History-Makers: Iceland's #1 Menace, Snorri Sturluson
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- Опубликовано: 28 мар 2024
- "Snorri Sturluson: Threat or Menace?"
SOURCES & Further Reading:
“Meeting the Norse Gods of the Viking Age” from “Norse Mythology” by Jackson Crawford.
“Skaldic Poetry and Sagas” from “The Vikings” by Kenneth W. Harl
“Snorri Sturluson and the Construction of Norse Mythography” by Margaret Clunies Ross, from “Writing Down the Myths” (2013) edited by Joseph Falaky Nagy
“Snorri Sturluson - Stutt Æviágrip” by Óskar Guðmundsson, www.snorrastofa.is/en/snorri-...
MUSIC:
"Sneaky Snitch" & "Scheming Weasel" & "Pippin the Hunchback" by Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com) creativecommons.org/licenses/...
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![[TF2] How to Trolldier: The Hybrid Gardener](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/r6M6bSu9UMY/mqdefault.jpg)
Oh god, he finally did it. He actually talked about Snorri. Blue, blink twice if you need help.
he can't, his eyes were taped open by snorri himself
You can't help him. *RED* has him. *Shudder
Blue, you can stop blinking now. We understand you need help
Red litteraly did give him eyelids
It’s okay he still mentioned Greece, we’re good.
The "Aesir are Trojans" is almost Assassins Creed level of storyteling fuckery.
IS there a long tradition of connecting your people back to the Trojan war, yes. Making the Trojans gods, crazy talk. But assassin's creed did pull this crap. Since the game has equated myth and gods with the isu, and most stories of the Trojan war fall under myths, the game arrives at the Aesir are the same people as the Trojans, and that's just one step a way.
Behold. God of War: Ragnarok. Long foretold.
It was surprisingly common for people all across medieval Europe to claim ancestry from the Trojans somehow. Even the Cornish did it.
Just wait till you see what the Arthurian authors did with Britain...
@@someguydavies2313 Yeah, AFAICT, the essential conceit is, "Look, y'all know about these mythic heroes? We're legit, because we're *descended* from them."
He’s not the insane Icelandic historian we deserved but he’s the one we…have.💙
I dunno, It says a lot about a society when that guy is your best historian. Maybe Norse mythology isn't worth preserving, the Norse clearly didn't try enough to do it themselves.
@@darkfool2000bad take
@@darkfool2000take an L buddy
@@darkfool2000ayo gonna be real chief that’s the worst take I’ve seen in awhile. No it’s not a good idea to let a cultural history die just because the guy writing it was a little biased. Every culture throughout history had different ways of keeping their beliefs and histories over the centuries. By your logic we should let Greek mythology die just because for a few hundred years their historians were orator’s and not writers and thus didn’t preserve their culture well.
@@darkfool2000that would apply to like all of native american and african history and mythology soo..... no
Icelander here: It's also OUR swagony. We've built like half our culture from that book. Whether that's a GOOD idea is questionable, but we damn done did it.
Not your fault, its literally all you had.
I love our home
@@fenixchief7 hon, the sagas. You forgot the sagas. Cant forget them sagas.
Firstly, my condolences on building half your culture on Snorri Sturluson's Ancient Aliens audition.
Secondly, congratulations on building half your culture on Snorri Sturluson's Ancient Aliens audition.
"This man is the equivalent of if William Shakespeare personally started the War of the Roses."
That's an evocative analogy. Also: _Yikes._
You know someone’s either crazy or brilliant when he’s described as: “The one who makes Diogenes seem tame.”
The tragedy they lived over a millennium apart from each other
@@merrittanimation7721 Maybe it was fortunate.
You assume those two qualities are mutually exclusive😅
It's the first one this time.
I mean, it's true. Diogenes didn't go around starting wars that lasted generations, he just pissed in the street and threw plucked chickens at Plato.
Norse myth consists of:
Poems by (error not found)
Various offhand references elsewhere
And a book by THE MOST UNHINGED MAN IN NORWEGIAN AND ICELANDIC HISTORY
What’s sad is I can see what Snorri was trying to do, he just did it so poorly. Snorri realized that the kingdom of Norway absorbing tiny Iceland was probably inevitable, but he was trying to make it as bloodless as possible by turning it from a war of conquest to a simple vote. He eventually got the outcome he wanted but it happened several decades after his death. The problem is he rushed things, resulting in a bloody civil war and his own assassination.
and dont forget the handful of very obscure references in random sagas that are like a thousand pages long and TOTALLY not boring
[Insert Christian editors]
Barbarian problems, don't want to know.
