Valkyries

Video

The women known as Valkyries (Old Norse 'Valkyrja') feature in countless stories of the Norse gods and heroes.



Dr. Jackson Crawford is a historical linguist and an experienced teacher of both Old Norse and Modern Icelandic. He currently teaches in the Department of Scandinavian at the University of California, Berkeley (formerly at UCLA), and he is credited in Disney’s Frozen.

This video uses reconstructed medieval Old Norse pronunciation (see https://youtu.be/4rajv8BSzRI ), not Modern Icelandic pronunciation (see https://youtu.be/b00tW9LEGqE ). For more on the differences between Old Norse and Modern Icelandic, see https://youtu.be/5_T5jxWyxk8 and for information about how linguists figure out how dead languages were pronounced, see https://youtu.be/VVnOdRgkvwU

Jackson Crawford’s new, contemporary translation of the Poetic Edda—the most important source for the stories of the Norse gods and heroes—is available at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1624663567 His translation of the Saga of the Volsungs and the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok is forthcoming in 2017.

Some popular videos:
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Where do the runes come from? https://youtu.be/oVJgq_4kF7c
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Videos about runes:
2-min. intro. to runes: https://youtu.be/yezPPsV66A8
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The names of the runes: https://youtu.be/sGGzrsmLwYk
The runes in Frozen: https://youtu.be/hVqNASJcJTs