr kmr]
lfr: "Menn s ek!"
Eirkr ok Haukr: "Vit erum hr."
lfr: "Hvrt taki it btinn?"
Eirkr ok Haukr: "Vit tkum hann eigi."
lfr: "Ormr heitir btrinn. Ek Orm"
[Eirkr ok Haukr kalla]
E & H: "lfr! lfr! ar er lfr!"
lfr: "lfr? Ek hata lfa!"
[lfr, Normar ok jfr, kmr]
lfr: "Ek s eigi lf. Hvrt er hr lfr?"
lfr: "Hr em ek, lfr konungr."
[Eirkr, Haukr ok lfr taka btinn ok flja]
lfr: "jfar! Ek hata jfa!"
E, H & : "Vr erum vkingar, vr hfum bt er heitir Ormr!"

4.1 Half a stanza by Snorri Sturluson
Drfr handar hlekkr
ar er hilmir drekkr.
Mjk er brgnum bekkr

blsklar ekkr.
This half-stanza will not look recognisable to you, indeed it shouldn't, it is a
complicated poetic passage. But we will apply the principles set forth earlier [The
Norse and English tongues] to help us with individual words.
Some we can guess at without thought; 'handar' looks like it's a cognate of 'hand' and
'drfr' could be a cognate of 'drive'. We are right on both accounts; 'handar' means 'of
hand' but while 'drfr' is indeed related to 'drive' in this case it means 'snows'. Compare
with the English word '(snow)drift'.
The next word is 'hlekkr'. Doesn't look familiar. But English dropped all h's in front of
consonants, maybe if we change it to 'lekkr'. Looks better but we need to do more.
The cluster 'nk' was frequently assimilated to 'kk' in Old Norse, maybe we need to
reverse such a change. Then we've got 'lenkr'. Of course English doesn't have r as a
grammatical ending, out it goes. New result 'lenk'. Still not an English word but let's
remember that vowels are more prone to change than consonants. If we change the 'e'
to an 'i' then we've finally made it to 'link' which is the right word.
It's a good and correct guess that 'ar' means 'there'. In this context 'ar er' means
'where'.
What might 'hilmir' be? No way to figure that one out, it means 'king'. The word is
related to 'hjlmr' and refers to the fact that kings tend to bear helmets.
Then there's 'drekkr'. We apply the same rules as before; Norse 'kk' can be English 'nk'
and English doesn't have 'r' as a grammatical ending. Then we've got 'drenk'. Maybe if
we change the vowel to 'i' as before. Hocus-pocus we've got 'drink' which is correct.
More specifically 'drekkr' means 'drinks'.
Let's look at that first sentence in toto.
"Drfr handar hlekkr ar er hilmir drekkr."
The subject is 'handar hlekkr' which means 'link of the hand'. And what does _that_
mean? It is a poetic paraphrase for 'gold'. The verb is 'drfr' which means 'snows'.
Then 'ar er' means 'where', 'hilmir' means 'king' and 'drekkr' means 'drinks'.
"(The) link of the hand [gold] snows where (the) king drinks."
This sentence is quite typical of Norse court poetry; praise of the king's generosity in
florid language.
Let's look at the second sentence.

The word 'mjk' means 'very'. The English cognate is 'much'. You already know that
'er' can mean 'is'. Such is the case here. The word 'brgnum' doesn't have an English
cognate. It means 'for men' and is a poetic word.
Then there's 'bekkr'. In with the n, out with the r! We've got 'benk'. Hmm... The correct
cognate is 'bench' and the meaning is the same.
The word-form 'blsklar' is made out of 'bl' and 'sklar'. The first is an adjective
cognate to English 'blithe'. The second is the possessive form of 'skl' which means
'bowl'. Modern Scandinavians can often be heard shouting this word. Skl! Skl!
Toast!
Last word: 'ekkr'. Once more we change 'kk' into 'nk' and get 'thenk'. The correct
cognate is 'thank' but the word means 'comfortable' rather than 'thankful'.
If we draw together the second sentence.
"Mjk er brgnum bekkr blsklar ekkr."
Meaning: "The bench of the blithe bowl is very comfortable for men."
And who doesn't like sitting and drinking...
In summary we could guess correctly at the meaning of many words: 'handar, drekkr,
bl, hlekkr, bekkr' but we also had some whose cognates didn't help us much: 'drfr,
ekkr'. This is quite typical.
Do not rely on cognate trickery but use it, where it applies, as an aid to memory.
4.2 Two half-strophes from the Sigdrfuml

--Heill Dagr!
Heilir Dags synir!
Heil Ntt ok nipt!"
----Heilir sir!
Heilar synjur!
Heil sj in fjlnta fold!"
--Compare the greeting carefully with chapter 2.5; notice how it changes according to
gender and number.
"Hail, Day!
Hail, Day's sons!
Hail, Night and [her] sister!"
"Hail, sir (gods)!
Hail, synjur (goddesses)!
Hail, bountiful earth!"
Eirkr ok Haukr heita menn. eir eru jfar.

E: "Eirkr heiti ek."
H: "Haukr heiti ek."
eir sj bt.
E & H: "Btr!"
Eirkr kennir btinn.
E: "Btrinn heitir Ormr ok lfr konungr hann."
H: "Hvrt vilt hann taka?"
E: "at vil ek."
En ar er lfr!
: "Hvrt taki it btinn?!"
E & H: "Vit???"
: "jfar!"
Eirkr ok Haukr flja. lfr
kallar.
: "Ek hata jfa!"
Brand hefir hann!
lfr hefir draum (a dream).

ar eru lfar ok dvergar.
& Dv: "lfr."
eir taka btinn er lfr .
Dv: "Vr tkum btinn, lfr."
: "Vr tkum hann."
lfr sr lfana ok dvergana ok hleypr.
: "jfar! Hv taki r btinn?!"
En ar er ok draugr!
Dr: "lfr."
: "!"
N vaknar (wakes up) lfr.

: "Mamma!"
Solutions to Lesson Two

Sj jarlarnir konungana.
The earls see the kings.
lfrinn knfa.
The elf has knives.
lfar heita ok vargar.
Wolves are also called wargs.
Baugana sj menninir.
The people see the rings.
Hrafnarnir deyja.
The ravens die.

The raven sees a hawk.
Hauk sr hrafninn.
The king hates thieves.
Konungrinn hatar jfa.
A viking is called Erlingr.
Heitir vkingr Erlingr.
The earls are called Erlingr and Eirkr.
Jarlarnir heita Erlingr ok Eirkr.
You (pl.) are coming.
r komi.

Normenn hafa konung; hann heitir lfr. Mar heitir Eirkr; hann er jarl ok vkingr.
lf hatar Eirkr. lfr bt. Hann heitir Ormr. N sr Eirkr btinn. Segir hann: "Hr
er btrinn, er lfr ." Eirkr hatar lf en hann tekr eigi btinn, er lfr . Hann br.
lfr kmr. Eirkr segir: "N deyr , lfr konungr! Ek veg ik!" ok vegr lf. lfr
segir: " vegr mik! Ek dey! ! !
[The] Norwegians have a king; he is called Olaf. A man is called Eric; he is an earl
and a viking. Eric hates Olaf. Olaf has got a boat. It is called Worm. Now Eric sees
the boat. He says: "Here is the boat that Olaf has." Eric hates Olaf but he doesn't take
the boat that Olaf has. He waits. Olaf comes. Eric says: "Now you die, king Olaf! I'm
killing you!" and kills Olaf. Olaf says: "You're killing me! I'm dying! Ah! Ah!

A man is called Eirkr. He owns (some) helmets, (some) boats and a spear. He is a
viking. He kills people and takes boats. But Eirkr is not a thief. Thieves don't kill.
Now Eirkr sees lfr and the Serpent. He kills lfr and takes the Serpent.
Mar heitir Eirkr. Hann hjlma, bta ok geir. Hann er vkingr. Vegr hann menn ok
tekr bta. En Eirkr er eigi jfr. jfar vega eigi. N sr Eirkr lf ok Orminn. Hann
vegr lf ok tekr Orminn.
It is very important to write "N sr Eirkr..." and not "*N Eirkr sr..." When
a sentence begins with an adverb(ial phrase) the verb must be the next element.

[lfr br.]
lfr: Ek s mann!
[mar kmr]
Mar: Heill lfr konungr! Ek heiti Eirkr ok ek em slendingr.
lfr: Heill Eirkr!
Eirkr: Hvrt sr orminn ar, konungr?
lfr: Eigi s ek orm.
Eirkr: En hann er hr!
[n sr lfr orminn]
lfr: Ormr! Ek s orm!

Ormr: lfr! Ek s lf!
Eirkr: Segir ormrinn "lfr"?
Ormr: Nei. Ormar mla eigi.
[lfr ok Eirkr flja]
[Olaf is waiting.]
Olaf: I see a person!
[a person arrives]
Man: Hail king Olaf! My name is Eric and I'm an Icelander.
Olaf: Hail Eric!
Eric: Do you see the worm there, king?
Olaf: I don't see a worm.
Eric: But it's here!
[now Olaf sees the worm]
Olaf: A worm! I see a worm!
Worm: Olaf! I see [an] Olaf!
Eric: Does the worm say "Olaf"?
Worm: No. Worms don't talk.
[Olaf and Eric flee]

[Eirkr, jfr ok vkingr, sr Orm, bt er lfr ]
Eirkr: "ar er btr!"

[Haukr, slendingr, mlir]
Haukr: "lfr btinn."
[lfr kmr]
lfr: "Menn s ek!"
Eirkr ok Haukr: "Vit erum hr."
lfr: "Hvrt taki it btinn?"
Eirkr ok Haukr: "Vit tkum hann eigi."
lfr: "Ormr heitir btrinn. Ek Orm"
[Eirkr ok Haukr kalla]
E & H: "lfr! lfr! ar er lfr!"
lfr: "lfr? Ek hata lfa!"
[lfr, Normar ok jfr, kmr]
lfr: "Ek s eigi lf. Hvrt er hr lfr?"
lfr: "Hr em ek, lfr konungr."
[Eirkr, Haukr ok lfr taka btinn ok flja]
lfr: "jfar! Ek hata jfa!"
E, H & : "Vr erum vkingar, vr hfum bt er heitir Ormr!"
[Eric, a thief and a viking, sees Serpent, a boat which Olaf owns]
Eric: "There's a boat!"
[Hawk, an Icelander, speaks]
Hawk: "Olaf has the boat."

[Olaf arrives]
Olaf: "I see people!"
Eric and Hawk: "Here are the two of us."
Olaf: "Are you taking the boat?"
Eric and Hawk: "We two are not taking it."
Olaf: "The boat is called Serpent. I own Serpent."
[Eric and Hawk shout]
E & H: "Wolf! Wolf! There's [a] wolf!"
Olaf: "[A] wolf? I loathe wolves!"
[Wolf, a Norwegian and a thief, arrives]
Olaf: "I don't see [a] wolf. Is there [a] wolf here?"
Wolf: "Here I am, king Olaf!"
[Eric, Hawk and Wolf take the boat and flee]
Olaf: "Thieves! I hate thieves!"
E, H & W: "We're vikings, we've got a boat that's called Serpent!"
This play is meant to stress the lack of an indefinite article in Old Norse.
Old Norse for Beginners - Lesson Three

1. Miscellany
1. Spelling
2. Grammar
1. Adjectives - indefinite form

2. Usage - accusative with infinitive
3. Usage - auxiliary verbs
4. The masculine article
3. Vocabulary
1. Nouns
2. Pronouns
3. Adjectives
4. Verbs
5. Adverbs
6. Conjunctions
4. Exercises

1. A strophe from the Vlusp
0. Miscellany
0.1 Spelling
When the Latin alphabet was introduced to write Old Norse the spelling used was not
very consistent and not very precise. To improve readability the spelling of the
preserved manuscripts is usually "corrected" in modern editions. For example, there
are few manuscripts that distinguish between short and long vowels but this
distinction is, as a rule, made now when Old Icelandic texts are published.
The spelling used in this course is the standardised spelling used in the "slenzk
fornrit" edition of the sagas. That spelling, in turn, is based on suggestions from a 12th
century treatise called The First Grammatical Treatise, because it is the first of four in
its manuscript.
There are two exceptions to this. What we here write as '' should be an o with a tail
and what we here write as 'oe' should be an oe-ligature. This is due to letter code
difficulties.
1. Grammar
1.1 Adjectives - indefinite form
In Modern English an adjective, such as 'fresh' will have exactly the same form no
matter what its grammatical context is. This was not so in Middle English. Let's look
at a part of Chaucer's description of the Squire.
Embrouded was he, as it were a meede
Al ful of fresshe floures, whyte and reede.
Syngynge he was, or floytynge, al e day;
He was as fressh as is e mon of May.
We see that two forms of the same adjective occur; 'fressh' and 'fresshe'. The first
form goes with 'he' and the second with 'floures'. We could guess, correctly, that the
Middle English adjective has a plural ending of 'e'. We have more examples of this
above. The flowers are 'whyte' and 'reede' whereas the meadow is 'ful' of them.
After this sidestep it should come as no surprise to you that in Old Norse adjectives
have different forms depending on the number and case of the noun they describe.
Their form also depends on the gender of the noun and whether it is definite or
indefinite (explained below). The masculine indefinite declension is exemplified here.
Sg.
Pl.
Nom.
reir
reiir
Acc.
reian
reia
The word 'reir' means 'angry'. As always you must memorise the table.
We will immediately give examples of the usage. Note that the adjective can come
either in front of the noun or behind it. Both types of usage are natural.
Hr eru reiir menn.
Here are (some) angry people.
Hann sr reian mann.
He sees an angry person.
lfr er mar reir.
Olaf is an angry person.
Note carefully, however, that ON has a separate declension for adjectives that apply to
nouns with a definite article. That is called the definite declension, while the one
presented here is the indefinite. Be careful thus, not to use the forms above with a
definite noun, for that is (under normal circumstances) wrong.
The definite declension of adjectives is not presented here yet, since it is modelled on
a noun declension not yet introduced (the weak one); the indefinite forms above,
however, are similar to the declensions of strong masculine nouns and various
pronouns, all of which are being presented now. We will have to make do with only
indefinite adjective forms for a while.
1.2 Usage - accusative with infinitive

Having learnt infinitive forms of verbs and accusative forms of some nouns, we're
ready for a very useful sentence construction. First, let's take a look of the English
equivalent.
I saw him come.
He sees it fly.
This construction, usually with a main verb meaning to see, watch, hear, feel, sense,
etc, indicates that the subject sees/hears/senses the object performing an action, which
is put into the infinitive form (without any marker). ON examples:
Ek s lf konung koma.
I see King Olaf come.
Vr sjm manninn kalla.
We see the man shout.
Hann heyrir drauginn mla.
He hears the ghost speak.
Modern English speakers will often say "I see it coming." instead of "come." The ON
construction may be translated either way.
1.3 Usage - auxiliary verbs

ON has much in common with English in its use of auxiliaries. To begin with, some
examples of English auxiliary constructions with infinitive:
It wants to go.
He has to go.
The man does see.
Birds can fly.
The dogs must leave.
The beast will sleep.
The auxiliary verbs are the ones that conjugate, 'want', 'can', etc, always coming first
in an English sentence (but not necessarily in ON). The other verbs are all in
infinitive.
Note how some of the infinitives are marked with 'to', but some not. This is a feature
of English as well as ON. It is inherent in the auxiliaries themselves, if the following
infinitive is marked or not. Among the auxiliaries above only 'want' and 'have' take a
marker. ON verbs that have no infinitive marker, are easily recognized because they
all belong to a special conjugation group. Below you will learn 'vilja', meaning 'want',
which is one of those "special" auxiliaries.
Konungrinn vill vega mennina.
The king wants to kill the men.
eir vilja taka hestinn.
They want to take the horse.
Ek vil mla.
I want to speak.
Eta vil ek eigi.
I don't want to eat.
1.4 The masculine article

It may annoy speakers of many languages that the definite article is attached to the
end of words rather than being a seperate word in front. It may be some consolation
that it is originally a separate word. Its declension (in the cases and gender we have
learnt so far) follows:
sg
pl
nom
inn
inir
acc
inn
ina
When we tack the article on to words it sometimes appears in its full majesty:
mar + inn = marinn
menn + inir = menninir
But if the noun ends with a vowel or 'r' the 'i' of the article is dropped:
ormar + inir = ormarnir
orma + ina = ormana
And now a masculine noun from a declension group (the weak one) which you
haven't learnt.
(nom sg)
hani + inn = haninn
(acc sg)
hana + inn = hanann
Though it is a separate word, 'inn' cannot be freely put in front of a word as an article;
it always follows the noun (with some important exceptions to be learnt later).
2. Vocabulary
2.1 Nouns
matr
food (always in singular)
fiskr
fish
ostr
cheese
Names:
Svartr
Kormkr
2.2 Pronouns
There is a group of pronouns called 'indefinite' pronouns; here are two useful ones:
allr
all, whole
margr
many, multitudinous
As said above, many pronouns decline like the indefinite adjectives that have been
presented. Thus, 'allr' is declined (in masculine):
sg
pl
nom
allr
allir
acc
allan
alla
Exactly like the adjectives above.

But since 'allr' is available both in singular and plural, how would each translate in
English? The plural form translates directly to the English cognate 'all', while the
singular means 'all of', 'whole'. Examples:
Allir menninir eru norskir.
All the men are Norwegian.
Hann sr allan manninn
He sees all of the man.
'Margr' declines in the same way. Its singular form means 'one of many', while the
plural means 'many'. To explain the singular, consider this example:
Margr mar hest.
Many a man has got a horse.
What students should perhaps realize, is that there is little difference between these
so-called pronouns on the one hand, and adjectives on the other. For other adjectives
can stand independently just as these pronouns can; examples:
Allir eru glair.
All are happy.
Hrddir eru ok ragir.
Scared [ones] are also cowardly.
Dauir sj daua.
Dead [ones] see dead [ones].
Ef blindr leiir blindan falla bir gryfju.

If a blind [one] guides a blind [one], both fall into a pit.
However, traditional grammar defines these so-called pronouns as such, and other
adjectives as such; we will adhere to this system in our lessons, in order not to confuse
students refer to other sources.
Regarding word order, adjectives usually postcede personal pronouns; thus:
Ek et hann allan.
I eat all of it.
2.3 Adjectives
danskr
Danish
daur
dead
gr
good
hrddr
afraid
illr
evil
slenzkr
Icelandic
norskr
Norwegian
reir
angry
ragr
cowardly
strr
big (note that the first r is part of the stem)
svangr
hungry
2.4 Verbs
Regular verbs:
eta, et
eat
veia, veii
hunt/fish
flja, fl
flee, run away
spyrja, spyr
ask
svara, svara
answer
kenna, kenni
recognize, know (a person, place, or object)
elta, elti
follow, chase
heyra, heyri
hear
fara, fer
go
deyja, dey
die
Note that ON has different words for the English concept "know"; "kenna" above
indicates familiarity, while "vita", mentioned above, is the "absolute" knowing, i.e. it
means awareness of a fact or event.
An irregular verb - vilja:
This irregular verb, meaning "want", is the second in a small group of verbs with an
anomalous conjugation (the first being "vera"), but also highly useful meanings. It is a
cognate of English "will", and behaves in similar ways as that English verb (e.g. in
auxiliary constructions, see 1.3 above). It conjugates thus:
Infinitive: (at) vilja
ek
vil
vit/vr
viljum
vilt
it/r
vili
hann/hon/at
vill
eir/r/au
vilja
2.5 Adverbs
brtt
soon
oft
often
hv?
why? (word-order: hv + verb + subject)
mjk
very, very much, greatly
'Mjk', being an adverb, can also be used with verbs, in which case it means 'very
much'. For example,
lfr hatar mjk lfa.
Olaf hates wolves very much.
Another example, from a real text, Vlusp:

Geyr n garmr mjk.
Now [the] dog howls greatly.
2.6 Conjunctions
v at
because (word-order: v at + subject + verb)
er
when
3. Exercises
3.1 Translate the sentences into English

Ragir menn sj reian lf koma.
"Ek s svangan mann taka ost."
"Hvrt sr slenzka menn koma?"
Marinn er oft hrddr.
Illir menn vilja vega ga menn.
Allir vilja btinn taka v at lfr hann.
slendingar eru eigi menn ragir. eir eru ok gir en eigi illir.
Marinn veiir fisk ok etr hann brtt allan.

