William Sayers
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 607256 |
|---|---|
| NOME | William Sayers |
| PRENOMES | William |
| SOBRENOME | Sayers |
| ASSINATURA | SAYERS W |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Cornell University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9406-6649 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 127 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 23 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 124 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 2 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1915 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 1 |
Cracker-Barrel
Spunk, Gormless , and Their Multi-Factor Etymologies
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists a series of historical and current meanings for the noun spunk and related terms: 1) in Scottish dialect, a spark (first attestation 1540); 2) touchwood, t
Mythological Allusion in the Late Verse of Egill Skallagrímsson
The essay examines Egill Skallagrímsson’s renunciation of his veneration of Óðinn, the god of war and poetry, in the poem Sonatorrek. References to this patron and to the whole corpus of early Scandinavian mythology almost entirely disappear from the verse Egill composed over the last decades of his life. The events and emotional state that prompted this decision and the procedure by which it was effected is examined in detail
Inkling ‘Hint, Intimation, Suggestion’
Grit , True and Otherwise
Hillbilly
Hijack
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has entries for hijack as noun and verb, and the latter is glossed as follows: To steal (contraband or stolen goods) in transit, to rob (a bootlegger or smuggler
Of Peerie Bairns and Periwinkles
In the English translation of his etymological dictionary of the Shetland dialect (1928), the Faroese lexicographer Jakob Jakobsen defines peerie as “small” and cites the common example peerie bair
Óláfr pái Hǫskuldsson’s landing in Ireland ( Laxdæla saga ) in light of the Irish law of the shore
This article compares the commercial knowledge of a Norwegian skipper in the Icelandic Laxdæla saga with the medieval Irish law of the shore, now accessible in recently edited Irish legal tracts. His knowledge of Ireland is matched by the ship’s master, Óláfr paí Hǫskuldsson, son of an enslaved mother but grandson of an Irish king. The essay reviews the possibility of cultural transfers from the medieval Norse-Celtic world of Ireland and the Scot…
Rigging Norse Ships in Vinland, ca. 1000 AD
Historical, archaeological, narrative, iconographical, and philological evidence, along with technical reasoning, is brought to bear on the terminology for what appears a vital piece of rigging gear on early Norse ships. Called a húsasnotra or simply snotra, the object is here identified as an encased halyard block, mounted, knob-like, at the top of the mast above the ship’s single square sail. The burl from a hardwood like a maple (explicitly na…
Reading Egill Skallagrímsson’s
Hfuðlausn opens with the image of the poet’s modest ship-load of explicit praise for King Eirík and a smuggled cargo of hidden scorn. The poem is under the aegis of Óðinn, master of deception and, in aquiline form, purveyor of the mead of poetry, the anal squirts of which are the inspirational elixir of second-rate poets and sycophants of poor kings. The combination of miniaturization and scurrility reveals Egill’s parodic intent, which informs t…
The Old Norse Toponym Grænland and its Tie to the Trade in Walrus Ivory
The implausible medieval toponym Grænland ‘Greenland’ is traced to the walrus hunting station in the Disko Bay region of northwestern Greenland and to the dominant island proto-industry, tusk extraction and trade in ivory. Language substitution and related processes take a notional * tannland ‘tusk land’ (perhaps tabooed) through * granland ‘whisker land’ (a second dominant cranial feature of the animal) to grænland , variously ‘fresh, new land’,…
Snoopy’s Pedigree
Snoopy's Pedigree: The Etymology of Beagle." ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2
The Origin of Faggot “Homosexual” and Its Historical Tie to Heresy
Twee ‘Dainty, Quaint, Precious, mawkish’
Twee ‘Dainty, Quaint, Precious, mawkish’." ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2 Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Oxford English Dictionary: OED Online, Oxford, Oxford University Press, March 2023, s.v. twee, adj. (and n.3), www.oed.com/view/Entry/207965. Accessed 10 May 2023; henceforth OED.2. Punch, London, 8 March, 1905, …
Cosmic Egg and Infant Demiurge
Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)
The Origin of the Name Beowulf in a Gutnish *baþolfr “Battle-Wolf”
