Þorgeir Sigurðsson | University of Iceland (original) (raw)
Papers by Þorgeir Sigurðsson
Són 21, p. 66-108, 2023
english summary SKÁLDATAL STAINED WITH BLOOD The archetype and how younger versions differ A new... more english summary
SKÁLDATAL STAINED WITH BLOOD
The archetype and how younger versions differ
A new edition of Skáldatal ‘catalogue of poets’ is long overdue. It was last edited in 1887 by Jón Sigurðsson with a commentary in Latin. Snorris Sturluson’s manuscript is not preserved, but two independent copies were preserved with his works: Heimskringla in the Kringla manuscript and Snorra-Edda in the Uppsala-manuscript. Here they are used to reconstruct the archetype of Skáldatal which has not been attempted before. The two younger copies seem mainly to differ by different poets that were added to each, with two notable exceptions regarding Snorri. In Kringla, only poets
that occur in Heimskringla were added. The archetype was completed and copied shortly after Snorri’s death. This is substantiated by the latest additions to the catalogue. When Snorri Sturluson died, he was presumably working on his compilation of Heimskringla and kept a record of his most reliable sources, the Nordic court poets. The archetype of Skáldatal came into being with Snorri’s assassination. The article’s
title refers to this.
Maal og Minne
This article discusses so-called inaccurate rhymes in Old Norse dróttkvætt poetry and their beari... more This article discusses so-called inaccurate rhymes in Old Norse dróttkvætt poetry and their bearing on the phoneme structure of Old Norse. Inaccurate rhymes between /ǫ/ and /a/ do occur, but were to some extent avoided in Old Norse poems in the eleventh and the twelfth century. The same applies to rhymes between /ǫ́/ and /á/ in the second half of the twelfth century. This avoidance confirms the status of /ǫ́/ as a phoneme by providing, indirectly, an opposition between /á/ and /ǫ́/. Furthermore, rhymes between the diphthong /ja/ and the vowel /a/ were used infrequently in the tenth century, and the diphthong /jó/ and the vowel /ó/ were not rhymed at all. Thus /ja/ and /jó/ were not treated as a sequence of a consonant /j/ and a vowel.
Mål og Minne, 2023
This article discusses so-called inaccurate rhymes in Old Norse dróttkvaett poetry and their bear... more This article discusses so-called inaccurate rhymes in Old Norse dróttkvaett poetry and their bearing on the phoneme structure of Old Norse. Inaccurate rhymes between /ǫ/ and /a/ do occur, but were to some extent avoided in Old Norse poems in the eleventh and the twelfth century. The same applies to rhymes between /ǫ/ and /á/ in the second half of the twelfth century.
Íslenskt mál 43, 13–31, 2021
Through his work, Þjóðólfr ór Hvini may have defined two Old Norse meters, known to posterity as ... more Through his work, Þjóðólfr ór Hvini may have defined two Old Norse
meters, known to posterity as dróttkvætt and kviðuháttr, during the reign of Haraldr hárfagri (c. 850–c. 932).1 His kviðuháttr poem, Ynglingatal, does not mention Haraldr, but it gives his Yngling-family a divine ancestry. No older poem exists with regular kviðuháttr features, and Ynglinga tal may have been a model for all later poetry in that meter. Scholars assume that the meter of Þjóðólfr’s other main poem, Haustlǫng ‘autumn-long’, is in an early evolutionary state. I argue, however, that it is in the standard dróttkvætt meter of the 10th century, and that the apparent irregularity in the dróttkvætt rhyme is due to a conditional poetic license that relates syntax and rhyme. It allows odd-numbered lines that are clause-lines to be without rhyme. A clause-line is a metrical line, syntactically capable of beginning a half-stanza. It has specific properties that need to be described. In this article, I establish the existence of this license and the normalcy of Haustlǫng among poems of the 10th century. In Section 2, I describe the dróttkvætt rhyme and I explain how to recognize clause-lines. In Section 3, I demonstrate that the license was effective both in Haustlǫng and younger poems of the 10th century. Afterwards, in Sections 4 and 5, I detail the difference between these poems and poetry in what I call proto-dróttkvætt, and I show that Haustlǫng has none of the features
that make proto-dróttkvætt different.
Reliable quantitative information on historic sunbed usage in Iceland is presently of great inter... more Reliable quantitative information on historic sunbed usage in Iceland is presently of great interest because it is a known risk factor for melanoma which incidence rate has increased rapidly, especially among women. In this paper, data from two sunbed surveys in the years 1988 and 2005 are presented and discussed. Iceland has a relatively large number of sunbeds. In 1988 more than 1.5 sunbeds were listed per 1000 inhabitants living in the Reykjavik area. In the more recent survey from 2005, more than 1.0 sunbed was listed per 1000 inhabitants living outside the Reykjavik area. The data on sunbeds are supplemented by comparable Swedish data and information obtained in yearly telephone polls on sunbed usage, conducted since 2004. UVR exposure from sunbeds is estimated to be 2-3 tanning sessions per year, per person (all ages). The data presented have been collected by the Icelandic Radiation Protection Institute in co-operation with the Environment and Food Agency, Capacent-Gallup, th...