"Do you two eat the whole cheese?"
"We see hungry wolves chase the man."
"The ravens want to eat all of him, for they are very hungry."
King Olaf sees the thieves take the boat.
"I see many thieves! I want to kill them all!"
Olaf wants to kill the thieves, but they see him coming.
As the thieves hear Olaf speak, they all flee. The king chases them.
"Many a thief wants to take the boat."
3.3 Translate the texts into English
Illr draugr vill vega lf konung. Hann eltir konunginn ok er hann sr hann, kallar
draugrinn, "lfr, ert mar illr mjk ok ragr. Ek hata ik, v at vegr ga
menn." lfr er hrddr ok flr.
Svartr heitir danskr mar. Hann veiir oft fiska ok etr v at fiskar eru matr gr.
Svartr ferr ok veiir marga stra fiska er hann vill eta. Er Svartr veiir fiskana, kmr
mar. Er marinn sr Svart veia fiskana, segir hann, "Heill, ek heiti Kormkr." Svartr
heyrir Kormk mla ok svarar, "Heill. Svartr heiti ek ok em danskr mar." Kormkr
spyrr Svart, "Hvrt veiir fiska, Svartr?" "Marga stra fiska veii ek, v at eir eru
gr matr." Kormkr segir, "Ostr er ok gr matr, Svartr. Ek hefi hr ost gan. Hvrt
vilt ost eta?" "- Ek vil fisk ok ost eta, v at ostr er ok gr matr. Hvrt vilt fisk
eta, Kormkr?" "- Fiskr er gr," svarar Kormkr ok tekr fisk. Svartr tekr ok ost ok etr.
Menninir eru mjk svangir. eir eta n alla fiskana ok allan ostinn, ok eru brtt glair
menn en eigi svangir.

A worm sees a wolf coming. When it sees the wolf, it says, "Sss - wolf, why do you
come? I own the fish here, which you want to take." The wolf is not scared and
replies, "hail worm, I'm a hungry wolf now and I want to eat fish. You have much fish
(many fishes) there, which you aren't eating (don't eat)." The worm is angry and says,
"I own all the fish there, wolf. Wolves who eat the fish all die (deyja allir)!" Now the
wolf is scared, because an evil worm wants to kill it. "- You are an evil worm! You
fish (hunt) much fish but do not eat it (them) all. We wolves are very hungry and don't
have fish. We also want to eat fish, worm!" The worm sees the wolf flee. The wolf is
very angry and shouts, "I hate evil worms!" But the worm does not chase the wolf, for
it is happy but not angry.

4.1 A strophe from Vlusp
In this course we use standardised Old Icelandic spelling, geared to the 13th century.
In this format we would give one of the last strophes of Vlusp like this.
"Sr hon upp koma
ru sinni
jr r gi
ijagroena;
falla forsar,
flgr rn yfir,
s er fjalli
fiska veiir."
This, however, is not what how the main manuscript of Vlusp, Codex Regius, reads.
The same strophe is spelled in the following way in the manuscript (I change e with
tail to and o with tail to ).
Ser hon upp koma avro siNi iord or gi iia grna. falla
forsar flygr avrn yfir sa er afialli fisca ueiir.
Lots of interesting points.
The manuscript doesn't distinguish between short and long vowels.
It sometimes uses capitals for double consonants.
It does not differentiate between i and j.
It does not differentiate between u and v.
It uses c for k.
The grammatical ending 'u' is written 'o'.
It does not split the poem into lines.
It uses capitalisation and punctuation in a way different from ours.
It divides words in a way different from ours.
It writes '' as '', 'd' or ''.
It uses 'av' for ''.
In all those respects Codex Regius is quite normal. Indeed, the standardised spelling is
by no means an average of the spelling systems in the various manuscripts. Rather, it
is intended to write Old Norse in a way that distinguishes its different sounds.
We can now look at the same strophe respelled into modern Icelandic.
"Sr hn upp koma
ru sinni
jr r gi
ijagrna;
falla fossar,
flgur rn yfir,
s er fjalli
fiska veiir."
Not many changes because the spelling of Old Icelandic and the spelling of Modern
Icelandic are based on the same basic system. You should note that the ending 'r' has
changed to 'ur'.
We have now shown you the same strophe in three different spellings. All of them are
quite plausible and many more. The morale? When you encounter a text 'in the
original Old Norse' be sure to notice which spelling is used.
Glossary:
opna,opna=open
munnr(murisanotherform)=mouth
smr=small
fagr=fair,beautiful
nom.
acc.
dat.
gen.
fagr fagrir
fagran
fagra
fgrum
fgrum
fagrs fagra
Notethat"sman"shouldprobablybecontractedto
"smn".
Solutions to Lesson Three

a) Ragir menn sj reian lf koma.
Cowardly men see an angry wolf come.
b) "Ek s svangan mann taka ost."
"I see a hungry man take some cheese."
c) "Hvrt sr slenzka menn koma?"
"Do you see Icelandic men coming?"
d) Marinn er oft hrddr.
The man is often scared.
e) Illir menn vilja vega ga menn.
Evil men want to kill good men.
f) Allir vilja btinn taka v at lfr hann.
Everybody wants to take the boat because Olaf owns it.
g) slendingar eru eigi menn ragir. eir eru ok gir en eigi illir.
Icelanders are not cowardly men. They are good but not evil.
h) Marinn veiir fisk ok etr hann brtt allan.
The man catches a fish and soon eats it all.

a) "Do you two eat the whole cheese?"
"Hvrt eti it allan ostinn?"
b) "We see hungry wolves chase the man."
"Vr sjm svanga lfa elta manninn."
c) The ravens want to eat all of him, for they are very hungry.
Hrafnarnir vilja eta hann allan, v at eir eru mjk svangir.
d) King Olaf sees the thieves take the boat.
lfr konungr sr jfana taka btinn.
e) "I see many thieves! I want to kill them all!"

"Ek s marga jfa! Ek vil vega alla!"
f) Olaf wants to kill the thieves, but they see him coming.
lfr vill vega jfana, en eir sj hann koma.
g) As the thieves hear Olaf speak, they all flee. The king chases them.
Er jfarnir heyra lf mla, flja eir allir. Konungrinn eltir .
h) "Many a thief wants to take the boat."
"Margr jfr vill taka btinn."

Illr draugr vill vega lf konung. Hann eltir konunginn ok er hann sr hann, kallar
draugrinn, "lfr, ert mar illr mjk ok ragr. Ek hata ik, v at vegr ga
menn." lfr er hrddr ok flr.
Svartr heitir danskr mar. Hann veiir oft fiska ok etr v at fiskar eru matr gr.
Svartr ferr ok veiir marga stra fiska er hann vill eta. Er Svartr veiir fiskana, kmr
mar. Er marinn sr Svart veia fiskana, segir hann, "Heill, ek heiti Kormkr." Svartr
heyrir Kormk mla ok svarar, "Heill. Svartr heiti ek ok em danskr mar." Kormkr
spyrr Svart, "Hvrt veiir fiska, Svartr?" "Marga stra fiska veii ek, v at eir eru
gr matr." Kormkr segir, "Ostr er ok gr matr, Svartr. Ek hefi hr ost gan. Hvrt
vilt ost eta?" "- Ek vil fisk ok ost eta, v at ostr er ok gr matr. Hvrt vilt fisk
eta, Kormkr?" "- Fiskr er gr," svarar Kormkr ok tekr fisk. Svartr tekr ok ost ok etr.
Menninir eru mjk svangir. eir eta n alla fiskana ok allan ostinn, ok eru brtt glair
menn en eigi svangir.
An evil ghost wants to kill King Olaf. It chases the king and when it sees him, the
ghost shouts "Olaf, you are a very evil man and cowardly. I hate you, for you kill good
men." Olaf is afraid and flees.
A Danish man is named Swart. He often catches fish and eats them, because fish are
good food. Swart goes and catches many big fish which he wants to eat. As Swart
catches the fish, a man comes. When the man sees Swart catching the fish, he says
"Hail, my name is Cormack." Swart hears Cormack speak and replies, "Hail. My
name is Swart and I am a Danish man." Cormack asks Swart "Do you catch fish,
Swart?" "I catch many big fish, for they are good food." Cormack says "Cheese is
also good food, Swart. Here I have some good cheese. Do you want to eat cheese?" "I want to eat fish and cheese, for cheese is also good food. Do you want to eat fish,
Cormack?" "- Fish is also good," Cormack replies and takes some fish. Swart takes
some cheese and eats. The men are very hungry. Now they eat all the fish and all the
cheese, and are soon happy men but not hungry.

A worm sees a wolf coming. When it sees the wolf, it says, "Sss - wolf, why do you
come? I own the fish here, which you want to take." The wolf is not scared and
replies, "hail worm, I'm a hungry wolf now and I want to eat fish. You have much fish
(many fishes) there, which you aren't eating (don't eat)." The worm is angry and says,
"I own all the fish there, wolf. Wolves who eat the fish all die (deyja allir)!" Now the
wolf is scared, because an evil worm wants to kill it. "- You are an evil worm! You
fish (hunt) much fish but do not eat it (them) all. We wolves are very hungry and don't
have fish. We also want to eat fish, worm!" The worm sees the wolf flee. The wolf is
very angry and shouts, "I hate evil worms!" But the worm does not chase the wolf, for
it is happy but not angry.
Ormr sr lf koma. Er ormrinn sr lfinn, segir hann, "Sss - lfr, hv kmr ? Ek
fiskana hr, er vilt taka." lfrinn er eigi hrddr ok svarar, "Heill ormr, n em ek
svangr lfr ok vil eta fisk. hefir ar marga fiska, er etr eigi." Ormrinn er reir
ok segir, "Ek alla fiskana ar, lfr. lfar er eta fiskana deyja allir!" N er lfrinn
hrddr, v at illr ormr vill vega hann. "- ert illr ormr! ert illr ormr! veiir
marga fiska en etr eigi alla. Vr lfar erum mjk svangir ok hfum eigi fiska. Vr
viljum ok eta fiska, ormr!" Ormrinn sr lfinn flja. lfrinn er mjk reir ok kallar,
"Ek hata illa orma!" En ormrinn eltir eigi lfinn, v at hann er glar en eigi reir.
Old Norse for Beginners - Lesson Four

1. Grammar
1. Dative Case: Giving & Receiving

2. Dative Case: Forms
3. Word Order: Indirect Objects
4. Verb Imperative
5. Pronoun trick - We Olaf slay a worm
2. Vocabulary
1. Nouns
2. Adjectives
3. Verbs
4. Adverbs
3. Exercises

1. A stanza from the Hfulausn
1. Grammar
1.1 Dative Case: Giving & Receiving
Until now, we have been working with two opposing cases: nominative and
accusative. By now you should understand clearly the concept behind them and the
difference between them. Consider this English sentence,
John tells a story.
That's complete. It's clear to you that John is the subject and the story is the object; if
it were ON, John would be in nominative form and the story would be in accusative
form.
John tells a story to Mary.
John's still the subject, the story's still the object; but the new participant, Mary, serves
an as yet unidentified role. Let's consider the following incomplete sentence,
John gives the dog...
As stated above, the sentence is not complete; we need to know to whom John gives
the dog. So,
John gives the dog to Mary.
Again, Mary's a third participant in the sentence; but how does Mary relate do John
and the dog? Again, before we answer that, let's consider what word order has to do
with it;
John gives to Mary the dog.
To Mary the dog gives John.
The first version is not obviously incorrect, merely unconventional; the second one is
wrong, especially for our purposes, because it makes it seem like the dog is giving
John away, and thereby being the subject.
In any case, it is clear that Mary has a different role from the dog, and John clearly has
a different role from both of them. We know that John is the subject and the dog is the
object, so what does that make Mary? She's an object all right, but not in the same
way as the dog. The dog's a direct object; it's being directly affected by John. Mary is
an indirect object; she's merely being affected by John's actions involving the dog.
The bottom line is, Mary's role is special, and it is practical to mark this role in a
separate way. How does English mark this role? Usually, in sentences like the ones
above, by fixing "to" to the indirect object. Note how the "to" would stay with Mary
no matter how the word order got arranged.
You might have figured out by now that we're dealing with a new case. You might
also have guessed that ON marks this case with special endings, not merely with
words like "to" and a special word order. This case is called the dative case; the "da"
part of the word is the stem of the Latin word "give", which is the logic behind the
term for the primary usage of the dative case is to mark the receiver of a "gift" (note,
though, that "gifts" can also be thrown, shoved, transmitted, told, etc to their
receivers).
1.2 Dative Case: Forms

Now that you understand the basic idea behind the dative, you require only the ON
endings to start using it.
First, the strong masculine noun declension:
Sg
Pl
Nom
dvergr
dvergar
Acc
dverg
dverga
Dat
dvergi
dvergum
The -i ending there is characteristic of the dative in the strong masculine; some words
in this declension don't have it (i.e. they are the same in acc and dat), e.g. "matr", but
you should not worry about it now. The -um in the dative plural is characteristic of all
declensions; it is thus important that you learn to recognize it.
Next, the pronouns:
Sg
Du
Pl
Nom
ek
vit
vr
Acc
mik
okkr
oss
Dat
mr
okkr
oss
Sg
Nom
Du
it
Pl
r
Acc
ik
ykkr
yr
Dat
ykkr
yr
he
it
they (masc)
they (neut)
nom
hann
at
eir
au
acc
hann
at
au
dat
hnum
eim
eim
You may find it disconcerting that "hnum" has an -um ending (coupled with a minor
stem change), similar to the plural of nouns; that is however characteristic of
masculine pronouns in general. Since the article is originally a pronoun, its masculine
form also features this, see a strong masculine word declined with the article attached:
Sg
Pl
Nom
dvergrinn
dvergarnir
Acc
dverginn
dvergana
Dat
dverginum
dvergunum
The main anomaly here is the plural dative form; you might, systematically speaking,
expect something like "dvergumnum". Roughly speaking, that's the original form, but
a combination like "mn" in that position would very easily get simplified to a more
convenient "n"; which is what happened.
Finally, adjectives in masculine:
Sg
Pl
Nom
reir
reiir
Acc
reian
reia
Dat
reium
reium
Again, same pattern as with the pronouns, since the boundary between pronouns and
adjectives is often not that clear in ON.
As you have seen happen with verbs, endings like -um that have an u in them, will
modify any a in the immediately preceding syllable, changing it to . This is called uumlaut, or u-mutation ("umlaut" is a German term; "um" is a preposition meaning
"about/around", while "laut" means "sound" - "sound-about" if you like). Practically
speaking, this means that you must take care with words containing an "a" in the root.
For example,
(Example noun)
Sing
Pl
Nom
mar
menn
Acc
mann
menn
Dat
manni
mnnum
(Example adjective)
Sing
Pl
Nom
glar
glair
Acc
glaan
glaa
Dat
glum
glum
(Example pronoun)
Sg
Pl
Nom
allr
allir
Acc
allan
alla
Dat
llum
llum
Note the "a > " changes where the -um ending is present (always in dative plural and
In dative singular of masculine adjectives and pronouns).
1.3 Word Order: Indirect Objects
The most conventional order in ON prose, is to put the indirect object *before* the
direct object.
Marinn gefr konunginum btinn.
You should stick to this word order, though you can expect just about any word order
to appear in skaldic poetry.
1.4 Verb Imperative

We commonly command or suggest for people to do something:
Leave, find the car and then bring it here.
All the verbs there are in "imperative". English verbs do not have any separate form
for the imperative. ON verbs do not have any endings for the imperative, but rather
the infinitive stem is used without the -a ending. For example,
Veg orminn ok tak bauginn er hann hefir.
An exception is verbs that end with -a in 1st person singular present, "kalla". Those
keep their a in the imperative.
Kalla mik Hauk!
(From the verb infinitives "vega" and "taka")
As can be seen, the pronoun "" (or "it" or "r") may be inserted and usually is,
especially in spoken language. It need not be repeated for the following imperative
verbs, though it may be done ("...ok tak bauginn...").
To command more than one person, the "-i" ending (as in the verb active) is used:
Vegi r orminn ok taki bauginn er hann hefir.
The imperative is seen in some greetings:
Ver () heill!
be whole/healthy
Veri heilir!
be whole/healthy (plural)
Far vel!
go well (fare well)
But "negative commands" are also used, as in English

Don't go!
In ON, this is simply expressed by adding a negative adverb such as "eigi".
Far eigi!
1.5 Pronoun trick - We Olaf slay a worm

In English we can say sentences like this:
Olaf and I are slaying a worm.
Old Norse has an idiomatic way of expressing the same:
Vit lfr vegum orm.
We could also have:
Vr lfr vegum orm.
Meaning:
Olaf, I, and some other people are slaying a worm.
Some more examples:
eir lfr vega orm.
it lfr vegi orm.
r lfr vegi orm.
2. Vocabulary
2.1 Nouns
hattr
hat
grautr
porridge
Names:
Einarr
Fjalarr (dwarf-name)
Gandlfr (dwarf-name)
2.2 Adjectives
glar
happy, glad
langr
long
gylltr
golden, gilted
2.3 Verbs
gefa, gef
give
foera, foeri
bring
finna, finn
find
hlja, hl
laugh
2.4 Adverbs
then
3. Exercises
Svartr gefr Kormki fiska. er Kormkr glar.
Menninir foera eim gan mat.
"Vit foerum gum manni ost."
Svartr spyrr, "Hv gefr mr eigi ost, Kormkr?"
Kormkr svarar, "Ek gef r eigi ost, v at ek hefi hann eigi."
Kormkr etr allan ostinn en gefr Svarti hann eigi.
Konungrinn foerir Normnnunum knfa ok geira.
gefa Normenninir hnum langan bt ok gylltan baug.

Marinn gefr hnum hatt gan.

