The Shadow of the Gods Glossary (Viking) Guide by John Gwynne

[@msellenandrea]

We still say "skål" for "cheers" in Scandinavia :)

[@thebrothersgwynne]

That's awesome to hear! Skål for telling us :)

[@jeremyfee]

Lend us your "spears" instead of "ears" was great! I'm entertained, though I'm not sure the cell phone is period-appropriate. LOL. Truth and courage!

[@Ktulured55]

Yeah, I loved that! Lol

[@thebrothersgwynne]

Have to give that one to Ed. Cracked me up when he said that! I should have embedded my phone into a shield to hide it hahah. Truth and Courage! Will

[@thebrothersgwynne]

Glad you did aha :) Will

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

Now you're talking my language! From the outfits to the pastoral background to the words, I love this video, gents -- thank you!

[@thebrothersgwynne]

We endeavour to have your sheer wealth of knowledge! We have another video already recorded, coming out in the coming weeks, talking through kit and gear in relation to characters in The Shadow of the Gods. Hope you enjoy! Will

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@@thebrothersgwynne I most certainly will enjoy the next one!

[@MsLaurenElizabeth22]

Starting The Shadow of the Gods today! So glad I watched this video first.

[@thebrothersgwynne]

Good luck on the journey! We hope you love it. Thank you for watching! Ed

[@moonbot7613]

Just picked up John Gwynne The Shadow and Hunger of The Gods so I thought I’d search on KZbin about it. I just figured you guys were big fans and not related lol. This video makes more sense now. Stoner from Colorado and a little high lol

[@kevinapplegate7356]

Thank you! I’m new to the Norse mythology and this video helped me understand so much!! Will be watching more of these

[@thebrothersgwynne]

So glad you found this helpful :)! Will

[@missarchaeologist]

Those kits are wicked! My wee black archaeologist heart went pitter-patter. And so did my Icelandic soul. Well done in explaining the infamous ð; one of three sounds which are foreigners' nightmares. Did you know, that in modern Icelandic ð is only found in the middle or end of words? None start with the letter. Thank you, Will and Ed for a wonderful video. Truth and courage!

[@thebrothersgwynne]

Thank you for the lovely comment! Any excuse to dress up😅 Are all archaeologist's hearts black?! I did not know that! Thank you! Truth and courage. Ed

[@_princeovpeace6512]

I just finished Hunger today, and I cannot believe your pops would leave us on such a gut wrenching cliff hanger! I mean, I can, but I’m not at all happy about it!

[@thebrothersgwynne]

We still aren't happy with him! Ed

[@user-rk3ij2ps8c]

Whoever voiced the audiobook did such an incredible job I think he was the same voice actor from the other series.

[@kathleenboyle6285]

Thank you for this, so helpful! I'm 100 pages into The Shadow of the Gods and loving it! The horses neighing in the background is very fitting as well, beats any background music :P

[@thebrothersgwynne]

Hope this helps you out! We have time stamps in the description if you need to come back to this video for a specific word :). We did love having the horses! You might have a closer look in our next The Shadow of the Gods video... Will

[@kathleenboyle6285]

@@thebrothersgwynne I will probably be using it if I come across a term I don't quite understand! Oh great looking forward to that!

[@LittleLionHaw]

Lads thank you so much for this. I've been Googling pronunciations during my read through so far, but this is exactly what I needed to take my immersion to the next level. Appreciate it!

[@thebrothersgwynne]

Always happy to help someone called The Bloody Nine! Ed

[@JoshLambLP]

You two boys are national treasures! I’m sure you survived a few Holmgangas growing up together…

[@thebrothersgwynne]

Wouldn't quite say that aha, but thank you so much! The holmgangas were usually against each other... but the parents would only allow it to go to first blood... Will

[@aminamadadi9001]

Great job and great video guys, I loved and really enjoyed the 1st book of the trilogy and can't wait for the second! 🐺⚔️

[@thebrothersgwynne]

So glad that you enjoyed! Second is set to come out next April :) Will

[@MacScarfield]

