OH NO THE LAST PANEL. I’M DYING.
“In T.A. 2989 Balin left Erebor and entered Moria with a company of dwarves including Flói, Óin, Ori, Frár, Lóni, and Náli. He discovered Durin’s Axe. Balin’s colony was overrun by orcs soon afterward, and Balin was killed by an orc archer in the Dimrill Dale in 2994.
In The Fellowship of the Ring, the title characters discover Balin’s tomb in the Chamber of Mazarbul. Gandalf finds the dwarves’ book of records, and discovers from it that Balin was killed by orcs.”
“Ori was one of the twelve companions of Thorin and Bilbo on the Quest of Erebor, and brother to Dori and Nori. He was also one of the Dwarves who entered Moria with Balin. He wears a grey hood, and loves the arts. He was among the last members of Balin’s colony to be killed, as is known by his entering the last records in the Book of Mazarbul before their final hopeless stand against the Orcs. This book was later discovered by the Fellowship of the Ring.”
I’m done.
NO. DEAD. MORIA IS ALREADY TOO TRAGIC.
priorities
On paper the words look the same yeah. Icelandic people learn about Old Icelandic / Old Norse in school like it’s the exact same language as Modern Icelandic. What they don’t learn is that the phonology has changed radically and therefore in some cases the Scandinavian languages are a lot closer to Old Norse than Icelandic is. Icelandic is a lot closer though in morphology and probably syntax.
But yeah I didn’t know there was a football tournament for languages.
There’s a conversation almost exactly like this one on every video of Scandinavian folk music on Youtube. Usually with a little quasi-Naziism thrown in.
That’s quite scary.
I know that around here it can become a bit of a nationalist thing, like “we speak the language of the vikings!” which is quite scary too.
When I first met my Icelandic tutor, she said “It’s the language of the Vikings, you know.” and then stared intently into my eyes for slightly longer than was comfortable.
But I get the impression overall that the Scandinavian nations are very protective of their individual identities. Half my family is Danish, and they refuse to admit any similarities to Norwegian.
But YouTube comments are where the worst people from any country go, so there are a lot of arguments about which language is the “purest” descendant of Old Norse. It reminds me of how Americans and Englishmen will get into fights over whether American dialects are as “correct” as English dialects.
Haha that’s such an Icelandic thing to do. But yeah I can imagine that was uncomfortable.
Yeah all the Nordic countries have stereotype ideas about each other. For example, Icelandic stereotypes about Nordic countries:
Norwegians are dull and go everywhere on cross country skis. They also always talk like they’re surprised
Danes are arrogant, speak an unintelligible language and go everywhere on bikes
Swedes are camp beaurocratic communist hippies that love Eurovision
Fins are depressed alcoholics that are constantly in the sauna
I find the stereotypes really interesting, because they’re so different from country to country. In Finland we think that
- Norwegians are rich, snobbish and wool sweaters.
- Danes are drunk, always on a good mood and legos.
- Swedes are suspiciously cheery and look down on us. We need to beat them in ice hockey like our lives depended on it.
- We generally agree with the above stereotype about us Finns.
- Icelanders are a little bit strange and drive like maniacs, Björk, Sigur Ros, volcanoes with names that take half a page to write.
That’s really interesting!
Yeah I did forget about the oil money in Norway and Finnish fixation on beating Sweden in ice hockey.
I find it a bit funny that Icelanders and Fins make fun of each other for having really long words. We both have really long words haha.
People in general in Iceland don’t like Björk or Sigur rós, especially Björk. She’s always been immensely popular abroad but not at all in Iceland. Sigur rós though has been rising in popularity here.
And the thing with the driving is so true, people drive insanely here, at least in Reykjavík.
I’m curious as to why Björk is so unpopular here! It saddens me, because I can’t stand (like I need to start screaming I HATE IT) the singer from Sigur Rós’ voice, but I have loved Björk for years. I’m never sure whether to shout this from the rooftops of Reykjavík or whether if I do that I will be outlawed/deported.
sometimes i swear to god this show is the best thing that’s ever happened to me
OKOKOK I PROMISE I WILL WATCH THE VIKINGS IF THEY INCLUDE THIS ONE THING FROM NOTKER’S GESTI CAROLI MAGNI,* OK GUYS IT’LL BE GREAT:
Basically, all the vikings who come to the Frankish court are getting prime signed (that bit where the priest dabs him with water in the gifs rather than full-blown dunking), because the Franks are like ‘hey, you want to trade with us right? Then let us clean you up, put you in a nice clean linen shirt and splash some cold water on you’.
And this goes on for a while, and the Franks think they’re converting all these nasty heathens, and the vikings keep on agreeing to be prime signed, so it’s great.
Then one time the Franks are getting all their linen shirts together to prime sign some more vikings, and they’re like ‘shit, not enough linen shirts…hmm, well we can tack some together out of old pairs of pants and animal feed bags’ (I paraphrase).
The first old viking dude they try to put one of these recycled shirts on reveals exactly what he thought of the process:
he conceived fierce anger in his mind, and said to the emperor: ‘Look here, I’ve been through this ablution business about twenty times already, and I’ve always been rigged out before with a splendid white suit; but this old sack makes me feel more like a pig farmer than a soldier. If it weren’t for the fact that you’ve pinched my clothes, and not given me any new ones, with the result that I should feel a
right fool if I walked out of here naked, you could keep your Christ and your suit of reach-me-down’.
Notker Balbulus, Gesta Caroli Magni. II. 19, ed. by Hans F. Haefele, MGH, SRG n.s., 12 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1957), pp. 89–90. English translation is from Two Lives of Charlemagne, trans. by Lewis Thorpe (Baltimore: Penguin, 1969), pp. 168–69. Source (pdf).
*Notker probably made it up, but it’s still awesome. Though I like to think a real viking merchant would happily stroll out of there starkers rather than be seen in a manky old tunic.
But I didn’t believe in narwhals! Is this a thing? When I was little I had an A-Z book with ‘N is for nightingale and narwhal’, but in the accompanying watercolour illustration the narwhal was standing at the foot of a staircase, wearing a purple smoking jacket, so I thought maybe they weren’t real. Imagine my shock when I found out they were.
…
Still disappointed they don’t actually lounge around bannisters in Edwardian chic though.