Then they give a golden ring to an evil king.
The dwarves bring the king a golden ring.
The king says "You are good dwarves."
The king takes the ring and gives the dwarves a big cheese.
The dwarves don't want any cheese, but they take it and go.
"Why do I give them cheese which they don't eat?" King Olaf asks the ghost.
The ghost replies "Olaf, you're a good man. But do not give cheese to
dwarves."

lfr gefr Svarti hatt, knf ok hest gan. Hann segir, "Far n, Svartr, ok finn
bauginn er dvergarnir Fjalarr ok Gandlfr hafa." Svartr svarar, "En lfr, hv gefr
mr eigi mat? Ek em svangr ok vil mat eta."lfr gefr hnum ost, graut, ok fisk ok
segir, "Hr hefir mat. Far n ok finn bauginn."
Svartr etr matinn er lfr gefr hnum. Hann segir, "grautrinn er gefr mr er gr,
lfr. ert gr konungr."
Svartr ferr n ok finnr dvergana er hafa bauginn. Hann segir, "Dvergar, gefi mr
bauginn. lfr konungr vill hann." Dvergarnir svara, "Vit viljum eigi gefa lfi
konungi bauginn. Hann er illr konungr." Svartr er reir ok segir, "Gefi mr bauginn
ea ek veg ykkr!" Dvergarnir eru eigi hrddir. eir hlja ok Fjalarr segir, " ert ragr
mar, Svartr. vegr okkr Gandlf eigi. Vit gefum ykkr lfi eigi bauginn, ok far
n!" Svartr hefir eigi brand. Hann hefir knf, en knfrinn er eigi strr. Hann vegr eigi
dvergana ok foerir lfi eigi bauginn.
Eric, a thief, sees some men eat. They eat good porridge, many fish, and a big cheese.
Eric wants the food, for he is hungry. He says "Hail, I am hungry. Will you (use "r")
give some good food to a hungry man?" They reply "Take some food. We give it to
you. But the elves are hungry too. Take some porridge and give it to them. Eric finds
some elves. He brings hungry elves food, for he is a good man.

4.1 A stanza from the Hfulausn
Again we practice our etymology but in a less verbose manner than before.
A stanza from the Hfulausn:
Beit fleinn floginn
var frir loginn
var lmr dreginn
var lfr feginn.
Stzk flk-hagi
vi fjr-lagi
gall -bogi
at egg-togi.
The main etymological lesson here is that g inside a word is gone in modern English;
resulting in a change of the original vowel.
floginn
flown
loginn
lied
dreginn
drawn
feginn
fain
lagi (dative)
lay
Other cognates:
lmr
elm (bows were made of elm)
stzk (middle voice) stood

beit
bit (bta = bite)
gall
yelled (Old English "geall", the 'g' is pronounced as 'y' in ME)
egg-
edge (Old English "ecg" was pronounced "edge")
yew-
Words without English cognates:

fleinn
arrow
frir
peace
fjr
life
I have included most of the cognates in this translation but enclosed them in quotation
marks when they didn't seem to fit the context.
A flown arrow bit
then peace was "lied" [broken]
the elm [bow] was drawn
the wolf became fain.
The folk-leader stood against
a "lay" [blow] to his life
a yew bow "yelled" [twung]
at the "tow" [pull] of edges.
Solutions to Lesson Four

Svartr gefr Kormki fiska. er Kormkr glar.
Swart gives Cormack the fish. Then Cormack is happy.
Menninir foera eim gan mat.
The men bring them good food.
"Vit foerum gum manni ost."
"We bring cheese to a good man."
Svartr spyrr, "Hv gefr mr eigi ost, Kormkr?"
Swart asks, "Why do you not give me cheese, Cormack?"
Kormkr svarar, "Ek gef r eigi ost, v at ek hefi hann eigi."
Cormack replies, "I do not give you cheese, for I do not have it."
Kormkr etr allan ostinn en gefr Svarti hann eigi.
Cormack eats all the cheese but does not give it to Swart
Konungrinn foerir Normnnunum knfa ok geira.
The king brings knives and spears to the Norwegians
gefa Normenninir hnum langan bt ok gylltan baug.
Then the Norwegians give him a long boat and a golden ring.
Marinn gefr hnum hatt gan.
The man gives him a good hat.

Then they give a golden ring to an evil king.
gefa eir illum konungi gylltan baug.
The dwarves bring the king a golden ring.
Dvergarnir foera konunginum gylltan baug.
The king says "You are good dwarves."
Konungrinn segir, "r eru gir dvergar."
The king takes the ring and gives the dwarves a big cheese.
Konungrinn tekr bauginn ok gefr dvergunum stran ost.
The dwarves don't want any cheese, but they take it and go.
Dvergarnir vilja eigi ost, en eir taka hann ok fara.
"Why do I give them cheese which they don't eat?" King Olaf asks the ghost.
"Hv gef ek eim ost er eir eta eigi?" spyrr lfr konungr drauginn.
The ghost replies "Olaf, you're a good man. But do not give cheese to dwarves."
Draugrinn svarar, "lfr, ert gr mar. En gef eigi dvergum ost."

lfr gefr Svarti hatt, knf ok hest gan. Hann segir, "Far n, Svartr, ok finn
bauginn er dvergarnir Fjalarr ok Gandlfr hafa." Svartr svarar, "En lfr, hv gefr
mr eigi mat? Ek em svangr ok vil mat eta." lfr gefr hnum ost, graut, ok fisk ok
segir, "Hr hefir mat. Far n ok finn bauginn."
Svartr etr matinn er lfr gefr hnum. Hann segir, "grautrinn er gefr mr er gr,
lfr. ert gr konungr."
Svartr ferr n ok finnr dvergana er hafa bauginn. Hann segir, "Dvergar, gefi mr
bauginn. lfr konungr vill hann." Dvergarnir svara, "Vit viljum eigi gefa lfi
konungi bauginn. Hann er illr konungr." Svartr er reir ok segir, "Gefi mr bauginn
ea ek veg ykkr!" Dvergarnir eru eigi hraeddir. eir hlaeja ok Fjalarr segir, " ert
ragr mar, Svartr. vegr okkr Gandlf eigi. Vit gefum ykkr lfi eigi bauginn, ok far
n!" Svartr hefir eigi brand. Hann hefir knf, en knfrinn er eigi strr. Hann vegr
eigi dvergana ok foerir lfi eigi bauginn.
Olaf gives Swart a hat, a knife and a good horse. He says "Go now, Swart, and find
the ring which the dwarves Fjalar and Gandalf have." Swart replies, "But Olaf, why
don't you give me some food? I'm hungry and I want to eat some food." Olaf gives him
cheese, porridge, and fish and says "Here you have some food. Now go and find the
ring."
Swart eats the food that Olaf gives to him. He says "The porridge that you give to me
is good, Olaf. You are a good king."
Swart now goes and finds the dwarves who have the ring. He says, "Dwarves, give me
the ring. King Olaf wants it." The dwarves answer "We don't want to give Olaf the
ring. He's an evil king." Swart is angry and says "Give me the ring or I will slay you!"
The dwarves are not afraid. They laugh and Fjalar says "You are a cowardly man,
Swart. You won't kill me and Gandalf. We won't give the ring to you and Olaf, and
leave now!" Swart doesn't have a sword. He has a knife, but the knife isn't big. He
won't defeat the dwarves and doesn't bring Olaf the ring.

Eric, a thief, sees some men eat. They eat good porridge, many fish, and a big cheese.
Eric wants the food, for he is hungry. He says "Hail, I am hungry. Will you (use "r")
give some good food to a hungry man?" They reply "Take some food. We give it to
you. But the elves are hungry too. Take some porridge and give it to them. Eric finds
some elves. He brings hungry elves food, for he is a good man.
Eirkr, jfr, sr menn eta. eir eta gan graut, marga fiska, ok stran ost. Eirkr vill
matinn, v at hann er svangr. Hann segir, "Heilir, ek em svangr. Hvrt gefi r
svngum manni mat?" eir svara, "Tak mat. Vr gefum r hann. En lfarnir eru
ok svangir. Tak grautinn ok gef eim hann. Eirkr finnr lfa. Hann foerir svngum
lfum mat, v at hann er gr mar.
Old Norse for Beginners - Lesson Five

1. Grammar
1. Prepositions and Case Usage

2. Dative Case: Command
3. Accusative Case: Qualifying
4. Assimilative Verb Conjugation
2. Vocabulary
1. Nouns
2. Conjunctions
3. Adjectives
4. Verbs
5. Adverbs
6. Prepositions
7. Pronouns
8. Phrases
3. Exercises

1. Grammar
1.1 Prepositions
So far we have been managing entirely without prepositions. But prepositions are an
important part of ON as well as English, and not using them calls for much
unnecessary circumlocution and paraphrasing. ON prepositions, however, largely
involve use of the dative case, which is why we have not started using them until now.
Why would prepositions involve the dative case? Our first acquaintance with this case
introduced it as a case for "giving & receiving". But the dative case has many
different functions in ON. The reason is that ON's dative case was (and is, in Icelandic
and Faroese) the final result of a fusion of many different cases. In the farthest
"known" (projected by comparative linguistics) ancestral language of both ON and
English, "Indo-European" (so called because it is the ancestor of most European
languages and Persian and North-Indian languages as well), all those different cases
served one specific purpose only. Four Indo- European cases served as the basis for
the ON dative:
Locative: The case for marking places or objects where the subject of the sentence is
positioned; associated with prepositions meaning 'in', 'on', 'at', etc.
Ablative: Marks places or objects whence the subject comes; associated with
prepositions meaning 'from', 'out of', etc.
Instrumental: Marks objects that are being used in the verb action; e.g. a sentence
meaning 'he weighed the book with a scale', would mark the word 'scale' with the
instrumental; English primarily marks the instrumental with the preposition 'with',
but sometimes with 'by', e.g. 'he came by ship'.
Dative: Marks the indirect object, usually the receiver of a gift of some kind
(whether negative or positive); English usually marks this with 'to', e.g. "he gave it to
him" or simply by word order, e.g. "he gave the man a chance", where "the man"
would be in dative.
In Indo-European, those cases (supposedly) had separate forms, i.e. separate endings,
for each of them. But ON had united all those cases into one form, while retaining all
of those different uses for that single case.
It may be evident by now why the dative case is so strongly affiliated with
prepositions in ON. Most prepositions have meanings that would be associated with
the locative and ablative cases mentioned above.
You might wonder what case category prepositions like 'into' and 'onto' fit. While
locative answers 'where?', and ablative answers 'whence?/where from?', the 'into' case
would answer 'whither?/'where to?'. This case is called "allative" by grammarians, and
is the opposite of the 'ablative'. Even Indo-European did not have a separate form for
this case; instead, it was assigned to the accusative case. This is significant, because
some ON cases involve accusative, and they are all essentially allative in meaning.
From now on, prepositions are introduced in the Vocabulary section in the following
format:
me + dat
with, by, using
Or that is, the prepositions are shown with a "+ [case]" following it. It is very
important to note the case that a preposition takes, especially because a few ON
prepositions may take either accusative or dative, with different meanings according
to which case follows. These are cases of prepositions with either locative or allative
meanings; compare English "in", locative, which would take dative in ON, to "into",
allative, which would take accusative. Both are represented by the ON preposition "",
but the meaning differs according to the case that follows.
1.2 Dative Case: Command
Now that you have learnt how to mark the dative case in all words we have yet
introduced, it is time to learn more useful ways of using it. One useful construction
involves verbs meaning "tell" or "command".
Consider this English sentence,
I told him to stop.
As opposed to,
I gave him a watch.
And then consider
I told it to him.
I gave it to him.
The sentences both exhibit the same pattern, at close inspection. We already
understand that the second sentence, involving giving, has an indirect object, and
therefore a dative case. By re-arranging the sentence, the abstract "to" preposition
pops up, which is a sure sign of the dative in English. "He" is the indirect object, the
receiver of the "gift", and is marked with the dative.
What we are interested in now, however, is that the first sentence, not obviously
involving any "giving", merely "telling", behaves in the same way. "He" is also an
indirect object, and is marked with dative. What does he receive? "To stop". Hardly a
noun, but verb infinitives are tricky in that they often behave as nouns. Without
dwelling on that, we have at least found that this is a significant "new" way of using
the dative, although it is in principle the same as the "giving" usage we already know.
Common English verbs that can function in this way are "tell", "command", "order",
and others of similar meanings.
The good news is that ON does the exact same thing. In ON, we know the verb
"segja"; it means "say", but it also means "tell", since ON does not distinguish
between those two meanings. Let's make ON constructions analogous to the ones
above:
Ek gef hnum mat.
Is already familiar. Using the command-type construction,
Ek segi hnum at eta.
However, in examining 13th century Icelandic texts, it seems to us that such
constructions with "segja" were not altogether usual, though not wrong. The idiomatic
usage of the text writers was to use the verb "bja, b" = 'offer'. Thus, they'd rather
say:
Ek b hnum at eta.
But Nordic men of authority often made "offers" that couldn't be refused; 'bja'
sometimes means simply 'order'/'command'.
Evidently, verb infinitives can function like nouns in other dative contexts than
commanding, both in English and ON. English says,
I give him to eat. (usually elaborated to, say, "I give him something to eat")
ON would say,
Ek gef hnum at eta.
1.3 Accusative Case: Qualifying

There still remain some useful ways of employing accusative in ON. One common
construction is what we off-hand dub "qualifying". Again, being closely related to
ON, English has an analogous construction:
I call him cowardly.
In ON, both "him" and "cowardly" come in accusative:
Ek kalla hann ragan.
ON often uses the verb "segja" in this way:
Ek segi hann ragan.
Another use is with the verb "vilja", as English uses "want":
Ek vil hann dauan.
I want him dead.
1.4 Assimilative Verb Conjugation

Verbs that do not conjugate with a vowel ending, and whose stems have a long vowel
(acutes, diphthongs, ae and oe) and end in 's' or 'n' never have an -r ending; instead,
the -r assimilates to the 's' or 'n' and becomes an -s/-n ending:
blsa, blaes to blow
ek
Bls
Blss
hann
Blss
skna, skn to shine

ek
skn
sknn
hann
sknn
But verbs that end in vowels are of course not affected:

reisa, reisi to construct, to raise something/someone (to vertical position)
ek
reisi
reisir
Hann
reisir
2. Vocabulary
2.1 Nouns
skgr
Forest
vgr
small bay, cove
hlmr
isle, small island
garr
palisade/stone wall, city, city-state, garden, yard
haugr
mound, dung, pile, grave (see below)
eldr
Fire
vindr
Wind
vangr
field (not farming), meadow, clear patch of ground
brunnr
Well
heimr
home, homeland, world
oddr
point, spike
fors
Waterfall
sandr
Sand
Norse people made great piles over the graves of important men.
Ragnarr
Hjlmarr
Oddr
lfarr
Noregr
Norway
Geirshlmr "Geir's Isle"

Geirshaugr
"Geir's Grave"
Heivangr
"Clear Field"
Skgarfors
"Forest's Falls"
lfarsheimr "lfar's Home"

Hlmgarr
"Island City", a Nordic (Swedish) colony in Russia, now called

Novgorod ("gorod" = "garr")
Austrvegr
"Eastway" (Russia)
2.2 Conjunctions
ef
If
ar er
where (relative)
2.3 Adjectives
djpr
Deep
ungr
Young
rkr
Rich
heir
Clear
bjartr
bright, fair (of light complexion and/or blonde hair)
sterkr
Strong
vr
wide, extensive
breir
Broad
feigr
doomed to die, "dead already", fey
spakr
Wise
2.4 Verbs
sigla, sigli
Sail
ganga, geng
walk
bja, b
offer (sometimes 'command', see 1.2)
sna, sni
show
ba, b
live in, inhabit
brenna, brennr
be burning
blsa, bls
blow
falla, fell
Fall
skna, skn
shine
standa, stend
stand
lifa, lifi
Live
2.5 Adverbs
mean
While
sv
so, such, then (immediately following)
heim
Homewards
vel
Well
sem
as, like
2.6 Prepositions
+ acc
Into
+ dat
in(side)
+ acc
Onto
+ dat
on (top of)
r + dat
out of
me + dat
with, by, using; with, accompanying
2.7 Pronouns
fir
(pl) few (note: "fm" in pl dat, not "fum")
sumir
(pl) some
bir
(pl) both
hvat?
what?
2.8 Phrases
"gefa gri"
grant/give mercy, spare, pardon (from death)
Example: "illr mar gefr mr eigi gri." (an evil man gives me no mercy)
Dictionaries will reveal that "gri" is a plural neuter, but do not let that disconcert you.
It will not need to be declined to any form not known to you. Just use the phrase.
3. Exercises
a. lfrinn gengr skginn.
b. lfrinn gengr skginum.
c. Eldr mjk bjartr brennr garinum.
d. Ragnarr ferr me vkingum vginn.
e. ar vegr hann lfana me geirinum.
f. Ragnarr kmr Eirksheim me btinum.
g. Me hnum eru fir menn.
h. "Hv eru sumir eigi glair?" spyrr Oddr.
i. "Fm mnnum, er mik feigan vilja, gef ek gri," segir lfarr jarl.

a. A young man sails in the cove.
b. He walks out of the boat and into the isle.
c. The vikings wait with the earl in a big forest, in the isle.
d. The man finds the vikings and the earl in the forest.
e. The earl says: "Some men want me dead. Do you want so?"
f. "That I do (so I want), earl. Here I stand and fall."
g. "Few men do I spare. If you do not leave (go), I kill you."
h. The vikings say: "Go home, or be doomed."

Oddr ok Ragnarr heita menn. Oddr er mar ungr ok bjartr, ok sterkr mjk. Ragnarr er
mar mjk rkr. Ragnarr bt gan ok langan mjk. eir eru bir Normenn ok ba
Noregi.
Ragnarr br Oddi ok mrgum vkingum at fara btinn. eir fara n allir ok sigla.
eir sigla strum vgi. r btinum sj eir hlm. ar er sandr ok skgr. "Hlmrinn
heitir Geirshlmr," segir Ragnarr Oddi. " skginum ar er ok Geirshaugr, en ar br
Geirr, illr draugr." eir sj ok vang mjk van ok heian. Oddr spyrr, "Hvat heitir
vangrinn, sv heir?" "Hann heitir Heivangr. ar blsa vindar sterkir," svarar Ragnarr
hnum. "ar ek marga hesta, ok eta eir vel vanginum. Heivangi er ok brunnr
mjk djpr," segir hann. Oddr sr fors breian ok spyrr, "Hvat heitir forsinn, er ar
fellr?" Ragnarr svarar hnum, "Forsinn heitir Skgarfors, ok er breir mjk." Ragnarr
snir Oddi vga, hlma, skga, sanda, forsa, ok vanga, mean eir sigla. Oddr segir,
" ert mar mjk spakr ok mlir vel, Ragnarr, ok kenni ek n marga vga ok vanga
hr Noregi."
Brtt koma eir lfarsheim, ar er lfarr jarl br. lfar hatar mjk Ragnarr ok vill
hann feigan. Er eir ganga r btinum ok sandinn, segir hann, "Hr lfarsheimi
br lfarr, jarl illr ok rkr. Hann gefr eigi gum mnnum gri."
eir ganga n lfarsheim ok sj stran gar. Ragnar maelir, "Garrinn er mjk strr.
Hann er sv strr sem Hlmgarr." svarar Oddr, "Eigi kenni ek Hlmgar."
Ragnarr segir hnum, " ert ungr mar, Oddr, ok eigi spakr. Hlmgarr er strr garr
Austrvegi. ar eru margir vargar vum skgum."

When lfar sees Ragnar coming with a young man and many vikings, he says, "Many
fires burn in me, while Ragnar lives. I grant him no mercy if he does not leave (go)
[out of] lfarsheim soon." The men are afraid, who are with him, as they hear him
speak so. lfar takes a sword and a horse, and leaves.
As they walk, Oddr asks Ragnar much (= many questions, use "mjk"). But Ragnar
does not answer him. He says: "lfar comes soon. Do not speak, he wants all of us
("oss alla") dead." But Oddr and the vikings do not speak. They stand and are afraid.
Now Ragnar also sees what they see.
He sees lfar on a horse. The wind blows as he speaks: "You are all dead ("feigir")
men. I don't spare men like you." As he is coming, they see the fire [that is] burning in
him.
Oddr and the vikings flee. They do not want to die in lfarsheim. Ragnar sees them
flee and shouts: "You are all cowardly! But now I flee too, for lfar grants no mercy."
Then he flees with the men. lfar does not pursue them. He says: "Some men I do
grant mercy - cowardly men."