Proceedings of the NSFS XV Conference in Alesund, …, 2008
... In a 1984 meeting2 in Reykjavik, held to address concerns on sunbeds and skin cancer, there w... more ... In a 1984 meeting2 in Reykjavik, held to address concerns on sunbeds and skin cancer, there were 25 saloon3 owners. Table 1 Number of services offering cosmetic tanning in Reykjavik. ... autumn). The difference in sunbed usage is however so great, both in these ...
American Journal of Epidemiology, 2010
Since 1980, sunbed use and travel abroad have dramatically increased in Iceland (64°-66°N). The a... more Since 1980, sunbed use and travel abroad have dramatically increased in Iceland (64°-66°N). The authors assessed temporal trends in melanoma incidence by body site in Iceland in relation to sunbed use and travel abroad. Using joinpoint analysis, they calculated estimated annual percent changes (EAPCs) and identified the years during which statistically significant changes in EAPC occurred. Between 1954 and 2006, the largest increase in incidence in men was observed on the trunk (EAPC ¼ 4.6%, 95% confidence interval: 3.2, 6.0). In women, the slow increase in trunk melanoma incidence before 1995 was followed by a significantly sharper increase in incidence, mainly among women aged less than 50 years, resembling an epidemic incidence curve (1995-2002: EAPC ¼ 20.4%, 95% confidence interval: 9.3, 32.8). In 2002, the melanoma incidence on the trunk was higher than the incidence on the lower limbs for women. Sunbed use in Iceland expanded rapidly after 1985, mainly among young women, and in 2000, it was approximately 2 and 3 times the levels recorded in Sweden and in the United Kingdom, respectively. Travels abroad were more prevalent among older Icelanders. The high prevalence of sunbed use probably contributed to the sharp increase in the incidence of melanoma in Iceland.
ARINBJARNARKVIÐA is an Old Norse poem in the kviðuháttr meter. It is composed in praise of Arinbj... more ARINBJARNARKVIÐA is an Old Norse poem in the kviðuháttr meter. It is composed in praise of Arinbjǫrn Þórisson, a friend of the skald Egill Skallagrímsson. The only source of the poem, except for a few citations in scholarly work, is page 99v in the 14th-century Möðruvallabók. This page is now mostly unreadable, but old transcripts of it exist. In this thesis, I present a new transcript of page 99v, and I publish a restored text of the poem. The general belief among scholars has been that only the beginning of ARINBJARNARKVIÐA is preserved. It is also commonly assumed that the meter is of little help, for instance, in detecting corrupt lines and for clarifying the meaning of the text. I address these and other issues using new multispectral images of page 99v and by a revision of the metrical theories for kviðuháttr. My thesis is that the poem is relatively well preserved, compared to, for instance, SONATORREK, another poem by Egill and that its meter is very regular. I produce many ...
Íslensku-og menningardeild Háskóla Íslands hefur metið ritgerð þessa haefa til varnar við doktors... more Íslensku-og menningardeild Háskóla Íslands hefur metið ritgerð þessa haefa til varnar við doktorspróf í málfraeði Reykjavík, 3. júní 2019 Torfi Tulinius deildarforseti Faculty of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Iceland has declared this dissertation eligible for a defense leading to a Ph.D. degree in Linguistics
Proceedings of the NSFS XV Conference in Alesund, Norway, 2008, 2008
Reliable quantitative information on historic sunbed usage in Iceland is presently of great inter... more Reliable quantitative information on historic sunbed usage in Iceland is presently of great interest because it is a known risk factor for melanoma which incidence rate has increased rapidly, especially among women.
In this paper, data from two sunbed surveys in the years 1988 and 2005 are presented and discussed. Iceland has a relatively large number of sunbeds. In 1988 more than 1.5 sunbeds were listed per 1000 inhabitants living in the Reykjavik area. In the more recent survey from 2005, more than 1.0 sunbed was listed per 1000 inhabitants living
outside the Reykjavik area. The data on sunbeds are supplemented by comparable Swedish data and information obtained in yearly telephone polls on sunbed usage, conducted since 2004. UVR exposure from sunbeds is estimated to be 2-3 tanning sessions per year, per person (all ages).
The data presented have been collected by the Icelandic Radiation Protection Institute in co-operation with the Environment and Food Agency, Capacent-Gallup, the Cancer society, Icelandic dermatologists and the Health directorate.