Southerners, probably.
Based on this video he didn't seem to do anything that unhinged other than.... have children and partake in medieval politics?
Not sure what makes me laugh harder, “Loki-brained”, “Horri Sturlson” or “Swagony”.
My favourite was "the Grima Wormtongue grindset"
Blue just droppin linguistic gems
The fact that the Völuspá can be dated to the pre-Christian 900s based on vowel stress patterns is almost the coolest fact in here. Linguists are so cool.
Also we can finally tell Red to calm down with her Anti-Christianization bias...
Hmmm, no, Snorri's bias can't be ignored. Blue concludes that Snorri's _generally_ trustworthy in spite of his biases, but living 200 years after Iceland's adoption of Christianity means he's not exactly a primary source on Norse mythology. A valuable source, certainly, but perhaps not authoritative.
@@twojuicemanit's also the problem of a good source that Red talks about at length in the Loki video. We have to mostly-trust Snorri and the Poetic Edda because we have negligible amounts of *anything else*. If someone digs up an 800s archive of stories by a miracle, we can talk about dropping specific stories as sources, but right now there's so little to compare them to.
@@Valery0p5 who isnt anti-christianization? who likes culture and history being erased by anyone, let alone christians
No way bro is arguing that Christianization (specifically the part where it steamrolls other religions/mythologies) is good on a norse mythology video 💀
Now the complete and utter disdain Blue, Red, and Yellow have for Snorri makes perfect sense. Snorri has the troublemaking skills of Alcibiades while being a legitimate poet, running around until he got smacked in the face with the consequences of his actions.
“Oh no, the consequences of my actions!” -Snorri Sturluson, September 1241
@@merrittanimation7721 "OW MY HUBRIS!" -Seconds later, when the knives got him
Just because he’s a wreck does not mean he’s a lousy writer
@@wadespencer3623 According to tradition his last words were actually "Do not strike!" (=please, don't kill me)
who is Yellow?
I love how straightforward Norse-based terms are.
"We need a name for a thing that represents all of us."
"ALLTHING!"
The meaning of "thing" has changed a lot. It used to mean legal thing, courtroom stuff and things like that. Then it's meaning got widened to other things until anything could be a thing.
Explaining the meaning of a thing is very hard when using it in other cases is just so convenient...
@@IISheireenII Yeah, I figured it has a history like that, but you can still see how it got its meaning in English so clearly.
In modern Norwegian, the term 'court house' is 'tinghus', translated directly as 'thing house'. The regional courts also all end with '-ting', and the Norwegian parliament is called 'The Great Thing'.
Signed, a Norwegian
The term "republic" comes from the Latin "res publica" or "the public thing". Similarly intended to be a legal concept, but "res" is usually translated as "thing", with its attendant broad connotations.
@@cheezemonkeyeater A thing in Germanic cultures can be roughly translated as assembly (folkmoot is a synonym for thing). So althing basically means 'Assembly of All'. Norway's parliament is the Sorting, which means 'Great Thing' (through linguistic evolution, Norse Thing became Norwegian Ting).
OSP be like "Get me pictures of Sturluson!"
I saw Snorri Sturluson in the title and expected Red’s voice. Then I realized it was a History-Makers video and realized we were in for a treat today.
The concept that the poetic Edda is like a DBZ abridged to the post Christianized versions of the myths is wild, but less surprising than I expected.
Good Lord, imagine trying to reconstruct the story of the entirety of Dragonball, OG, Z, Super and GT but all you have is Abridged and the Buu Bits to work with.
@@thomasparkin259OTOH SAO would be better if only the Abridged was left
@@thomasparkin259 It would be fascinating to see someone try.
@@williamchamberlain2263YOU FOOL YOU'VE DOOMED US ALLLLLL
"It doesn't mean God, don't bow."
Its says a lot when even the title comes out the gate with "This man is nuts"
"Grima Wormtongue Grindset" is a phrase I did not know I needed in my vocabulary.
Blue: "Here's why you shouldn't despise Snorri's writing so much."
Me: "Whoa?! Awesome, tha- "
Blue: "And here's why you should despise Snorri himself way more."
Me: "...nks..."
So Vikings were like "psh who needs paper when we can yell FOR ODIN!!"