4.1 A few words from the Heimskringla
var lfr konungr reir mjk ok mlti brliga: "Hv mun ek vilja eiga ik
hundheina?"
var
became
brliga
angrily
mun
will (conjugated in lesson 8)
eiga
own, marry
hund-heina
dog-heathen, heathen like a dog
Then king Olaf became very angry and spoke angrily:

"Why will I want to marry you {when you are} heathen like a dog?"
4.2 A question and an answer from Brennu-Njls saga
Hann spyrr hvat eim vri ar gefit.

"Ostr," segja r.
vri gefit = was given
He asks what was given there to them.
"Cheese," they say.
4.3 Half a strophe from Helgakvia Hundingsbana:

Hvrt eru at svik ein
er ek sj ykkjumk?
Ea Ragnark?
Ra menn dauir!
svik (plural noun) = betrayal, illusion
ein = one, only
ykkjumk = seem to
ra = ride
Ragnark = "the fate of the gods", the end of the world
Are that only illusions
which I seem to see?
Or the end of the world?
There are dead men riding!
Solutions to Lesson Five

lfrinn gengr skginn.
The wolf walks into the forest.
lfrinn gengr skginum.
The wolf walks in the forest.
Eldr mjk bjartr brennr garinum.
A bright fire burns in the yard.
Ragnarr ferr me vkingum vginn.
Ragnar goes with vikings into the creek.
ar vegr hann lfana me geirinum.
There he kills the wolves with the spear.
Ragnarr kmr Eirksheim me btinum.

Ragnar comes into Ericsheim by the boat.
Me hnum eru fir menn.
[There are] few men with him.
"Hv eru sumir eigi glair?" spyrr Oddr.
"Why are some [people] not happy?" Odd asks.
"Fm mnnum, er mik feigan vilja, gef ek gri," segir lfarr jarl.
"Few men, who want me dead, do I spare." says Earl Ulfar.

A young man sails in the cove.
Ungr mar siglir vginum.
He walks out of the boat and into the isle.
Hann gengr r btinum ok hlminn.
The vikings wait with the earl in a big forest, in the isle.
Vkingarnir ba me jarlinum strum skgi, hlminum.
The man finds the vikings and the earl in the forest.
Marinn finnr vkingana ok jarlinn skginum.
The earl says: "Some men want me dead. Do you want so?"
Jarlinn segir, "Sumir vilja mik feigan. Hvrt vilt sv?"
"That I do (so I want), earl. Here I stand and fall."
"Sv vil ek, jarl. Hr stend ek ok fell."
"Few men do I spare. If you do not leave (go), I kill you."
"Fm mnnum gef ek gri. Ef ferr eigi, veg ek ik."
The vikings say: "Go home, or be doomed."
Vkingarnir segja, "Far heim, ea ver feigr."

Oddr ok Ragnarr heita menn. Oddr er mar ungr ok bjartr, ok sterkr mjk. Ragnarr er
mar mjk rkr. Ragnarr bt gan ok langan mjk. eir eru bir Normenn ok ba
Noregi.
Ragnarr br Oddi ok mrgum vkingum at fara btinn. eir fara n allir ok sigla.
eir sigla strum vgi. r btinum sj eir hlm. ar er sandr ok skgr. "Hlmrinn
heitir Geirshlmr," segir Ragnarr Oddi. " skginum ar er ok Geirshaugr, en ar br
Geirr, illr draugr." eir sj ok vang mjk van ok heian. Oddr spyrr, "Hvat heitir
vangrinn, sv heir?" "Hann heitir Heivangr. ar blsa vindar sterkir," svarar Ragnarr
hnum. "ar ek marga hesta, ok eta eir vel vanginum. Heivangi er ok brunnr
mjk djpr," segir hann. Oddr sr fors breian ok spyrr, "Hvat heitir forsinn, er ar
fellr?" Ragnarr svarar hnum, "Forsinn heitir Skgarfors, ok er breir mjk." Ragnarr
snir Oddi vga, hlma, skga, sanda, forsa, ok vanga, mean eir sigla. Oddr segir,
" ert mar mjk spakr ok mlir vel, Ragnarr, ok kenni ek n marga vga ok vanga
hr Noregi."
Brtt koma eir lfarsheim, ar er lfarr jarl br. lfar hatar mjk Ragnarr ok vill
hann feigan. Er eir ganga r btinum ok sandinn, segir hann, "Hr lfarsheimi
br lfarr, jarl illr ok rkr. Hann gefr eigi gum mnnum gri."
eir ganga n lfarsheim ok sj stran gar. Ragnar maelir, "Garrinn er mjk strr.
Hann er sv strr sem Hlmgarr." svarar Oddr, "Eigi kenni ek Hlmgar."
Ragnarr segir hnum, " ert ungr mar, Oddr, ok eigi spakr. Hlmgarr er strr garr
Austrvegi. ar eru margir vargar vum skgum."
[Two] men are called Odd and Ragnar. Odd is a young man and fair, and very strong.
Ragnar is a very wealthy man. Ragnar has a good boat, and very long. They are both
Norwegians and live in Norway.
Ragnar asks Odd and many vikings to enter the boat. Now they all go sailing. They
sail in a large creek. [From] out of the boat they see an isle. There is some sand and a
forest. "The isle is called Geir's Isle." Ragnar says to Odd. They also see a wide, clear
meadow. Odd asks "What is the meadow then called, so clear?" "It is called Clear
Meadow. Strong winds blow there." Ragnar replies him. "There I have many horses,
and they eat well in the meadow. In Clear Meadow there's also a well, very deep." he
says. Odd sees a broad waterfall and asks "What's the waterfall called, which falls
there?" Ragnar answers him "The waterfall is called Forest's Fall, and is very
broad." Ragnar shows Odd creeks, isles, forests, sands, waterfalls, and meadows,
while they sail. Odd says "You are a man most wise and speak well, Ragnar, and now
I know many creeks and meadows here in Norway."
Soon they come to (in) Ulfarsheim, where Earl Ulfar lives. Ragnar hates Ulfar very
much and wants him dead. As they walk out of the boat and onto the sand, he says
"Ulfar lives here in Ulfarsheim, an earl most evil and rich. He does not spare good
men."
Now they walk in Ulfarsheim and soon see a large town. Ragnar speaks "The town is
very big. It is as big as Isle City." Then Odd replies "I do not know Isle City." Ragnar
tells him "You're a young man, Odd, and not wise. Isle City is a large city in Eastway.
[There,] there are many wolves in extensive forests.

When lfar sees Ragnar coming with a young man and many vikings, he says, "Many
fires burn in me, while Ragnar lives. I grant him no mercy if he does not leave (go)
[out of] lfarsheim soon." The men are afraid, who are with him, as they hear him
speak so. lfar takes a sword and a horse, and leaves.
As they walk, Oddr asks Ragnar much (= many questions, use "mjk"). But Ragnar
does not answer him. He says: "lfar comes soon. Do not speak, he wants all of us
("oss alla") dead." But Oddr and the vikings do not speak. They stand and are afraid.
Now Ragnar also sees what they see.
He sees lfar on a horse. The wind blows as he speaks: "You are all dead ("feigir")
men. I do spare men like you." As he is coming, they see the fire [that is] burning in
him.
Oddr and the vikings flee. They do not want to die in lfarsheim. Ragnar sees them
flee and shouts: "You are all cowardly! But now I flee too, for lfar grants no mercy."
Then he flees with the men. lfar does not pursue them. He says: "Some men I do
grant mercy - cowardly men."
Er lfarr sr Ragnar koma me ungum manni ok mrgum vkingum, segir hann,
"Margir eldar brenna mr, mean Ragnarr lifir. Ek gef hnum eigi gri ef hann ferr
eigi brtt r lfarsheimi." Menninir eru hrddir, er eru me hnum, er eir heyra
hann mla sv. lfarr tekr brand ok hest, ok ferr.
Er eir ganga, spyrr Oddr mjk Ragnar. En Ragnarr svarar hnum eigi. Hann segir,
"lfarr kmr brtt. Ml eigi, hann vill oss alla feiga." En Oddr ok vkingarnir mla
eigi. eir standa ok eru hrddir. N sr Ragnarr ok at er eir sj.
Hann sr lfar hesti. Vindrinn blss er hann mlir, "r eru allir feigir menn. Ek
gef eigi mnnum sem yr gri." Er hann kmr, sj eir eldinn er brennr hnum.
Oddr ok vkingarnir flja. eir vilja eigi deyja lfarsheimi. Ragnarr sr flja ok
kallar, "r eru allir ragir! En n fl ek ok, v at lfarr gefr eigi gri." Sv flr
hann me mnnunum. lfarr eltir eigi. Hann segir, "Sumum mnnum gef ek gri rgum mnnum."
Old Norse for Beginners - Lesson Six

1. Grammar
1. Umlauts
2. Article Usage
3. Word Order
4. Reference
2. Vocabulary
1. Nouns
2. Pronouns
3. Adjectives
4. Verbs
5. Adverbs
6. Prepositions
7. Conjunctions
8. Phrases
3. Exercises
1. Grammar
1.1 Umlauts
"Umlaut" is a feature of Old Norse, and other Germanic languages; it potentially

causes the greatest difficulty to foreign learners, of all the features in the language. It
may be best, in order to thoroughly tackle this phenomenon, to understand its origin,
workings, occurrence, and function. First, perhaps, we need to understand the term;
"umlaut" is a "nonsensical" (German) term that probably adds to the difficulty
experienced by English speakers. In German, "um" is a preposition meaning "about,
around" (just as the corresponding ON word); "laut" is a noun, meaning "sound".
"Umlaut" means, roughly, "sound change/shift/mutation" (or, for better memorization,
"sound-about"!), and is often called by one of those terms in English literature.
The umlaut was, to begin with, a pattern of changes within the Germanic languages,
where their speakers sought to reduce the bulk of the endings, by dropping them and
replacing them with vowels of changed quality (the 'quality' of vowels is simply their
nature, like 'a' vs 'i' vs 'u', etc, while 'quantity' is their length). Until then, the Germanic
vowels systems are thought to have been simple, with (approximately) the 5 basic
vowels as in Latin, 'a, i, u, e, o', and various diphthong combinations of those.
Through umlaut, a vowel ending might be dropped, but its preceding stem vowel
would be affected by it in a certain way, changing to a new type of vowel. This
introduced many new vowels to the language, called the "umlaut vowels". The umlaut
vowels in ON are 'y, , , , oe, '. In older Norse, the ON 'e' was two different
vowels, one of which was an umlaut; but they merged to yield the ON 'e', which is
then "only sometimes" a case of umlaut.
There are three basic umlauts: a-, i-, and u-umlaut, according to the vowel of the
disappearing ending which caused the sound change. They were not active all at the
same time, but rather appeared in the order given above. A-umlaut is not important to
us, and only one type of u-umlaut is significant. The details of those will therefore be
left out here.
I-umlaut caused vowels to become fronted, and in that way, drawn towards the 'i'. This
umlaut is of great functional importance, because in many declensions and
conjugations, the stem alternates between having it and not having it. In orthographic
terms, these are the i-umlauts:
a>e
>
o>
> oe
u>y
o>y
>
j >
j >
au > ey
We have some examples from verbs that we have been using:
hafa > hef
blsa > bls
koma > km
ra > roe
ba > b
bja > b
And also in noun declensions:
ss, ss, sir
mar, manns, menn
The i-umlaut is a prominent feature in verb conjugations, some noun declensions,
adjective comparisons, and finally, in word derivations. This will be encountered and
further discussed in future lessons.
The u-umlaut, then, has only one form that we need concern ourselves with:
a>
We have seen this in the verb conjugation, especially in the 1p pl, such as "hfum" or
"tkum". Also in the dative forms, where the -um ending is common, e.g "rgum
mnnum". This is called "preserved" u-umlaut, because the ending that caused it is
still present, making it easy to predict.
Other types of u-umlauts, which need to be explained, are to be encountered, but since
they occur in declension forms that we have not yet dealt with, they will be discussed
later.
1.2 Article Usage

As it happens, a concept in one language seldom corresponds exactly to the same
concept in another. In that way, the concept of the definite article in ON is by no
means an exact counterpart of the same concept in English. Let's consider some of the
special ways in which the ON article is used.
To begin with, the ON article is used considerably less, overall, than the English one.
In poetry, it's not used at all. As a rule of thumb, if you are in doubt whether to use the
article when writing ON, do not use it. When translating ON to good English, you
must thus be ready to add the article into your translation where you see it fit.
Our definite article is a complex concept to define. Generally speaking, it is used to
make a reference to something familiar to the reader, either from a previous sentence
within the text, or from outside sources (i.e. the author presumes the reader to know it,
e.g. "the Santa Claus"). An English sequence of introduction and reference might go
like this:
1. There is an earl in Norway. (introduction)
2. The earl is rich. (reference)
If it were:
2. An earl is rich. (another introduction)
The reader would be confused, because this would indicate another, wholly unrelated,
earl, leaving the sentences irrelevant to each other. Continuing the text:
3. The earl is called Ragnar.
Now we have another way to refer to the earl, apart from 'he' of course, which would
normally have been used in the third sentence; but we'll leave personal pronouns out
of this, for convenience. At this point, the language will find it preferable to refer to
this earl by his name, instead of "the earl"; compare how we might continue:
4. One day, the earl goes hunting.
5. One day, Ragnar goes hunting.

Having introduced the earl's name, we have reached a "third level" of reference. We
might identify three such levels of "familiarity":
1.unknown(indefinitearticleused)
2.introduced(definitearticleused)
3.knownbyname(nameused)
This is the English pattern. Applying this system to ON, we find slight differences;
consider a similar sequence of introduction in ON:
1."Noregibrjarl."(introduction)
2."JarlinnheitirEirkr."(reference)
Now we have reached the third level of familiarity with Eric, since we know him by
name; from now on, we can refer to him by name:
3."GengrnEirkrskg."
However, unlike English, we can also refer to him by his "title", but without an article:
3."Gengrnjarlskg."
This is very common in ON texts; it should be translated into English with an article.
By "title" in this context, anything relatively specific is meant. "Mar" will rarely be
used in this way, but anything more specific, such as "sveinn" (young man) or "karl"
(older man) will commonly be used for close reference, instead of names.
1.3 Word Order

We have hitherto stated, loosely, that Old Norse has a "free" word order. This is true,
as opposed to English, of the relation between the "noun phrases" (= the noun with all
attached to it, such as adjectives and prepositions, or = a pronoun). In English, the
order of the noun phrases is a strong indication of their case, i.e. which of them is the
subject and which the object (direct or indirect). ON leaves the word order free there,
indicating the case by changing the endings of the noun phrase's components.
'Syntax' is the study of word order. There is more to the syntax of a language than the
relation between its noun phrases ("noun syntax"); going from noun syntax to verb
syntax, we find that ON has a rigid set of word order rules, in the relation between the
verb phrase and the rest of the sentence's components. We need to start dealing with
this phenomenon's immediate implications.
(Technically, the noun phrase containing the object is subordinate, or contained
within, the verb phrase; for our practical purposes, that is irrelevant.)
Consider these sentences:
"Thewolfwalksoutoftheforest."
"Thenthewolfwalksoutoftheforest."
The order of the sentences is identical; we merely add "then" in the beginning of the
latter. But this won't work in ON:
"lfrinngengrrskginum."
"Ngengrlfrinnrskginum."
Not *"N lfrinn gengr r skginum."
As we add the adverb "n", the verb shifts in its relation to the other words, and
"insists" on maintaining its position as the second component of the sentence,
following the adverbial phrase ("n").
In that sentence, the verb phrase is composed of only one word, "gengr". Consider a
sentence with a more complicated verb phrase:
"Nvilllfrinngangarskginum."
The verb phrase here is "vill ganga"; "ganga" is a verb infinitive, while "vill" is
conjugated, and therefore called the "finite" verb.
But you notice that in this sentence, only "vill" stubbornly maintains its position,
while "ganga" maintains its relation to the noun phrases; thus, the verb phrase has
been split up.
A practical rule may be deduced, which, if well understood and thoughtfully applied,
will result in correct word order in most cases:
The finite verb within an Old Norse sentence must always be the first or the second
component, while the rest of the verb phrase retains its relation to the noun phrases
even if that involves splitting it away from the finite verb.
This is admittedly complicated; but a student who keeps this in mind while reading
ON texts, should get a feel for this.
This phenomenon is called "Verb-Second", or "V/2"; all Germanic languages except
for English remain V/2 languages today, more or less. The origin and inner cause of
the V/2 phenomenon is not all too well understood by linguists, though their
knowledge of its function will suffice for our practical purposes. The V/2
characteristics has different manifestations within the Germanic family, however, so
speakers of German or even modern Scandinavian languages should not always trust
ON to have the same rules of verb syntax as their native languages do.
An important fact in the V/2 procedure is that conjunctions are not members of the
sentences which follow them; consider these examples:
"Menninirviljaflja."
"Svviljamenninirflja."
"vatmenninirviljaflja."
"Sv" is an adverbial phrase, while "v at" is a conjunctive phrase. As can be seen by
the finite verb's position in the third sentence, "v at" has no effect on its position;
sentence-wise, the third sentence is identical to the first, but with a conjunction tacked
in front (which doesn't count into the sentence).
It is therefore important to note whether such "structural words" (like "" and "ok",
etc) are conjunctions or adverbs; note that "ok", for instance, may either be an adverb
(when it means 'also') or a conjunction (when it means 'and'):
"okertmarfeigr,jarl."(conjunction)
"and
youareadoomedman,earl."
"ertokmarfeigr,jarl."(adverb)
"You'realsoadoomedman,earl."
Also note that in a string of sentences which "share" some components, i.e. when the
latter sentences omit one or more of their noun or adverbial phrases when it is clear
that they are the same as in the first sentence, V/2 applies as in the first sentence,
which may be confusing. Best displayed in an example:
"ferrhann,ok[]vegrhannmargamenn."
"" is being omitted in the second sentence (after the "ok" conjunction), but it still
affects the word order as if it were there. In the same way:
"Efmarinnsrlfa,[]flrhann."
Often the "" will be omitted from "if-then" sentences, even while the V/2 effects of
it remain.
Direct speech is, for syntactic purposes, an adverbial phrase within the "frame
sentence". A whole paragraph of direct speech can be the adverbial phrase of a "he
says"-type sentence:
"MarheitirHaukr."Eigiemeknorskrmar,"<speech>",
segirHaukr.
It cannot be
*"...",Haukrsegir.
since that would violate the V/2 rules just as much as
*"NHaukrsegir."
1.4 Reference
Strongmasculinenouns:
(withoutarticle)
sg
pl
nom
haukr
haukar
acc
hauk
hauka
dat
hauki
haukum
(with article)
sg
pl
nom
haukrinn
haukarnir
acc
haukinn
haukana
dat
haukinum
haukunum
Stems that end in "consonant + 'n', 'r', 'l', 's'" don't add -r in nom sg:
sg
pl
nom
jarl
jarlar
acc
jarl
jarla
dat
jarli
jrlum
Note u-umlaut: 'a' becomes '' before endings with 'u' (such as the -um in dat pl)
Irregular:
mar(man)
(withoutarticle)
sg
pl
nom
mar
menn
acc
mann
menn
dat
manni
mnnum
(with article)
sg
pl
nom
marinn
menninir
acc
manninn
mennina
dat
manninum
mnnunum
Personalpronouns:
1stperson:
sg
dual
pl
nom
ek
vit
vr
acc
mik
okkr
oss
dat
mr
okkr
oss
2nd person:
sg
dual
pl
nom
it
acc
ik
ykkr
yr
dat
ykkr
yr
3rdperson:
(masc)
sg
pl
nom
hann
eir
acc
hann
dat
hnum
eim
(neut)
sg
pl
nom
at
au
acc
at
au
dat
eim
Adjectives, indefinite (strong) masculine:

sg
pl
nom
ragr
ragir
acc
ragan
raga
dat
rgum
rgum
Verbs:
hafa,hef(have)
infinitive:hafa
imperative:haf!(sg)hafi!(pl)
sg
pl
1p
hef-i
hfum
2p
hefir
hafi
3p
hefir
hafa
kenna,kenni(know)
inf:kenna
imp:kenn!(sg)kenni!(pl)
sg
pl
1p
kenni
kennum
2p
kennir
kenni
3p
kennir
kenna
kalla,kalla(call,shout)
inf:kalla
imp:kalla!(sg)kalli!(pl)
sg
pl
1p
kalla
kllum
2p
kallar
kalli
3p
kallar
kalla
In some verbs with long vowels (acute, diphthong, '' or 'oe'), whose stems end in 'n'
or 's', assimilation of the -r ending occurs:
blsa,bls(blow)
inf:blsa
imp:bls!
sg
pl
1p
bls
blsum
2p
blss
blsi
3p
blss
blsa
skna,skn(shine)
inf:skna
imp:skn!
sg
pl
1p
skn
sknum
2p
sknn
skni
3p
sknn
skna
Irregular verbs:
vera (be)
inf: ver-a
imp: ver!
sg
pl
1p
em
erum
2p
ert
eru
3p
er
eru
vilja(want)
inf:vilja
imp:(vil!)(N/A)
sg
pl
1p
vil
viljum
2p
vilt
vili
3p
vill
vilja
sj(see)
inf:sj
imp:sj!
sg
pl
1p
sj-m
2p
sr
s-
3p
sr
sj
2. Vocabulary
This vocabulary section will introduce very few new words (specially noted), but
rather only list all the words introduced so far (in lessons 1-5).
2.1 Nouns
(No new)
<td<norwegian< td="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size:
medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal;
line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; whitespace: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width:
0px;"></td<norwegian<>
lfr
elf
btr
boat
baugr
ring
brandr
sword
brunnr
well
dvergr
dwarf
draugr
ghost
eldr
fire
fiskr
fish
fors
waterfall
garr
palisade/stone wall, city,

city-state, garden, yard
geirr
spear
grautr
porridge
hattr
hat
haugr
mound, dung, pile, grave
haukr
hawk
heimr
home, homeland, world
hestr
horse
hjlmr
helmet
hlmr
isle, small island
hrafn
raven
jarl
earl
konungr
king
knfr
knife
mar
person, man, human being
matr
food (always in singular)
oddr
point, spike
ormr
worm, serpent
ostr
cheese
sandr
sand
skgr
forest
lfr
wolf
vgr
small bay, cove, creek
vangr
field (not farming), meadow,

clear patch of ground
vargr
wolf
vkingr
viking
vindr
wind
jfr
thief
slendingr
Icelander
Normar
Einarr
Eirkr
Erlingr
Fjalarr (dwarf-name)
Gandlfr (dwarf-name)
Haukr
Hjlmarr
Kormkr
Oddr
lfr
Ragnarr
Sigurr
Svartr
Tyrfingr
lfarr
Austrvegr
"Eastway" (Russia)
Noregr
Norway
Geirshlmr
"Geir's Isle" (made up name)
Geirshaugr
"Geir's Grave" (made up name)
Heivangr
"Clear Field" (made up name)
Hlmgarr
"Island City", a Nordic (Swedish) colony in

Russia, now called Novgorod ("gorod" = "garr")
Skgarfors
"Forest's Falls"
lfarsheimr
"lfar's Home" (made up name)
2.2 Pronouns
(No new)
See the reference in 1.3 for personal pronouns.
allir (pl)
all
bir (pl)
both
er
that, which, who, whom
fir
(pl) few
hvat?
what?
margir
(pl) many
sumir
(pl) some
2.3 Adjectives
(No new)
bjartr
bright, fair (of light complexion and/or blonde hair)
breir
broad
danskr
Danish
daur
dead
djpr
deep
gr
good
glar
happy, glad
gylltr
golden, gilted
feigr
doomed to die, "dead already", fey
heir
clear
hrddr
afraid
illr
evil
slenzkr
Icelandic
langr
long
norskr
Norwegian
ragr
cowardly
reir
angry
rkr
rich
strr
big (note that the first r is part of the stem)
spakr
wise
sterkr
strong
svangr
hungry
ungr
young
vr
wide, extensive
2.4 Verbs
New:
elda, elda
cook
owns (only form of this verb yet presented)
ba, b
wait
bja, b
offer; command
blsa, bls
blow
brenna, brennr
be burning
ba, b
live in, inhabit
deyja, dey
die
elta, elti
follow, chase
eta, et
eat
falla, fell
fall
fara, fer
go, leave
finna, finn
find
flja, fl
flee, run away
foera, foeri
bring
ganga, geng
walk
gefa, gef
give
hafa, hefi
have; hold; wear
hata, hata
hate
heita, heiti
be called
heyra, heyri
hear
hlja, hl
laugh
kenna, kenni
recognize, know (a person, place, or object)
koma, km
come
lifa, lifi
live
mla, mli
talk
sj, s
see
vega, veg
slay
segja, segi
says
sigla, sigli
sail
sj (irregular)
see
skna, skn
shine
spyrja, spyr
ask
standa, stend
stand
svara, svara
answer
sna, sni
show
taka, tek
take
vera (irregular)
be
veia, veii
hunt, fish
vilja (irregular)
want
2.5 Adverbs
brtt
soon
eigi
not
heim
homewards
hv?
why?
hr
here
mean
while
mjk
very, very much, greatly
now
oft
often
ok
also
sem
as, like
sv
so, such, then (immediately following)
vel
well
then
ar
there
2.6 Prepositions
+ acc
into
+ dat
in(side)
+ acc
onto
+ dat
on (top of)
r + dat
out of
me + dat
with, by, using; with, accompanying
2.7 Conjunctions
ef
if
en
but
er
when
ok
and
ar er
where (relative)
v at
because, for
2.8 Phrases
"gefa gri"
grant/give mercy, spare, pardon (from death)
3. Exercises
Noregi eru margir vgar, sumir djpir, sumir langir. Norskir vkingar sigla vgana,
lngum btum. vgunum eru ok oft hlmar. hlmunum vega vkingarnir menn. ar
eru ok haugar, ar er illir draugar ba. Draugarnir eru oft reiir, ok hata alla menn.
Noregi eru ok skgar vir, vangar heiir ok forsar breiir. skgunum ba gir
lfar, en ok illir vargar. Menn er ganga skga eru oft hrddir, v at vargarnir vilja
vega ok eta. Ef vargar finna menn skgunum, eru menninir feigir. vngunum eru
hestar, er eta ar ok lifa vel. forsunum er falla eru margir fiskar, er menn veia.
Dvergar eru ar ok, er hafa gyllta bauga. Dvergarnir vilja eigi gefa mnnum baugana.
ar Noregi ba margir menn. Sumir eru jarlar mjk rkir, sumir vkingar sterkir. Fir
eru konungar, fir eru illir ok fir ragir. Sumir menn eru spakir mjk, ok mla vel.
Spakir kenna marga heima ok marga menn.
Fiskr er norskum mnnum ("for Norwegian men") gr matr. eir fara vgana ok
forsana ok veia fisk. Sv elda eir fiskinn eldi, er brennr. Mean eir elda hann,
mla eir ok hlja. Ostr er ok gr matr, ok eta menninir ok ost me fiskinum. Gir
menn gefa svngum ost ok fisk at eta. Svangir eta allan mat, er gir gefa eim.
Ragnarr er jarl spakr. Hann kennir Austrveg, heim mjk stran. Austrvegi eru margir
garar, vir skgar ok vargar mjk illir. Garr Austrvegi heitir Hlmgarr. Fir
garar eru sv strir, sem Hlmgarr er. Noregi eru eigi garar sv strir. Hlmgar
sigla vkingar er vilja vera rkir. v at Hlmgari eru margir rkir.
Solutions to Lesson Six

Noregi eru margir vgar, sumir djpir, sumir langir. Norskir vkingar sigla vgana,
lngum btum. vgunum eru ok oft hlmar. hlmunum vega vkingarnir menn. ar
eru ok haugar, ar er illir draugar ba. Draugarnir eru oft reiir, ok hata alla menn.
In Norway there are many bays, some deep, some long. Norse vikings sail into the
bays in long boats. In the bays there are also often islets. In the islets vikings kill
people. There are also mounds there, where evil ghosts dwell. The ghosts are often
angry and hate all people.
Noregi eru ok skgar vir, vangar heiir ok forsar breiir. skgunum ba gir
lfar, en ok illir vargar. Menn er ganga skga eru oft hrddir, v at vargarnir vilja
vega ok eta. Ef vargar finna menn skgunum, eru menninir feigir. vngunum eru
hestar, er eta ar ok lifa vel. forsunum er falla eru margir fiskar, er menn veia.
In Norway there are also wide woods, clear meadows and broad waterfalls. In the
forests good elves dwell, but also evil wolves. People who walk into forests are often
afraid because the wolves want to kill them and eat them. If wolves find people in the
forests the people are as good as dead. In the meadows there are horses who eat there
and live well. In the waterfalls that fall there are many fish, that people fish.
Dvergar eru ar ok, er hafa gyllta bauga. Dvergarnir vilja eigi gefa mnnum baugana.
There are also dwarves there, who have golden rings. The dwarves do not want to
give their rings to people.
ar Noregi ba margir menn. Sumir eru jarlar mjk rkir, sumir vkingar sterkir. Fir
eru konungar, fir eru illir ok fir ragir. Sumir menn eru spakir mjk, ok mla vel.
Spakir kenna marga heima ok marga menn.
In Norway many people live. Some of them are are very powerful earls, some are
strong vikings. Few are kings, few are evil and few cowardly. Some people are very
wise and speak well. Those that are wise know many worlds and many people.
Fiskr er norskum mnnum ("for Norwegian men") gr matr. eir fara vgana ok
forsana ok veia fisk. Sv elda eir fiskinn eldi, er brennr. Mean eir elda hann,
mla eir ok hlja. Ostr er ok gr matr, ok eta menninir ok ost me fiskinum. Gir
menn gefa svngum ost ok fisk at eta. Svangir eta allan mat, er gir gefa eim.
Fish is good food for Norwegian people. They go into the coves and the waterfalls
and catch fish. Then they cook the fish in fire that burns. While they cook it they speak
and laugh. Cheese is also good food and the people also eat cheese along with the
fish. Good people give those that are hungry cheese and fish to eat. Those that are
hungry eat all food that good people give them.
Ragnarr er jarl spakr. Hann kennir Austrveg, heim mjk stran. Austrvegi eru margir
garar, vir skgar ok vargar mjk illir. Garr Austrvegi heitir Hlmgarr. Fir
garar eru sv strir, sem Hlmgarr er. Noregi eru eigi garar sv strir. Hlmgar
sigla vkingar er vilja vera rkir. v at Hlmgari eru margir rkir.
Ragnarr is a wise earl. He knows Eastway, a big world. In Eastway there are many
city-states, wide forests and very evil wolves. A city-state in Eastway is called
Hlmgarr. Few city-states are as big as Hlmgarr. In Norway there are not so big
cities. Vikings who want to be rich sail to Hlmgarr because in Hlmgarr many are
rich.
Old Norse for Beginners - Lesson Seven

by skar Gulaugsson and Haukur orgeirsson
1. Supplement
1. Alternative forms
2. Grammar
1. Genitive Case: Possession

2. Genitive Case: Forms
3. Article Usage with the Genitive
4. Reflexive Pronouns
5. 3rd Person Possessives
3. Vocabulary
1. Nouns
2. Pronouns
3. Adjectives
4. Verbs
5. Adverbs
6. Prepositions
7. Conjunctions
8. Phrases
4. Exercises

0. Supplement
0.1 Alternative forms
We have stated that the language taught in this course is "standardised" 13th century
Icelandic. People using other material to supplement this course (or using this course
to supplement other material) often find that their books do not always use the same
spelling or form of every word. It is perhaps high time that some of those variants be
discussed.
To begin with it is difficult to "pin down" a language as it was at any particular time
and location. We say that we're teaching the Icelandic language 13th century but even
that is not all too precise - Icelandic underwent many changes in the 13th century.
Some of our forms may reflect early 13th century language while others mirror that of
the late part of the century. Perfect consistency is very hard to achieve (and is
certainly not in evidence in any manuscript - even the same scribe would often spell
the same word in more than one way) but we prefer to have some kind of standard.
Thus our choices are arbitrary here and there and may not exactly reflect that of any
other study material. Don't panic.
That said the interested student may find a discussion of variant forms to be of some
value. The variations can be grouped into two categories.
1. Variations in space
We have already mentioned that the West Norse language forms are different from
those of East Norse. But how different are they? This question is best answered by
providing examples. One of the better known East Norse texts is "The Legendary
History of Gutland". It starts with those words:
Gutland hitti fyrsti mar an sum ieluar hit. a war gutland so eluist at et daghum
sanc Oc natum war uppj. En ann mar quam fyrsti eldi a land Oc sian sanc et
aldri.
Translated word for word into English this produces: "Gutland found first {a man}
that who Thieluar {was called}. Then was Gautland so bewitched that it {during
days} sank and {during nights} was up. But that man put first fire on [the] land and
since sank it never."
Note that the spelling is that of the original manuscript. No normalisation has been
undertaken. This is in line with the usual trend that Old Icelandic texts are normalised
but other Old Norse texts are not - or to a lesser extent. This makes comparison with
our "standardised" language more difficult but we will attempt it nevertheless. So here
we provide those lines as they would look in our Norse Course spelling:
Gautland hitti fyrst mar s sem jalarr ht. var Gautland sv *elvst at at
dgum skk ok nttum var uppi. En s mar kvm fyrst eldi land ok san skk at
aldri.
Most of the differences are insignificant differences between manuscript spelling and
normalised spelling - but some of them are quite interesting. Let's take a better look at
those:
Old Gutnish
Old Icelandic
an
daghum
dgum
sanc
skk
The word "ann" is actually not as far from "s" as it might seem. The declension
paradigm of "s" is like this:
nom
acc
ann
dat
eim
gen
ess
In essence, what has happened in Old Gutnish is that the accusative form has been
generalised to include the nominative. As a side note it might be mentioned that the
exact same thing happened in English. This pronoun is the origin of the English
definite article, 'the'. The Old English paradigm was like this:
nom
se
acc
one
dat
gen
The "irregular" s-form was thrown out in favor of the -forms to (eventually) yield
"the".
The next word on our list is "daghum", as opposed to "dgum". First we note that the
'gh' is a common East Norse way of spelling the "soft" g (see pronunciation guide). It
also sometimes occurs in Icelandic manuscripts. In any case the difference between
'gh' and 'g' is merely one of spelling. The other difference is much more interesting.
Instead of the umlauted -vowel the Gutnish text has the un-umlauted 'a'. This reflects
a general tendency. The u-umlaut effect, while remaining in full force in Icelandic up
to the present day, was much less prevalent in other Old Norse dialects - and it is
completely lacking from the dialect of Guta saga.
The third difference is no less interesting. Instead of the Old Icelandic "skk" we have
the much more English form "sanc". Again we have not an exception but a general
tendency. The assimilation of 'nk' to 'kk' happened to a lesser extent in East Norse than
in West Norse. In this case English and Old Gutnish maintain the more archaic forms.
Again the u-umlaut has not taken place in the East Norse form.
There are many small, differences between East Norse and West Norse. One that
might interest the English reader is that West Norse dropped the 'v' in 'vr' clusters
early on but East Norse has preserved it to the present day. Where West Norse has
"reir" East Norse had "vrr" and Modern Danish has "vred". English has preserved
this consonant in its spelling but dropped it in the pronunciation. The English cognate
is "wrath".
Now let's turn our attention to Old Norwegian. We already know that Old Norwegian
and Old Icelandic are collectively known as West Norse. We might wonder what the
key differences between the two dialects are. For the student of Old Norse the most
visible difference is that Old Norwegian texts are usually published in their
manuscript spelling - unlike Old Icelandic texts which are usually normalised. For the
linguist the difference is mainly that Old Icelandic is in some instances slightly more
conservative than Old Norwegian.
One example where Old Icelandic is more conservative is in keeping the 'h' in the
consonant clusters 'hr' and 'hl'. Those were dropped in Old Norwegian before the
writing age. One stanza from the Norwegian Rune Poem illustrates this.
Rei kvea rossum vesta,
Reginn sl sverit besta.
(A wagon is said to be worst for horses,
Reginn forged the best sword.)
You notice the alliterative triad rei-rossum-Reginn. This would be destroyed in
"translating" into Icelandic since rossum would become hrossum.
2. Variations in time
No living language is static and Old Icelandic underwent many changes from 1200 to
1400. Major changes include the merging of the phonemes and and and oe
respectively. Both happened in the 13th century.
+ ->
+ oe ->
Other noteworthy changes include the "softening" of final 't' and 'k' in several
common words. Thus:
ok -> og
ek -> eg
ik -> ig
at -> a
hvat -> hva
vit -> vi
-it -> -i (neuter article)
The absence of and oe and the "soft" consonants in the common words are two
features that can easily be used to differentiate between Old Icelandic and Modern
Icelandic spelling at a glance
The forms of many individual words changed with time according to arbitrary rules;
we have had to decide in each case which form to use as our standard one. Our
choices are not entirely consistant. In cases where this course gives another form than
other grammar references you can rest reasonably assured that both forms are correct though one may be older than the other. A few common variants are listed below.
it - it
r - r
hon - hn - hn
hnum - honum
ek hef - ek hefi
1. Grammar
1.1 Genitive Case: Possession
The fourth and last remaining case in Old Norse declension is called 'genitive'.
English has the following relations:
John owns an expensive computer.
John's computer is expensive.
Bill steals John's expensive computer.

