[ANSTHRLD] RE: June 2003 Ansteorran Gazette

C. L. Ward gunnora at vikinganswerlady.com
Fri Jun 6 01:33:34 PDT 2003


I'm not sure who should get this info.  I noticed in the June Gazette that
more documentation was needed for Asa Hrafnasdo'ttir, and if I'd noticed it
sooner I'd have sent it in before the name got bounced...

The Gazette had:

----- Excerpt from 200306AG.pdf -----
3. Asa Hrafnasdo'ttir (Loch Ruadh)
New Name. New Device. Per fess sable and gules, in chief three ravens
standing close and in base a valknut Or.

Gawain
[Name] I don’t see anything in Geirr Bassi specifically addressed to the
genitive of names ending in <-afn>, but would have assumed that it should be
<Hrafnardo'ttir>. G.B. cautions, though, that variant forms exist.

Magnus
[Name] It looks like the patronymic is formed the wrong way. The submitter
didn’t give us the name used in the patronymic so it can’t be fixed. I can
only recommend a return unless the rest of the documentation is provided.
Geirr Bassi has several dozen names on each page.

College Action

Name:  Return for further work.  <Hrafni> was not found in Geirr Bassi as
listed in the documentation.  Therefore, patronymic could not be documented
with that spelling.
----- End Excerpt from 200306AG.pdf -----

The name Hrafn occurs as both a personal name and as a by-name throughout
Scandinavia, found as Old Danish <Rafn>, Old Swedish <Ramn>, and OW.Norse
<Hrafn>. From the OW.Norse noun <hrafn> "raven." The form <Hrafn> is very
common in Iceland throughout the medieval period, and occurs in Norway as
well, less frequently. Runic examples include the nominative form <hrafn>
and the accusative forms <rafn>, <raf->.

Geirr Bassi Haraldsson. The Old Norse Name. Studia Marklandica I. Olney, MD:
Markland Medieval Militia. 1977.  p. 11 s.n. Hrafn

Fellows-Jensen, Gillian. Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and
Yorkshire. Copenhagen. Akademisk Forlag. 1968. pp. 210-212 s.n. Rafn

Cleasby, Richard and Guðbrandr Vigfusson. An Icelandic-English Dictionary.
2nd. ed. Oxford: Clarendon. 1957. pp. 281 s.v. hrafn

Lena Peterson. Nordiskt runnamnslexikon. Språk- och folkminnes-institutet.
http://www.dal.lu.se/runlex/index.htm Accessed 30 May 2003.  s.n. Hrafn

The correct genitive of the masculine name <Hrafn> in Old Norse is <Hrafns>.
You can see this at work in:

(1) Gisla saga Surssonar (http://www.snerpa.is/net/isl/gisl.htm), which
mentions a woman named <{TH}uri'{dh}r Hrafns do'ttir> in chapter 4.

(2) Also in Egils saga skallagri'msonar ch. 23, which mentions: <{TH}o'rlaug
var dóttir Hrafns>

See also:

(3) Hrafns þa'ttur Gu{dh}ru'narsonar
(http://www.snerpa.is/net/isl/hrafn-g.htm)

(4) Landna'mabo'k (http://www.snerpa.is/net/snorri/landnama.htm) ch. 28 and
Ba'r{dh}ar Saga Sn{ae}felsa'ss (http://www.snerpa.is/net/isl/b-snae.htm) ch.
6 have the exact same phrase:

"{TH}eirra son var {TH}ormo'{dh}ur er a'tti Helgu O:nundardo'ttur, systur
Ska'ld-Hrafns." (Their son was Thormod who married Helga Onundardottir, the
sister of Skald-Hrafn).

(5) Brennu-Njáls saga (http://www.snerpa.is/net/isl/njala.htm) ch. 19 has:
"Sto'ro'lfur var bro'{dh}ir Hrafns lo:gso:gumanns." (Storolfr was the
brother of Hrafn the Lawspeaker).

::GUNNVOR::

Gunnvor silfraharr




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