Danes (tribe)The Danes were a North Germanic tribe inhabiting southern Scandinavia, including the area now comprising Denmark proper, northern and eastern England, and the Scanian provinces of modern-day southern Sweden, during the Nordic Iron Age and the Viking Age. They founded what became the Kingdom of Denmark. The name of their realm is believed to mean "Danish March", viz. "the march of the Danes", in Old Norse, referring to their southern border zone between the Eider and Schlei rivers, known as the Danevirke.
HedebyHedeby (ˈhe̝ːðəˌpyˀ, Old Norse Heiðabýr, German Haithabu) was an important Danish Viking Age (8th to the 11th centuries) trading settlement near the southern end of the Jutland Peninsula, now in the Schleswig-Flensburg district of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the most important archaeological site in Schleswig-Holstein. Around 965, chronicler Abraham ben Jacob visited Hedeby and described it as, "a very large city at the very end of the world's ocean.
AhnenerbeThe Ahnenerbe (ˈʔaːnənˌʔɛʁbə, "Ancestral Heritage") was a Schutzstaffel (SS) pseudo-scientific organization which was active in Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1945. It was established by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in July 1935 as an SS appendage devoted to the task of promoting the racial doctrines espoused by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The Ahnenerbe was composed of scholars and scientists from a broad range of academic disciplines and fostered the idea that the German people descended from an Aryan race which were racially superior to other racial groups.
ÆsirThe Æsir are the gods of the principal pantheon in Old Norse religion and Norse mythology. The second Norse pantheon is the Vanir; these two pantheons waged war against each other, resulting in a unified pantheon. Æsir is the plural of áss, ǫ́ss "god". In genitival compounds, it takes the form ása-, e.g. in Ása-Þórr ("Thor of the Æsir"), besides ás- found in ás-brú "gods' bridge" (the rainbow), ás-garðr, ás-kunnigr "gods' kin", ás-liðar "gods' leader", ás-mogin "gods' might" (especially of Thor), ás-móðr "divine wrath" etc.
Runic magicThere is some evidence that, in addition to being a writing system, runes historically served purposes of magic. This is the case from the earliest epigraphic evidence of the Roman to the Germanic Iron Age, with non-linguistic inscriptions and the alu word. An erilaz appears to have been a person versed in runes, including their magic applications. In medieval sources, notably the Poetic Edda, the Sigrdrífumál mentions "victory runes" to be carved on a sword, "some on the grasp and some on the inlay, and name Tyr twice.
BlótBlót (Old Norse) and blōt or geblōt (Old English) are terms for "blood sacrifice" in Norse paganism and Anglo-Saxon paganism respectively. A comparanda can also be reconstructed for wider Germanic paganism. A blót could be dedicated to any of the Germanic gods, the spirits of the land, and to ancestors. The sacrifice involved aspects of a sacramental meal or feast. The word blót is an Old Norse strong neuter noun (genitive blóts). The corresponding Old English neuter blōt (genitive blōtes) may be influenced by Old Norse; the Old English gospels have prefixed ge-blōt "sacrifice".
Viking revivalThe Viking revival was a movement reflecting new interest in, and appreciation for Viking medieval history and culture. Interest was reawakened in the late 18th and 19th centuries, often with added heroic overtones typical of that Romantic era. The revival began earlier with historical discoveries and early modern publications dealing with Old Norse culture. The first printed edition of the 13th-century Gesta Danorum or the Legend of the Danes by Saxo Grammaticus, came out in 1514 just as book printing began become more practical and printing trade was quickly spreading.
Ur (rune)The reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the Elder Futhark u rune is *Ūruz meaning "wild ox" or *Ūrą "water". It may have been derived from the Raetic alphabet character u as it is similar in both shape and sound value. The name of the corresponding letter in the Gothic alphabet is urus. The Icelandic word for "rain" and the Old English for "aurochs" go back to two different Proto-Germanic words, *ūruz and *ūrą (although possibly from the same root).
SigurdSigurd (Sigurðr ˈsiɣˌurðr) or Siegfried (Middle High German: Sîvrit) is a legendary hero of Germanic heroic legend, who killed a dragon—known in some Old Norse sources as Fáfnir—and who was later murdered. It is possible he was inspired by one or more figures from the Frankish Merovingian dynasty, with Sigebert I being the most popular contender. Older scholarship sometimes connected him with Arminius, victor of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. He may also have a purely mythological origin.
RundataThe Scandinavian Runic-text Data Base (Samnordisk runtextdatabas) is a project involving the creation and maintenance of a database of runic inscriptions. The project's goal is to comprehensively catalog runestones in a machine-readable way for future research. The database is freely available via the Internet with a client program, called Rundata, for Microsoft Windows. For other operating systems, text files are provided or a web browser can be used to interact with the web application Runor.