I will no longer yell for Odin father, but Jesus.
Oh. Ohhhhhh. That's why we're supposed to write it all dow- hurk
Ye olde version of "Why read a book when I have TV?"
I mean, oral stories where just how people told stories in the old days. Even the greek myths were from people (such as Homer) writing down orally told stories that had been passed down for generation
Basically, it is not really that unique
I mean vikings weren't unique in that. There is a quote from some Greek philosopher or poet or something that complains about how everyone is writing things down these days, and everyone's brains are deteriorating because they won't have to remember anything anymore - a quote we only have because someone wrote it down.
Before then writing was only for trading and keeping track of your stores which was unceremoniously thrown out afterwards and everything *important* was phrased in verse and remembered in oral tradition.
There are a fair number of modern Norse Pagans, especially in some parts of the US, who do exactly the same thing, only as a drunkenness test. "If I can scream for the Alfather and not fall over, I am not drunk enough."
Good to see my 32nd or something great-grandfather get the props he deserves.
Same here!
with what I know of Iceland and what I just learned about Snorri, it does feel like this is a claim that a lot of icelanders can call upon.
I'm now just imagining they do a video on the about the British upon the Irish, I only have one pic of Dobb's castle from after it was rightfully bombed; the Dobb's occasionally pop up in history, never the right side of it
@@lorcogoth1Yeah, probably. I've personally examined my family tree and traced it back to one of Snorri's daughters.
@@kay_faradaywow, the earliest ancestors we could trace are only from early 1800s. Iceland has to have pretty good archives and documentation.
I see Red's anger towards Snorri has dipped into her artwork.
EDIT: I take it back. All the pictures of Snorri look like that.
Damn, you're right. I thought the same thing at first! 🤣
My heart skipped a beat when I found out there was a brand new video from OSP regarding not only literally anything regarding iceland, but Snorri Sturluson of all people. Fun fact: He’s my great great great something grandfather, but who in Iceland isn’t related to him
Who in Iceland isn't related to everyone else? When your country needs a whole app to prevent accidental inbreeding, I'd say there's a distinct lack of genetic diversity going on.
When I first learned about Sifjaspellsspillir, I refused to believe that it was true, but it turns out that yeah, it's legit.
@@richeybaumann1755 wait is Sifjaspellsspillir and Íslendingabók the same? Or are there two incest prevention websites?
@@richeybaumann1755 That's not quite correct. The app exists but it was made for a contest using the genealogy database from Íslendingabók. It's main feature was finding how two relatives were related, the "incest bump" was added as a joke. The app isn't even easily available and I've never seen or heard of anyone actually using it IRL
@@richeybaumann1755 Sifjaspellsspillir was added as a playful option to the extensive Icelandic genealogical database called Íslendingabók. It's not an app in and of itself. People in Iceland do not check the database to prevent inbreeding.
Honestly weird how well that urban legend stuck, like the one where Iceland supposedly jailed all the bankers after the 2008 collapse. Clickbait media is so strange.
yeah just checked my great grandpa too
The thought of William Shakespeare causing the War of the Roses just so he could have material for his plays is a blursed one.
That would make plenty of sense in the Sandman universe.
"iceland's agony is our swagony" is one hell of a quote
“That’s right, Snorri Sturluson Ancient Aliens’d himself” -Red, OSP Loki video
Fun fact:snorri's last name literally means insane in icelandic now "Sturlaður"
I was visiting Iceland back in 2022 and sort of on a whim visited the site where Snorri’s house used to be. They’ve reconstructed the pool he used to use, but kept the ruins of the house as they are. Visiting sent me down a rabbit hole of figuring out what was up with that dude, so I’m quite excited to learn more.
Our boy Snorri participating in the age-old tradition of attributing the origins of present-day culture to survivors of Troy. Virgil and Geoffrey would be proud.
I love that Snorri's life ended like the South Park gag "Kick the Baby!" It's so tragically amusing that I made that connection.
Snorri got kidnapped, and the guy holds up a knife:
"I'll stab you!"
"You shouldn't stab me!"
*stab*
"What are you going to do? Stab me?" - Last words of a man who was stabbed to death.
I love how Snorri is drawn as if he has a hatred for everything and everything around him.
I'm pretty sure it's based on Red's previous rendition of Diogenes in the Greek Wise Guys video.
Implying Snorri is really just an immortal Diogenes who, after a thousand years, settled on Iceland and changed his name.
