The development of the video game industry and the increasing popularity of the medium as a form of entertainment have led to significant developments in the discipline of game studies and a growing awareness of the cultural significance of video games as cultural artefacts. While much work has been done to understand the narrative aspect of games, there are still theoretical gaps on the understanding of how video games generate their narrative experience and how this experience is shaped by the player and the game as artefact. This interdisciplinary study investigates how meaning is created in Western Role Playing Games (WRPGs) video games by analysing the narrative strategies they employ in relation to those commonly used in Heroic Epic and Fantasy narratives. It adopts the Bakhtinian concepts of chronotope and dialogue as the main theoretical tools to examine the creation and integration of narratives in WRPGs with a special focus on the time-space perspective. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Dragon Age Origins were chosen as representatives of the WRPG video game genre while Beowulf and the tale of Sigurd, as it appears in the Poetic Edda and the Volsung Saga, were chosen as representatives of the Heroic Epic poetic tradition. References are also made to Fantasy novels, especially the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. Textual analysis along with some techniques employed by researchers working with visual methodologies and compositional interpretation were used to analyse relevant aspects of the texts and games. The findings suggest that intertextual and genre materials considerably shape the narrative of WRPGs and exercise a profound dialogical effect on the ludonarrative harmony of the games investigated through their interaction with the game world and gameplay systems. This relationship is most visible in the chronotopic (time-space) aspect of the chosen games. The findings also suggest that Epic material dialogically orients the WRPG players' experience and adjusts their expectations and understanding of the fictional world. This study as well as the refining of chronotopic analytical tools to encompass chronotopic awareness, transportation, and flow may be of use in further chronotopic investigations of different games, literary genres, and/or other media artefacts.

This is a study of the Old Norse (hereafter abbreviated to ON) setr/sætr and ærgi place-names in areas of Scandinavian settlement in Scotland. The elements setr/sætr and ærgi all have a general meaning of a place for summer grazing in the hills, referred to in Scotland as a shieling. However, the related terms setr and sætr, are employed as shielings names in Norway and are indistinguishable from each other in Britain. It is only in areas of Scandinavian settlement in Britain and the Faroes that ærgi is found to signify a shieling site. The element ærgi was adopted as a loanword from either, the Scottish Gaelic àirigh or Irish áirge, both of which can also have the meaning of a shieling. What is unusual about this adoption is it is rare for a more prestigious speech community (ON in this instance) to adopt a word from, what is believed to have been, a less prestigious language at the time (Gaelic). Various scholars have looked at this question, but none have adequately explained the reason for the adoption. Much of the previous research has relied on comparisons of local farming systems that were recorded many centuries after the Viking Age. Farming techniques from the fifteenth to twentieth century are unlikely to adequately represent the agricultural situation in the Viking Age due to different social imperatives. The overall question I want to answer in this thesis, is why Scandinavian settlers in Scotland adopted ærgi, when they already had corresponding ON terms for a shieling. The distribution of ON settlement names is one of the main pieces of evidence to prove Scandinavian settlement in Scotland during this period. This is especially true of secondary settlements, such as shielings, which rarely feature in early documentation. The language shift to either Gaelic or Scots-English is likely to have led to the loss of many ON place-names, but will also have fossilised some names in the landscape. The location of these settlement names can give an understanding of how Scandinavian settlers utilised the landscape and highlight differences in the use of different shieling names. This thesis is interdisciplinary in nature, but one based on cultural and historical geography. The first element of the study is to understand why shielings developed in Scandinavian society and if there are identifiable environmental factors behind their location. Studies in Norway suggest shielings developed as a response to environmental constraints to agriculture and social pressures to produce a surplus. A locational study of shielings in areas that were the likely origin of Viking settlers in Norway, highlighted seven key locations for shielings. These locational factors were then compared to setr/sætr-names in Scotland. The locations were broadly similar to Norwegian shielings, however, Scottish setr/sætr-names were more likely to be situated in slightly more fertile locations than Norwegian examples studied. A comparison of Scottish setr/sætr-names with ærgi-names also revealed the latter to be more likely found on even richer grazing land. The conclusion being, setr/sætr had a more general meaning of a place for summer grazing, whereas, ærgi was specifically linked to richer soils and richer grazing land. This link may relate to an intensive dairy economy, something which is known from contemporary documentary sources from the Gaelic world, but has not been proven in pre-Viking Age Norway.

