Valkyries

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: Why isn’t Finnish considered a Scandinavian language? https://youtu.be/HpfcAyTNsHw Introduction to the Indo-European languages: https://youtu.be/XTkf9bEB8RU What do the Norse gods’ names mean? https://youtu.be/Q051wsL324Q Writing Old Norse in runes: https://youtu.be/aZ0vLcdgfF0 Where do the runes come from? https://youtu.be/oVJgq_4kF7c Old Norse and Old English: https://youtu.be/cb6r5lUj98E The Cowboy Hávamál: https://youtu.be/W-2p9qVSAa4 Videos about runes: 2-min. intro. to runes: https://youtu.be/yezPPsV66A8 Writing Old Norse in runes: https://youtu.be/aZ0vLcdgfF0 Where do the runes come from? https://youtu.be/oVJgq_4kF7c The names of the runes: https://youtu.be/sGGzrsmLwYk The runes in Frozen: https://youtu.be/hVqNASJcJTs