The other art I've seen of him - even statues - portray him frowning. Very unusual feature
Something I learned in my Norse myth & Old English poetry classes in college is that it's believed a part of why Snorri used the mythology as examples for poets (beyond them being compelling stories & his political goals) is kennings. Kennings are standardized poetic metaphors used in Germanic & Norse poetry to refer to things in ways that fit their syllable-based poetic structures (ex. "swan road" & "whale-path" both mean the sea). Many older kennings are references to myth, so the thought is Snorri not only wanted to show the shared heritage via shared mythology but also wanted the poets learning from his writing to be able to understand myth-inspired kennings in the existing poetry and to be able to use them well & accurately - based on knowledge of the tales they derived from - in their own poems.
I'd argue that that's the primary reason he is writing it! Skaldskaparmal, the 3rd part of the Prose Edda (if you count the Prologue that Snorri didn't write), is entirely lists of kennings for all the mythological figures plus horses, swords, the sea, Jesus, etc! Ynglinga saga, also by Snorri, is a much more straightforwardly narrative source that incorporates mythological elements and so more neatly fits into Snorri's at-that-moment friendship with Hakon IV
Snorri sounds crazy, but also a lot more trustworthy a recorder of local mythology than Geoffrey of Monmouth: a man who wrote about Welsh mythology (King Arthur) while being an English noble working closely with English royalty, and who claimed to just be translating an old Welsh text even though he evidently wasn't very fluent in Welsh.
Seriously; in his book, he refers to the Welsh name Pendragon (which translates literally as "head dragon") as meaning "head of a dragon", but "Pen" does not mean a literal head; it means "head" as in "chief".
Hey, there is a super complicated board game called Pendragon: Fall of Roman Britain. You need to check it out.
Oh, look at his name again: "Geoffrey" of Monmouth isn't exactly a good Anglo-Saxon name there. He was _Norman._ So a descendant of the _Norman_ invaders of England, who already had a great deal of disdain for the Anglo-Saxon populace, writing about Welsh mythology. So disdain-squared.
@@John_Weiss I am aware, but thanks. I know all this because I took a course on Arthurian literature as an elective at university, and we discussed Geoffrey of Monmouth in the first part of the course. He very much wrote _The History of the Kings of Britain_ to give the Norman rule of Britain justification.
@@matthewmuir8884 I didn't know that last part! Thanks.
[And sorry about stating what was obvious to you. It wasn't clear. I just wanted to point out just how _severe_ the disdain would've been.]
@@John_Weiss You're welcome. No apology necessary; I completely understand.
One thing worth noting is how the death of Arthur is written: in Welsh versions of Arthur's death, it's always stated that he was taken to Avalon to be healed and he will return one day in Britain's hour of need (this enabled Welsh armies to use Arthur as a symbol of resistance against England). English versions, by contrast, still mention Avalon, but they insist that Arthur died and is never returning (this not only was meant to kill any hope of Arthur returning, but also to allow English kings to insist that, metaphorically, they are King Arthur and that they are the rightful rulers of Britain by right of conquest).
In _History of the Kings of Britain,_ Geoffrey insists that Arthur is dead and will never return. He also is weirdly insistent that "right of conquest" is a valid reason for being the rightful ruler despite Arthur being rightful ruler due to being the son of Uther Pendragon.
The most fascinating thing about this trojan hero backstory is, that the idea of "Trojans leaving the city after its fall, crossing the sea and founding a new country" is not the Illiad or the Odyssey - that's the Aeneid.
Snorri needed a framing device and decided on the roman founding myth of all things, effectively equating Iceland with Rome. The man really knew no restraint.
To be fair, it's harder to find a culture in Western Europe that HASN'T had at least one author try the "We're secretly Trojans" schtick. The French did it back when they were the Franks, the English did it for London, etc.
@@RukdugSo they took pride on the fact their ancestors were defeated by the achaeans? Or just wanted to link themselves to a famous book?
@@JulianLopez-rt6kp It was more a way to claim being cousins of the Romans. There was also a lot of "Aside from Paris, the Trojans did nothing wrong!" feelings for a long time in Europe thanks to what few sources remaining being Roman and thus very pro-Trojan, which basically lay the cause of Troy's defeat and destruction squarely on the feet of Divine Intervention and some weird conspiracy by the gods to fix human overpopulation. Cause the Greek Gods apparently couldn't be bothered to ask their Sumerian cousins how you actually do it: with a big ass flood.
