This posting is for lovers of belles lettres and linguists, such as the scholars who have left comments on this post: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/01/sing-of-killing-of-thurgi-son-of.html.
Whose further comments are hereby invited.
Note also that a well-rounded knowledge of Old-Norse and the Icelandic Sagas is essential for any real understanding of this material. We encourage you to at least read as much modern Scandinavian prose as you can before approaching the text below. Or watch some Ingmar Bergman movies while shnotzed on akvavit - the effect is depressingly similar.
------B.O.T.H.
Pursuant the fragment of Icelandic translated in a previous post, which mentioned the ancestry of Blurk Of The Unpronounceable Name and the clubbing to death like a baby harp-seal of his distant cousin at the other end of the island because of questionable appearance, here is some more information.
Blurk Of The Unpronounceable Name was the descendant of Barfsack the Buggerer, whose father was unknown, but who may have also been the father of the bastard of Ugliest She-Thing In The North (a pig-maiden), half-sister of Barfsack the Buggerer (whose father is unknown).
Barfsack the Buggerer begat Greatwart Half-Ape (accidentally).
But according to manuscripts in a Swiss university, Greatwart Half-Ape was actually Barfsack the Buggerer's grandson - Barfsack's son being Giuseppe the Epithetless, also known as Giuseppe the Harmless (who had a surfeit of gorm). This may be the same man as Giuseppe the Hopelessly Lost (an itinerant cobbler), as mentioned in the Annals of Bermfokke (Norway).
[There is an amusing passage in the Annals of Bermfokke (Norway) that relates in great detail how Giuseppe was accidentally "caused to be embarrassed" by Barfsack the Buggerer, who couldn't tell him apart from his oxen in the dark (the same theme is reflected in the modern Danish folksongs "Sitz Oyf Es Un' Mach Vi A Draeidl" and "Kretsj Nisjt Aza Chazirisj", among others - it is a popular subject).]
Greatwart Half-Ape begat Gargle the But-ugly. Gargle the But-Ugly begat Blurk of the Unpronounceable Name.
Blurk of the Unpronounceable Name clubbed his cousin to death before sitting down to a fish dinner.
Which proves that, in Scandinavia at least, fish 365, bad temper, and bone-crunching ugly go together. Along with sex.
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3 comments:
As a lineal descendant of Giuseppe Solerepairer, I feel obliged to point out that the adduced incident of Giuseppe being "caused to be embarrassed" is in fact a conflation with an earlier text, involving Hrothgar the Bullbuggerer, and not Barfsack the Buggerer. Again, one can quite see how these confusions might arise. Giuseppe, at that time, was still an apprentice cobbler in Napoli; his occasional documented appearances in Marseilles, Rabat, and Bratislava during this period again being attributable to his notoriously poor sense of direction.
>Greatwart Half-Ape begat Gargle the But-ugly. Gargle the But-Ugly begat Blurk of the Unpronounceable Name.
Of course, there were some who said that the list of begats was inserted there by a redactor from an earlier source document, but those who said that were tied to a mast of a longship, pulled to the middle of Lake Myvatn and set on fire by a rain of flaming arrows.
all i know about Icelandic sagas i learned from Tolkien, so sorry i can't quite help here. although i remember many of the guys' names sounded like girls' names.
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