Búri
In Norse mythology, Búri (Old Norse: [ˈbuːre]) is a god and 'producer, father' of all other gods.[1] An early ancestor of the Æsir gods, the principal pantheon in Old Norse religion. Búri was licked free from salty rime stones by the primeval cow Auðumbla over the course of three days. Búri's background beyond this point is unattested and he had a son, Borr, by way of an unknown process. Búri is attested in the Prose Edda, composed in the 13th century by Icelander Snorri Sturluson. The Prose Edda includes a quote from a 12th-century poem by skald Þórvaldr Blönduskáld that mentions the figure. Búri's mysterious origins are the subject of scholarly commentary and interpretation.
Name[edit]
The name Búri, like the name of his son Burr, is derived from the Proto-Germanic *buriz "son, born".[2] Thus, both names basically mean the same thing.[3] In research, Buri's name is translated as "begotten, father" and Burr as "begotten, son"[4][5] - probably because of the generational sequence. However, how he fathered his son is not explained; either by himself or through sexual reproduction.[6]
Attestations[edit]
Búri receives mention twice in the Prose Edda—once in Gylfaginning and again in a skaldic poem quoted in Skáldskaparmál. The Gylfaginning section reads as follows:
She licked the ice-blocks, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came forth from the blocks in the evening a man's hair; the second day, a man's head; the third day the whole man was there. He is named Búri: he was fair of feature, great and mighty. He begat a son called Borr[.] | |
| —Brodeur's translation |
Búri is mentioned nowhere in the Poetic Edda and only once in the skaldic corpus. In Skáldskaparmál Snorri quotes the following verse by the 12th century skald Þórvaldr blönduskáld:
Nú hefk mart |
Now have I snatched |
| —Faulkes' translation |
Notes and citations[edit]
- ^ Simek (Simek 2007:47).
- ^ Urgermanisch *buri- wird unter anderem rekonstruiert aus gotisch baur ‚Geborener‘, altenglisch byre ‚Sohn, Jüngling‘ und altnordisch burr ‚Sohn‘, siehe Robert Nedoma: Altgermanische Anthroponyme. In: Dieter Geuenich, Wolfgang Haubrichs, Jörg Jarnut (Hrsg.): Ergänzungsband Nr. 32 zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde – Person und Name. 2. Auflage. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin − New York 2001, S. 111.
- ^ Wolfgang Meid: Die germanische Religion im Zeugnis der Sprache. In: Heinrich Beck, Detlev Ellmers, Kurt Schier (Hrsg.): Germanische Religionsgeschichte – Quellen und Quellenprobleme – Ergänzungsband Nr. 5 zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde. 2. Auflage. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin − New York 1999, ISBN 978-3-11-012872-7, S. 495. Online.
- ^ Jan de Vries: Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte – Bd. 2: Religion der Nordgermanen. Verlag Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin/Leipzig 1937, S. 395.
- ^ Rudolf Simek: Lexikon der germanischen Mythologie (= Kröners Taschenausgabe. Band 368). 3., völlig überarbeitete Auflage. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X, S. 64.
- ^ Rudolf Simek: Lexikon der germanischen Mythologie (= Kröners Taschenausgabe. Band 368). 3., völlig überarbeitete Auflage. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X, S. 64 entscheidet sich nicht für eine von beiden Möglichkeiten – John Lindow: Handbook of Norse Mythology. USA 2001, ISBN 1-57607-217-7, S. 90 sagt, die Forschung gehe mehrheitlich von sexueller Fortpflanzung aus, ohne dass er eine Begründung mitteilt.
- ^ "Normalized text of R". Archived from the original on 2008-01-05. Retrieved 2005-07-23.
- ^ "Finnur Jónsson's edition". Archived from the original on 2008-03-06. Retrieved 2005-07-23.
References[edit]
- Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989). Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
- Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist (transl.) (1916). The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation. Available online at Google Books.
- Eysteinn Björnsson (ed.) (2005). Snorra-Edda: Formáli & Gylfaginning : Textar fjögurra meginhandrita. https://web.archive.org/web/20080611212105/http://www.hi.is/~eybjorn/gg/
- Faulkes, Anthony (transl.) (1987). Edda. London: J. M. Dent. ISBN 0-460-87616-3.
- Finnur Jónsson (1931). Lexicon Poeticum. København: S. L. Møllers Bogtrykkeri.
- Finnur Jónsson (1912–15). Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. København: Den arnamagnæanske kommission. Edition of Þórvaldr's fragments available at https://web.archive.org/web/20080306035446/http://www.hi.is/~eybjorn/ugm/skindex/tblond.html.
- Lindow, John (2001). Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515382-0
- Simek, Rudolf (2007) translated by Angela Hall. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D.S. Brewer. ISBN 0-85991-513-1
External links[edit]
- MyNDIR (My Norse Digital Image Repository) Illustrations of Búri from manuscripts and early print books.