Читать книгу The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún - Christopher Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien - Страница 9

I have thought it best to follow closely my father’s usage in respect of the writing of Norse names in an English context. The most important features, which appear in his manuscript of the poems with great consistency, are these:

The sound ð of voiced ‘th’ as in English ‘then’ is replaced by d: thus Guðrún becomes Gudrún, Hreiðmarr becomes Hreidmar, Buðli becomes Budli, Ásgarðr becomes Ásgard.

As two of these examples show, the nominative ending -r is omitted: so also Frey, Völsung, Brynhild, Gunnar for Freyr, Völsungr, Brynhildr, Gunnarr.

The letter j is retained, as in Sinfjötli, Gjúki, where it is pronounced like English ‘y’ in ‘you’ (Norse Jórk is ‘York’).

The only case where I have imposed consistency is that of the name of the god who in Norse is Óðinn. In his lecture notes my father naturally used the Norse form (which I have retained in the text of his lecture on the ‘Elder Edda’, p.22). In the carefully written manuscript of the ‘New Lays’, on the other hand, he ‘anglicized’ it, changing ð to d, but (as generally in all such cases) retaining the acute accent indicating a long vowel. But he used two forms, favouring one or the other in different parts of the Lay of the Völsungs: Ódin and Ódinn. But in section VI, Brynhildr, where the name occurs frequently in the form Ódinn, he wrote (stanza 8) Ódinn bound me, Ódin’s chosen. This is because in the Norse genitive nn changes to ns: Óðins sonr, ‘son of Ódin’.

Seeing that in section VIII, stanza 5, where the name is repeated, Ódin dooms it; Ódinn hearken!, my father later struck out the second n of Ódinn, and since it seems to me that inconsistency in the form of the name serves no purpose, I have settled for Ódin. In the case of the name that is in Norse Reginn my father wrote Regin throughout, and I have followed this.