It Gives Me the Willies ”
Dander and Dandruff
Dander And Dandruff: Etymologies." ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2
Existential Verse-Capping between a Female Troll and the Poet Bragi
Two formally similar stanzas of verbal contention between a troll woman and the poet Bragi Boddason display auto-definitions, one of a paranormal being antagonistic toward, and destructive of, human life, another of a creator of order and its pre-eminent expression, skaldic verse. In the irony so often deployed in Old Norse-Icelandic literature, the troll, the initiator of the contest, uses what is, for her, the antithetical medium of verbal art …
Colin A. Ireland, The Gaelic Background of Old English Poetry Before Bede . Publications of the Richard Rawlinson Centre. Berlin and Boston
This fine volume bridges the scholarly gap between one of medieval Europe’s least studied but most prolific literatures, that in Middle Irish, and certainly the most studied but strikingly limited vernacular poetic corpus, in Old English. Bede is an appropriate point of reference, since the book does for its vast subject what that author did for the history of the English church. The temporal span is 635−735
Pernille Hermann, Mnemonic Echoing in Old Norse Sagas and Eddas, Memory and the Medieval North 1. Berlin and Boston
The title of this book requires some unpacking. The ‘echo’ is depictions of memory-related acts and attitudes in Old Norse literature, that is, how the author portrays the role of memory in the lives of the characters of the sagas and heroic poetry, and how events in these texts are determined by the principals’ awareness of the past and in the resulting narratives. No strictly theoretical texts on mnemonics are preserved − if ever written − alth…
The Fox as a Dying Hero
The late-medieval Icelandic poem Skaufalabálkur describes the final hunting trip of an old fox in a style mimicking heroic epic. The work is traditionally connected with poets working at or near Skarð in Western-Iceland in the 15th century and we argue here that the language of the poem is consistent with that dating. This new edition presents a text of the poem based on the oldest manuscript with some advances in the reading and interpretation o…
The Old Norse Poetic Meter Kviðuháttr as a Medium for History’s Verdict
The name of the Old Norse poetic meter kviðuháttr , as employed in historical poems such as Ynglingatal , is generally understood as meaning ‘song’ or ‘poem meter’. Rather than accepting this designation at face value, the article hypothesizes an original * kviðsháttr or ‘verdict meter’ ( kviðr ‘verdict, judicial judgment’), which was subsequently the object of folk etymologizing. This revised explanation illuminates the nature and objectives of …
The Etymology and Early History of Skiff
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines skiff as ‘a small seagoing boat, adapted for rowing and sailing; esp. one attached to a ship and used for purposes of communication, transport, towing, e
The Avars
In recovering the story of the fascinating encounter between Eurasian nomads who established an empire in the heart of Europe and the post-Roman Christian cultures of Europe, this book provides a new perspective on the origins of medieval Europe itself
Guilt, Grief, Grievance, and the Encrypted Name in Egill Skallagrímsson’s Sonatorrek
In stanza 5 of Sonatorrek , the memorial poem composed by Egill Skallagrímsson for his drowned son Bǫðvarr, the grieving father and poet states that he will (first) address the deaths of his father and mother.[1][1] Yet no details on the parents figure in the stanza. More prominent is the image
Guilt, Grief, Grievance, and the Encrypted Name in Egill Skallagrímsson’s Sonatorrek
Research Article| July 01 2020 Guilt, Grief, Grievance, and the Encrypted Name in Egill Skallagrímsson’s Sonatorrek William Sayers William Sayers Cornell University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scandinavian Studies (2020) 92 (2): 229–246. https://doi.org/10.5406/scanstud.92.2.0229 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation William Sayers; Guilt, Grief, Grievance,…
Diet and fantasy in eleventh-century Ireland
Scapulimancy in the medieval Baltic
Anglo-Norman verse on New Ross and its founders
Literary evidence for political and social developments in medieval Ireland comes down to us in a variety of languages: Latin; a rich and — by European standards — early production in the Irish vernacular; Old Norse; Middle English; with sparser reference in Old English, Welsh and other nearby linguistic communities. Some of this evidence, tightly circumscribed in time, is also in Anglo-Norman French, and reflects a very different Ireland from th…
A cut above
