The Saga of Gisli Sursson, pt. 1

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  • Опубліковано 29 лис 2024
  • Iceland's ultimate outlaw saga, a recap of the main action with brief commentary. This video covers roughly chapters 1-17; future installments will cover the rest of the saga but will not necessarily be posted contiguously.
    Jackson Crawford, Ph.D.: Sharing real expertise in Norse language and myth with people hungry to learn, free of both ivory tower elitism and the agendas of self-appointed gurus. Visit JacksonWCrawford.com (includes bio and linked list of all videos).
    Jackson Crawford’s translation of Hávamál, with complete Old Norse text: www.hackettpub...
    Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Poetic Edda: www.hackettpub...
    Audiobook: www.audible.co...
    Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Saga of the Volsungs: www.hackettpub...
    Audiobook: www.audible.co...
    Latest FAQs: vimeo.com/3751... (updated Nov. 2019).
    Jackson Crawford’s Patreon page: / norsebysw
    Music © I See Hawks in L.A., courtesy of the artist. Visit www.iseehawks.com/
    Logos by Elizabeth Porter (snowbringer at gmail).

КОМЕНТАРІ • 55

  • @Gloronthor
    @Gloronthor 5 років тому +55

    ''So he dresses in blue, dammit.'' -
    Jackson Crawford

  • @thundercliff93
    @thundercliff93 5 років тому +32

    Theres a quite good Icelandic film that closely follows Gísla Saga called Útlaginn (The Outlaw)

  • @irenehigginbotham6392
    @irenehigginbotham6392 7 місяців тому +1

    Thank you. So dnjoying uour podcasts. I feel I can step onto the scene. You are a master storyteller of Norse lore

  • @Virginia-er9si
    @Virginia-er9si 5 років тому +3

    It's impressive, Dr. Crawford, learning through the explanations of this Saga how significant were perceived, even in the medieval Norse society, values such as family, brotherhood and relations in general. I've had the possibility to notice, even during my studies, that those elements appear to be, in every ages, the most crucial ties for the growing of communities also in terms of reciprocity and of course political strength. A theme that is incredibly central today here in Europe, and something about I believe the US can teach a lot. Love that glimpse of Colorado. I'm happy to see that over there the weather is quite sunny and less snowy, but I've recently learnt that a cigar could be a useful tool in order to get warm.

  • @paulkarch3318
    @paulkarch3318 5 років тому +2

    This is simply fascinating. When you have a true expert explain something that you don't have to be an expert in the field to understand.

  • @Daniel509476
    @Daniel509476 5 років тому +1

    Doc .... Keep it up sir! I am thankful to be able to help with these amazing videos in a small part 🤘Skol!

  • @tiffanyhaberacker
    @tiffanyhaberacker 5 років тому +1

    Lovely view! ❤
    That's so cool about how Frozen came up with the wedding scene, I love it!

  • @colinp2238
    @colinp2238 5 років тому +7

    A future author will be researching old Norse marriages and write about the earthen arch and pit ceremony so Dr Crawford will be immortalised as creating or adding to urban myth.

    • @guyveloz4382
      @guyveloz4382 4 роки тому

      LMFAO! BTW Gisla is one of the short sagas I first read in the original around 45 years ago -- Droplaugarsonar Saga, and i probably have badly mispelt this title, but it was my very first saga in the original, delightfully funny in parts , as when the vengeance minded sons have just told their mother that they only killed a dung-beetle, engendering a typically sardonic rejoinder, but I recall the Hel Shoes bit from Gisla SO VIVIDLY, and also felt confused at the time about the postmortem mythology confusion of Hel's own realm -- SHE is a goddess. IT is not a place -- so the confusion concerning Hel and Valhöll, which is hard for native english speakers to pronounce without making a sort of sneezing or snorting sound but have forgotten most of the rest, except that Gisli was the second longest lasting outlaw next to Grettir, my favorite LONG saga, Grettis, that is, and I think he lasted what? 30 years? Have i REMEMBERED correctly? BTW, this is the first i have ever heard of Jackson Crawford, and am shockingly impressed with his VAST knowledge of Old Norse and his Icelandic pronunciation.

