Old Norse I

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

Old Norse is a collective term for the earliest North Germanic literary languages: Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian, Old Danish, and Old Swedish. The richly documented Old Icelandic is the center of attention, and the course has two main aims: to provide students with a foundation in the language and its structure, and to give them access to medieval Icelandic (and Scandinavian) literature. Readings include passages from the Prose Edda, a key surviving 13th-century source on Norse mythology, along with an excerpt from an Icelandic saga.