The Magnanimous Enemy

[Magnus Barfod, in the year 1102, undertook the conquest of the kingdoms of Ireland. On the eve of his death he received this message from Muirchertach, King of Dublin:]

May gold and the storm fight along with you in your armies, Magnus Barfod.

Tomorrow, in the fields of my kingdom, may you have a happy battle.

May your kingly hands be terrible in weaving the sword-stuff.

May those opposing your sword become meat for the red swan.

May your many gods glut you with glory, may they glut you with blood.

Victorious may you be in the dawn, king who tread on Ireland.

Of your many days may none shine as bright as tomorrow.

Because that day will be the last. I swear it to you, King Magnus.

My somewhat dubious version of Magnus Barfod has probably suffered through multiple translations. It comes from Borges (in English translation), quoting a 19th century German source. And 'red swan' and 'sword-stuff' sound more like Anglo-Saxon kennings, don't they?

So it has possibly travelled through Old Irish, Old English, Old Norse, German, Spanish (Castilian) and English (modern archaic). Or not. I'm a magpie, not a scholar.

Still, I like it. No reference to anyone else named Magnus is intended, of course.

Hmm. I've already quoted 'Barefoot in the Head'. And now Magnus Barfod. I see a trend emerging. Next up: Shoeless Joe Jackson. <Say it ain't so, Joe>.

PS. I did some amateur Arkivar work on the very early pages of GMAN kibitzing. Not many people still with us, are there? I think <mack> and <Robin01> get the prize for consistency...

a) is how you would pronounce 'Maghnus', isn't it? Would you really pronounce 'Maghnus' as 'minus'?

Barfod is Danish - in Norway it is Barfot (bare-foot). The older form 'Berrføtt' (bare-footed) is also common.

Public signs for toilets etc often read 'fir' & 'mna' for 'men' & 'women'. Considerable confusion results from guys who think 'mna' is just a blurry version of 'man'.

'Magnus' in Irish would be pronounced normally - maybe a little more like 'mog-nus' (which can also change, in other grammatical contexts, to 'vog-nus' or 'wog-nus'). But 'Maghnus' is either a vocative or genitive form, the 'gh' becomes silent, and the -agh- vowel sound becomes more like 'eye' (aye, ei, I). So: Mynus or Meinus, in this case.

<I'm a bit sceptical about Ireland ;)> So am I. But the evidence is that it exists. Along with 11 distinct L-sounds. Strange place.

Ireland is alien territory to me. I'd like to come there some time.

I've published articles in Danish magazines too, but they were written in English and translated afterwards, not by me. I can grasp the general structure of either language, but I need a dictionary to read very far. I also studied Germanic Philology (aka 19th century linguistics of Germanic languages) which included a light smattering of Old Norse (very like Icelandic, I think?) and Anglo-Saxon (more like German or Friesian than English). The Irish/Gaelic comes automatically with school here: it's a compulsory subject.

None of which gives me any ability to actually talk to people in their own languages.

I don't travel much - I'm not a 'holiday' person - but when I do I almost always aim north. I like Copenhagen a lot, and Malmo/Lund. I haven't reached Oslo yet - maybe next trip.

You should try Ireland sometime - it's changing very quickly at the moment, with mass inwards migration for the first time in centuries. Possibly since Magnus Barfod and his Vikings, even...

[click!]

<Dom> I'm so exhausted by this game I'm almost uncapable of answering. Umm... 'genet'?? 'The gene'? No... you must mean the verb 'genere' meaning 'disturb' I guess. 'He was disturbed': 'han ble genert' in Norwegian and 'han blev generet' in Danish.

Tromsø, eh? My sister in Copenhagen gets around the Arctic quite a lot - in the last year or so she's been on journalistic trips to Tromsø, Greenland and Spitzbergen. I think writing runs in the family, but she does all the travelling.

Has the daylight stopped yet, way up there? Are you in winter darkness?

He has played 25...Nd5 to reach this position (White to play):

click for larger view

"I shall be a freak for the rest of my life and I shall baffle you with cabbages and rhinoceroses and incessant quotations from Now We Are Six through the mouthpiece of Lord Snooty's giant poisoned electric head - so there...."

- We Are Normal

"Hubert Rawlinson - now in his mid-forties and still unusual - put it about that swans were really giant snorkels and that they betrayed dinosaur leviathans gliding cold-eyed beneath the lake."

'Forhindring' would be = 'stopping' or 'obstacle', 'forhindre' = stop, 'hindring' = hindrance, obstacle. The word 'nuisance' I would translate as 'plage' (plåga) or 'forstyrrelse' (störning), as a mild form of torment (= 'pine', 'pinsel').

We have about 4-6 hours of daylight now. The sun will disappear completely in a week or so. Zero to minus 5 C, 0.5 m snow, awaiting the next inevitable SW low pressure with rainstorm or snowstorm. Excellent conditions for c-chess.

I will keep the light on for you here in southern California.

It could have become disused for many reasons. One is possible confusion with genetics, the English word 'gene' and the Danish 'gen'. Another is the fact that mild insults and slang terms usually change very quickly, along with verbal fashions.

English has slang terms meaning 'nuisance' which sound dated or ironic. Like 'tiresome pest', or 'pesky varmint' or 'waffle-wallah'.

"You, sir, are the cat's pyjamas, the bee's knees, the dog's bollocks, the panda's thumb and the centipede's centipede."

No, I made that up.

Footnote: English pronounces 'gene' and 'jean' identically, and both are also in use as first names. Alain Robbe-Grillet wrote a novel, Djinn, about an American woman in Paris, named Jean. French people, seeing her name written, assumed she was a (French) man - 'Jean' as in Jean-Paul. So she changes the spelling to Djinn, and then the French pronounce it properly...