Norse texts are a constant flow through the scribal community because of the influence of those cultures on early medieval Europe and the number of players who adapt Norse personas. Over the last six weeks of Ozurr and Fortune’s first reign, I worked on three separate Norse texts, and I thought I would take some time to discuss their similarities and differences.
The texts in question (in this order in the images to follow) :
- Award of Arms for Asa Danskona. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RM35T5Hr_Rnf687VKk_8Cyd1a3yWtLjR1kxpUqKmyyQ
- Silver Mantle for Þórormr Barnakarl
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k0JheUiInsMih06fzwcn6EGWlFNvPJnC6wgKFqhOXo0 - AOA for Thorbjorn Dahl
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EQ4uV1K-sCK7_js5up49vRTf0947-g7OvcZzcBMB54g
The writings of the Norse people in the the Early and Pre-Medieval Period (up until the 10th Century) that have been uncovered are largely narrative stories in a variety of forms. These scroll texts were written in two of those. One was in the the prose form, which is basically free form text, and the other two a simple variant of the fornyrðislag, which features broken lines of four syllables each. Of the poetic forms, one is Skaldic form and the other in Eddic form, which differ mostly on their use of true, or alliterative, and opaque Kennings.
Even within these broad categories, however, there are lots of similarities which mostly revolve around the heavy reliance on illusion. For example, all three texts are set to be delivered within a two month period, stretching from Harper’s Retreat to Coronation. In the Norse calendar, this was an important time of the year. It was the end of the calendar, the time of the year when summer was coming to an end, and just before the time that animals would be slaughtered and the last of the crops harvested in preparation for winter.
All three of these texts make reference to this part of the year in similar ways, by invoking their relation to the coming winter:
They are all saying roughly the same thing, but are referencing the time of the year as a function of the work that is set to be done, or the way that the weather is changing.
The texts also begin in a standard fashion to Norse story narratives, describing in fairly simple, straight forward terms when the story being told starts or happened.
Lastly, any time you are dealing with an armigerous award, or even just an awarding of arms, to a Norse Persona, it’s appropriate to note that the Early Norse did not use Heraldry. Heraldry as a formalized system doesn’t come until well after the Battle of Hastings, most likely the 12th Century. That being said, the awards do convey arms to the recipient, so we have to make it work somehow, and since these were all AOA level scrolls, there has be a space for the blazen.
Here is how I try to square that circle; any or all apply to any given scroll:
- Arms receiving recognition by the Crown
- The recipient as having the characteristics of the charges
- Pronouncement that the arms should be recognized
- Permission to use the arms
In closing, what’s most important for a Norse inspired scroll is to retain the narrative quality of the recipient’s story, and to capitalize on the poetic elements that Norse poetry and prose afford you. Kennings, for example, are a notable character that you can decide to use or not. But if you are going to use them they should be omnipresent. In the scroll which featured them, there were 33 examples in a scroll text that wasn’t more than 100 words total, and they were a mix of true and opaque types. Particularly for recipients who have minimal details, Norse inspired text gives you lots of freedom to elaborate poetically on the scenery of the story, so you can build them a detailed world for their deeds to live in.