brunaöld

f. the burning age, the (heathen) time when the dead were burnt (opp. to haugsöld).

Eg. 94.; Snorri (Hkr.) constantly uses the pl. form, but bautaðarsteinn, Fagrsk. 19, and bautarsteinn, Hm. 72; m. the stone monuments of the olden age, esp. in Sweden and Denmark; the Hávamál l. c. (sjaldan bautarsteinar standa brautu nær, nema reisi niðr at nið) tells us that these stones used to be placed along the high roads, like the sepulchral monuments of old Rome; cp. the standing phrase on the Swedish-Runic stones—hér skal standa steinn ‘nær brautu;’ or, má eigi ‘brautar-kuml’ ( a road monument) betra verða; the high roads of old Sweden seem to have been lined with these monumental stones; even at the present time, after the destruction of many centuries, the Swedish-Runic stones (of the nth and 12th centuries) are counted by thousands. A great collection was made and drawings executed during the 17th century (Buræus, etc.), but only published A. D. 1750, under the name of Bautil. The etymology of this word is much contested; some render it by ‘stones of the slain’ (bauta, to slay), but this is contradicted by the passage in Hm. l. c. and by the inscriptions themselves. The bauta stones were simply monuments erected by the piety of kindred and friends without any respect to sex or manner of death, either in war, on sea, or through sickness; some were even erected to the memory of living persons. They were usually tombstones; but many of them are memorial stones for men that died in foreign lands, Greece, Russia, the British Islands, etc. Neither is Snorri right in saying (Hkr. pref.) that the bautasteinar belonged to the old burning age (brunaöld), and were replaced by the cairns (haugar) in the subsequent cairn age (haugaöld)—þá skyldi brenna alla dauða menn ok reisa eptir bautasteina, en síðan er Freyr hafði heygðr verit at Uppsölum þá görðu margir höfðingjar eigi síðr hauga en bautasteina. Svíar tóku lík hans ok var hann brendr við á þá er Skúta heitir, þar vóru settir bautasteinar hans, Hkr. Yngl. ch. 17—the passage in Hávamál and the monuments refute this statement. The great bulk of the Scandinavian bauta stones seem to be of the nth and even 12th century. In Icel. no stones of that time are on record: var hann þá her heygðr skamt frá bsenum, ok settir upp bautasteinar, þeir er enn standa her, Hkr. i. 269; hávir bautasteinar standa hjá haugi Egils ullserks, 153,—where Fagrsk. reads, í þau skip var lagðr í valrinn, ok orpnir þar haugar utan at; þar stendr ok bautaðarsteinn (= bautarsteinn in Hm.?) hár sem Egill féll, p. 19;—en eptir alla þá menn er nokkut mannsmót var at, skyldi reisa bautasteina, ok hélzt sa siðr lengi síðan, Hkr. Yngl. ch. 8. It is worth remarking that the word ‘bautasteinn’ never occurs out of Icel. literature, and there only in the above passages, viz. once in the old Hm., once in the Fagrsk., four times in the Hkr., whence it has passed over to modern writers. The word is most probably only a corruption from brautarsteinar, lapides viae, (by dropping the r); cp. the analogous Swedish word, brautarkuml, monumentum viae, which occurs in the inscriptions themselves.

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m. burning heat, fire; fig., burning passion (bruni öfundar, lostagirndar, heilagrar trúar).

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a, m. [cp. Ulf. brunsts; Engl. to burn, burning]

1. burning, heat; sólar-bruni, Hkr. i. 5; þá er húsit tók at falla ofan af bruna ( from the fire), Orkn. 458; reykr eðr b., Nj. 201, Sks. 197.

β. a barren heath or burnt lava-field as a local name in the west of Icel.

2. metaph. a burning passion, mostly in bad sense; b. öfundar, of envy, Fms. ii. 140; losta b., of lust, K. Á. 104; but also trúar b., fire of faith (but rarely), Fms. v. 239: medic. caustic, 655 xi. 2.

COMPDS: brunabelti, brunadómr, brumaflekkr, brunahraun, brunavegr, brunaþefr, Brunaöld.

(-s, -ar), m.

1) mound;

2) sepulchral mound, cairn.

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m. [akin to hár, high; Dan. höj; Swed. hog; North. E. how]:—a how, mound; haugr eða hæð, Mar., Fms. ix. 382, Stj. 260; there was usually a how near the houses, from which the master could look over his estate, Þkv. 6, Skm. 11; hann gékk nú at bæ Þorleifs ok at haugi þeim er hann sat a., Fs. 98; Þorleifr var því vanr, sem mjök var fornmennis háttr, at sitja löngum úti á haugi einum ok eigi langt frá bænum, Fms. ii. 59; þar er h. nokkurr er hann er vanr at sitja, v. 160; hann sat á haugi sem konungar, Hkr. i. 136, Stjörn. Odd. ch. 5.

2. a dung-heap. midden; fjós-h., a byre-midden; ösku-h., an ash-heap; myki-h., a muck-heap; draga myki út ok færa í haug, K. Þ. K. 100, Al. 178.

II. a cairn, over one dead; the cairns belong to the burning age as well as to the later age, when the dead were placed in a ship and put in the how with a horse, hound, treasures, weapons, or the like, cp. Eg. 6, 7, 768. Hkr. (pref.), Landn. 62 (twice), 81, 82, 86, 125 (lagðr í skip), 169, Gísl. 23, 24, 31, 32, Ld. ch. 8, 24, Nj. ch. 79, Eb. ch. 9, 34, Hrafn. (fine), Hervar. 13 sqq. (1847), Fagrsk. ch. 4, 5, Hkr. (pref.), Hkr. i. 122 (Har. S. ch. 45), 152 (Hák. S. ch. 27), 160 (ch. 32), Har. Hárf. ch. 8, Skjöld. S. ch. 9: names of such cairns, Korna-haugr, Landn. 87; Hildis-h., 267; Hálfdanar-haugar, Hkr. i. 74; Tréfóts-h., Grett. 87; Melkorku-h., Mókolls-h., etc.: freq. in local names, Haugr, Haugar, Haugs-nes, Landn., Eb.; Hauga-þing, n. an assembly in Norway, Fms. viii. 245, ix. 109. There is an historical essay on Icel. cairns by old Jón Ólafsson in Arna-Magn. Additam. (autogr. MS. and interesting).

β. a kind of sacrificial mound, Edda 83 (Hölgi), Yngl. S. ch. 12, Ó. H. ch. 122; hauga né hörga, hlaða hauga ok kalla hörg, N. G. L. i. 430; blót-h., q. v.: for tales about the breaking open of cairns, wrestling with the ghosts, and carrying off their weapons and treasures, see Landn. 169, Harð. S. ch. 15, Grett. ch. 20, Sturl. i. 23, Bárð. ch. 20 new Ed.: the burying in cairns was typical of the heathen age, whence such law phrases as, frá heiðnum haugi, from heathen how, i. e. from time immemorial, D. N. passim, vide Fr.; telja langfeðr frá haugi, or til haugs ok heiðni, to count one’s forefathers up to hows and heathen times, Rétt. 48, D. N. iii. 122: in early Dan. laws unbaptized children were called höghæmen = how-men.

COMPDS: haugabrjótr, haugaeldr, haugaherr, haugaöld, brunaöld, haugsdyrr, haugsgólf, haugsgörð.

f. the age of cairn-burial, opp. to brunaöld, the age of burning the dead.