Furthermore, while the editions used by Percy were by major scholars, they were not always accurate. As Clunies Ross notes, this practice on the part of 'those Icelanders who understood the kennings and could translate them fully' is 'likely to have been, at least in part, a response to the distaste of their mainland Scandinavian patrons for over-complex diction, but it effectively robbed the poetry of much of its meaning' (p. Kennings were also a problem, as they still often are to modern readers – the editors generally provided a gloss which translated the final referent and not the constituent elements of the kenning. While, like any scholar of his day, he was fluent in Latin, it was not always a sufficient guide. His knowledge and understanding of Old Norse was limited and he relied heavily on Latin glosses provided in editions of the original poems. In following his interest in skaldic poetry through to the point of translation Percy faced considerable difficulties. She guides the reader expertly through this complex maze so that by the end we can clearly appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of Percy's translations and how they reflect his and his society's conceptions of Norse values and beliefs and Percy's personal enthusiasm for the material he was translating (which does not seem to have been dampened by the far from enthusiastic response of his friend, the poet Shenstone).
Old norse language translator full#
All of this requires a formidable level of scholarship of which Margaret Clunies Ross has full command. 12)) and (7) the general level of knowledge of Norse mythology and history in eighteenth century Britain. In order to annotate these texts adequately the editor needs to take into account many factors: (1) the editions of the original texts that Percy was using (2) the glosses (usually in Latin but sometimes in other languages such as Swedish) included in those editions (3) other translations available to him (such as the French ones of Paul-Henri Mallet) (4) the linguistic choices open to him (for example, words like valkyrie, first tentatively used by Gray in 1768, and berserk, first used by Scott in 1822, had not yet been adopted into English) (5) the differences between the editions (and manuscripts) Percy was using and modern editions (6) the information that Percy was able to obtain from other British scholars, notably his neighbour Edward Lye (described in the book as 'probably the most able English scholar of his day in the field of comparative Germanic languages' (p. What might seem at first glance like a relatively simple task proves, of course, to be one of fascinating complexity. It also provides editions from the surviving manuscripts of other Percy translations of Old Norse poetry (some never before published, others only previously published in incomplete form) and his two versions of The Battle of Brunanburh, the sole Old English text.
The core of this book is a facsimile reprint of Thomas Percy's Five Pieces of Runic Poetry (1763) with very extensive notes.
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