American Journal of Epidemiology, 2010
Són 21, p. 66-108, 2023
english summary SKÁLDATAL STAINED WITH BLOOD The archetype and how younger versions differ A new... more english summary
SKÁLDATAL STAINED WITH BLOOD
The archetype and how younger versions differ
A new edition of Skáldatal ‘catalogue of poets’ is long overdue. It was last edited in 1887 by Jón Sigurðsson with a commentary in Latin. Snorris Sturluson’s manuscript is not preserved, but two independent copies were preserved with his works: Heimskringla in the Kringla manuscript and Snorra-Edda in the Uppsala-manuscript. Here they are used to reconstruct the archetype of Skáldatal which has not been attempted before. The two younger copies seem mainly to differ by different poets that were added to each, with two notable exceptions regarding Snorri. In Kringla, only poets
that occur in Heimskringla were added. The archetype was completed and copied shortly after Snorri’s death. This is substantiated by the latest additions to the catalogue. When Snorri Sturluson died, he was presumably working on his compilation of Heimskringla and kept a record of his most reliable sources, the Nordic court poets. The archetype of Skáldatal came into being with Snorri’s assassination. The article’s
title refers to this.
Maal og Minne
This article discusses so-called inaccurate rhymes in Old Norse dróttkvætt poetry and their beari... more This article discusses so-called inaccurate rhymes in Old Norse dróttkvætt poetry and their bearing on the phoneme structure of Old Norse. Inaccurate rhymes between /ǫ/ and /a/ do occur, but were to some extent avoided in Old Norse poems in the eleventh and the twelfth century. The same applies to rhymes between /ǫ́/ and /á/ in the second half of the twelfth century. This avoidance confirms the status of /ǫ́/ as a phoneme by providing, indirectly, an opposition between /á/ and /ǫ́/. Furthermore, rhymes between the diphthong /ja/ and the vowel /a/ were used infrequently in the tenth century, and the diphthong /jó/ and the vowel /ó/ were not rhymed at all. Thus /ja/ and /jó/ were not treated as a sequence of a consonant /j/ and a vowel.
Mål og Minne, 2023
This article discusses so-called inaccurate rhymes in Old Norse dróttkvaett poetry and their bear... more This article discusses so-called inaccurate rhymes in Old Norse dróttkvaett poetry and their bearing on the phoneme structure of Old Norse. Inaccurate rhymes between /ǫ/ and /a/ do occur, but were to some extent avoided in Old Norse poems in the eleventh and the twelfth century. The same applies to rhymes between /ǫ/ and /á/ in the second half of the twelfth century.
Íslenskt mál 43, 13–31, 2021
Through his work, Þjóðólfr ór Hvini may have defined two Old Norse meters, known to posterity as ... more Through his work, Þjóðólfr ór Hvini may have defined two Old Norse
meters, known to posterity as dróttkvætt and kviðuháttr, during the reign of Haraldr hárfagri (c. 850–c. 932).1 His kviðuháttr poem, Ynglingatal, does not mention Haraldr, but it gives his Yngling-family a divine ancestry. No older poem exists with regular kviðuháttr features, and Ynglinga tal may have been a model for all later poetry in that meter. Scholars assume that the meter of Þjóðólfr’s other main poem, Haustlǫng ‘autumn-long’, is in an early evolutionary state. I argue, however, that it is in the standard dróttkvætt meter of the 10th century, and that the apparent irregularity in the dróttkvætt rhyme is due to a conditional poetic license that relates syntax and rhyme. It allows odd-numbered lines that are clause-lines to be without rhyme. A clause-line is a metrical line, syntactically capable of beginning a half-stanza. It has specific properties that need to be described. In this article, I establish the existence of this license and the normalcy of Haustlǫng among poems of the 10th century. In Section 2, I describe the dróttkvætt rhyme and I explain how to recognize clause-lines. In Section 3, I demonstrate that the license was effective both in Haustlǫng and younger poems of the 10th century. Afterwards, in Sections 4 and 5, I detail the difference between these poems and poetry in what I call proto-dróttkvætt, and I show that Haustlǫng has none of the features
that make proto-dróttkvætt different.
Reliable quantitative information on historic sunbed usage in Iceland is presently of great inter... more Reliable quantitative information on historic sunbed usage in Iceland is presently of great interest because it is a known risk factor for melanoma which incidence rate has increased rapidly, especially among women. In this paper, data from two sunbed surveys in the years 1988 and 2005 are presented and discussed. Iceland has a relatively large number of sunbeds. In 1988 more than 1.5 sunbeds were listed per 1000 inhabitants living in the Reykjavik area. In the more recent survey from 2005, more than 1.0 sunbed was listed per 1000 inhabitants living outside the Reykjavik area. The data on sunbeds are supplemented by comparable Swedish data and information obtained in yearly telephone polls on sunbed usage, conducted since 2004. UVR exposure from sunbeds is estimated to be 2-3 tanning sessions per year, per person (all ages). The data presented have been collected by the Icelandic Radiation Protection Institute in co-operation with the Environment and Food Agency, Capacent-Gallup, th...
