Dís
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In
Etymology and meaning
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Researchers suggest that the basic meaning of the word dís is "goddess".[5]
It usually is said to be derived from the Indo-European root *dhēi-, "to suck, suckle" and a form dhīśana.[6]
Scholars have associated the Dísir with the West Germanic
Other scholars group all female deities and spirits associated with battle under the class of idis, dis, valkyrie, and other names, such as
Stories from these and other cultures survive from earlier dates than the Eddas and it is difficult to conclusively construct a clear pre-Christian mythology without conjecture. However, the Germanic languages appear to have had a northward, rather than southward, progression from the initial contact with the speakers of Indo-European languages near Denmark or Jutland.[12] H. Davidson notes a similar northward progression of mythology where elements of Proto-Germanic concepts have metamorphosed or been combined by the time of the initial recording of the Icelandic sagas.[4]
According to
Simek says that "as the function of the
Dísablót
There is considerable evidence that the dísir were worshipped in Scandinavia in pagan times.
Firstly, a sacrificial festival (
In Hervarar saga, the dísablót is also held in autumn, and is performed by a woman, the daughter of King Álfr of Álfheim, who "reddens the hörgr with sacrifices and is subsequently rescued by the god Thor after she has been abducted. John Lindow suggests that, on its face the text depicts a mythological model for human behavior.[16] In western Scandinavia, dísablót appears to have been a private observance. Even the large gathering in Víga-Glúms saga was for family and friends.[17]
In contrast, according to the Saga of
At the time when heathendom still prevailed in Sweden, it was an old custom there that the main sacrifices were held in Uppsala in the month of Gói... Sacrifices were to be made at that time for peace and victory for the king, and people from all over Sweden were to resort there. At that place and time also was to be the assembly of all Swedes, and there was also a market and a fair which lasted a week. Now when Christianity was introduced, the general assembly and the market were still held there. But at present, when Christianity is general in Sweden and the kings have ceased residing at Uppsala, the market has been shifted to meet at Candlemas... but now it lasts only three days. The general assembly of the Swedes is there.[18]
The name Dísaþing (now Disting) remained in use, however, and the Fair is still held every year in Uppsala on the first Tuesday in February. It may be one of the oldest in Sweden.[19]
The stated purpose of the dísablót at Uppsala is to sacrifice for peace and victory. Norwegian places called Disin, from Old Norse Dísavin, "meadow of the dísir", and the possible relationship of the word to the Indian dhīsanas have suggested to some scholars that the dísir were fertility deities.[20]
There are two mentions of a hall or temple of a dís. Hollander translates dísarsálr as "the hall of the goddess". In the
Although Snorri Sturluson does not mention the dísir in the
Relationship to other female figures
In many texts, the dísir are equated to or seem to play the same role as other female figures.
In
In Helgakviða Hundingsbana I, when the hero Helgi Hundingsbane first meets the valkyrie Sigrún, the poet calls her a "dís of the south". Henry Adams Bellows rendered this simply "the southern maid".[27]
The dísir are also equated with or play the role of norns. They give an impression of great age, but by the time of the oldest surviving texts, their significance had become blurred and the word had lost almost all distinct meaning.[28]
Accordingly, some scholars have argued that dísir may be the original term for the valkyries (lit. "choosers of the slain"), which in turn would be a kenning for dís.[29] Unlike the mentions of the valkyrja and norn, the term dís never appears in the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson.
As stated above, dís has been regarded as
Adding to the ambiguous meaning of dís is the fact that just as supernatural women were called dísir in the sense "ladies", mortal women were frequently called by names for supernatural women, as noted by Snorri Sturluson in Skáldskaparmál:
Woman is also metaphorically called by the names of the
The name dís appears in several place names in Norway and Sweden.[1] Moreover, it was a common element in the names of girls, as evidenced on runestones,[32] and it still is in Iceland.
The word appears as a first element in Old High German female given names such as Itispuruc and Itislant. More frequent are Old Norse given names such as Thórdís, Hjördís, Ásdís, Vigdís, Halldís, Freydís.
Old Norse sources
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In a couple of
The eddic poem Hamðismál deals with how Hamðir and Sörli go to the Gothic king Ermanaric to exact vengeance for the cruel death of their half-sister Svanhild. On the way, they kill their reluctant brother Erpr. Later, knowing that he is about to die at the hands of the Goths, Sörli talks of the cruelty of the dísir who incited him to kill Erpr, because he would have cut off the head of Ermanaric and made their expedition successful. In this poem, dísir appears as a synonym of norns and the translator Henry Adams Bellows simply translates dísir as norns:
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In Grímnismál, the wise Grímnir (Odin) predicts king Geirröðr's death, which he attributes to the wrath of the dísir. Again, dísir is used as a synonym for the norns:[35]
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In Reginsmál, the unmarried Lyngheiðr is called dís ulfhuguð (dís/lady with the soul of a wolf) as an insult. Later in the same poem, there is a stanza, where the dísir appear as female spirits accompanying a warrior in order to see him dead in battle, a role where they are synonymous with valkyries:
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An additional instance where dís is synonymous with valkyrie is the skaldic poem Krákumál – composed by Ragnarr Loðbrók while awaiting his death in a snake pit. It features the line: Heim bjóða mér dísir (the dísir invite me home), as one of several poetic circumscriptions for what awaits him.