The orthographic -'s ending here is one part of the English genitive. It is the
characteristic role of the genitive to mark the owner of a following item. Words
marked with the -'s genitive stand in the same position as normal adjectives, as can be
seen above.
In ON, the strong masculine nouns we have encountered so far are also marked with
-s in the genitive singular; thus, the full singular declension of a word like 'hestr' is:
nom
hestr
acc
hest
dat
hesti
gen
hests
In the plural, the ending is -a for all masculine nouns, and most other nouns as well:
nom
hestar
acc
hesta
dat
hestum
gen
hesta
Again, the article must be declined with the noun. Now that we have all the cases, let's
see the full masculine declension of the suffixed article:
sg
pl
nom
inn
inir
acc
inn
ina
dat
inum
inum
gen
ins
anna
And combined with a noun:

sg
pl
nom
hestrinn
hestarnir
acc
hestinn
hestana
dat
hestinum
hestunum
gen
hestsins
hestanna
There! Now you have the full declension of the normal strong masculine noun.
We'll look at the full declension of our only irregular noun to date as well.
sg
pl
nom
mar
menn
acc
mann
menn
dat
manni
mnnum
gen
manns
manna
1.2 Genitive Case: Forms

Section 1.1 already has the forms of most strong masculine nouns. Here is the full
declension of most of the personal pronouns encountered so far:
'I'
'you'
'he'
'it'
'we two'
'we'
'you two'
'you'
nom
ek
hann
at
vit
vr
it
acc
mik
ik
hann
at
okkr
oss
ykkr
yr
dat
mr
hnum
okkr
oss
ykkr
yr
gen
mn
hans
ess
okkar
'they' (masc)
vr
ykkar
'they' (neut)
yvar
'they' (fem)
nom
eir
au
acc
au
dat
eim
eim
eim
gen
eira
eira
eira
The personal pronouns all have a special form for the genitive, often a very distinctive
one, so extra attention must be paid here. Note that the 3rd person plural pronouns all
have the same dative and genitive forms. The only pronoun not presented in this table
is 'hon' (she), since we won't be using it just yet. The full declension of adjectives in
masculine form:
sg
pl
nom
reir
reiir
acc
reian
reia
dat
reium
reium
gen
reis
reira
Note especially the plural genitive ending: -ra. To students' relief, the plural dative and
genitive forms are the same for all genders, so make sure you learn them well.
1.3 Article Usage with the Genitive

In English "titles", such as:
The king of Norway.

The lord of men.
The sound of battle.
The keel of the ship.

There, the titled entity always has an article attached to it. However, if we
change the titles to a different type of genitive, the -s marked one, the article
disappears:
Norway's king.
Men's lord.
Battle's sound.
The ship's keel.
But with titles, it is more customary to use the prepositional genitive (with "of"
and article). In Old Norse however, the genitive is only marked with an
inflection, where the same rule applies; i.e. no article should be attached to the
"titled entity":
Konungr Noregs.
Drottinn mannanna.
But if this were to be paraphrased into a title with a preposition, we would have
an article just as in English:
Konungrinn Noregi.
It is merely that such usage is not the norm in ON, unlike in English.
1.4 Reflexive Pronouns

When the object of a sentence is the same as its subject the reflexive pronouns
come into play. In English it works like this:
I see myself.
You see yourself.

He sees himself.
We see ourselves.
You see yourselves.
They see themselves.
Old Norse, however, is content with letting its first and second person personal
pronouns perform this duty.
Ek s mik.
sr ik.
Vit sjm okkr.
it s ykkr.
Vr sjm oss.
r s yr.
But when it comes to the third person it has a special pronoun.
Hann sr sik.
Hon sr sik.
eir sj sik.
r sj sik.
This 'third person reflexive pronoun' has the following declension:
'himself/herself/itself/themselves'
acc
sik
dat
sr
gen
sn
It observably declines just as 'ek' and '' do. This pronoun has exact equivalents
in many other Indo-European languages that you may be familiar with. German
has "sich". French, Spanish and Latin have "se".
Let's have more examples of usage:
Hann kallar sik konung.
He calls himself a king.
eir gefa sr gan mat.
They give themselves [some] good food.
And other reflexive usage:

Ek kalla mik Eirk.
I call myself Eric.
Vit teljum okkr Normenn.
We consider ourselves Norwegians.
Ek foeri mik brott.
I move myself away. ('foera' = bring, move)
Hv foerir ik til mn?
Why do you move yourself over to me?
('til' + gen = [over] to)
2. Vocabulary
This lesson is light on vocabulary and exercises - for historical reasons relating
to the composition of the course.
2.1 Nouns
egn
thane, freeman, subject of a king, "citizen"
sporr
tail of a fish or serpent
2.2 Pronouns
sik
himself, herself, itself
2.3 Adjectives
sar / saddr
sated, having had one's full
vndr
evil, wicked
fastr
fast, firm, stuck
3. Exercises
a. Hvrt etr ormrinn sjlfan sik?
b. Menn konungs eru egnar hans.
c. Eigi er sporr fisks matr gr.
d. Ragnarr vill vega orm; hann hefir geirinn me sr.
e. Ragnar vegr orminn en oddr geirs hans stendr fastr honum.

a. The helm of the dwarf is gilded.
b. The earl's hawk sees itself.
c. People do not eat the tail of the serpent.
d. Ragnarr's spear is broad.
e. The point of Ragnarr's spear is big.
Sentences like the last one with "nested" genitives are actually not idiomatic in
Old Norse.
Solutions to Lesson Seven

a) Hvrt etr ormrinn sjlfan sik?
Does the serpent eat itself?
b) Menn konungs eru egnar hans.
The men of the king are his thanes.
c) Eigi er sporr fisks matr gr.
The tail of the fish is not good food.
d) Ragnarr vill vega orm; hann hefir geirinn me sr.
Ragnarr wants to slay a serpent; he carries the spear.
e) Ragnar vegr orminn en oddr geirs hans stendr fastr honum.
Ragnar slays the worm but the point of his spear is stuck in it.

a) The helm of the dwarf is gilded.
Gylltr er hjlmr dvergsins.
b) The earl's hawk sees itself.
Haukr jarls sr sjlfan sik.
c) People do not eat the tail of the serpent.
Eigi eta menn spor ormsins.
d) Ragnarr's spear is broad.
Geirr Ragnars er breir.
e) The point of Ragnarr's spear is big.
Strr er oddr spjts Ragnars.
Old Norse for Beginners - Lesson Eight

1. Grammar
1. Present-Preterite Verbs
2. Assimilative Nouns and Adjectives
3. Bisyllabic Stems
2. Vocabulary
1. Nouns
2. Pronouns
3. Adjectives
4. Verbs
5. Adverbs
6. Prepositions
7. Conjunctions
8. Phrases
3. Exercises

1. Grammar
1.1 Present-Preterite Verbs
ON has a small group of verbs that conjugate in a special way. English has the same
phenomenon, but less noticeable. The verbs are called "present-preterite", because
their conjugation for the present is imitative of the preterite (= past) conjugation. This
has to do with a development or shift that is believed to have happened early on in the
ancestral Proto-Germanic language. To put this all into context we will state that the
Germanic languages have three kinds of verbs. They are all still represented in
English.
Strong verbs
1. Preterite formed with ablaut (certain type of vowel change)
2. Certain endings in the present (in English an 's' in third person)
Weak verbs
1. Preterite formed with a dental suffix (in English 'd' or 't')
2. Certain endings in the present (in English an 's' in third person)
Present-preterite verbs
1. Preterite formed like the preterite of a weak verb
2. Present formed like the preterite of a strong verb
We'll demonstrate by comparing a present-preterite verb ('can') with your gardenvariety strong ('come') and weak ('love') verbs.
I
come
came
you
come
came
he
comes
came
love
loved
you
love
loved
he
loves
loved
can
could
you
can
could
he
can
could
Comparing the actual conjucations with the blurbs above we see that 'can' does not
add an 's' in the third person of its singular present tense; just like the other verbs don't
have an 's' in their preterite. We also see that it forms its preterite with a 'd'; just like
the weak verb. The Old Norse cognate of 'can', 'kunna', is also present-preterite.
While the English difference in conjugation is minor, ON present-preterites are more
divergent. We have learnt two irregular verbs whose conjugation is somewhat similar
to this class of verbs, 'vera' and 'vilja'; they are not historically present-preterites but it
may be practical to speak of them in the same context:
vera
Sg.
Pl.
1p
em
erum
2p
ert
eru
3p
er
eru
vilja
Sg.
Pl.
1p
vil
viljum
2p
vilt
vili
3p
vill
vilja
The present-preterite verbs are some of the most useful and common in the language
so you should be careful to learn their conjugation by heart.
The first verb we'll look at is the auxiliary 'skulu' which is the cognate of English
'shall' and similar in meaning.
skulu
Sg.
Pl.
1p
skal
skulum
2p
skalt
skulu
3p
skal
skulu
The change of vowels from 'u' to 'a' is not our everyday umlaut but something even
more arcane called 'ablaut'. We'll look at that again later.
Our next auxiliary verb does not have an English cognate but it is most similar in
meaning to English 'will'. One of its primary uses is to indicate the future.
munu
Sg.
Pl.
1p
mun
munum
2p
munt
munu
3p
mun
munu
Note the anomalous infinitives, with ending -u instead of -a. The verbs 'skulu' and
'munu' are the only verbs in the language with this infinitive ending.
In the Vlusp we have a lot of 'munu' where the seeress is speaking of the future.
One example is "Baldr mun koma" which is easily translated as "Baldr will come".
By now you may have noticed something characteristic about present-preterites; in the
singular, the only endings are -t in the 2nd person. In the plural, they have -u and -u
in the 2nd and 3rd persons.
Our next verb has the same ablaut as 'skulu' but now our normal infinitive is back.
kunna
Sg.
Pl.
1p
kann
kunnum
2p
kannt
kunnu
3p
kann
kunnu
The meaning of 'kunna' is related to that of its cognate 'can' but there are some
differences. While English 'can' means to be able to do something either through
ability or circumstances, ON describes only ability. Also, English 'can' is always an
auxiliary, while 'kunna' can be a main verb with a simple direct object:
Ek kann at.
I know [how to do] it, I can do it
One more verb for now, 'eiga' (own):

eiga
Sg.
Pl.
1p
eigum
2p
tt
eigu
3p
eigu
You should already be familiar with its 3p sg form, '', which has been used already.
The vowel change between '' and 'ei' is actually neither ablaut nor umlaut but don't
worry about it (it has to do with a phenomenon called Verner's law).
The verbs 'skulu', 'munu', and 'kunna' from above are some of the most common
auxiliaries in the language, just as they are in English (substitute English 'will' for
'munu'). Just as in English, no infinitive marker is used with them when they are used
as auxiliaries:
You will go. but not **You will to go

munt koma. but not ** munt at koma
1.2 Assimilative Nouns and Adjectives

It often happens in languages that a consonant assimilates to a neighbouring
consonant. We have already seen some examples of this in the etymological
ponderings:
*benkr -> bekkr (bench) (the 'n' has been assimilated to the 'k')
*hta -> tta (eight) (the 'h' has been assimilated to the 't')
One type of assimilation is important in declensions; their nominative -r has been
assimilated by the final consonant of the stem. This happens with three consonants, 's',
'l' and 'n', and only when the vowel of the stem is long. Let's look at some examples:
*sr -> ss (ice)
*hlr -> hll (hill)
*steinr -> steinn (stone)
The complete declension of those nouns is as follows:
Singular
nom
ss
hll
steinn
acc
hl
stein
dat
si
hli
steini
gen
ss
hls
steins
Plural
nom
sar
hlar
steinar
acc
sa
hla
steina
dat
sum
hlum
steinum
gen
sa
hla
steina
Quite simply, the nominative -r is replaced by one of the other consonants. Nothing
else happens.
Then there are adjectives with the same feature, declining thus in masculine
indefinite:
hss
hoarse
hll
slippery
groenn
green
Sg.
nom
hss
hll
groenn
acc
hsan
hlan
groenan
dat
hsum
hlum
groenum
gen
hss
hls
groens
nom
hsir
hlir
groenir
acc
hsa
hla
groena
dat
hsum
hlum
groenum
gen
hssa
hlla
groenna
Pl.
Take special notice of the genitive plural, where the assimilation occurs.
Remember that the assimilation only occurs in words with long-vowel stems, but not
stems of short vowels:
gulr
yellow
vanr
accustomed
Sg.
nom
gulr
vanr
acc
gulan
vanan
dat
gulum
vnum
gen
guls
vans
nom
gulir
vanir
acc
gula
vana
dat
gulum
vnum
gen
gulsa
vanla
Pl.
1.5 Bisyllabic Stems

Some strong masculine nouns have a bisyllabic stem; observe their pattern of
conjugation:
hamarr
hammer (stem: hamar)
himinn
sky (stem: himin)

sg
nom
ham-ar-r
pl
ham-r-ar
acc
ham-ar
ham-r-a
dat
ham-r-i
hm-r-um
gen
ham-ar-s
ham-r-a
sg
pl
nom
him-in-n
him-n-ar
acc
him-in
him-n-a
dat
him-n-i
him-n-um
gen
him-in-s
him-n-um
First off, 'himinn' is assimilative. What is happening in these nouns is that whenever
there is an ending with a vowel in it, the vowel of the second stem syllable is deleted:
(sg dat) hamar + i > *hamari > hamri
Note that bisyllabic names, such as Ragnarr or Einarr, completely ignore this rule and
decline normally.
Some adjectives are bisyllabic; they commonly have assimilation:
gamall
old (stem: gamal)

sg
pl
nom
gam-al-l
gam-l-ir
acc
gam-l-an
gam-l-a
dat
gm-l-um
gm-l-um
gen
gam-al-s
gam-al-la
2. Vocabulary
2.1 Nouns
ss
ace, god, one of the sir
ss
ice
rll
slave
vagn
wagon, chariot
hamarr
hammer
himinn
sky
jtunn
ettin, giant (mythological)
drottinn
lord (or usually, "the Lord")
hringr
ring, circle
hundr
dog
ningr
villain, oppressor
vir
wood
rr
Thor, the thundergod
rshamarr
Thor's hammer
sgarr
Asgard, the world of gods (sir)
Migarr
Midgard, the world of men
Migarsormr
Midgard's Serpent (the serpent that encircles Midgard)
Jtunheimr
Gianthome (the mythological home of the giants)
Vestrvegr
"Westway" (west across the North Sea; the British Isles)
2.2 Pronouns
annarr
other, another
hverr?
who, what (masc)?
hverr
each
hinn
the other
'Annarr' is a bisyllabic pronoun, with an irregular declension:

sg
pl
nom
ann-ar-r
a-r-ir
acc
ann-an
a-r-a
dat
-r-um
-r-um
gen
ann-ar-s
ann-ar-ra
As happens in 'mar', the sequence 'nnr' becomes 'r'. The main irregularity in the
word is its sg acc form, 'annan', where we'd expect '*aran'.
'Hverr' declines like an adjective with j-insertion:
sg
pl
nom
hverr
hverir
acc
hvern
hverja
dat
hverjum
hverjum
gen
hvers
hverra
An alternative (old) form of sg. acc. is the more regular 'hverjan'.

'Hverr' is the interrogative that refers to masculine nouns or persons. It can also mean
'each':
"Hverr eira segir rum..." Each of them then says to another...

sg
pl
nom
hinn
hinir
acc
hinn
hina
dat
hinum
hinum
gen
hins
hinna
Declines just like the article ending; in fact, it is just a modification of the pronoun
from which the article is derived.
2.3 Adjectives
sjlfr
(him)self
rskr
Irish
slkr
such
groenn
green
hll
slippery
heill
whole, healthy, "hail" (greeting)
vss
wise
gamall
old
gulr
yellow
vanr
accustomed
2.4 Verbs
gjra, gjri
do
aka, ek + dat
drive
hringa, hringa
wind around (as serpents do)
hjlpa, help
help
ra, roe
row (a boat)
leia, leii
lead
vernda, vernda
protect
reka, rek
drive out, drive sth forward from behind (such as cattle)
vera, verr + nom
become
'vera' is followed by a compliment, i.e. a noun in nominative.

The object of 'aka' is in dative rather than accusative.
2.5 Adverbs
aftr
again
saman
together
bi
both
v nst
then, thereafter, subsequently
nor
2.6 Prepositions
vi + acc
by, next to
um + acc
about, around, through
af + dat
off
yfir + dat
over
gegn + dat
against, in front of
hj + dat
by, with, in the company of
til + gen
to
2.7 Conjunctions
at
that
sv at
so [that]
"sv at" is sometimes contracted to "svt"
2.8 Phrases
[It seems to me that some modern phrases have crept into skar's text; I'll check on
this later. - Haukur]
standa saman
stick together, stand united
standa me + dat
stick with someone, help someone
gefa sik
give in, surrender
3. Exercises
a. eir ganga saman um van vang.
b. eir sj menn standa vi forsinn.
c. Annarr spyrr, "Hverir standa ar, vi forsinn?"
d. svarar hinn, "eir kalla sik Eirk ok Hauk, ok eru norskir."
e. "Hvat gjra slkir menn hr?", spyrr annarr hinn.
f. Jarlar Noregs eigu marga hunda ok rla rska.
g. Noregi er oft ss vgum, sv at vsir menn sigla ar eigi.

h. Hann gengr til groenna skga, ar er lfarnir ba.
i. eir ganga saman hlum si, en falla eigi.
j. "Hr er hll ss. Ek vil eigi ganga hr um."

a. "Lord, protect us," an Irish man says.
b. "I am lord here, and protect you," says the earl.
c. "[The] Lord in Heaven ("Drottinn himni") will not help."
d. "[The] Lord himself is with us," another Irish man says.
e. "But is he not in Heaven? (" himni?")", the earl asks.
f. [The] Lord in Heaven protects the men while they sail.
g. The earl calls (says) himself the lord of the slaves.
h. Icelandic men protect themselves ("vernda sik sjlfa") against Norwegian
kings.
i. They take (go with) an old man to the boat.

rr heitir ss, ok er sterkr mjk ok oft reir. Hann hamar gan. rr ferr oft til
Jtunheima ok vegr ar marga jtna me hamrinum. rr ok vagn er flgr. Hann ekr
vagninum um himininn. ar er rr ekr, er stormr.
rr kennir orm, er menn kalla Migarsorm. Ormrinn er langr ok hringar sik allan
um heim manna, Migar. rr vill veia orminn ok vega hann, v at hann er illr.
rr kennir ok jtun er bt. rr tekr vagninn ok ekr. Hann ekr vagninum r sgari
ok um himininn. Hann ferr til jtunsins. Er hann finnr jtuninn kallar hann til hans,
"Jtunn, skalt taka btinn er tt ok hjlpa mr. Vit munum fara ok veia sjlfan
Migarsorm." Jtunninn er mjk hrddr, ok svarar, "Ek skal gjra sem br, rr,
v at ef ek gjri eigi sv, vegr mik. En ormrinn mun eta okkr ba, v at hann er
strr ok illr." En rr er ss bi djarfr ok reir ok vill fara gegn Migarsormi.
v nst ra eir saman bti jtunsins. kmr slkr stormr, at jtunninn verr
hrddr mjk. Er rr sr hann sv hrddan, mlir hann, "Sj, jtunn, hr er
hamarrinn er vegr ik ef roer eigi," ok snir hnum reir hamarinn.
lfr kallar sik konung alls Noregs. Jarlar Noregs skulu ok kalla hann konung. Ef jarl
gjrir eigi sv, ferr lfr konungr gegn hnum ok rekr hann r Noregi. En margir
jarlar vilja eigi kalla lf konung, sv at eir standa saman gegn hnum.
Jarl heitir Ragnarr, er kallar lf eigi konung. lfr konungr foerir marga menn gegn
hnum ok segir: "Heill, Ragnarr jarl. Kalla mik Drottin, ea ek mun reka ik r
Noregi." Sv br konungr jarli (translate: "the earl"). Ragnarr svarar, "Heill, lfr.
Vit skulum eigi leia sv marga menn hverja gegn rum. Ek skal n fara ok leia alla
er standa me mr. Vr skulum sigla brott btunum ok vr skulum eigi koma aftr til
Noregs, mean lifir. En ek mun eigi kalla ik konung, lfr, v at ert eigi gr
mar ok munt eigi gr konungr vera."
Hinir jarlarnir standa eigi me Ragnari gegn lfi. Konungrinn hefir sv marga menn,
at Ragnarr gefr sik hnum ok ferr. Hann segir mnnunum er eru me hnum: "Vr
skulum n fara, v at ningrinn lfr leiir marga menn gegn oss, ok hinir jarlarnir
standa eigi me oss. lfr gefr oss gri, sv at vr skulum sigla brott ok finna oss
njan heim." Margir menn fara me hnum btana, en sumir gjra eigi sv. eir fara
til lfs konungs, v at eir eru norskir menn ok vilja ba Noregi.
Kormkr heitir rll ok Svartr annarr. Kormkr er rskr mar. Svartr er danskr, ok
ungr mjk ok sterkr. Kormkr er gamall mar ok spakr.
Jarl br n bi Kormki ok Svarti at fara skginn ok finna vi. Viinn skal brenna
hj jarli.
eir fara n bir skginn. Vi skginn er strr hll, ok hll ss vangi. Svartr segir
vi Kormk ("to Cormack"), "Vit skulum ganga yfir sinn." Kormkr mlir Svarti,
"Eigi skal at sv, v at yfir s sv hlan, sem sr ar, skal eigi ganga. ar falla
menn sinn, ok deyja. Kom me mr, ok gngum vr n hlinn."
Ganga eir sv hlinn ok af hnum skginn. Kormkr mlir, " skgum eru oft illir
vargar. En ver eigi hrddr, v at Drottinn himna verndar okkr." Svartr segir ,
"himna-drottin kenni ek, er hefir hamar gan ok flgr vagni um himininn. Sj,
Kormkr, hr hefi ek rshamar, en mean ek hefi hann mun rr vernda okkr ba."
Kormkr segir, "Eigi verndar okkr rr n hamarrinn; Drottinn himni er me okkr,
ok mun vernda okkr gegn illum vrgum." Finna eir n viinn ok foera hann jarli.