In 1705 George Hickes published his book Linguarum vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus (A Treasury of Ancient Northern Tongues) which contained, among other things, an Anglo-Saxon Grammar. In the final six chapters of this grammar, Hickes includes a history of the Anglo-Saxon language. It is the first recorded history of the English language; however, it is written in Latin, and so unavailable to many English speakers. Therefore, I have produced a sample translation of the third of the six chapters for this thesis (chapter 21, or Caput XXI), entitled De dialecto poetica, praesertim de dialecto poetica Dano-Saxonica (On the poetic dialect, especially the Dano-Saxon poetic dialect), marking the first stage in making these chapters available to English speakers today.

No description available.

In 1705 George Hickes published his book Linguarum vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus (A Treasury of Ancient Northern Tongues) which contained, among other things, an Anglo-Saxon Grammar. In the final six chapters of this grammar, Hickes includes a history of the Anglo-Saxon language. It is the first recorded history of the English language; however, it is written in Latin, and so unavailable to many English speakers. Therefore, I have produced a sample translation of the third of the six chapters for this thesis (chapter 21, or Caput XXI), entitled De dialecto poetica, praesertim de dialecto poetica Dano-Saxonica (On the poetic dialect, especially the Dano-Saxon poetic dialect), marking the first stage in making these chapters available to English speakers today.

No description available.

This thesis investigates the representation of land and landownership in medieval Icelandic texts. I shall demonstrate that there is scant homogeneity in this representation; the variation between different narratives is startling and unusual. I seek to categorise this variability by identifying the lack of a secure tradition surrounding land and landownership, and exploring the possibilities open to the saga author to use land practices and myths as literary devices or to glorify the past. I also examine variability caused by the differences in the realm of 'actual' experience. I shall explore a range of narratives, from stories of the initial settlement of Iceland, to issues of inheritance, to conveyance and to dispute over territory. The last chapter takes a flip-side view of landownership to consider the representation of the landless of family saga narrative. The texts which I shall examine are the Íslendingasögur, Landnádmabók and Íslendingabók. Throughout the thesis I also make reference to Grágás for illumination and comparison. In the first and second chapters I also include archaeological evidence for discussion.

Thesis (doctoral)--Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt, 2002.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

The purpose of this thesis is an in-depth analysis of the Eddic poem Grímnismál found in the manuscript known as Codex Regius (GKS 2365 4to), located in Reykjavík, dated to c. 1270 and a fragment (AM 748 I 4to), located in Copenhagen, dated to c. 1300. While a great deal of work has been done on Grímnismál as part of the Elder Edda, there is yet no specific edition focusing on it alone. New studies on Germanic paganism and mythology show its shifting nature and the absence of specific tenets or uniform beliefs throughout the Germanic speaking world and in time. The relatively absent sources are similarly scattered. As such, the thesis suggests a new method of study, following a focused historical approach in which only Grímnismál is analysed in an attempt to understand the beliefs of the people that composed it. The nature of pagan belief itself prevents one from drawing more general conclusions on ‘Norse mythology' as a whole. Part 1 is divided into two chapters and deals with my approach, the nature of Germanic belief, and the sources available as well as techniques of interpretation for them, all relevant to the production of the arguments made in the thesis. Part 2 deals with Grímnismál itself: Chapter 1 provides an analysis of the manuscripts, Chapter 2 contains my editing notes and Chapter 3 analyses the contents of the poem, Chapter 4 consists of my conclusions to this study, focusing on the cosmology and the dating of the poem. Part 3 contains the edition of Grímnismál and is followed by Part 4 which is the commentary to the poem. The thesis is followed by two appendices, one containing a facing transcription of the manuscripts and the other being a glossary to all words used in Grímnismál. Finally, this thesis includes a digital edition worked on xml. This is available in the following link: https://starescomp.github.io/grimnismal/#idm140518410334752