Aurvandill
[1][5][2] The most semantically plausible explanation is to interpret *Auza-wandilaz as a compound meaning 'light-beam' or 'ray of light', by deriving the prefix *auza- from Proto-Germanic *auzom ('shiny [especially of liquids]'; cf.
[20][21][22] According to philologist Christopher R. Fee, this may imply the idea a phallic figure related to fertility, the name of his spouse in the Old Norse myth, Gróa, literally meaning 'Growth'.
[22] In less frequent scholarly interpretations, the second element has also been derived by some researchers from *wanđilaz ('Vandal'; i.e. 'the shining Vandal'),[23] from a stem *wandila- ('beard'),[24] or else compared to a Norse word for sword.
[25] Commentators since at least the time of Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, first published in 1835, have emphasized the great age of the tradition reflected in the mythological material surrounding this name, without being able to fully reconstruct the motifs of a Common Germanic myth.
[4] At any rate, scholars Rudolf Simek and John Lindow contend that the linguistic relation between the Old Norse and Old English names may suggest a Common Germanic origin of the myth despite the absence of Aurvandill from the Poetic Edda.
[29] The oldest attestation of this name may occur in the Gothica Bononiensia, a sermon from Ostrogothic Italy written in the Gothic language not later than the first half of the 6th century, and discovered in 2009.
The term ēarendel (≈ eorendel, earendil) appears seven times in the Old English corpus, where it is used in certain contexts to interpret the Latin oriens ('rising sun'), lucifer ('light-bringer'), aurora ('dawn') or iubar ('radiance').
[31] Philologist Tiffany Beechy writes that "the evidence from the early glossary tradition shows earendel to be a rare alternative for common words for the dawn/rising sun.
[42] Ēarendel also appears in the Blickling Homilies (10th century AD), where he is explicitly identified with John the Baptist: The passage is based on a Latin sermon by the 5th-century Archbishop of Ravenna Petrus Chrysologus: Sed si processurus est, iam nascatur Ioannes, quia instat nativitas Christi; surgat novus Lucifer, quia iubar iam veri Solis erumpit ("But since he is about to appear, now let John spring forth, because the birth of Christ follows closely; let the new Lucifer arise, because now the light of the true Sun is breaking forth").
Since the Old English version is close to the original Latin, ēarendel can be clearly identified in the Blickling Homilies with lucifer, meaning in liturgical language the 'light bearer, the planet Venus as morning star, the sign auguring the birth of Christ'.
[44][45] In this context, ēarendel is to be understood as the morning star, the light whose rising signifies Christ’s birth, and whose appearance comes in the poem before the "gleam of the true Sun, God himself".
[46] The Épinal Glossary, written in England in the 8th century, associates ēarendel with the Latin iubar ('brightness, radiance' [especially of heavenly bodies]) as an alternative to the more frequent equivalent leoma (Old English: 'ray of light, gleam').
[51] The Middle High German epic poem Orendel, written in the late 12th century, presents a fictional story of how the Holy Mantle of Christ arrived in the city of Trier.
[52] The eponymous hero of the tale, Orendel, son of King Ougel, sets sail with a formidable fleet to reach the Holy Land and seek the hand of Bride, Queen of Jerusalem.
After enduring a shipwreck, Orendel is rescued by a fisherman and eventually retrieves the lost Mantle from the belly of a whale.The coat grants him protection, enabling him to win Bride's hand in marriage.
1200) as the father of Amlethus (Amlet):[56] Now Ørvendil, after controlling the [Jutland] province for three years, had devoted himself to piracy and reaped such superlative renown that Koller, the king of Norway, wishing to rival his eminent deeds and widespread reputation, judged it would suit him very well if he could transcend him in warfare and cast a shadow over the brilliance of this world-famed sea-rover.
On the strength of their friendship Ørvendil wooed and obtained Rørik's daughter Gerutha for his bride, who bore him a son, Amleth.In view of Saxo's tendency to euhemerise and reinterpret traditional Scandinavian myths, philologist Georges Dumézil has proposed that his story was based on the same archetype as Snorri's Aurvandill.
In what could be a literary inversion of the original myth, Horwendillus is portrayed as a warrior who injures and vanquishes his adversary, whereas Aurvandill was taken as a hostage by the jǫtnar and wounded during his deliverance.
Dumézil also notes that, although the event does not take a cosmological turn in Saxo's version, Aurvandill's toe was broken off by Thor, while Collerus' (Koller's) entire foot is slashed off by Horwendillus.
Carl F. Hostetter notes that, although "the association of Eärendil with the sea was for Tolkien a deeply personal one", the Danish Horvandillus and the German Orendel are both portrayed as mariners themselves.
The film is based primarily on the medieval Scandinavian legend of Amleth, which is the direct inspiration behind the character Hamlet from William Shakespeare's 16th century tragedy of the same name.
