The Tale of Lightsabre the Blue
May. 28th, 2016 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dhampyresaRemember the time I read Tattúínárdǿla saga and basically went "I want fic"? Spoilers: I wrote the fic and it's in continuity with that.
dolorosa_12 was kind enough to beta for me and help me with the academical notes. I have now written fic beta-ed by someone with a more-than-semi relevant PhD.
Some kind souls helped me translate "Starkiller" into Old Norse ("Stjǫrnubani") and I used Viking Lady and Behind the Name as references for personal names. As much as possible I tried to pick names that had relevant meanings.
I didn't use as much diacritics as I could have, because those can be a mess on Ao3.
Several of the names (and kennings) are directly from Tattúínárdǿla saga, such as Leia Pathemasdottir, Tsiubakka, Hani Soloson, Víga-Óbívan Kvæggansson, Veidr-Anakinn and Lúkr Anakinsson.
The rest, in order of appearance:
Rey became Reginleif, which comes from "regin" ("power of the gods") and "leif" ("heir") making her "Heir to the power of the gods", which I though was very relevant. I made her Reginleif Kenobisdottir for thematic and plot reasons -- making her Lukr's daughter wouldn't have worked, due to the ending of Tattúínárdǿla saga. Plus, I enjoyed using the "red of hair" thing.
BB-8 became Bibi Artuson both because it sounds similar and because I wanted to have a reference to Artu Ditusson from Tattúínárdǿla saga. Bibi is not an Old Norse name.
Poe Dameron became Poe Dromundrson. I couldn't find any names starting in P that were even mildly recognisable or relevant, so I kept his first name. For the last name, I went with a patronymic (obviously) based on Dromundr, "Originally a by-name meaning a type of ship".
Finn became (the) Far-Born, because while there are similar Old Norse names (Finni and a bunch of Finn- names), they all refer to the inhabitants of Finland, the Sami or magicians, none of which work, as I didn't want to racebend Finn and him not being a magician is something of a plot point. So he's Far-Born "for he was from the lands beyond the Kievan Rus and the Volga".
Snoke became Falfathinn, simply because Falfathinn isn't dead at the end of Tattúínárdǿla saga. I told you, the fic is in continuity with that.
Shara Bey became Sæhildr Aegirsdottir. She doesn't appear outside of Poe's kenning of "the son of Sæhildr Aegirsdottir", but I wanted Poe not be just "the son of Dromundr". I made her "Aegirsdottir" as he's god of the sea and I called her "blessed of Aegir" at one point to explain why Poe survices the wrecking of his ship. Her name means "Sea-battle".
Maz Kanata became Morgana and she gives Reginleif Lightsaber the Blue, because this is "a surviving Norse witness to a now-lost Brythonic archetype". PSYCH! I used Arthuriana-as-I-know-it as a base, hence the fact that the "manuscript" was found inthe lesser Britain that men call Aremorica Brittany.
Kylo Ren became Kolgrimr. Here I ran into a bit of a problem. The fic is in continuity with Tattúínárdǿla saga which means that Leia and Han's son is Anakinn Hanason, not Ben Organa. I couldn't/don't expect people reading the fic to go over to Tattúínárdǿla saga so I didn't want them to be jarred by that, but I also didn't want to be out-of-continuity. I solved this by referring to him entirely as "the son of Leia King-Slayer" and similar, until he became Kolgrimr. Then I could use that and attached kennings. Kolgrimr is from "kol" ("black as coal") and "grimr" ("mask") making him "the coal-black mask" and frankly I could not have asked for a more perfect name.
Hux became Huskarl, meaning "free man in service to another person". I also gave him JB-007's role in freeing Reginleif, because he doesn't have much to do. He and his ship both get called "Starkiller", because the Norse never met an ambiguous kenning they didn't like.
And that's basically it for names.
I left myself several open doors for how to deal with events in the sequel(s), if I end up writing these in this style too. Astute readers of both the fic and Tattúínárdǿla saga will for example notice that I sprung Lightsabre the Blue unexplained on the reader and did not mention Lightsaber the Green.
I hued as close as possible to the style of sagas, both in word choice/grammar and in a more structural sense: people's backstories are only relevant when they encounter Reginleif, for example. And I hope the writing style will stop creeping into the rest of my work, now.
Also, this fic was a nightmare to code html for. First I lost an entire hour of editing work when Word crashed on me and it hadn't auto-save, then I had to hand-code every line in italics because when I tried coding the paragraphs, it only italicised the first line. IDK.
Anyway, I'm really proud of this fic.
And with this I qualified for "Star Wars Sequel Trilogy" for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
femmeremix so I signed up for that.
