[1] þegnar ‘freemen’: Pl. of þegn m. ‘thane, freeman’ (see Goetting 2006). In Rþ 24/4, Þegn is one of the sons of Karl. Cf. also the formulaic legal phrase þegn ok þræll ‘freeman and bondman’, i.e. ‘all men’. According to Skm (SnE 1998, I, 106), þegn is a term for ‘landowner’: Þegnar ok hǫlðar, svá eru búendr kallaðir ‘Þegnar and hǫlðar, this is what landowners are called’ (cf. Faulkes 1987, 151). As a legal term the word also means ‘liegeman, subject’, but in poetry it is most often used in the more general sense ‘warrior, man’. See also OE þegn, OHG thegan ‘follower, retainer, warrior’ and OS thegan ‘follower, child, boy’ (AEW: þegn).
References
- Bibliography
- AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
- Faulkes, Anthony, trans. 1987. Snorri Sturluson. Edda. Everyman’s Library. London and Rutland, Vermont: J. M. Dent & Sons and Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc. Rpt. with new chronology and synopsis 2005.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Goetting, Lauren. 2006. ‘Þegn and drengr in the Viking Age’. SS 78, 375-404.
- Internal references
- (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=112> (accessed 29 March 2024)
- Not published: do not cite ()