  • @ptcj3805
    @ptcj3805 5 років тому +7

    We're reading the saga of gisli sursson in norwegian class right now in videregående(high school for you americans) :-)

  • @etepeteseat7424
    @etepeteseat7424 5 років тому +4

    Lots of people attempting to remain unseen at night (for instance ninjas) have worn dark blue or purple clothing, because wearing black incurs the risk of actually being darker than the night, especially if there's a moon out, so that makes perfect sense.
    It is interesting, on a purely linguistic note, that blár is quite an old word, old enough to suggest that the oft-quoted strong Whorfian claim that people didn't interpret what we call blue as a distinct shade in the distant past (Homer's wine-dark sea being the typical example) is unfounded.

    • @peterknutsen3070
      @peterknutsen3070 Рік тому +1

      Yup. Only kabuki stage hands wore genuine black. A ninja doing a night operation would have worn dark grey, or dark brown, or perhaps dark blue. Real black makes you stand out.
      The donning of black clothes to signify supernatural ninja invisibility might also have become a kabuki tradition.
      And of course, a ninja doing a psychological warfare op might well have worn genuine black, if the goal of the op was to cause fear. Unlike the samurai, the ninja were extremely pragmatic.

  • @sunshinesilverarrow5292
    @sunshinesilverarrow5292 5 років тому +2

    Thank you! ☀️

  • @Akael01
    @Akael01 5 років тому +6

    Best part.....the rant about blue.

  • @LucasRichardStephens
    @LucasRichardStephens 5 років тому +3

    Nice video Jackson, can you say more about social structure one day? In an axe group, we were discussing deforestation and the rapid destruction of Iceland's forests came up.... all the best from the forests of Norway, Lucas.

  • @juliaconnell
    @juliaconnell 5 років тому +2

    interesting story as usual - thanks Dr Crawford
    you had me at blue - I believe you!

  • @1zillah
    @1zillah 5 років тому +1

    I was just watching a great Icelandic show called Trapped and in the 2nd series they were talking about this saga because there is a character called Gisli in the show. ^_^

  • @LeoxandarMagnus
    @LeoxandarMagnus 5 років тому +1

    I really need to read more of the sagas.

  • @TheOneCalledSloth
    @TheOneCalledSloth 5 років тому +3

    The Icelandic ball game 'KnattleikR' is probably related to the Irish ball game 'Hurling'.

  • @breathing_wax2620
    @breathing_wax2620 3 роки тому

    I’m writing an essay on this book and this video helped me a lot, thanks man. Also Gísli is wearing blue. The word Blár means blue and the word svart means black so you are correct my friend

  • @peterknutsen3070
    @peterknutsen3070 Рік тому

    1:35 I suspect that the relentless name-dropping was also because the Icelanders were listening to stories about their recent ancesters. Grandfathers, great grandfathers, great uncles, and so forth.
    So there'd be a strong sense of clan pride, when the storyteller mentions a particular character, even if he's only mentioned once and does very little.

  • @Brahmsonite
    @Brahmsonite 5 років тому

    So much fire about the color blue! Do you think it's a dark blue? Raven blueness rould seem dark though I'm less sure about necrotic blueness.

  • @TheGrinningViking
    @TheGrinningViking 5 років тому

    Personally I think that particular word means a color word we don't have. Blue/black. Frozen skin. Ravens. Coal, but not charcoal. It's easy to picture and tell the difference.
    Charcoal is ruddy or red black. Shabby black clothes. Soot or black mud. These get called the other word for black. I think I remember an instance of blood as well, but it was in a text in normalized modern Icelandic so I can't be sure if that one was copied correctly.

  • @johnwoyurka3547
    @johnwoyurka3547 5 років тому +4

    HE WORE BLUE DAMMIT!

    • @petehill7280
      @petehill7280 5 років тому +1

      Rule One of the Icelandic Sagas-- If a character wears blue, they are going to kill someone else.
      Rule Two-- If a character wears red, they're going to die.

    • @recoveringsoul755
      @recoveringsoul755 5 років тому

      @@petehill7280 Is this why the Star Trek characters in red going to the planet were almost always doomed?

  • @natemarx4999
    @natemarx4999 5 років тому +6

    Professor Jackson Crawford is a real life viking. It's just obvious.

    • @colinp2238
      @colinp2238 5 років тому +2

      I thought that he is a doctor not a professor? Are you the modern day Ace from Doctor Who?

    • @recoveringsoul755
      @recoveringsoul755 5 років тому

      @@colinp2238 PhD is a doctor, teaching is professor. he can be both

  • @bigdurk4115
    @bigdurk4115 5 років тому +3

    I'm really digging your videos my friend

  • @guyveloz4382
    @guyveloz4382 4 роки тому

    So WHERE do I view or whatever this most impressive Crawford fellow's translation of the mightiest of all poems, IMHO... Völuspá. Oh and BTW... Nú mun ek søkkvast, LOL!

