Saga

Saga’s given name is Skadi. It’s an Old Norse name for the goddess of winter. Skadi was, in Norse mythology, the goddess of mountains, skiing, and bowhunting. Saga treats the name as an honoring of the broad northern-Germanic mythic tradition. She doesn’t claim to worship any specific deity. Saga is the academy’s teacher for the English words that came from Old Norse. These words entered English during the Viking-Age contact period.

This vocabulary is, in fact, enormous. Many English speakers don't realize how many everyday words come from Old Norse, not Old English. Words like sky, take, gift, give, raise, weak, scant, knife, husband, window, egg, leg, root, skin, skirt, sister are all Norse. The Norse contribution to English was deep. It changed not only vocabulary but also some of the grammar. Old Norse gave English the they/them/their pronoun set. The Old English pronoun set had been confusingly similar to the he/him/his set. The Norse alternative was clearer, and English adopted it.

Saga is quietly proud of this.

She grew up in the kingdom's far northwest, in a village called Skogr. That's an Old Norse-derived name meaning forest. Norse settlers founded the village a thousand years ago. They eventually intermarried with the local population. By Saga's time, the village spoke the kingdom's common tongue every day. Still, many of the village's older words and place-names kept their Norse character. Skogr's neighboring fells, or hills, were called Helvellfell, Skiddaw, and Causey Pike. All of them were Norse-rooted names. The village had a beck (the Norse word for stream), a gill (the Norse word for ravine), and a tarn (the Norse word for mountain lake). Saga grew up speaking a northern-dialect English, full of these Norse survivals.

Like Birch, to whom she is closely allied, Saga noticed something by adolescence. Her local vocabulary felt more Norse than the southern dialect. But unlike Birch, who came to love Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, Saga came to Old Norse. Old English and Old Norse were like sister languages, both from the same Germanic family tree. The Norse contribution to English was substantial, but it layered differently than the underlying Anglo-Saxon vocabulary.

By the age of twelve, Saga could trace dozens of common English words back to their Old Norse origin.

She learned by telling stories. This was a tradition she had inherited from her grandmother, Halla. Halla had been the village's informal saga-teller. She knew dozens of short stories. Each one showed how a Norse word had entered English. Every story was about a Viking-Age sailor, merchant, or settler. They brought a word from their northern home and used it in the new country. Eventually, the locals adopted it. Halla's stories weren't always exact history. They were more like vivid tales, designed to make the words come alive. Saga learned dozens of words this way.

When Saga was eighteen, she walked the long road south to QuillSpell. She arrived at the Longhouse, which had been waiting for a teacher for four years. Saga asked to be interviewed by the academy master.

Lex said, "What is the etymology of sky?"

Saga answered, "Old Norse ský, meaning cloud. The Old English word for sky had been heofon — what we now call heaven. The Norse word ský came in through Viking-Age contact. It replaced heofon for everyday usage. Heofon survived as heaven, for the religious sense. Sky became the secular word."

Lex said, "What is the etymology of they?"

Saga replied, "Old Norse þeir. This is one of the deepest grammatical contributions Norse made to English. The Old English third-person plural pronouns — hīe, hira, him — had become confusingly similar to other pronoun-forms. The Norse plural pronouns þeir, þeirra, þeim were clearer. Middle English adopted them. They became they, their, them. Without Norse, English would have a much more confusing pronoun system."

Lex set down her tea. She said, "Take the Longhouse. Take your academic name. Saga. It honors what your grandmother gave you."

Saga has been the Longhouse's teacher for nineteen years.

In her classroom, she begins every first-day lesson the same way. She sits at the long table by the central hearth. She lights a small candle. "Tonight," she says, "well, today, but the tradition was tonight, I will tell you a saga. The saga is about how a Norse word came into English."