Ragnar now leads many vikings into the boats and sails away. "We have no slaves, for
Olaf the Oppressor takes them all. We shall go and find Irish slaves, in Westway. Then
we shall find another homeland and live there." The vikings say "You shall lead us,
Earl Ragnar, to Westway (" Vestrveg"), and we will do as ("sv er") you bid."
As they sail away, out of the cove, they see many green meadows, broad cascades, and
forests wide. Ragnar speaks, "Evil is the oppressor Olaf, to ("at") drive us out of
Norway, with such green meadows and forests. We will not find such cascades in
another home."

4.1 Half a strophe from rymskvia
Loki suggests the following to rr:
Mun ek ok me r
ambtt vera.
Vit skulum aka tvau
Jtunheima.
Notice the plural of 'Jtunheimr'.
ambtt
female slave
tvau
two
Notice the difference between 'munu' and 'skulu'. The first is a statement of fact (as far
as a statement about the future can be) while the second is more like a suggestion. But
in reality the verbs could be interchanged here with no real change in meaning.
Thorpe, for example, translates both with 'will':
I will with thee
as a servant go:
we two will drive
to Jtunheim.
4.2 An answer from Gylfaginning

Hr segir: "at eru tveir lfar, ok heitir s er eftir henni ferr Skoll. Hann hrisk hon
ok hann mun taka hana. En s heitir Hati Hrvitnisson er fyrir henni hleypr ok vill
hann taka tunglit, ok sv mun vera."
Remember the feminine pronoun, 'she':
nom. hon
acc. hana
dat. henni
gen. hennar
tveir
two
eftir + dat
behind, after
fyrir + dat
in front of
hrisk
fears
tunglit
the moon
the one
ferr
goes, fares
Solutions to Lesson Eight

eir ganga saman um van vang.
They walk together over a wide meadow.
eir sj menn standa vi forsinn.
They see a man standing by the waterfall.
Annarr spyrr, "Hverir standa ar, vi forsinn?"
One of them asks, "Who are standing there by the waterfall?"
svarar hinn, "eir kalla sik Eirk ok Hauk, ok eru norskir."
Then the other one replies, "They call themselves Eric and Hawk and [they] are
Norwegian.
"Hvat gra slkir menn hr?", spyrr annarr hinn. "What are such men doing here?",
one asks the other.A
Jarlar Noregs eigu marga hunda ok rla rska.
The earls of Norway own many dogs and Irish slaves.
Noregi er oft ss vgum, sv at vsir menn sigla ar eigi.
In Norway there's often ice in the coves, so that wise people do not sail there.
Hann gengr til groenna skga, ar er lfarnir ba.
He goes to green woods, where the elves dwell.
eir ganga saman hlum si, en falla eigi.
They walk together on slippery ice but they do not fall.
"Hr er hll ss. Ek vil eigi ganga hr um."
"Here's slippery ice. I don't want to walk around here."

"Lord, protect us," an Irish man says.
"Drottinn, vernda oss," segir rksr mar.
"I am lord here, and protect you," says the earl.
"Ek em drottinn hr ok vernda yr," segir jarl.
"Lord in Heaven will not help."

"Drottinn himni hjlpar eigi."
"Lord himself is with us," another Irish man says.
"Drottin sjlfr er me oss," segir annarr rskr mar.
"But is he not in Heaven?", the earl asks.
"En er hann eigi himni?", spyrr jarl.
Lord in Heaven protects the men while they sail.
Drottinn himni verndar mennina mean eir sigla.
The earl calls (says) himself the lord of the slaves.
Jarlinn segir sik drottin rla.
Icelandic men protect themselves against Norwegian kings.
slenzkir menn vernda sik gegn norskum konungum.
They take (go with) an old man to the boat.
eir fara me gamlan mann btinn.

rr heitir ss, ok er sterkr mjk ok oft reir. Hann hamar gan. rr ferr oft til
Jtunheima ok vegr ar marga jtna me hamrinum. rr ok vagn er flgr. Hann ekr
vagninum um himininn. ar er rr ekr, er stormr.
A god is named Thor. He is very strong and often angry. He has a good hammer. Thor
often goes to Gianthome and slays many giants there with the hammer. Thor also has
a carriage that flies. He drives the carriage through the sky. Where Thor drives there
is storm.
rr kennir orm, er menn kalla Migarsorm. Ormrinn er langr ok hringar sik allan
um heim manna, Migar. rr vill veia orminn ok vega hann, v at hann er illr.
Thor knows a serpent that people call the Midgard Serpent. The serpent is long and
coils all of itself around the world of people, Midgard. Thor wants to catch the
serpent and slay it, for it is evil.
rr kennir ok jtun er bt. rr tekr vagninn ok ekr. Hann ekr vagninum r sgari
ok um himininn. Hann ferr til jtunsins. Er hann finnr jtuninn kallar hann til hans,
"Jtunn, skalt taka btinn er tt ok hjlpa mr. Vit munum fara ok veia sjlfan
Migarsorm." Jtunninn er mjk hrddr, ok svarar, "Ek skal gjra sem br, rr,
v at ef ek gjri eigi sv, vegr mik. En ormrinn mun eta okkr ba, v at hann er
strr ok illr." En rr er ss bi djarfr ok reir ok vill fara gegn Migarsormi.
Thor also knows a giant that has a boat. Thor takes the wagon and drives. He drives
the wagon from Asgard and through the sky. He goes to the giant. When he finds the
giant he calls to him, "Giant, you will take the boat that you have and help me. We
two will go and catch the Midgard Serpent itself." The giant is very fearful and
replies, "I will do as you ask, Thor, because if I don't you'll slay me. But the serpent
will eat both of us for he is large and evil." But Thor is both a courageous and angry
god and wants to go against the Midgard Serpent.
v nst ra eir saman bti jtunsins. kmr slkr stormr, at jtunninn verr
hrddr mjk. Er rr sr hann sv hrddan, mlir hann, "Sj, jtunn, hr er
hamarrinn er vegr ik ef roer eigi," ok snir hnum reir hamarinn.
Next they row together on the giant's boat. Then there comes such a storm that the
giant becomes very scared. When Thor sees the giant so afraid he speaks, "Look,
giant, here's the hammer that will slay you if you don't row," and angry he shows him
the hammer.
lfr kallar sik konung alls Noregs. Jarlar Noregs skulu ok kalla hann konung. Ef jarl
grir eigi sv, ferr lfr konungr gegn hnum ok rekr hann r Noregi. En margir jarlar
vilja eigi kalla lf konung, sv at eir standa saman gegn hnum.
Olaf calls himself the king of all Norway. The earls of Norway shall also call him
king. If an earl doesn't do that, king Olaf goes against him and chases him out of
Norway. But many earls don't want to call Olaf king so they stick together against
him.
Jarl heitir Ragnarr, er kallar lf eigi konung. lfr konungr foerir marga menn gegn
hnum ok segir: "Heill, Ragnarr jarl. Kalla mik Drottin, ea ek mun reka ik r
Noregi." Sv br konungr jarli (translate: "the earl"). Ragnarr svarar, "Heill, lfr.
Vit skulum eigi leia sv marga menn hverja gegn rum. Ek skal n fara ok leia alla
er standa me mr. Vr skulum sigla brott btunum ok vr skulum eigi koma aftr til
Noregs, mean lifir. En ek mun eigi kalla ik konung, lfr, v at ert eigi gr
mar ok munt eigi gr konungr vera."
An earl is called Ragnar. He doesn't call Olaf king. King Olaf brings many men
against him and says: "Hail, earl Ragnar. Call me Lord or I'll chase you out of
Norway." This the king offers the earl. Ragnar replies, "Hail, Olaf. We two shall not
lead so many men against one another. I'll go now and lead all who followers. We'll
sail away in the boats and we won't come back to Norway while you are alive. But I
will not call you king, Olaf, because you are not a good man and you will not make a
good king."
Hinir jarlarnir standa eigi me Ragnari gegn lfi. Konungrinn hefir sv marga menn,
at Ragnarr gefr sik hnum ok ferr. Hann segir mnnunum er eru me hnum: "Vr
skulum n fara, v at ningrinn lfr leiir marga menn gegn oss, ok hinir jarlarnir
standa eigi me oss. lfr gefr oss gri, sv at vr skulum sigla brott ok finna oss
njan heim." Margir menn fara me hnum btana, en sumir gra eigi sv. eir fara
til lfs konungs, v at eir eru norskir menn ok vilja ba Noregi.
The other earls don't stand with Ragnar against Olaf. The king has so many men that
Ragnarr gives in [I'm not sure where skar was going with this] and goes. He tells
the men that are with im: "Now we shall go for the oppressor Olaf leads many men
against us and the other earls don't stand with us. Olaf spares us so we shall sail
away and find ourselves a new home." Many men go with him to the boats but some
don't. They go to king Olaf for they are Norwegian men and wan't to live in Norway.
Kormkr heitir rll ok Svartr annarr. Kormkr er rskr mar. Svartr er danskr, ok
ungr mjk ok sterkr. Kormkr er gamall mar ok spakr.
A slave is called Cormac and another Svart. Cormac is an Irish man. Svart is Danish,
very young and strong. Cormac is an old and wise man.
Jarl br n bi Kormki ok Svarti at fara skginn ok finna vi. Viinn skal brenna
hj jarli.
Now the earl commands Cormack and Svart to go into the forest and find wood. The
wood will be burnt at the earl's.
eir fara n bir skginn. Vi skginn er strr hll, ok hll ss vangi. Svartr segir
vi Kormk ("to Cormack"), "Vit skulum ganga yfir sinn." Kormkr mlir Svarti,
"Eigi skal at sv, v at yfir s sv hlan, sem sr ar, skal eigi ganga. ar falla
menn sinn, ok deyja. Kom me mr, ok gngum vr n hlinn."
Now both of them go into the forest. By the forest is a large hill and slippery ice in the
meadow. Svart says to Cormack, "We two shall walk over the ice." Cormack then tells
Svart, "That's not gonna happen for over such slippery ice as you see there one
should not walk. There people fall into the ice and die. Come with me and now we'll
walk upon the hill."
Ganga eir sv hlinn ok af hnum skginn. Kormkr mlir, " skgum eru oft illir
vargar. En ver eigi hrddr, v at Drottinn himna verndar okkr." Svartr segir ,
"himna-drottin kenni ek, er hefir hamar gan ok flgr vagni um himininn. Sj,
Kormkr, hr hefi ek rshamar, en mean ek hefi hann mun rr vernda okkr ba."
Kormkr segir, "Eigi verndar okkr rr n hamarrinn; Drottinn himni er me okkr,
ok mun vernda okkr gegn illum vrgum." Finna eir n viinn ok foera hann jarli.
Then they walk upon the hill and off the hill into the forest. Cormack speaks, "In
forests there are often evil wolfs. But don't be afraid for the lord of heaven protects
us." Then Svart says: "I know a lord of the sky that flies around the sky in a wagon.
Look, Cormack, here I have a Thor's hammer and while I have it Thor will protect us
both." Cormack says, "Neither Thor nor the hammer will protect us; the Lord in
heaven is with us two and will protect us against evil wolfs." Now they find the wood
and bring it to the earl.

Ragnar now leads many vikings into the boats and sails away. "We have no slaves, for
Olaf the Oppressor takes them all. We shall go and find Irish slaves, in Westway. Then
we shall find another homeland and live there." The vikings say "You shall lead us,
Earl Ragnar, to Westway and we will do as you bid."
Ragnarr leiir n marga vkinga btana ok siglir brott. "Vr hfum enga rla v
at ningrinn lfr tekr alla. Vr skulum fara vestrveg ok finna rska rla. ar
nst skulum vr finna annan heim ok ba ar." Vkingarnir segja, " skalt leia oss,
Ragnarr jarl, Vestrveg, ok vr skulum gra sv er br."
As they sail away, out of the cove, they see many green meadows, broad cascades, and
forests wide. Ragnar speaks, "Evil is the oppressor Olaf, to ("at") drive us out of
Norway, with such green meadows and forests. We will not find such cascades in
another home."
Sem eir sigla r vginum sj eir marga groena vanga, breia fossa ok skga va.
Ragnar mlir, "Illr er lfr ningr at reka oss r Noregi er hefir sv groena vanga
ok skga. Eigi munum vr finna slka fossa rum heimi.
Old Norse for Beginners - Lesson Nine

1. Grammar
1. Genitive Case: Partition

2. Dative Case: Instrumental
3. Verbs with Dative and Genitive
4. Strong Masculine Declensions
5. Infinitive Clauses
6. Clauses of Purpose, Sequences
2. Vocabulary
1. Nouns
2. Pronouns
3. Adjectives
4. Verbs
5. Adverbs
6. Prepositions
7. Conjunctions
8. Phrases
3. Exercises

1. Grammar
1.1 Genitive Case: Partition
There are some more uses to the genitive case than possession, presented last lesson.
This can be seen through observation of the English genitive; in English, this case is
marked by 's, for possession exclusively, but more commonly by the preposition 'of'.
Examples:
'Norway's king is called Olaf.''The King of Norway is called Olaf.'
'Peter's car is blue.''The car of Peter is blue.'
Using the 's is normal for possession, except in the case of titles, like 'The King of
Norway.' But there are other types of genitive, or at least other cases where the 'of'
preposition is used abstractively:
'Three of us came over.' 'He saw all of them.'
This is called 'partitive genitive'. There we're using the genitive to mark the whole
whence an amount derives; 'hundreds of men.' - from an undefined mass called 'men',
'hundreds' are selected. The genitive would seem logical, as the extracted amount
belongs to the original whole.
Luckily, Old Norse uses the genitive in the exact same way. Except, of course, its
genitive is marked exclusively through inflection and not by the help of prepositions.
So, first an example of the possessive usage we already know:
Btr lfs er langr.
Then, an example of the partitive genitive:
Sumir vr vilja eigi vera lfarsheimi. 'Some of us don't want to be in lfarsheimr.'
Note, by the way, that the verb conjugates in the third person in this example. Though
it may seem to be a semantic first person, the verb refers to 'sumir', which is a third
group. Remember that verbs always agree to the subject in the sentence, and the
subject is always in nominative (like 'sumir', but unlike 'vr').
1.2 Dative Case: Instrumental

As detailed in lesson 5, section 1.1, the dative case in ON originates from a fusion of
many different case forms. But the various functions of those originally different cases
still remain in the dative case. One of those functions is called "instrumental", and
marks the object with which the verb is executed. Examples:
"He slays the dragon with the mighty sword." "He comes to England by ship." "It's a
Trial by Fire."
In those sentences, "sword", "ship" and "fire" serve instrumental functions, and are
marked in English by the instrumental case prepositions "with" and "by".
In ON, we have until now relied on the preposition "me" + dat, which marks
instruments, among other things. But ON can also omit any preposition, relying on the
naked dative form to identify the instrumental function. Example:
"rr vegr jtuninn hamri." Thor slays the giant with a hammer.
This function of the dative is not very common, especially not in prose.
1.3 Verbs with Dative and Genitive

So far, we have used only verbs followed by a direct object marked with accusative.
However, to complicate matters, the 'patients' of many ON verbs are not marked with
accusative, but rather with dative or even genitive (rare), as illogical as it may seem:
"Ek kasta steini." 'I throw a stone.' (dative)
"eir moeta hnum." 'They meet him.' (dative)
"Hon saknar hans." 'She misses him.' (genitive)
The explanation to this phenomenon probably lies in the etymology of the individual
verbs; a verb's original meaning may have logically called for such case marking, but
then changed meaning while retaining the case use. The compulsory dative marking
would in a great many cases stem from instrumental dative usage (see 1.2 above)
which has "frozen" (become mandatory). At the same time, other verbs of similar
meaning may then have changed to model themselves to the anomalous verb, so that
all verbs of a similar "theme" meaning will govern the same case; e.g. all verbs that
describe "projectile" meanings (like "kasta" above) tend to govern dative.
In any case, by the time of Old Norse it is no longer practical to consider such
(perhaps obscure) historical details; it is most practical to say that the grammatic case
governed by an ON verb is one of its inherent variables, to be learnt as soon as one

learns the verb itself.
Thus, from now on, verbs will be specifically identified with the case they govern:
vega, veg + acc slay kasta, kasta + dat throw
sakna, sakna + gen miss, feel the loss of
Most verbs learnt so far govern accusative; the only exception is:
sigla, sigli + dat sail
It may be of help to some students, however, to try to assign some minimal logic to
some of the abnormal case use, perhaps especially with verbs that govern the genitive
case. For example, with the example above of the verb 'sakna', one may assume
something like this as an explanation:
"Hon saknar hans." "She misses his [presence]."
But this is only recommended as a mnemonic, for those whom it helps.
1.4 Strong Masculine Declensions

The strong masculine is certainly the most varied declension. Some strong masculines
end in -ir in the nominative. They decline quite easily:
hilmir 'king'
sg
pl
nom
hilmir
hilmar
acc
hilmi
hilma
dat
hilmi
hilmum
gen
hilmis
hilma
The dative cannot be 'hilmii', as 'ii' is not possible in ON.