(1990). A cut above: Ration and station in an Irish King's Hall. Food and Foodways: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 89-110
Fergus and the Cosmogonic Sword
A Biography of Coleridge-Taylor
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Musician. His Life and Letters
Old Irish fert ‘tie-pole’, fertas ‘swingletree’, and the seeress Fedelm
Dans le char de guerre irlandais, fert/feirtsi ne désigne pas les «brancards», et fertas ne désigne pas le limon. Les feirtsi reliaient la caisse du char à l'essieu ; fertas désignait le palonnier. Examen de quelques autres parties du char
Fergus and the Cosmogonic Sword
Eléments de cosmogonie celtique. Claude Sterckx
Weather Gods, Syncretism, and the Eastern Baltic
No abstract available
Images of enchainment in the Hisperica Famina and vernacular Irish texts
Images of Enchainment in the Hisperica Famina and Vernacular Irish Texts. The expression “ausonica catena”, in the Hisperica Famina, does not refer to the unability to speak Latin or Irish, but rather to the voluntary submission to the discipline of Latin rhetoric, as the “faminatores” conceived it. In the ancient Irish literature, the chain image symbolizes a link with the Otherworld, from which warriors, musicians, historiographers, rhetors and…
A cut above
(1990). A cut above: Ration and station in an Irish King's Hall. Food and Foodways: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 89-110
Scapulimancy in the medieval Baltic
Anglo-Norman verse on New Ross and its founders
Literary evidence for political and social developments in medieval Ireland comes down to us in a variety of languages: Latin; a rich and — by European standards — early production in the Irish vernacular; Old Norse; Middle English; with sparser reference in Old English, Welsh and other nearby linguistic communities. Some of this evidence, tightly circumscribed in time, is also in Anglo-Norman French, and reflects a very different Ireland from th…
Conventional descriptions of the horse in the Ulster cycle
Descnptions conventionnelles du cheval dans le Cycle d'Ulster. La description normative du cheval chez Isidore de Séville est proposée comme modèle de l'organisation et du contenu du portrait de l'attelage qui figure dans le topos étendu du guerrier qui s'avance dans le cycle épique des Ultoniens. L'origine des traits stylistiques de la suite d'adjectifs enchaînée, toutefois, est à chercher dans la tradition indigène et, vraisemblablement, orale.…
Diet and fantasy in eleventh-century Ireland
Sexual Defamation in Medieval Iceland
Preview this article: Sexual Defamation in Medieval Iceland: gera meri ór einum "Make a Mare of Someone", Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/nowele.30.03say-1.gif
Chronicles of the Vikings
Land of Women
Endnote. A treatise from enlightenment Sweden on 'teaching the mute to read and speak
This note introduces the earliest Swedish treatise on the education of the deaf. It arose in the unlikely circumstances of a manse and the residence of the director of a saltpeter boilery in a small town in eighteenth-century Finland. Its interest today is in its distant reflection of the pedagogical trials (and errors) then taking place in Enlightenment Europe and in its combination of humanity, respect for signing, and goals of intelligible spe…
Two Nautical Etymologies
Textual evidence for spilling lines in the rigging of medieval Scandinavian keels
Sail trimming and standing and running rigging on Viking-era craft are elucidated by references in 12th- and early 13th-century Anglo-Norman historical sources and an Icelandic lexical catalogue. It is postulated that Early medieval ships in Scandinavia and later adaptations in Normandy and Ireland were equipped with spilling lines as a means of emptying the sail
Textual evidence for spiUing lines in the rigging of medieval Scandinavian keels
A History of Disability
Proust's Prescription
Proust's narrative moves from illness as a motivator of plot and character to illness as a vehicle for simile, then as the very means of exploring a world of memory. From characters seen acting under the aegis of threatened health Proust advances to a vast network of health-informed homologies, where the amplitude of simile, its thematic consistency and interrelations, create a compelling metaphorical truth. The imagery of illness, like the X-ray…
The Etymology of Tinker , with a Note on Tinker's Dam
Some Fishy Etymologies
Preview this article: Some Fishy Etymologies: Eng. cod, Norse porskr, DU. kabeljauw, SP. bacalao, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/nowele.41.02say-1.gif
Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium
Joe Hill'spie in the Skyand Swedish Reflexes of the Land of Cockaigne
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