Great walkthrough of both the historical Norse terms and your Father's reinterpretations! I would also have added the term "Vigrid": The battlefield-site of Ragnarok/TSOTG's Gudfalla and setting. If I were to be very picky, I would say that choosing the term "althing" over just «thing», is almost a bit of waste of potential. The Althing was the "thing" of "all of Iceland" (and now the National Parlament of Iceland), and as such could have been a cool name for a "thing" for "all of Vigridr". But I do get that calling it a "thing" could be a bit silly in English (as I do somewhat with the term "drengr": It is absolutely historical correct, but I must admit to struggle sometimes to take the Drengr 100% serious as badass warriors, as "dreng" just means "boy" in modern Danish and "farmboy" in modern Norwegian!). But I can suggest "Storting" (the name of the Norwegian National Parlament, literally "the Great Thing"), alt. "Storalthing" as a name fitting a "thing"/"althing" for all of Vigridr. Also, Fellurthing/Felluralthing would be a good name of the specific "thing"/"althing" of Fellur, similar to Gulating or Borgarting here in Norway. Iskidan almost deserves a video of it's own! Found it a very cool mix of the Rus/Varangians with aspects from Abbasid Baghdad, Byzantine Constantinople, the Mongols and the Turkic Volga-Bulgars/Khazars! Look forward to more of Iskidan in the future books and in your videos!

[@thebrothersgwynne]

Thanks for watching mate! Yes I completely understand what you mean about Althing, but as you say, if you call a meeting a thing in a fantasy book some people might find it quite strange! I didn't know that about dreng and I won't be able to unsee that now! Thanks for the great and thoughtful comment and thank you for helping us learn too! Truth and courage. Ed

[@LegionOfNeil]

Great job guys. Gonna have to share this with my wife. She loves language :)

[@thebrothersgwynne]

Thanks a lot! Hope she enjoys :)! Will

[@AliHammoud1]

THANK. YOU! I've been going "Berserkir" trying to google all these words!

[@thebrothersgwynne]

So glad it is helpful! Truth and courage. Ed

[@godmodeenabled1]

Loved this so much, great job guys :)

[@thebrothersgwynne]

Glad you enjoyed. Thanks for watching! Will

[@panzerviking]

Being swedish (and a fantasy fan) I have enjoyed the book(s) very much indeed. Among the most entertaining in a few years. I recognize a few of the "norse" words as vaguely swedish. And some of the little substories (troll and the cheese) from my childhood. Do you know which scandinavian language Johns main inspiration come from?

[@thebrothersgwynne]

So glad you are enjoying The Bloodsworn so far! The language used most often is Icelandic as that is the closest etymologically to Old Norse. Many of the terms are taken directly from Icelandic Sagas, Old Norse poetry etc. Ed

[@kristinechelon]

Fun way to go through the lesser known words in the book... (one of my favorite fantasy books actually!) But also fun to hear how you kinda butcher some of the words...🤣 (Love from Norway)

[@thebrothersgwynne]

Please let me know which ones we butcher so we can improve! Thanks for watching. Ed

[@darren2880]

Definitely helpful

[@thebrothersgwynne]

So glad to hear! Will

[@itsmemario5645]

Guys, listening to the audio books i had no fucking idea what a Seax is... Do you know how hard it was googling Vikings Sa...... and Saxon or varieties of that coming up were. Thank you legends i'll be back when confused about another name

[@ricktaylor14001]

Couldn’t agree more! I started the audiobook as well, and was trying to figure out what so many things were it was driving me nuts! 🤣 In time I nailed the “sax” (because spelling isn’t a thing with audiobooks), eventually I realized it must be a knife of some sorts; but so many other things were a confusion. Not to criticize the book, but usually with books in this genre, the author will make some sort of reference to the items English variant. So with the term “thrall”, how easy (& beneficial) would it have been to simply state something like “he wore a thrall collar, as did all slaves or this time, letting everyone know they were a thrall…slaves were held with little regard”. Anything with a short little reference to its English terminology would have greatly helped with the books - audio or written. Gotta love the way you stated your comment, saying it exactly as it needed to be stated….”no fucking idea what a Seax is”!!! 🤣 Well done “Mario” 👍

[@TheLibraryofAllenxandria]

YESSSSSSSS

[@thebrothersgwynne]

Hope you enjoyed! Will

[@MobbJacket88]

I would love to see you guys collaborate with Shadiversity. I can't be the only one wishing this.

[@thebrothersgwynne]

That would be awesome! I'll spam his inbox now! Ed

[@Fredpettersen]

So... is this actually Old Norse? Or a mix of new and old? Because as a Swede, I can understand most of these and find them just slightly changed in modern Swedish, while usually with Old Norse. it's really hard to parse. Akáll = åkalla, Blott Svarith = Blodsvära, Drengr = Dräng, Skàl = skål, etc etc. It was the same pretty much throughout the books. I know some of those words ARE old Norse, but in the book there're plenty of incantations that sound like modern Scandinavian with Icelandic suffixes. So did I just suddenly level up my Old Norse? Or is the Galdurmål in the books partly made up of modern words?

[@robertdickson3619]

In my head I sound like an absolute fucking idiot while reading this book. Thanks!!

[@epiphoney]

You don't have all the cool characters in the description.