@@JulianLopez-rt6kp Yes.
@@JulianLopez-rt6kpWell the Greeks had dibs on being descendants of the Achaeans, so they had to make do with what they got
It is important to remember that people who were extremely important in the history and culture were often also involved in politics. Take, for example, Sen no Rikyū, a Japanese master of the tea ceremony who served during Oda Nobunaga's and Hideyoshi Toyotomi's time who was foundational for much of the culture surrounding the tea ceremony, and was also such a political powerhouse that despite being of common birth was one of the most powerful men in Japan.
B4 this vid I really thought Snorri was a just a bookworm. Akin to Shakespeare starting the War of the Roses is hilarious
I'm waiting for a video on Aspasia, wife the leader of Athens during Athens does an empire arch Pericles. She was such a badass, men in the very patriarchal ancient Greece showed her immense respect. Socrates even called her the first true philosopher king.
3:13 I wish I could use "so nyeh" in my uni homeworks and call it a day 😂 It would be so useful !
*3:09
Go into math. That's what QED means.
Hell yeah! One of my classes is looking at the Poetic Edda this week. So I’m glad to learn more about Snorri.
Don't forget to look at Red's previous complaints about the Eddas, and look forward to her video later this week!
@@thegurw1994I’m fairly familiar, but thank you nonetheless. It would be good to review them.
You get to roll into that class with "This man was a menace to Icelandic society, but the literary world is grateful to him anyway" in mind!
2:06 "My brothers, we must struggle together!" "We are! Oof!"
I shall endeavor to use "Loki-brained" and "swagony" in conversation.
Blue, I’m doing a brief six-month study abroad to Iceland, so your timing is CRAZY! But I’m gonna be interviewing several people including professors of Norse Religion and members of the Ásatrúarfélagið! Thanks for the insight into the culture, and the guy who told so many of the stories that are relevant to my religion!
have fun! You interviewing Armann and Terry?
@@Ludohistory Terry Gunnell? Yes, he’s one of the interviews I have set up! I didn’t reach out to Armann though. I’m an introvert by nature and still in undergrad, so I was only able to muster up the courage to reach out to one professional. That being said, I’m also working on locking down a few more, interviews with people who have done their MA/PhD on the Felagið, but no responses yet, unfortunately.
Hail to the gods, friend!
@@ladygrey7425Skál! Glad to find a fellow Heathen!
I designed a dwarf warlock for tabletop based on this guy, glad to hear his historic backstory is just as crazy.
I’m literally in a history of Norse mythology through media class rn and god we rant about snorri in that class constantly, this came at an oddly great time for me lol since finals are in a few weeks (also don’t quote me on this, but we have an international student from Iceland in that class and he’s informed us that it’s actually pronounced snorr-uh not snorr-e, but I’m not from Iceland myself so if what he said is wrong don’t come for me lol)
One note, despite Snorri having been largely responsible for Iceland's biggest period of violence, he was pretty much a non-combatant himself. His death allegedly had him beg for mercy, according to his killers, which may not have been a reliable source, but it seems likely that he wasn't fully capable of fighting back.
His final words were allegedly 'Eigi skal höggva!' which roughly translates to 'Do not chop!'. And he was 62 at the time of his death so I doubt he would have been in much condition to fight
@@merchantmaker1771 Him having last words that roughly translate to "AAAH! NO STABBY!" is simultaneously hilarious and ridiculously sad.
@@lyinar Some have made a point out of the peculiar ambiguity of the phrase, which could be interpreted as an appeal for an end to the barbarities, rather than a plea for his own life.
@@ErikHolten Honestly, "NO STABBY!" memes just as well for that interpretation, too. Exasperated pleading over the general stabbiness he caused, instead of terrified pleading about the impending personal-scale stabbiness.
"Iceland's agony is our swaggony" is a terrible line, made me crack up
Great take, Blue! "Essentially, we have to, but actually, we kind of can."
As someone built to stay up late and who finds memorising and repeating spoken information really easy I'm honestly kinda mad that "local storyteller" isn't a viable career path anymore. My (extremely distant) Viking ancestors call to me 😂😂😂
Bro your presentation manages to be dense while not overwhelming, concise while respectful, and entertaining while not being lame. You actually keep getting better, and I think that's great.