Proceedings of the NSFS XV Conference in Alesund, …, 2008
... In a 1984 meeting2 in Reykjavik, held to address concerns on sunbeds and skin cancer, there w... more ... In a 1984 meeting2 in Reykjavik, held to address concerns on sunbeds and skin cancer, there were 25 saloon3 owners. Table 1 Number of services offering cosmetic tanning in Reykjavik. ... autumn). The difference in sunbed usage is however so great, both in these ...
American Journal of Epidemiology, 2010
Since 1980, sunbed use and travel abroad have dramatically increased in Iceland (64°-66°N). The a... more Since 1980, sunbed use and travel abroad have dramatically increased in Iceland (64°-66°N). The authors assessed temporal trends in melanoma incidence by body site in Iceland in relation to sunbed use and travel abroad. Using joinpoint analysis, they calculated estimated annual percent changes (EAPCs) and identified the years during which statistically significant changes in EAPC occurred. Between 1954 and 2006, the largest increase in incidence in men was observed on the trunk (EAPC ¼ 4.6%, 95% confidence interval: 3.2, 6.0). In women, the slow increase in trunk melanoma incidence before 1995 was followed by a significantly sharper increase in incidence, mainly among women aged less than 50 years, resembling an epidemic incidence curve (1995-2002: EAPC ¼ 20.4%, 95% confidence interval: 9.3, 32.8). In 2002, the melanoma incidence on the trunk was higher than the incidence on the lower limbs for women. Sunbed use in Iceland expanded rapidly after 1985, mainly among young women, and in 2000, it was approximately 2 and 3 times the levels recorded in Sweden and in the United Kingdom, respectively. Travels abroad were more prevalent among older Icelanders. The high prevalence of sunbed use probably contributed to the sharp increase in the incidence of melanoma in Iceland.
ARINBJARNARKVIÐA is an Old Norse poem in the kviðuháttr meter. It is composed in praise of Arinbj... more ARINBJARNARKVIÐA is an Old Norse poem in the kviðuháttr meter. It is composed in praise of Arinbjǫrn Þórisson, a friend of the skald Egill Skallagrímsson. The only source of the poem, except for a few citations in scholarly work, is page 99v in the 14th-century Möðruvallabók. This page is now mostly unreadable, but old transcripts of it exist. In this thesis, I present a new transcript of page 99v, and I publish a restored text of the poem. The general belief among scholars has been that only the beginning of ARINBJARNARKVIÐA is preserved. It is also commonly assumed that the meter is of little help, for instance, in detecting corrupt lines and for clarifying the meaning of the text. I address these and other issues using new multispectral images of page 99v and by a revision of the metrical theories for kviðuháttr. My thesis is that the poem is relatively well preserved, compared to, for instance, SONATORREK, another poem by Egill and that its meter is very regular. I produce many ...
Íslensku-og menningardeild Háskóla Íslands hefur metið ritgerð þessa haefa til varnar við doktors... more Íslensku-og menningardeild Háskóla Íslands hefur metið ritgerð þessa haefa til varnar við doktorspróf í málfraeði Reykjavík, 3. júní 2019 Torfi Tulinius deildarforseti Faculty of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Iceland has declared this dissertation eligible for a defense leading to a Ph.D. degree in Linguistics
Proceedings of the NSFS XV Conference in Alesund, Norway, 2008, 2008
Reliable quantitative information on historic sunbed usage in Iceland is presently of great inter... more Reliable quantitative information on historic sunbed usage in Iceland is presently of great interest because it is a known risk factor for melanoma which incidence rate has increased rapidly, especially among women.
In this paper, data from two sunbed surveys in the years 1988 and 2005 are presented and discussed. Iceland has a relatively large number of sunbeds. In 1988 more than 1.5 sunbeds were listed per 1000 inhabitants living in the Reykjavik area. In the more recent survey from 2005, more than 1.0 sunbed was listed per 1000 inhabitants living
outside the Reykjavik area. The data on sunbeds are supplemented by comparable Swedish data and information obtained in yearly telephone polls on sunbed usage, conducted since 2004. UVR exposure from sunbeds is estimated to be 2-3 tanning sessions per year, per person (all ages).
The data presented have been collected by the Icelandic Radiation Protection Institute in co-operation with the Environment and Food Agency, Capacent-Gallup, the Cancer society, Icelandic dermatologists and the Health directorate.
American Journal of Epidemiology, 2010