Skald

The Skald ( Old Norse skald or skæld = " poet " ) were courtly poets in medieval Scandinavia, mainly in Norway. Her art is called skaldic or Skaldik, a Norse art genres in addition to the sagas and eddischer seal.

Origin of the word

The etymology of the word is disputed: a theory associates the word with the root of "say" and has " scold " it with associated ( Old Saxon skeldári = " Schelter 'or Middle High German rebuke =" author of ridicule and criminal poems " ( Ref: M. Steblin - Kamensky ) ), even with the Anglo-Saxon " scop " = poet (according to Old High German " SCOF " or " scopf " ) and Icelandic " skop, Skaup " = mockery. Another theory maintains a relationship to the Latin word " scatere " = gush, overflow and Indo-European " uat " = be perturbed, poetic enthusiasm showing. (Lit.: Olsen, p 95).

History

From about 800 the skaldic with Bragi Boddason came on in Norway. Later recruited many bards to the Norwegian courts of Iceland. There are up to 1200 more than 300 names of bards known ( lit.: Kuhn ). Many bards were from the aristocracy. Most bards were men, but there were also female skald ( skáldkonur ), eg Jórunn skáldmær and Steinunn Refsdóttir. The early skald was said to have divine inspiration. Bragi Boddason was even held as a god.

The spoken (not sung ) put forward skaldic (Lit.: Gade, Foote ), mixed from the 10th century pagan with Christian elements. It was originally to occasional poems, a spontaneous, improvised poetry ( "free- standing verses " (lit.: Poole) ). A popular style means the bards were the kennings (singular: Kenning ) above descriptions of simple concepts.

The skaldic poetry is the most important historical source of medieval Scandinavian history and ranked in terms of the source value before the sagas. Already the saga author, this source value were well aware of and cited this as evidence for their representation. Snorri explains this in his preface to the Heimskringla:

And at the end:

So is not the tendency to extol the problem of skaldic poetry, but that the material is very low yet.

As far as the sagas have processed the skaldic, just adds that these transferred their own reality of life and thought in the kingdom in the 12th and 13th centuries on the states described by the bards and so did the sealing works often in its social context misunderstood and misinterpreted.

On the European continent, the profession died out at the beginning of the 2nd millennium. In Iceland, however, he could still hold to the 13th century. The best-known Old Icelandic skald Snorri Sturluson 's, who tried to revive his Prose Edda or Snorra Edda as a textbook for Skalden this art form. This had been forgotten by the ignorance of the ancient myths, the contents of the formation of the kennings were needed after the Christianization. The focus of his efforts, however, was an antiquarian, not a pagan religious interest.

The term in modern times

In today's Icelandic and Faroese is a skald or skald also very much a contemporary poet. So is an Icelandic or Faroese skáldsaga skaldsøga not about a skald saga, but a novel.

A band founded in Poland in 1965, which was popular in the GDR, is called Skaldowie. In East Germany, she performed as the skald.

Skald is also the name of the University of singer shaft in Innsbruck.

Skald Books was the name of a multi-volume series of the publishing Schmidt & Spring ( Leipzig) from the 1920s to the 1940s, according to self- representation, a " collection of stories and reports from the past and present, edited by Kurt Fervers ". Just as the use of the Old Norse for this book series suggests, it was to a large extent by ethnic literature.

The Skald is also the name of a contemporary German folk group.