User talk:Barend
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Welcome!
Hello, Barend, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --Mais oui! 19:02, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Welcome!
Third welcoming to wiki, nice erh? I just wanted to remind you to sign your comments at the end of talk page posts. You can do this by using the signature button in the tool line over the Subject/Headline feild, which is the third from last button. --OrbitOne [Talk|Babel] 19:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Central Asia
WikiProject Central Asia has finally been created! If you're interested, please consider joining us. Aelfthrytha 21:50, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Civil war era in Norway
About time someone wrote this! I'm also impressed by other recent edits from you like this very interesting one, I'd like to read that article. I gave you a barnstar on your user page, feel free to move it or remove it however you please. Haukur 11:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you! The article on Sveinn is quite interesting. The guy claims that the Svein referred to in the relevant skaldic poems is in fact Sweyn I of Denmark. He has to reinterpret them a bit to reach this conclusion, for example he believes that Olav Haraldsson did not in fact win the battle of Nesjar, but was defeated by Sweyn I of Denmark in that battle. He believes that the relevant poems were misinterpreted by the people writing Historia Norwegiae and the other books in the late 12th centuries. At the same time, he totally discounts the existence of oral traditions besides the skaldic poems. It all seems a bit far-fetched to me, but the guy is a professor of the university of Stockholm (of nordic languages), so I thought it should be mentioned. --Barend 15:25, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
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- Very interesting. I wonder what he makes of Nóregs konungatal, which is an epitome of Sæmundr fróði's history, written around 1120.
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- 28. Talði lönd
- ok lausafé
- sína eign
- Sveinn ok Hákon,
- ok tvá vetr
- at tali fyrða
- Eireks arf
- jarlar höfðu,
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- Surely this Sveinn is Sveinn Hákonarson since he and Hákon are referred to as 'jarlar' in the stanza. Haukur 15:33, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
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- Of course stanza 31 is even more explicit:
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- 31. Bauð Óláfr
- austr fyr Nesjum
- snarpa sókn
- Sveini jarli ;
- varð liðfár
- lönd at flýja,
- sigri sviptr,
- sonr Hákonar
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- This indicates to me that the tradition we know from the sagas seems to have been established already in Sæmundr's time. Haukur 15:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
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- Quite. What the guy basically says, is that Sæmundr is the guy who made the first misunderstanding. As I say, I find it far-fetched. 1. He feels that he, as a 20th century philologist, is better placed to understand 11th century skaldic poetry than people living in basically the same culture, only about 100 years later, which I find somewhat arrogant. 2. He believes there were no other oral traditions besides the skaldic poetry, no prose stories telling of events and rulers of the past, that had survived these 100 years, which I find extremely unlikely. But there you go. I have the impression his theory hasn't been generally accepted, but not thoroughly discounted either. And, as I said in the article, it is quite typical of particularly Swedish academia to more or less discount the sagas altogether. --Barend 15:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
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- Interesting intellectual exercise though I agree with you that this hyper-skeptical methodology doesn't lead to very convincing results. If our sources are really so unreliable that we can doubt the existence of someone like Sveinn then they are probably so unreliable that we can't state anything at all confidently. There must have been some oral tradition surrounding the skaldic verses, they can't have been recited and memorized in a vaccuum. People must at least have said something like: "And now I'm going to recite the verses which Halldórr ókristni composed on the Battle of Svold..."
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- I think it's very interesting when we can confirm or refute the saga/poetic evidence with completely independent sources, this is especially possible with events that took place in England. I recently bought Encomium Emmae which offers a fascinating account of many Scandinavian personalities.
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- Anyway, thanks for elaborating on that Swedish theory. If you ever need to look something up in a book which you think I might have, feel free to ask. Haukur 16:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Magnúss saga lagabœtis
Hi! Are you planning an article on Magnúss saga lagabœtis? I just found the text of the fragments online. [1] Haukur 10:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
- And now there's a Morkinskinna article at no due to the tireless efforts of Finn Bjørklid. We need to get one of those here too... :) Haukur 22:13, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
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- Thanks for the links! Saganet.is looks like a great site. I was planning to write about these two sagas, but will now have to put it off for a bit, because of major computer problems at home. When I get my web-connection back, if no one else has done it by then, I will write these articles. --Barend 13:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
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- And now you've written both of them, kudos! :) Haukur 22:46, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Early Norwegian struggles for supremacy
I'm thinking of starting an article but I need your advice. I want one with a title like early struggle for control of Norway or something to that effect. The lead could be something along these lines:
As defined in this article the early struggle for control of Norway refers to the wars of conquest and successionfrom Harald Fairhair's unification of Norway in the late 9th century to the accession of Magnus the Good in 1035. During this time overlordship of Norway was repeatedly with violent means. After 1035 there was a period of relative stability until the beginning of the civil war era in 1130.
