This is page 114 of An Icelandic-English Dictionary by Cleasby/Vigfusson (1874)

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114 E -- EDDA.

i s, and em, are; em, lam; þessi, thi s; þetta, that; sex, s i x: sek, mek,

þek, sometimes instead of sik, mik, þik: nouns, elgr, an elk; sef, s ib;

brekka, brink; veðr, weather; nevi, a kinsman (Lat. nepos); nevi, a

neave, fist; segl, a sail (cp. segla); vetr, a wight; selr, a se a l; net, a

net; nes, a ne ss; el, a gale; messa, a mass (Lat. missa); hestr, a horse;

prtstr, a priest; þegn (O. H. L. 47); vegr, a way, honour; sel and setr,

shielings; verold, the world; vesold, misery: verbs, gera, to ' gar, ' to do;

drepa, to kill; bera, to bear; bresta, to burst; gefa, to give; geta, to get;

meta, to measure; kveða, to say; drekka, to drink; stela, to steal; vera,

to be; mega, must; nema, to take; eta, to e a t; vega, to weigh; reka, t o

drive; skera, to cut: participles and supines from þiggja, liggja, biðja,

sitja, þegit, legit, beðit, setið: preterites as, hengu, gengu, fengu (Germ.

gingen, fingen); greru, reru, srxeru (from gróa, róa, snúa): e if sounded

as é, e. g. hot, blés, let, réttr, léttr; even in the words, her, here; mér,

scr, þér, mihi, sibi, tibi; neðan (niðr), hegat ( -- hue); héðan, hence:

adjectives, mestr, flestr, þrennr, etc.: inflexions, -legr, - ly; -lega, - ly; -neskja, -neskr (cp. Germ, - i sc h); in the articles or the verbal inflexions, -en, -et, -er, -esk, etc. The e is often used against the etymology, as

dreki, dragon; menu, men (from maðr). In some other Norse MSS. the

two sounds are marked, but so inaccurately that they are almost useless,

e. g. the chief MS. of the Bad. S.; but in other MSS. there is hardly an

attempt at distinction. The list above is mainly but not strictly in

accordance with the etymology, as phonetical peculiarities come in; yet

the etymology is the groundwork, modified by the final consonants:

both old spelling and modern pronunciation are of value in finding a

word's etymology, e. g. the spelling drsengr indicates that it comes from

drangr; hærað and haer, troops (but her, here), shew that hærað (hérað)

is to be derived from hærr (herr), exercitus, and not from her (her), etc.

The Icel. idiom soon lost the short e sound in radical syllables, and the

long e sound (like the Italian e) prevailed throughout; there was then

no more need for two signs, and e, prevailed, without regard to ety-

mology. Some few MSS., however, are curious for using æ almost

throughout in radical syllables, and thus distinguish between the e in

roots and the e in inflexions (vide B below); as an example see the Arna-

Magn. no. 748, containing an abridgement of the Edda and Skálda and

poems published in the edition of 1852, vol. ii. pp. 397-494; cp. also

Vegtamskviða, published by Mubius in Sæm. Edda, pp. 255, 256, from

the same MS.; this MS. uses æ in radical syllables, but e or i in inflexions.

It is clear that when this MS. was written (at the latter part of the i^th

century) the Icel. pronunciation was already the same as at present. In

some other MSS. e and ce, and e and g now and then appear mixed up,

till at last the thing was settled in accordance with the living tongue, so

that the spelling and sound went on together, and CE (or g) was only used

to mark the diphthong; vide introduction to Æ.

B. SPELLING of e and i in inflexions. -- The Germans, Swedes, Danes,

English, and Dutch all express the i sound in inflexional syllables by e,

not i, as in Engl. y a í her, mother, brother, taken, bidden, hidden, heaven,

kettle; or in Germ., e. g. hatte, möchte, sollte, lange, bruder, mutter,

soltesf, himmel, etc.: in the earliest times of Icel. literature also it is

almost certain that e was used throughout: Ari probably signed his name

Are (en ek heitcr Are, tb. fine): Thorodd, too, seems to have followed

the same rule, as we may infer from several things in his treatise, e. g.