Hi, I'm Icelandic. Snorri was a real bad boy. Outside of the Sturlungaöld, our great historical battles usually had fighters in the double digits, total. But what really got me was "Iceland's agony is our swagony". Thanks for the video!
veterans from the Trojan conflict being gods sounds like a good fantasy series of books in the making
You should read the Aeneid
Snorris life is like the teletubby running away from explosions meme
Old Norse stories are like a game of telephone
It honestly seems semi-inevitable in storytelling as a whole, but it is especially endemic in oral traditions and even more so with oral tradition communities colonized/missionized from without
Another Friday, another OSP video
Thanks, Blue!
I’m not Nordic but it eats me up inside that we only have a fraction of a fraction of these wonderful peoples’ history left 💔
I'm not Nordic, but I AM obsessed with history and folklore, and the fact we comparatively have so little knowledge and stories from the past pains me to no end.
I love the blend of mythology with History and how it affected the relationships in its regions
Your agony is my swaggony… just perfect
Historians: Help us Snorri you're our only hop-OH, oh no. Not more politics, please, Snorri, you promised.
If you guys ever go the Icelandic route again. Please do Egil’s Saga: it’s a helluva ride. Berserker poet and two fisted drinker with a body count at age three.
Also, might have been written by Snorri!
@@ErikHolten Which makes me wonder if it’s not autobiographical. Because Egil Skallagrimson is a Loki tier madlad throughout the book. He gets kidnapped, escapes then realizes a la Odysseus that his captor should know who outsmarted him. Then proceeds to burn the guy’s house down.
Then he writes one of the most searing and powerful poetic explorations of grief following the death of a child, more gutting than anything he did in battle. Gods I love that saga.
A great video though I am surprised you didn't mention the other major historical text Snorri wrote- the Heimskringla, a chronicle of the Norwegian Kings from mythical times to his approximate present day written to also help weasel his way into the Norwegian court. I find it interesting because it somewhat follows a trend of epic historical texts from the period, namely Fedrowsi's Shahnameh and Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Brittaniae where we follow the story from a mythical ancient past through a highly dubious and mythologized history of great heroes of dubious historicity (Harald Finehair, Rustam, King Arthur) and end in a more historically grounded period (Magnus V, the fall of the Sassanid Empire, the flight of Cadwaldr ).
The Japanese imperial family allegedly tracing their lineage back all the way to Izanagi and Izanami would also fall into this pattern of connecting a mythical past to more grounded historical figures.
Tho I don't know, if you got a single influential work of literature in that case.
@@LarsisLP Yes! The Kojiki and the Nihon-ji! Two Nara period historical records that also are the source of a lot of the stories about Izanagi, Izanami, Amaterasu, and Susano-o and the foundation of the Imperial Lineage.
@@samminden1058 Thank you very much for that information!
This is probably a controversial take, but I think the Tanakh also would fit that pattern, beginning with the mythical past of the Age of the Patriarchs and Moses, going through the ambiguous historicity of the likes of David and Solomon, and ending in the pretty well-documented history from roughly the House of Jehu onward.
Having only known Snorri for writing the Prose Edda, hearing his wacky political shenanigans is so funny. Sometimes a writer's life is as interesting as the things they write about.
I did not know Iceland had gotten up to that kind of shenanigans. Thanks for this, Blue!
Norseman: Let's take our existing writing system and write some tales down.
Other Norseman: Nah we are going to raid an English monastery, are you coming?
Norseman: Sure sounds fun.
I'm writing essay on the impact of rewriting this is really good research/context thank u blue!
In the future I was thinking of going into Scandinavian Mythology and this gave me a great example of the frustrations and headaches I will face
"Iceland's agony is our swagony" is going to be one of those things that gets regularly yeeted around in my brain now thanks
Edit: 10:09
If you go to the saga museum in Iceland, they have a great small exhibit about him.
Blue: I think I will make a video about Snorri Sturluson.
A thousand miles away Red wakes up in a cold sweat.
I just found my dad watching this video while holding a bit of merch. Yesterday he told me that he wants me to stop watching this and stop begging for merch. Today is my birthday and he gave me the merch!! ❤❤❤
Finally, we get some lore on the man who makes studying Norse lore an absolute pain.
been waiting for the snorri vid for YEARS. Thank you blue👍👍
I cannot remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did at "Iceland's agony is our swagony, because the man wrote a mean book of myths" XD
I was laughing all the way through this. Based and Loki-pilled.
