Continued from Christmas Songs of My Ancestors: Norman French
In 793, the Vikings made their first successful attack on England, and for the next two centuries, they kept on coming. The term "Viking" actually refers to the activity of raiding rather than a specific people group. At the time, they were referred to as Northmen. Today, they would be recognized as Scandinavian.
Once the raiders successfully conquered the lands, they took to farming it. The Danes were so numerous and so successful, that they claimed a large portion of 9th century England as Danelaw.
|
|
public domain |
Of the Scandinavian countries, my ancestral lines trace back mostly to Denmark and Norway. So I set about
looking for a Christmas song in one or both of their ancient languages. Something I learned, was that Danish has it's roots in Old Norse.
This video is different from the others I've been sharing, in that it isn't embedded at the request of the artist. The image below is a screenshot linked to the video on YouTube. Click on either the caption or the image to hear a 16th century Latin carol sung in Old Norse.
 |
| Click here to play the video |
10 comments:
We differ some here as most of my Scandinavian ancestry that I've been able to trace goes back to Sweden. But as many ancestors I have traced to Northern England, I'm sure I have Viking DNA in there somewhere, either directly or through mixing.
What an interesting blog series. My ancestry seems to stem from the mid-continent of Europe - France/German, Poland and Czech. I’ve never done much research - I just know as far back as my grandparents - and they were first generation immigrants.
That top right hand corner of Danelaw is where my family is from, from wayyyy back. Many of our common words are Norse, and we had to adapt when we met English people from other areas who had no Norse influence. No clue what we were saying!
The scandi side might explain why half my family's blond curly with blue eyes, (half Celtic curly black hair with blue eyes).
This is an interesting series of posts, thank you.
Ed, I've run across a few from Sweden but mostly they've been Danish and Norwegian. But I'm guessing anybody with English ancestry has these in their genetic mix!
RT, genealogy is such a fascinating hobby. There are some excellent sites out there to help, although a lot of it has to be taken with a grain of salt. For example, famous persons. I think, "maybe, but maybe not!) :)
Liz, I love that you can pinpoint your families' spot on the map.
That is so interesting about the influence of Norse on the English language. Another fascinating tidbit to add to my curiosity about language!
The Vikings did go everywhere, but they tended to go nearer to home: thus the Norwegians and Danes in the British Isles and France, the Swedes to what became Russia.
I am quite enjoying this series, Leigh! Nighean Dhonn did a genetic test; she was over 60% British Isles and about 7% Scandinavian, which I assume is from the Danes or Norwegians.
If you have more interest in Old Norse, Jackson Crawford at the University of Colorado does excellent work. He has some dual language translations out (Old Norse on one side, Modern English on the other). I highly recommend The Havamal.
TB, I didn't realize that about the Swedes, but it makes sense. Assuming my family tree is correct, I did find a few Swedes some of their lines migrated east to what is now Russia.
Thank you for the recommendation! I'm currently reviewing Old English because I'm rereading Bernard Cornwell's Saxon series. It's nice to at least be able to pronounce the names and places correctly. :)
What an intriguing story of your ancestors! Wishing you a merry Christmas!
A Merry Christmas to you too!
Post a Comment