the words framer and frá mér, which would be unintelligible unless we

suppose him to have written framer, not framir: even the name of

Snorri is twice spelt Snorre in the Reykholts-máldagi, probably written

by one of his clerks. Some old vellum fragments may be found with

the e only; but even in the oldest extant, i is used now and then. The

reason is clear, viz. that the Icel. never admits the long e in inflexive

syllables, and in roots it never admits the short e, consequently the

same sign would not do both for roots and inflexions; hende, velle,

gefe have each two vowel sounds; therefore the short i was admitted

in inflexions; yet in most MSS. both e and i are used indiscriminately,

a. g. faðir and faðer, tími and time, manni and manne, kominn and

komenn, komið and komet, hihidin and hundcn, fjallit and fjallet; even

those that use i admit e if following ð or d, é. g. viðe, bæðe, liðe,

lande, but fjalli, vatni. As the spelling was partly influenced from abroad,

the e even gained ground, and at the time of the Reformation, when

printing became common, it was rcassmned throughout, and remained so

for nearly 230 years, when (about A. D. 1770-1/80) i was reinstated and

e expelled in all inflexions, as being inconsistent with the spelling and

ambiguous; but the sound has undoubtedly remained unchanged from

the time of Ari up to the present time: the English father, mother,

German vater, mutter, and lcd. fadir are, as to the inflexion, sounded

exactly alike.

C. INTERCHANGE of e and i. -- The adjectival syllable -ligr, -liga, is in

MSS. spelt either -ligr or -legr; in modern pronunciation and spelling

always -legr, -lega (Engl. -ly). |3. in a few root words e has taken the

place of i, as in verðr, qs. virðr (food); brenna, qs. brinna; þremr and

þrimr; tvenna and tvinna; ef, efa, efi, = if, ifa, ifi; einbirni and einberni

(horn): e has taken the place of a in such words as hnetr (nuts) from

hnot, older form hnøtr: so also in eðli and öðli; efri efstr from öfri öfstr: e and the derived ja make different words, as berg and bjarg, fell and

fjall, bergr and bjargar, etc.

D. DIPHTHONGS: I. ei answers to Goth, ai, A. S. â, Germ.

ei, Engl. a (oa or the like); in Danish frequently expressed by ee; in

Swedish and Northern English the diphthong is turned into a plain e and a,

which, however, represent the same sound: Goth, stains, A. S. stan, Swed.

sten, North. E. s to ne. The o sound is English-Saxon; the a sound English-

Scandinavian; thus the forms, home, bone, oak, oath, broad, one, own, more,

none, no, may be called English-Saxon, from A. S. ham, ban, etc.; the

North. E. and Scottish harne, bane, aik, ai/h, braid, ain, mair, /tain, may

be called English-Scandinavian: cp. Swed. hem, ben, ek, ed. bred, en; Icel.

heimr, bein, eik, eidr, breidr, einn, meir, neinn, nei; cp. also Icel. bleikr,

Swed. blek, North. E. blake, etc. The Runic stones mark the ei with a + i

or i simply, e. g. sti w or s tain. Old Norse and Icel. MSS. frequently for

ei give Æ i. II. ey is in modern usage sounded as ei, and only

distinguished in writing; in old times a distinction was made in sound

between ei and ey. Norse MSS. almost always spell 'ôy, and in Norway

it is to the present time sounded accordingly, e. g. iiyra, -- Icel. eyra,

sounded nearly as in English toil: the ey is properly a vowel change of

au: ey frequently answers to an English e (ea) sound, as heyra, to hear;

eyra, e ar; dreyma, to dream; leysa, to lease. In very old MSS., e. g.

