Grave of headless Vikings discovered in England

@Mame,

If you can't follow the dialogue in its entirety, Mame, keep out of it.

@Merry Andrew,

Well, a-viking was ORIGINALLY a verb.

@Walter Hinteler,

Haitabu is in Danish Hedeby and that part of Germany belonged to Denmark in those days. Sorry to say the Germans did not have Vikings.

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@saab,

saab wrote:

Haitabu is in Danish Hedeby and that part of Germany belonged to Denmark in those days. Sorry to say the Germans did not have Vikings.

Yeap - Barvidsyssel, Ellumsyssel and Istedsyssel later became the Dukedom of Schleswig.

Well, we had had quite a lot of Viking raids - up to Cologne, Bonn and even in the Eiffel mountain region (see the above mentioned Prüm).

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@Walter Hinteler,

We do behave a bit better today in Germany - but we still like your beer and wine. There nothing has changed.

By the way syssel at the end of the placenames means Gaue in German and shires in English.

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@saab,

saab wrote:

By the way syssel at the end of the placenames means Gaue in German and shires in English.

Wouldn't that be more a 'harde' ("herred")?

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@plainoldme,

Quote:

Well, a-viking was ORIGINALLY a verb.

My old dictionary (Shorter Oxford, two volumes, on historical principles and with etymological notes) shows no basis for this assertion.

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@McTag,

Actually, in "Anglo-Saxon" wícing [wigcing](subst.) means pirate, sea-robber - but "in passages dealing with English affairs the word refers to the Northmen" (source: Bosworth-Toller's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary)

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@Walter Hinteler,

Syssel is Grafshaft in German

herred = früherer Gerichtsbezirk auf dem Lande und auch der Gau
= Engl. jurisdictonal district
häradshövding Swedish = German Amtsrichter = English district judge

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Can we all agree they are dead ?

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

Actually, in "Anglo-Saxon" wícing [wigcing](subst.) means pirate, sea-robber - but "in passages dealing with English affairs the word refers to the Northmen" (source: Bosworth-Toller's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary)

Thank you, Walter, and the sharp-eyed will notice that "subst." which means substantive which means noun.

Just thinking, the ..ing ending occurs nowadays commonly in verbs, sure, but also in adjectives (Founding Fathers) and in nouns (starveling, etc)

But using English to discuss a norse word is a bit illogical, as the previous post shows.

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

Can we all agree they are dead ?

Well we dont really know that do we, some may have escaped. Only those vikings that are actually in the grave are dead for sure.
is dead an english or scandinavian word. is it a noun or verb?

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

Can we all agree they are dead ?

of course they are, their heads were chopped off

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@dadpad,

Perhaps they were only going a-dying and as that is a verb it does not mean they were dyed which is a noun. I am feeling very clever having learnt the difference between noun and verbing - thank you googleplex.

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on second thought they prolly are all dead... even those that may have escaped, being as how this all happend around A.D. 890 and 1030. Those that didnt have their heads chopped off are most probably also dead from other causes like AIDS or such.

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@djjd62,

Now if they were chooks, it has actually occured where a chook had its head cut off so high up the spinal cord that it survived. It died when the owner of the pub that was having a chook raffle went to get someone to buy it, and the temporary minder failed to blow air down its windpipe when it went into a spasm as it did on occassion. True story ! Used to be in Guiness book of world animal records. Dont know if they cut it for costs reasons.

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I dont think nouning is a verb.
Going a-nouning may well be.

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@dadpad,

Well that is just plain sad !! Are you saying everyone from 890 AD to 1030 AD is dead ? And what are we learning from that ? If I understand this whole thread correctly, they had their heads cut off because they are best described by a noun rather than a verb ? Reminds me of the war between the little-enders and the big-enders.

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All the Vikings are dead.
As a noun it is written with capital V.
Words ending with ing in English are often a verb.
A person from the Swedish province Halland is a halländing.
A person from the province Småland is a smålländing.

The province name Viken (meaning the bay) was the old name of the coast by Oslofjord. It could be that the word Viking comes from there. Which means a person who comes from Viken. Noone really knows where the word comes from.

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@saab,

Yes, yes all very well and good..but do you have the phone number to the girls from Abba ? Very Happy

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Grave of headless Vikings discovered in England

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