A very large group of nouns within the declension are declined like this:
star 'place'
sg
pl
nom
star
stair
acc
sta
stai
dat
sta
stum
gen
staar
staa
Strong masculines of this type are called 'i-stems'; the ones we know so far are called
'a-stems'. To summarize, i-stem declension is different in the following ways:
a. a) gen sg -ar, not -s
b. b) nom pl -ir, not -ar
c. c) acc pl -i, not -a
d. d) dat sg -, not -i ('' is commonly used to symbolize "no ending")
A few strong masculines' declension is a mix between i-stem and a-stem declension:
sg
pl
nom
skgr
skgar
acc
skg
skga
dat
skgi
skgum
gen
skgar
skga
That is, i-stem gen sg -ar, but otherwise just like other a-stems. The only such words
we have encountered so far are 'skgr' and 'matr'.
Some i-stem nouns have -s in the sg gen.
So, as you'll be thinking by now, how do we keep track of all this? We intend to do so
by using a new way to introduce future vocabulary from the strong masculine
declension:
hestr, hests, hestar
horse
vinr, vinar, vinir
friend
skgr, skgar, skgar
forest
hilmir, hilmis, hilmar
king
ss, ss, sir
god
These three case forms are what characterize and identify the different declensions,
nom sg (as before), gen sg, and nom pl. From now on, make sure you learn to which
declension each strong masculine noun belongs, before you continue. Names will also
be presented this way, though not with the plural form, e.g.:
Njll, Njls
Haraldr, Haralds
orvarr, orvarar
1.5 Infinitive Clauses

With verbs like 'claim' or 'believe', English can have full clauses following with all its
main verbs in infinitive. In those clauses, the infinitive is always marked with 'to':
I believe him to be passed away.
I claim her to be may legal heir.
I believe it to have happened already.
In ON, such infinitive clauses are even more prolific. The difference to English is that
the infinitive marker (at) is never used, and the verb infinitive tends to be
idiomatically placed last in the sentence. As in the English example sentences above,
the subject of the infinitive clause is not in nominative, but rather in accusative:
"Ek tel hann gan mann vera." I believe him to be a good man.
"Ek segi ik illan konung vera." I claim you to be an evil king.
In lesson 3, section 1.2, infinitive clauses with sense words like 'see' and 'hear' were
taught. They are analogous to the clauses presented above:
"Vr sjm ganga um skginn." We see them walking around the forest.
"eir heyra konunginn mla." They hear the king speak.
And as mentioned there, clauses with the word 'vita' (to know):
"Ask veit ek standa." An ash I know standing.
1.6 Clauses of Purpose, Sequences

Some subordinate clauses express purpose:
"They go to find the wood." ("they go - [in order] to find the wood")
In ON, such clauses are connected to the main clause by "til at":
"eir fara til at finna viinn."
Alternatively, one might say:
"eir fara at finna viinn."
This merely indicates a sequence of events, though purpose is strongly suggested.
This omission of "til" is quite common.
2. Vocabulary
2.1 Nouns
vinr, vinar, vinir
friend
ss, ss, sir
ace, god, one of the sir
askr, asks, askar
ash tree; small wooden pot
sveinn, sveins, sveinar
young man
peningr, penings, peningar
money
mttr, mttar, mttir
power
kaupmar, -manns, -menn
merchant
dmr, dms, dmar
judgement, -hood ("state of being" suffix)
rldmr, -dms, -dmar
slavery
Kristr, Krists
Christ
Mjlnir, Mjlnis
Mjolner, Thor's hammer
Askr Yggdrasils
The Ash of Yggdrasil, the World Tree
tgarr
Outgard, alternate name for Gianthome
Surtr
Surt, the Fire Giant
Mspellsheimr
Muspellsheim, the World of Fire Giants
sa-r
"Thor of [the] sir", alternate name for Thor
2.2 Pronouns
Demonstrative pronoun, masculine:
s
that, the one that
sg
pl
nom
eir
acc
ann
dat
eim
eim
gen
ess
eira
Example of the demonstrative "that" function:
"Hvat heitir s mar, er stendr hj jarli?" "What is that man called, who stands by the
earl?"
This also serves as a relative pronoun, "the one that"; for example
"S er fiska veiir..." The one who catches fish...
Note how the plural simply uses the masc 3p pl personal pronoun.
2.3 Adjectives
heitr
hot
norroenn
Nordic
vitr
wise
alvitr
omniscient, all-knowing
frjls
free
sjkr
sick
blindr
blind
2.4 Verbs
sma, sm
craft, make
tra, tri + dat
believe; believe in, have faith in
leita, leita + gen
search; search for
kaupa, kaupi
buy
halda, held + dat
hold, keep
velja, vel
choose
gjalda, geld + dat
pay
sigla, sigli + dat
sail
rsa, rs
rise
lkna, lkna
heal
And one present-preterite verb:

vita
know (a fact)
sg
pl
1p
veit
vitum
2p
veizt
vitu
3p
veit
vitu
It should be mentioned now that the character 'z' represents a combination of 't','d' or
'' + 's', just as 'x' is a combination of 'k' and 's'. This makes the form 'veizt' more
understandable, as it essentially the stem 'veit' + the ending '-st'; 'veitst' > 'veizt'. The
'z' was originally pronounced 'ts', but tended to simplify to 's' in later ON and its
descendant languages.
2.5 Adverbs
aldregi
never
hvar
where
hvaan
whence/where from
aan
thence/there from
han
hence/here from
heldr
but rather
enn
still
til
more, yet more
2.6 Prepositions
undir + dat
under
meal + gen
among(st)
fr + dat
from
2.7 Conjunctions
sv sem
such as
3. Exercises
a. "Sumir yvar fara aldregi heim til Noregs."
b. "Veizt eigi, hvrt menninir skulu sigla brott?"
c. "Eigi veit ek, hverir mannanna skulu sigla."
d. "Kristr heitir drottinn s, er verndar oss."
e. "Ek veit annan, er verndar oss hamri gegn illum jtnum."
f. "Hvrt mun s rr heita, ok hamarrinn Mjlnir?"
g. "Eigi hefir s Kristr slkan hamar er Mjlnir er."
h. "Kristr hefir eigi hamra ea branda, v at hann er gr ok vegr eigi menn n
jtna."
a. There are many villains among Olaf's friends.

b. "That viking is such a villain, that he never spares good men."
c. "Thor's might is in the hammer."
d. "Do you know, slave, whence they come, who they are, and what they call
themselves?"
e. "They come from Westway, and are Irish men. They call themselves free."
f. "No good men come from there. Take the sword and bring them to me."
g. "Some of you are thieves, who take horses. Who are they?"
h. "Those who know, shall bring me the thieves."
i. "The thieves must give in. If they do not do so, I will kill you all."

Oddr segir vi Ragnar jarl, "Seg mr, jarl, af heiminum, af jtnum ok sum." Ragnarr
svarar, "at skal ek, Oddr."
" heimi stendr askr strr er vr kllum Ask Yggdrasils. Vi askinn eru heimar eir er
heita Migarr, ar er vr bm; tgarr, ar er jtnar ba, en hann heitir ok
Jtunheimr; ok sgarr, ar er sir ba. Undir askinum ba dvergar, er sma bauga
ok branda."
"Drottin sa kllum vr in, ok er hann ss mjk spakr. Hann hefir hrafna, er heita
Huginn ok Muninn, ok fljga eir hrafnar um heimana. at, er hrafnarnir sj, sr ok
inn. v er inn ss alvitr. sgari br ok ss s er rr heitir. rr hefir
hamarinn Mjlni ok flgr hann oft til Jtunheims ok vegr me hnum jtna. Margir
sir ba sgari, ok vernda eir allir mennina ok heiminn, gegn illum jtnum."
"Surt veit ek ba Mspellsheimi. S er strr ok illr jtunn elds. heimi eim brenna
heitir eldar ok mun Surtr leia aan jtna gegn sum. Hann mun vega si eldi ok
brandi eim, er hann hefir. Illr er mjk jtunn s."
" Migari bm vr menninir. Um Migar allan veit ek orm hringa sik, er vr
kllum Migarsorm. Ormr s er illr. sa-r vill veia ann orm ok vega hann
hamrinum."
Oddr mlir n, "Kenni ek n marga si. En sumir segja mr af rum, er eir nefna
Krist. Hvrt er s meal sa?" Ragnarr svarar, "S er eigi ss, heldr mar. Menn segja
hann lkna sjka ok blinda, rsa aftr daur, ok koma af himnum. Margir norroenna
manna tra n hnum, en sjlfr veit ek eigi mtt Krists."
Fara n Ragnarr ok vkingarnir at leita sr rla meal rskra manna. eir kaupa ar
Vestrvegi marga unga sveina af norroenum kaupmnnum, er halda sveinunum
rldmi. Kaupmar segir, "Sveinarnir eru sterkir mjk, ok s kaupir vel er velr.
Tak , jarl, sveina er ar standa, gef ek r annan til."
Ragnarr telr kaupmanninn bja sr vel, ok geldr hnum peningum. Br hann sv
rlunum at ganga btana, ok siglir brott.
Er Svartr ok Kormkr foera viinn heim til jarls, spyrr Svartr Kormk, "Hvrt eru allir
rskir menn rlar, sem ert, Kormkr?" Kormkr svarar, "Eigi erum vr allir rlar
en mrgum vr halda norroenir menn rldmi."

Many (of) Nordic men believe in (the) sir, but not all of them. Some believe in
Christ, Lord of Heaven. Irish men do not believe in the sir, but rather in Lord Christ.
The King of Norway commands all Norwegian men to call himself King. He also
commands them not to have faith in the sir, but rather in Christ. Others, such as
(the) earls of Norway, say that Thor will slay Christ himself ("segja r munu vega
sjlfan Krist..."), with his hammer, Mjolner. Many of (the) Norwegians believe the
earls.
Solutions to Lesson Nine

by skar Gulaugsson and Haukur orgeirsson 2003
"Sumir yvar fara aldregi heim til Noregs."
Some of you will never go back to Norway.
"Veizt eigi, hvrt menninir skulu sigla brott?"
Do you not know, whether the men will sail away?
"Eigi veit ek, hverir mannanna skulu sigla."

I do not know, who of the men will sail.
"Kristr heitir drottinn s, er verndar oss."
The Lord, who protects us, is called Christ.
"Ek veit annan, er verndar oss hamri gegn illum jtnum."
I know of another one, who protects us with a hammer against evil giants.
"Hvrt mun s rr heita, ok hamarrinn Mjlnir?"
Is he called Thor, and the hammer Mjolner?
"Eigi hefir s Kristr slkan hamar er Mjlnir er."
That Christ has no hammer like Mjolner.
"Kristr hefir eigi hamra ea branda, v at hann er gr ok vegr eigi menn n jtna."
Christ does not have hammers or swords, for he is good and kills neither men nor
giants.

There are many villains among Olaf's friends.
at eru margir ningar meal vina lfs.
"That viking is such a villain, that he never spares good men."
"S vkingr er slkr ningr, at hann gefr gum mnnum aldregi gri."
"Thor's might is in the hammer."
"Mttr rs er hamrinum."
"Do you know, slave, whence they come, who they are, and what they call
themselves?"
"Hvrt veist , rll, hvaan eir koma, hverir eir eru, ok hvat eir kalla sik?"
"They come from Westway, and are Irish men. They call themselves free."
"eir koma r Vestrvegi, ok eru rskir menn. eir kalla sik frjlsa."
"No good men come from there. Take the sword and bring them to me."
"Engir gir menn koma aan. Tak brandinn ok foer mr ."
"Some of you are thieves, who take horses. Who are they?"
"Sumir yvar eru jfar, er taka hesta. Hverir eru eir?"
"Those who know, shall bring me the thieves."
"eir er vita, skulu foera mr jfana."
"The thieves must give in. If they do not do so, I will kill you all."
"jfarnir skulu gefa sik. Ef eir gra at eigi, mun ek vega yr alla."

Oddr segir vi Ragnar jarl, "Seg mr, jarl, af heiminum, af jtnum ok sum." Ragnarr
svarar, "at skal ek, Oddr." " heimi stendr askr strr er vr kllum Ask Yggdrasils.
Vi askinn eru heimar eir er heita Migarr, ar er vr bm; tgarr, ar er jtnar
ba, en hann heitir ok Jtunheimr; ok sgarr, ar er sir ba. Undir askinum ba
dvergar, er sma bauga ok branda." "Drottin sa kllum vr in, ok er hann ss
mjk spakr. Hann hefir hrafna, er heita Huginn ok Muninn, ok fljga eir hrafnar um
heimana. at, er hrafnarnir sj, sr ok inn. v er inn ss alvitr. sgari br ok
ss s er rr heitir. rr hefir hamarinn Mjlni ok flgr hann oft til Jtunheims ok
vegr me hnum jtna. Margir sir ba sgari, ok vernda eir allir mennina ok
heiminn, gegn illum jtnum." "Surt veit ek ba Mspellsheimi. S er strr ok illr
jtunn elds. heimi eim brenna heitir eldar ok mun Surtr leia aan jtna gegn
sum. Hann mun vega si eldi ok brandi eim, er hann hefir. Illr er mjk jtunn s."
" Migari bm vr menninir. Um Migar allan veit ek orm hringa sik, er vr
kllum Migarsorm. Ormr s er illr. sa-r vill veia ann orm ok vega hann
hamrinum." Oddr mlir n, "Kenni ek n marga si. En sumir segja mr af rum, er
eir nefna Krist. Hvrt er s meal sa?" Ragnarr svarar, "S er eigi ss, heldr mar.
Menn segja hann lkna sjka ok blinda, rsa aftr daur, ok koma af himnum. Margir
norroenna manna tra n hnum, en sjlfr veit ek eigi mtt Krists."
Odd says to Earl Ragnar, "Tell me, earl, of the world, of gods and giants." Ragnar
replies, "That I shall do, Odd." "There is in the world a great ash tree which we call
the Ash of Yggdrasil. By the tree there are the worlds called Midgard, where we live;
Utgard, where the giants live, but it is also called Jotunheim; and Asgard, where the
Aesir gods live. Under the tree there are dwarves, who craft rings and swords." "Lord
of the Aesir we call Odin, and he is a very wise god. He has ravens called Hugin and
Munin, and those ravens fly around the worlds. That which the ravens see, Odin also
sees. Therefore Odin is an all-knowing god. In Asgard there lives also a god named
Thor. Thor has the hammer Mjolner and he flies often to Jotunheim and slays giants
with it. Many gods live in Asgard, and they all protect the people and the world
against evil giants." "I know of Surt, who lives in Muspellsheim. He is a great and evil
fire giant. In that world hot fires burn and Surt will lead giants from there against the
gods. He will kill the gods with fire and the sword that he has. That giant is
exceedingly evil." "In Midgard we humans dwell. Around all of Midgard I know that a
serpent is coiling himself, we call him the Midgard Serpent. That serpent is evil. Thor
of the sir wants to catch that serpent and slay him with the hammer." Now Odd
speaks, "Now I know many gods. But some tell me of another that they call Christ. Is
he among the sir?" Ragnar replies, "That one is not a god but a man. People say he
cures the sick and blind, that he rises dead and comes from the sky. Many northern
people now have faith in him but I myself do not know the might of Christ."
Fara n Ragnarr ok vkingarnir at leita sr rla meal rskra manna. eir kaupa ar
Vestrvegi marga unga sveina af norroenum kaupmnnum, er halda sveinunum
rldmi. Kaupmar segir, "Sveinarnir eru sterkir mjk, ok s kaupir vel er velr.
Tak , jarl, sveina er ar standa, gef ek r annan til." Ragnarr telr
kaupmanninn bja sr vel, ok geldr hnum peningum. Br hann sv rlunum at
ganga btana, ok siglir brott.
Now Ragnar and the vikings go to search for slaves for themselves among Irish
people. They buy, there in Westway, many young lads from Norse merchants who keep
the lads in slavery. A merchant says, "The lads are very strong and he who chooses
them makes a good deal. Take, earl, the slaves who stand there and I'll give you one
extra." Ragnar considers the merchant to offer a good deal and pays him the money.
Then he commands the slaves to walk into the boats and sails away.
Er Svartr ok Kormkr foera viinn heim til jarls, spyrr Svartr Kormk, "Hvrt eru allir
rskir menn rlar, sem ert, Kormkr?" Kormkr svarar, "Eigi erum vr allir rlar
en mrgum vr halda norroenir menn rldmi."
When Svart and Cormack bring the wood home to the earl Svart asks Cormack: "Are
all Irish people slaves, as you are, Cormack?" Cormack replies: "We are not all
slaves but Norse people keep many of us in slavery.

Many (of) Nordic men believe in (the) sir, but not all of them. Some believe in
Christ, Lord of Heaven. Irish men do not believe in the sir, but rather in Lord Christ.
The King of Norway commands all Norwegian men to call himself King. He also
commands them not to have faith in the sir, but rather in Christ. Others, such as
(the) earls of Norway, say that Thor will slay Christ himself ("segja r munu vega
sjlfan Krist..."), with his hammer, Mjolner. Many of (the) Norwegians believe the
earls.
Margir norrnna manna tra su, en eigi allir. Sumir tra Krist, drottin himna.
rskir menn tra ekki su heldur drottin Krist. Konungr Noregs br llum
norskum mnnum at kalla sjlfan sik konung. Hann br eim ok at tra eigi su
heldr Krist. Arir, sem jarlar Noregs, segja r munu vega sjlfan Krist hamri snum
Mjlni. Margir Normannanna tra jrlunum.
lfr heitir konungr. Hann brand.

Geirr heitir mar. Hann er Normar.
lfr sr Geir.
: "Geirr!"
G: "Geirr heiti ek, konungr."
lfr tekr geirinn.
: "Geir vil (want) ek!"
N hefir Geirr eigi Geir.

Old Norse For Beginners

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Old Norse For Beginners

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Old Norse Lesson Book

The Norse and English Tongues

Some Common Features of Old Norse and German

Pronunciation of Old Norse

Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson One

Norse Toon: The Spearman

Solutions to Lesson One

Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Two

Norse Toon: The Thieves

Norse Toon: King Olafs Dream

Solutions to Lesson Two

Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Three

Norse Toon: King Olafs Cheese

Solutions to Lesson Three

Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Four

Solutions to Lesson Four

Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Five

Solutions to Lesson Five

Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Six

Solutions to Lesson Six

Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Seven

Solutions to Lesson Seven

Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Eight

Solutions to Lesson Eight

Old Norse for Beginners: Lesson Nine

Solutions to Lesson Nine

The Norse and English Tongues

speechforms around the world)

spelling difference; '' was replaced with 'th' in

to some degree a matter of spelling; ON didn't

these English words have had the same changes as

in ON, the 'n' disappeared and lengthened the 'k'

this reflects a very old development in English;

a development related to the sk > sh above.

this cluster had simplified in the (Western) ON

the 'w' disappeared in Norse very early before

the same phenomenon as the w- > above, but

as all j- disappeared in ON (see above), new jrolled in

Proto-Germanic 'n' changed to 'nn' in ON and to

the long u became a diphthong in West Germanic (English, Dutch,

may be considered a spelling difference

Some Common Features of Old Norse and

by skar Gulaugsson 2000

+ acc = onto (allative)

In German, umlaut is comparatively easy and convenient to deal with. ON features a

Old Norse -> Articles -> Pronunciation of Old Norse (standard)

Pronunciation of Old Norse

It is very important to differentiate capitals vs small-caps in SAMPA (cannot be said

ei [Ei] [Ei] ay (day)

Old Norse for Beginners - Lesson One

1. About this course

1. Mark the pronouns' cases (optional)

1. A few words from Snorra-Edda

0.2 On learning languages in general

0.3 On learning arcane languages

0.4 Old Norse? Which Old Norse?

Old Icelandic Old Norwegian

Old Danish Old Swedish

0.5 English grammatical vocabulary

1.2 Declension of nouns

lfrinn = the elf (nominative)

lfinn = the elf (accusative)

1.4 Gender of nouns