The Tale of Lightsabre the Blue (3338 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Rey (Star Wars), Ensemble (The Force Awakens)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Vikings
Summary: The author posits that the Old Norse manuscript recently found in the Bay of Douarnenez belongs to the same corpus as the Icelandic Tattúínárdǿla saga.
dolorosa_12 was kind enough to beta for me and help me with the academical notes. I have now written fic beta-ed by someone with a more-than-semi relevant PhD.Some kind souls helped me translate "Starkiller" into Old Norse ("Stjǫrnubani") and I used Viking Lady and Behind the Name as references for personal names. As much as possible I tried to pick names that had relevant meanings.
I didn't use as much diacritics as I could have, because those can be a mess on Ao3.
Several of the names (and kennings) are directly from Tattúínárdǿla saga, such as Leia Pathemasdottir, Tsiubakka, Hani Soloson, Víga-Óbívan Kvæggansson, Veidr-Anakinn and Lúkr Anakinsson.
The rest, in order of appearance:
Rey became Reginleif, which comes from "regin" ("power of the gods") and "leif" ("heir") making her "Heir to the power of the gods", which I though was very relevant. I made her Reginleif Kenobisdottir for thematic and plot reasons -- making her Lukr's daughter wouldn't have worked, due to the ending of Tattúínárdǿla saga. Plus, I enjoyed using the "red of hair" thing.
BB-8 became Bibi Artuson both because it sounds similar and because I wanted to have a reference to Artu Ditusson from Tattúínárdǿla saga. Bibi is not an Old Norse name.
Poe Dameron became Poe Dromundrson. I couldn't find any names starting in P that were even mildly recognisable or relevant, so I kept his first name. For the last name, I went with a patronymic (obviously) based on Dromundr, "Originally a by-name meaning a type of ship".
Finn became (the) Far-Born, because while there are similar Old Norse names (Finni and a bunch of Finn- names), they all refer to the inhabitants of Finland, the Sami or magicians, none of which work, as I didn't want to racebend Finn and him not being a magician is something of a plot point. So he's Far-Born "for he was from the lands beyond the Kievan Rus and the Volga".
Snoke became Falfathinn, simply because Falfathinn isn't dead at the end of Tattúínárdǿla saga. I told you, the fic is in continuity with that.
Shara Bey became Sæhildr Aegirsdottir. She doesn't appear outside of Poe's kenning of "the son of Sæhildr Aegirsdottir", but I wanted Poe not be just "the son of Dromundr". I made her "Aegirsdottir" as he's god of the sea and I called her "blessed of Aegir" at one point to explain why Poe survices the wrecking of his ship. Her name means "Sea-battle".
Maz Kanata became Morgana and she gives Reginleif Lightsaber the Blue, because this is "a surviving Norse witness to a now-lost Brythonic archetype". PSYCH! I used Arthuriana-as-I-know-it as a base, hence the fact that the "manuscript" was found in
Kylo Ren became Kolgrimr. Here I ran into a bit of a problem. The fic is in continuity with Tattúínárdǿla saga which means that Leia and Han's son is Anakinn Hanason, not Ben Organa. I couldn't/don't expect people reading the fic to go over to Tattúínárdǿla saga so I didn't want them to be jarred by that, but I also didn't want to be out-of-continuity. I solved this by referring to him entirely as "the son of Leia King-Slayer" and similar, until he became Kolgrimr. Then I could use that and attached kennings. Kolgrimr is from "kol" ("black as coal") and "grimr" ("mask") making him "the coal-black mask" and frankly I could not have asked for a more perfect name.
Hux became Huskarl, meaning "free man in service to another person". I also gave him JB-007's role in freeing Reginleif, because he doesn't have much to do. He and his ship both get called "Starkiller", because the Norse never met an ambiguous kenning they didn't like.
And that's basically it for names.
I left myself several open doors for how to deal with events in the sequel(s), if I end up writing these in this style too. Astute readers of both the fic and Tattúínárdǿla saga will for example notice that I sprung Lightsabre the Blue unexplained on the reader and did not mention Lightsaber the Green.
I hued as close as possible to the style of sagas, both in word choice/grammar and in a more structural sense: people's backstories are only relevant when they encounter Reginleif, for example. And I hope the writing style will stop creeping into the rest of my work, now.
Also, this fic was a nightmare to code html for. First I lost an entire hour of editing work when Word crashed on me and it hadn't auto-save, then I had to hand-code every line in italics because when I tried coding the paragraphs, it only italicised the first line. IDK.
Anyway, I'm really proud of this fic.
And with this I qualified for "Star Wars Sequel Trilogy" for
femmeremix so I signed up for that.