Ib. (ai in the Ed. is a wrong reading from aj in the MS.), au and ey are

even spelt alike (aj or a;^), though sounded differently. In some MSS.

ey is also used where it is not etymological, viz. instead of ø or o, in such

words as hreyqva, seyqva, stcyqva, deyqvan, greyri, geyra, seyni, etc., =

hrökva, sökva, ... greri or grori, syni, e. g. the Cod. Reg. of S;em. Edda,

the Rafns S. Bs. i. 639

E. é is sounded almost as English y e (or y a); it is produced, 1.

by an absorption of consonants, in words as réttr, léttr, þéttr, sétti, flétta,

n'-tta, cp. Germ, recht, Engl. right; Germ. Icicht, Engl. light: or in fo,

kno, tré, hit:, sc (Icel. fe = Engl. / ee, Goth. / aih w, Lat. pe cws), etc. 2.

by a lost reduplication in the preterites, fell, grot, réð, h-t, blús, hot, gékk,

hékk, Ick, fékk, from falla, grata, etc.; in some old MSS. this é is

replaced by ie, e. g. in the Hulda Arna-Magn. no. 66 fol. we read fiell,

liet, hiet, griet, gieck, liek, cp. mod. Geim. fíel. hiess, Hess, etc.; perhaps in

these cases e was sounded a little differently, almost as a bisyllable. 3.

in such words as the pronouns vt'-r, þér or ér (you), niér, sér, þér (tibi):

the particles her (here), héðan (hence), hérað, vi'-l, el. 4. t' is also

sounded after g and k, and often spelt ie in MSS., gieta, giefa, kier, kierti;

this sound is, however, better attributed to g and k being aspirate. In

Thorodd and the earliest MSS. é is marked with ' just like the other long

or diphthongal vowels; but the accent was subsequently removed, and e

and é are undistinguished in most MSS.: again, in the 15th century

transcribers began to write ie or ee (mier or meer). In printed books up

to about 1770 the ie- prevailed, then e, and lastly (about 1786) (; (cp. the

5th and 6th vols. of Eél.): ë is an innovation of Rask, and is used by

many, but máttr, dráttr, and rettr, sléttr, etc. are etymologically iden-

tical, though the sound of K is somewhat peculiar: the spelling~/e is also

a novelty, and being etymologically wrong (except in 2 above) is not to

be recommended.

Ebreskr, adj. Hebrew, Skálda 161, 167, Stj. 26. Ebreska, f. the

Hebrew tongue, Ver. 11, Ann. (H.) 14.

eð, a particle, vide er.

eðal-, noble, in compds, borrowed from Germ, and rare.

EDDA, u, f. a great-grandmother, Rm. 2. 4; móðir (mother) heitir ok

amma (grandmother), þriðja edda (the third is edda), Edda 108: this

sense is obsolete. II. metaph. the name of the book Edda, written

by Snorri Sturluson, and containing old mythological lore and the old

artificial rules for verse making. The ancients only applied this name

to the work of Snorri; it is uncertain whether he himself called it so;

it occurs for the first time in the inscription to one of the MSS. of Edda,

vi/, . the Ub., written about fifty or sixty years after Snorri's death: Bók

þessi heitir Edda, hann hefir saman setta Snorri Sturlusonr eptir þeim

hætti sem her er skipat (vi'/, . consisting of three parts, Gylfagynning,

Skáldskaparmál, and Háttatal), Edda ii. 250 (Ed. Arna-Magn.); sva segir

i bók þeirri er Edda heitir, at sá maðr sem Ægir hot spurði Braga ... .

532 (MS. of the 14111 century); hann (viz. Snorri) samansetti Eddu, he

put together the Edda, Ann. 1241 (in a paper MS., but probably genuine).

As the Skáldskaparmál (Ars Poe'tica) forms the chief part of the Edda,

teaching the old artificial poetical circumlocutions (kenningar), poetical

terms and diction, and the mythical tales on which they were founded,

the Edda became a sort of handbook of poets, and therefore' came

gradually to mean the ancient artificial poetry as opposed to the modern

plain poetry contained in hymns and sacred poems; it, however, never

applies to alliteration or other principles of Icel. poetry: reglur Edda, the

rules of Edda, Gd. (by Arngrim) verse 2, Lil. 96, Nikulas d. 4; Eddu

list, the art of Edda, (id. (by Arni) 79; -- all poems of the 141)1 century.

The poets of the 15th century frequently mention the Edda in the intro-

duction to their Rimur or Rhapsodies, a favourite kind of poetry of this

and the following time, Reinalds R. i. I, Áns R. 7. 2, Sturlaugs R.,

Sigurðar þögla R. 5. 4, Rimur af 111 Verra og Vest, 4, 3, Jarlmanns R.