If you want a more in-depth look at the sheer madness of Snorri's life, consider reading Saga Land by Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason, part biography of Iceland, part adventures of the authors, and part "damn these stories are cool".
Kari was my tutor at uni and I can confirm he is Snorripilled
Nice to see History Makers again 😊
I was just watching the earlier history makers video while this came out ,nice
Thanks for the amazing content
Until this day I never heard of Snorri Sturluson but he's already my favourite Icelander and I love this tornado of myschief.
"...But Iceland's agony is our swagony..." -Blue
This video was fascinating because it gave me a glimpse into the history and culture of Norse mythology, and how it was preserved by the Icelanders. I learned a lot from this video about the Poetic and Prose Eddas, and how they were written by different authors with different motives and perspectives. The video also explained how Snorri Sturluson, the poet and politician who wrote the Prose Edda, was a total madman who caused a lot of trouble in Iceland and Norway.
Did you know that Snorri also wrote a saga about the kings of Norway, called Heimskringla? It is a collection of stories that trace the lineage of the Norwegian monarchs back to the legendary king Harald Fairhair, who unified Norway in the 9th century. Snorri used his poetic skills and historical knowledge to create a vivid and dramatic narrative of the lives and deeds of the kings. However, he also mixed in some myths and legends, such as the claim that the kings were descended from Odin himself. This was probably another way for Snorri to appeal to the Norwegian royalty and to connect them with the ancient Norse gods.
Another interesting thing to note is that Heimskringla is one of the sources that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien to create his own mythology and fantasy world in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was fascinated by the Norse sagas and poems, and borrowed many names, places, and concepts from them. For example, the name Gandalf comes from a dwarf in the Poetic Edda, and the ring of power is similar to the cursed ring of Andvari in the Volsunga Saga. Tolkien also admired Snorri’s style of storytelling, and used some of his techniques to create his own epic saga.
Ive been waiting for this day. I KNEW eventually there would be a Snorri vid
You finally talked about Snorri, about time boiiiii
It's been years since we went over it but I don't recall Snorri being characterized quite so negatively learning about him in school. And as I recall his killing was not very popular in Iceland or Norway.
I love the description "Loki brained"
Thank you Blue for another wonderful video! Bravo!
Fascinating. Thanks for sharing!
Blue, Blink twice if Red forced you to do this.
Sturlsson had quite the family feud
After seeing Red's episodes on Norse mythology I did not expect Blue's voice here lol
Oh this makes me SO SO happy.
I took a course in Norse Myth, and I still own my copies of both Eddas. SO GOOD.
Love the context you add here, and how you're actually very even handed about ol' Snorri the Ridiculous. Well done!!
(and y'all, if you don't read ANY OTHER bit of the Eddas, go read Voluspa!)
I'm so happy to finally get context on the guy Reds been complaining about!
Let's go!!!!!!! I've been waiting for this one!
Great video keep it up you're doing amazing things 😁💯
The best thing about getting into the higher heaven than the conventional heaven that supposedly exists today is that no one allegedly Snorri-s there.
I've always looked at it this way: when you know the bias, you can correct for it. Sturluson, as both Red and Blue noted, was a political hack, and the Christianizing myths is also nothing new. So like the background noise coming into noise cancelling headphones, we can get through the bias and try to see what was there...
And yes, Red's Loki video is one of my favorites.
Also yes, I DO have the "Unorthodox Display of Hubris" shirt.
Oh ho ho. I've been waiting for this one. Thanks Blue!
Thanks for the great work that you do! I love me some Nordic story, it scratches the itch of great history!
Snorri Sturluson: "I may be the single most disastrous politician in all of Iceland with a ludicrously sketchy personal life, but if there is a single thing I even vaguely TRY to be ethical about, it's my prose and poetry, and I will suffer no slander on the subject."
"Iceland's agony is our swagony" is not a phrase I expected going into this, or really, ever.
So THAT'S where Snorri in Warhammer Fantasy comes from!!! ❤
When Historians have access to time travel...
(While observing from afar) "Write that down! WRITE THAT DOWN!"
We need a tee shirt with both "Pagan Party Boat" and what Red's interpretation of that phrase!
Are you telling me… that we get a video on Snorri Sturluson on one friday, and then on the next we get norse mythology? This just made my month
Not a single bad day has ever begun with Blue pouring the delicious knowledge juice in my ears.
Blue: makes the connection between public servants and poets and describes the importance of good oratory skills for both
Me, who used to do forensics: My time has come lol