  • @ladykoiwolfe
    @ladykoiwolfe 5 років тому

    Perhaps a bed on a shelf built into the wall would sound less grim. Or like a bunk on a tour bus or camper, they usually have a curtain you close on one sida as well.

  • @Matt_The_Hugenot
    @Matt_The_Hugenot 5 років тому +2

    Going to write a musical of this story called Gísli sings the blárs.

  • @AmandaHeavenWilling-blasph
    @AmandaHeavenWilling-blasph 5 років тому +10

    I have decided that I need to move to a place where people pronounce the "wh" in words, because it's so oddly pleasing to listen to.

    • @Daniel509476
      @Daniel509476 5 років тому +1

      Amanda Heaven Willing
      Agreed! I plan on moving to the west toward the end of the year just to be close to this amazing teacher! 🤣

  • @oneukum
    @oneukum 5 років тому

    OK, this may be wildest speculation, but are the dead blue for the same reason some of the Hindu gods are described as blue?

  • @mg556linked
    @mg556linked 5 років тому

    The coins for separated brothers was in Grimm's fairytales.

  • @joonte1010
    @joonte1010 5 років тому +1

    A cowboy talking about norse history, sounds like an intro to the marvels thor.

  • @lindaliljecrona4404
    @lindaliljecrona4404 5 років тому

    Spring already?

  • @gardenhead92
    @gardenhead92 5 років тому +4

    I'm blár, da ba dee da ba daa

  • @Dave_Sisson
    @Dave_Sisson 5 років тому +1

    I always wondered where my surname came from. I thought it was ancient Anglo Saxon but now it might be old Norse?

    • @user-pm1gb2eo1s
      @user-pm1gb2eo1s 5 років тому +1

      What is your surname?

    • @Dave_Sisson
      @Dave_Sisson 5 років тому +1

      @@user-pm1gb2eo1s My name is Sisson. Many years ago a relative discovered an Anglo Saxon Earl who lived in Mercia (central England) in the tenth century with a name like Susson (or similar) and that's the closest I have found. I've got a few awards for writing histories, but I'm not good with medieval European subjects.

    • @recoveringsoul755
      @recoveringsoul755 5 років тому

      @@Dave_Sisson I have gone to Scottish and Celtic festivals and there is is usually a booth or two where you can look up any name and get a printout of the family crest and a bit about the name.

  • @aukmenstag
    @aukmenstag 5 років тому

    Dear Dr. Crawford, I wonder if that's your profound studies of other languages that have modified your accent or if it had always been like that. But the way you pronounce whhheeer, phhhhit and other words with breath in them makes me do the same. 😁Whhhiich doesn't make me any better in my learning to pronounce English as a native speaker (whhhhiich is a broad term of course).

  • @sz5916
    @sz5916 3 роки тому +1

    Hneit þar

  • @weepingscorpion8739
    @weepingscorpion8739 5 років тому +1

    We read this in my high-school. In a Faroese translation, of course. Our translation has chapter names and the chapter were Vésteinn is killed is called "Torgrímur drepur Vestein" (Þorgrímr kills Vésteinn) so it would be interesting to know if the saga has these aswell.

    • @Rovarin
      @Rovarin 5 років тому +1

      We had to read the story of Gísli as part of a module on Nordic literature during my teacher training, also talking about the Faroese translation. What made me giggle was actually how much of the story was dedicated to genealogy and the deeds of certain men in that family, it reminded me in part of the Njáls saga skit by Monty Python and John Cleese's sermon in the Monty Python film Meaning of Life.

    • @vp4744
      @vp4744 5 років тому

      @@Rovarin "Njáls saga skit by Monty Python"
      Who can forget that court scene in which Njáls was prosecuted in England for being "willfully and persistently a foreigner."

    • @Rovarin
      @Rovarin 5 років тому

      @@vp4744 Seriously, you accidentally burn down one religious site trying to sell some dubious quality flat packs and your reputation is ruined forever... there's a lot of silver laying around... might as well take it, so the entire trip wasn't a bust.

  • @sirnukesalot24
    @sirnukesalot24 5 років тому

    Wait. He accidentally touches his sister's what? It's official. There can now be an anime adaptation.

  • @Marcus51090
    @Marcus51090 5 років тому +1

    I’d like to here the saga of him so dreamy lol