Identifying and Dating Norse-Derived Terms in Medieval English: Approaches and Problems

Pons‐Sanz, Sara M.

doi:10.1075/nss.27.11pon

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Nevertheless, this suggestion introduces a serious interpretative issue: discussion of cnear has tended to assume that Anlaf fled in the same vessel as he arrived in, and that the Norsemen did likewise. Niles himself posited that the cnear in the poem was "the royal vessel of Anlaf"; Pons-Sanz observes that "[t]he Old English occurrences certainly seem to indicate that this was a type of ship appropriate for an invading army"; 56 and Jesch writes, "[a]lthough the battle took place on land, the function of these ships was to transport the Norse warriors to the battle, so that at the very least, knǫrr could be used of a troop-carrier, if not an actual warship". 57 What these scholars (and many more, including Greenway translating Henry of Huntingdon's rex naui prouectus as "the king sailed back in his ship", 58 quoted above) fail to reckon with, is that the cnear, in both instances in the poem, was the type of ship in which the Norsemen escaped, not necessarily the type of ship in which they arrived; the cnear ship or ships were not necessarily "his ship" or "their ships", and indeed no possessive pronoun is used in the sources for these ships.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ships andBrunanburh

Cavill

2017

English Studies

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Work on ships in the Old English poem The Battle of Brunanburh has principally focused on the word cnear as a lexical item or as having some particular form or appearance. This article draws on this work with a view to elucidating what the poem tells us was happening in the aftermath of the battle of 937. It discusses the significance of the term cnear in relation to the manuscripts, its intelligibility and meaning, before analysing in detail the contexts in which it appears. A reconsideration of syntax and the semantics of on flot, gives rise to a modified interpretation of lines 32b-36. It is suggested, finally, that cnear and the passages in which it occurs might carry overtones of mockery at the expense of the escaping Norsemen.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%