I think it would be really handy to have an article like this; dealing with the struggle between the Jarls of Lade, the descendants of Haraldr hárfagri, the Danish kings and other players - thus putting a lot of articles in context. The only problem is that I wonder whether this would fall under "original research". Is the period up to Magnus the Good ever treated separately by historians? It makes sense to me to do so but I don't recall having seen it anywhere. Haukur 22:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
- Interesting idea! Of course, this period should be covered a lot better in History of Norway, which is in dire need of improvement on the middle ages. But as for your question: Yes, it is treated separately by Norwegian historians, very much so. I don't know if you have access to academic journals - Historisk Tidsskrift (Oslo), mostly in Norwegian, often features articles on this period. So does Scandinavian Journal of History, which is written in English. Norwegian historians, from the 19th century onwards, have written volumes about the unification of Norway, and about the christianization of Norway and the influence, or not, of kings like Harald Fairhair, Olav Tryggvason and St. Olav on these processes. The early historians, before 1920 or so, went through the sagas and tried to get as much detail as they could out of them. Then a reaction came, with the saga critical school. They considered the sagas useless for this period, as they weren't written until a couple of hundred years later, but they still trusted the skaldic poetry, and often reinterpreted it in a different way than the saga writers had done. At the moment, this is a very much debated topic. So when writing an article like this, you should be prepared that the sagas aren't universally considered good sources for the period. You remember the little talk we had about the existence of Sveinn Hákonarson? Well, there is an Icelandic historian who recently wrote an article claiming that Harald Fairhair is just a mythological character.
- OK, I went off on a ramble there, the thing is, I have actually been thinking about writing an article on saga criticism, or something like that. But, yes, the period deserves a better treatment on wikipedia than it has gotten so far. And there is loads of litterature, especially in Norwegian.--Barend 07:29, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks for the help. There's certainly plenty of academic literature on the early kings of Norway - the only thing I was concerned about was whether it was normal to put a break in 1035 and cover the succession wars in the period before that as a specific topic. An article on saga criticism would be very welcome and would serve an educational purpose on Wikipedia where the sagas are too often used uncritically as sources Haukur 09:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
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- Yes, Haukurth, when I thought about your question more, I realized that was probably more or less what you asked about, as I had no doubt you knew about much of the secondary literature already... But again, yes, I would say it is quite common to reckon Magnus the Good as a landmark - the period from him until 1130 is sometimes referred to as the "century of peace" and so on... But I suppose the common thing is to reckon the time up to 1030 as the long process of the unification and formation of the Norwegian kingdom. There is quite wide agreement that what Harald Fairhair did was only to establish the idea of one king of Norway. It is very unlikely that he actually ruled over all of what is now Norway, probably mainly the western parts. The same goes for Håkon the Good, and all the kings up to St. Olaf, who was, for instance, probably the first king of Norway to hold real sway over the Oppland region. And on top of this, you have the Danish kings, trying to claim overlordship over Norway, and direct rule over Viken at the same time. So maybe a title along the lines of Unification and consolidation of the Norwegian kingdom? A bit long and unwieldy though, I suppose... --Barend 22:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
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Thank you both, those are quite useful points! Fornadan is right when he says that in principle one should probably start with a broad overview article on the Middle Ages in Norway. But since we already have an article on the civil war era I thought that one on the early warlike era might not be amiss. You're right that consolidation of power is an important theme. It's a big subject, of course, I was just thinking of a short overview summarizing the major political players and battles. Haukur 09:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] More naming issues
Fornadan (t) 09:13, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Please cease writing misleading edit comments
Recently you wrote "rv" (= revert) as edit comment to Skule Bårdsson, when you simply edited one word ("king") away and did not actually revert the article to any earlier version. That is a misrepresentation in edit comments. You certainly know what the term revert means. And it does not mean that edit to which you put it. You have earlier shown that in your opoinion, edit comments must not be misleading. We have to assume that you have not changed yor mind. It is not too much to ask that you live (and act) according to what you say. So, please do not write misleading edit comments any longer. Marrtel 02:36, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
- You are wrong. Have a closer look at the history page, before you make petty accusations. You made two separate edits to the article. The first one, I had no objections to. The second one, I reverted. I should have written "revert to earlier edit by Marrtel", this I forgot to do, I'm sorry. But it was a revert. --Barend 15:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Article in desperate need of aid
A complete rewrite of the first half of Hereditary Kingdom of Norway is sorely needed. I was planning to do this myself, but any "professional" aid would be very helpful. Fornadan (t) 13:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry for the slow response. I took a look at the article and despaired. Today I worked up the energy to improve some of it, but it is still in need of a complete rewrite, I think, to make it more coherent and focussed. --Barend 17:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Do you know if there are any common English translation of drottsete? Fornadan (t) 21:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
- No. Been wondering myself. Apparently, the term that was used in latin was dapifer. If that helps. I'll try looking at Enlish language books and see if I can find some examples.--Barend 15:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
