Resources

Below are some essential resources for the study of Old Norse. A group-specific file repository is here.

Course aids

Please excuse any errors or shortcomings in these documents, which were put together during the 2011 course and have not had the benefit of extensive proofreading. Contact Paul if you have any questions or recommendations.

resource comments
Handouts and slides Occasional handouts and html slides used in class (level two).
What is case? A beginner's introduction.
Pronouns Side-by-side paradigms of Old English, Old Norse, and Modern English pronouns.
Nouns Charts and paradigms like those found in textbooks, but now accompanied by user-friendly yet detailed explanations.
Weak verbs An explanation of the weak verb classes.
Strong verbs An index of patterns in strong conjugation and full paradigms for all seven classes.
Verb paradigms A verb paradigm showroom.
Functions of the cases A sketch of the various uses of the oblique cases, with examples.
Learning by formula: saga introductions Brief reading extracts to help students understand commonly-used constructions.
Flashcards Rollover flashcards for numerous paradigms and the vocabulary for Valfells and Cathey.

Grammars and textbooks

On the merits of the various works as textbooks, see the discussion accompanying this blog post.

resource description formats
Barnes–Faulkes The most recent authoritative method, very user-friendly. All three volumes (grammar, reader, and glossary) are freely downloadable from the publisher's website. pdf: grammar, reader, glossary
Gordon The classical primer and reader. The grammar section is more of a reference work than a textbook by today's standards. paperback
Krause–Slocum A detailed online grammar and reader, with an extensive sentence-by-sentence glossary. html
Noreen A detailed historical grammar of Old Norse, for those left with questions about sound-laws and stem origins. In German. pdf
Guðlaugsson–Þorgeirsson An online course. html
Sweet–Hall A venerable old textbook, recently updated by Alaric Hall. pdf
Valfells and Cathey A textbook teaching Old Norse as though it were a living language, with vocabulary and exercises. out of print
Wills A concise and accessible current digital textbook. pdf

Dictionaries

resource description formats
Cleasby–Vígfússon The largest Norse–English dictionary html/png
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, A–Em The most recent dictionary, as yet incomplete, into Danish and English. html, hardback
Fritzner The best dictionary of Old Norse, but it translates into Bokmål and dates from the blackletter era! html, pdf1
Heggstad The second-best dictionary of Old Norse, in a current revision, but it translates into Nynorsk. hardback
Lexicon poeticum A Norse–Danish poetic dictionary. Its first edition is Norse–Neolatin. png, pdf
Zoëga A shorter Norse–English dictionary, based on Cleasby–Vígfússon. Available in affordable paperback. html, paperback

Texts

resource description formats
Heimskringla Family sagas, legendary sagas, both Eddas, Heimskringla, and various poetry, mostly with Old Norse spelling. html
Netútgáfan Family sagas, legendary sagas, short stories (þættir), Heimskringla, Jómsvíkinga saga, Landnámabók, and Gylfaginning, all with Modern Icelandic spelling. html
Septentrionalia A wide variety of early scholarly editions. pdf
Viking Society publications Various scholarly editions, some published as recently as 2004, available free of charge at the publisher's website. pdf

External aids

resource comments
Old Icelandic morphological analysis A parser of inflected forms by Francis Tyers, using Sean Crist's form-lists, which are impressive yet contain many errors. Works for common verbs and nouns as well as a few adjectives. You'll have to ignore the html tags output by the parser. A version of Crist's data is also available as a single plaintext file here. If that comes out garbled, you'll have to set your browser or editor's text-encoding settings to UTF-8.
Old Norse Word Study Tool Hosted by Perseus, this parser is not without errors.
Verbix Old Norse verb paradigms A paradigm service for a limited set of Old Norse verbs. Not without errors.
Modern Icelandic inflection tool The Beygingarlýsing íslensks nútímamáls gives you the full Modern Icelandic paradigm of pretty much any current word. If you check the box, you can also search for inflected forms. Remember that Old Norse inflection, though very similar, will differ somewhat. See also Alaric's guide to this Icelandic-only tool.
Alaric Hall's Norse resources Magic Sheet of Old Norse paradigms; core vocabulary; video lectures.
Icelandic Online Did you know that Icelandic has changed very little since the Middle Ages? Learn Modern Icelandic and you'll be able to read the sagas quite easily! This online multimedia course is a superb way of learning the language at your own pace, and free of charge.
Alaric Hall's Beginner's mp3 course in modern Icelandic Eight hours of audio learning, freely available in mp3 format.