One source seems to describe the Dísir as the ghosts or spirits of dead women. In Atlamál, believed to have been written in Greenland in the twelfth century, the character Glaumvör warns her husband Gunnar that she had a dream about the Dísir. Some of the surrounding text has been lost and it is not known what Gunnar may have said prior to this, and there is disagreement on which stanza number this should be given. A possible translation of the material is given as follows by John Lindow in his 2001 book Norse Mythology:
"I thought dead women
came hither into the hall,
not poorly decked out.
They wished to choose you,
would've invited you quickly
to their benches;
I declare of no value
these dísir to you."
See also
Citations
- ^ a b c The article Diser in Nationalencyklopedin (1991).
- ^ a b c d The article Dis in Nordisk familjebok (1907).
- ^ Else Mundal, "The Position of the Individual Gods and Goddesses in Various Types of Sources - With Special Reference to the Female Divinities," (1990) Bergen Open Research Archive, pp. 310-11 Archived 2012-02-20 at the Wayback Machine (pdf).
- ^ ISBN 0-14-013627-4
- ^ August Fick, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der Indogermanischen Sprachen Part 3 Wortschatz der Germanischen Spracheinheit, 4th ed. rev. Alf Torp, Hjalmar Falk, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1909, OCLC 491891019, "dîsî, dîsi," p. 206 Archived 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine.
- Jan de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, 2 vols., vol. 2, 2nd ed. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1957, repr. as 3rd ed. 1970, p. 299, note 2 (German); the etymology was proposed by K. F. Johansson, Über die Altindische Göttin Dhisana und Verwandtes: Beiträge zum Fruchtbarkeitskultus in Indien, Skrifter utgifna af Kungl. Vet. Samf. i Uppsala 20.1 (1918).
- ^ Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, tr. James Steven Stallybrass, 4 vols., vol. 1, London: Bell, 1882, p. 402.
- ^ Grimm, vol. 1, pp. 402-3; the promised treatment in the Supplement, vol. 4, does not appear to exist.
- ^ De Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, vol. 1, 2nd ed. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1956, repr. as 3rd ed. 1970, p. 322 (German).
- ^ E.O.G. Turville Petre, Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia, London: Weidenfeld, 1964, p. 222.
- ^ Turville-Petre, p. 222.
- ISBN 0-19-955229-0
- ^ a b Simek (2007:61–62).
- ^ "Disablot", Nationalencyklopedin.
- ISBN 9979-9293-0-8, pp. 267-314, p. 275: "A feast was held during the Winter Nights, and sacrifice made to the dísir, and everyone had to take part in this observance".
- ISBN 0-19-515382-0, p. 94.
- ^ Turville-Petre, p. 221.
- ^ Chapter 77; Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, tr. Lee M. Hollander, p. 315.
- ^ The article Distingen, in the encyclopedia Nationalencyklopedin.
- ^ De Vries, pp. 298, 299.
- ^ Chapter 29; Hollander, p. 33 translates dísarsálr "the hall of the goddess". See also Lindow, p. 94, de Vries, p. 456 (German) suggests a ritual killing.
- ^ The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, tr. Christpher Tolkien, London: Nelson, 1960, OCLC 503375723, p. 26: "hanged herself in the hall of the dís".
- ^ Gylfaginning Chapter 35, Skáldskaparmál Chapter 28; Chapter 23.
- ^ Lotte Motz, "Sister in the Cave: The Stature and the Function of the Female Figures of the Eddas", Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 95 (1980) 168-82.
- ^ Turville-Petre, pp. 222-24. De Vries p. 297 also draws special attention to this story as an example of the dísir drawing close to fylgjur.
- ^ Hygg við hjálmum | hingat komnar | til Danmerkr | dísir várar. . . . at Netútgáfan in modernised spelling, ch. 15; "Dead must be | All your dísir; | Luck is gone, I say, | from Hálfr's warriors", translation in Hilda Roderick Ellis [Davidson], The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse Literature, Cambridge University Press, 1943, repr. New York: Greenwood, 1968, OCLC 442899, p. 134.
- ^ Verse 16, dísir suðrænar, Old Norse and translation at voluspa.org.
- ^ De Vries, p. 298.
- ^ Including: Ström, Folke (1954) Diser, nornor, valkyrjor: Fruktberhetskult och sakralt kungadöme i Norden; Näsström, Britt-Mari (1995) Freyja: The Great Goddess of the North; and Hall, Alaric (2004) The Meanings of Elf, and Elves, in Medieval England.
- ^ Calvin, Thomas. 'An Anthology of German Literature', D. C. Heath & co. ASIN: B0008BTK3E,B00089RS3K. P5.
- ^ Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, tr., The Poesy of Skalds, The Prose Edda(1916; repr.)
- ^ Rundata
- ^ Hamðismál Guðni Jónsson's edition of the text with normalized spelling.
- ^ The Ballad of Hamther in translation by Henry Adams Bellows (1936), at Sacred Texts.
- ^ See Bellows' commentary
- ^ Grímnismál Archived 2006-02-26 at the Wayback Machine at northvegr.org
- ^ Thorpe's translation Archived 2005-11-04 at the Wayback Machine at northvegr.org
- ^ Reginsmál Archived 2006-02-26 at the Wayback Machine at northvegr.org
- ^ Bellows' translation Archived 2006-02-18 at the Wayback Machine at northvegr.org
General and cited references
- ISBN 0-85991-513-1
External links
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