Ergi
Ergi (noun) and argr (adjective) are two Old Norse terms of insult, denoting effeminacy or other unmanly behaviour. Argr (also ragr) is "unmanly" and ergi is "unmanliness"; the terms have cognates in other Germanic languages such as earh, earg, arag, or arug.
Ergi in the Viking Age
[edit]To accuse another man of being argr was called scolding (see nīþ) and thus a legal reason to challenge the accuser in hólmganga.[1] If hólmganga was refused by the accused, he could be outlawed (full outlawry) as this refusal proved that the accuser was right and the accused was argr. Being proven to be an ergi or niðing was generally punished by becoming an outlaw in surviving law codes.[2] If the accused fought successfully in hólmganga and had thus proven that he was not argr, the scolding was considered what was in Old English called eacan, an unjustified, severe defamation, and the accuser had to pay the offended party full compensation. The Gray Goose Laws states:
There are three words—should exchanges between people ever reach such dire limits—which all have full outlawry as the penalty; if a man calls another ragr, stroðinn or sorðinn. As they are to be prosecuted like other fullréttisorð and, what is more, a man has the right to kill in retaliation for these three words. He has the right to kill in retaliation on their account over the same period as he has the right to kill on account of women, in both cases up the next General Assembly. The man who utters these words falls with forfeit immunity at the hands of anyone who accompanies the man about whom they were uttered to the place of their encounter.[3]
The three words in the Grey Goose Laws that were regarded as equal to argr referred to the passive role of a man in sexual activities, being womanly, and being subservient.[4] Another semantic belonging to argr, ragr and ergi was, from the Gray Goose, "being a sorcerer's friend"; ergi and its derivatives are often attested in the context of seiðr, as in Ynglinga saga.[5] Some of the association between seiðr and ergi may have been that seiðr was seen as a woman's activity, which included prominent references to other gendered activities (such as weaving). Even respected men who took up seiðr might be insulted in connection to the idea of ergi, as Odin was in the Edda.[6] While seiðr was often viewed negatively in surviving literature, all this literature comes from after Christianity took root in the region these terms and practices existed. There is an observable trend of increasing negativity in this literature as well. Together, these mean sieðr- and correspondingly, those called ergi- may not have been viewed negatively in pre-Christian northern Europe.[7]
The negativity towards ergi do not indicate general homophobia was prevalent in Viking Age northern Europe. There are also no written records of how the northern people thought of homosexuality before societal conversion to Christianity. The sociologist David F. Greenberg points out:
at first...stigmatization did not extend to active male homosexuality. To take revenge on the disloyal priest Bjorn and his mistress Thorunnr in the Gudmundar Saga "it was decided to put Thorunnr into bed with every buffoon, and to do that to Bjorn the priest, which was considered no less dishonorable." Dishonorable to Bjorn, not to his rapists. In the Edda, Sinfjotli insults Gudmundr by asserting that "all the einherjar (Odin's warriors in Valhalla) fought with each other to win the love of Gudmundr (who was male)." Certainly he intended no aspersions on the honor of the einherjar. Then Sinfjotli boasts that "Gundmundr was pregnant with nine wolf cubs and that he, Sinfjotli, was the father." Had the active male homosexual role been stigmatized, Sinfjotli would hardly have boasted of it.[8]
Ergi was associated not just with sorcery, unmanliness, weakness, and effeminacy but also especially with lecherousness in the view of Old Scandinavian people during the Early and High Middle Ages. Ergi of females (feminine adjective: ǫrg) was defined as excessive lecherousness or promiscuity, and of males as perversity, effeminacy and the passive role within same-sex intercourse between men.[9]
Saleby Runestone
[edit]Although no runic inscription uses the term ergi, runestone Vg 67 in Saleby, Sweden, includes a curse that anyone breaking the stone would become a rata, translated as a 'wretch', 'outcast', or 'warlock', and argri konu, which is translated as 'maleficent woman' in the dative.[10] Here argri appears to be related to the practice of seiðr[11] and represents the most loathsome term the runemaster could imagine calling someone.[12]
Modern usage
[edit] | This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2012) |
In modern Scandinavian languages, the lexical root arg- has assumed the meaning "angry", as in Swedish, Bokmål and Nynorsk arg, or Danish arrig. Modern Icelandic has the derivation ergilegur, meaning "to seem/appear irritable", similar to Bokmål ergre, meaning "to irritate". (There are similarities to the German ärgerlich, "annoying, annoyed", and Dutch ergerlijk, "irritating" and ergeren, "to irritate".) In modern Faroese the adjective argur means "angry/annoyed" and the verb arga means to "taunt" or "bully". In modern Dutch, the word erg has become a fortifier equivalent to English very; the same is true for the old-fashioned adjective arg in German, which means "wicked" (especially in compounds as arglistig "malicious" and arglos "unsuspecting"), but has become a fortifier in the Austrian German. The meaning of the word in Old Norse has been preserved in loans into neighboring Finnic languages: Livonian ārga, Estonian arg and Finnish arka, both meaning "cowardly".
Some people involved in Heathenry use "ergi" as either an insult for queer men, male seiðr practitioners, or those perceived as "unmanly". Correspondingly, some male seiðr practitioners have reclaimed the word ergi. One male seiðr practitioner from Scotland who was interviewed by researchers noted that "ergi" was still used where he lived by the general public to refer to a man perceived as cowardly.[7]
See also
[edit]
- Malakia (μαλακία, Ancient Greek)
References
[edit]- ^ Heusler, Andreas (1911). Das Strafrecht der Isländersagas (in German). Leipzig. p. 56.
- ^ His, Rudolf (1901). Das Strafrecht der Friesen im Mittelalter (in German). Leipzig: Weicher. p. 166.
- ^ Sørenson, Preben M.; Turville-Petre, Joan (transl.) (1983). The Unmanly Man: Concepts of Sexual Defamation in Early Northern Society. Studies in Northern Civilization. Vol. 1. Odense University Press. p. 17. ISBN 87-7492-436-2.
- ^ Seebold, Elmar (Ed.): Art. arg, in: Kluge. Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 24. Auflage, Berlin, New York 2002, S. 58.
- ^ Sturluson, Snorri (1870). "Ynglinga saga". In C.R. Unger, N. Linder, K.A. Hagson (ed.). Heimskringla, eda Sögur Noregs konunga (in Old Norse). Uppsala.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) - ^ "Seidr". Norse Mythology for Smart People. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ^ a b Blain, Jenny; Wallis, Robert J. (2000-10-01). "The 'Ergi' Seidman: Contestations of Gender, Shamanism and Sexuality in Northern Religion Past and Present". Journal of Contemporary Religion. 15 (3): 395–411. doi:10.1080/713676039. ISSN 1353-7903.
- ^ Greenberg, David F. (1988). The Construction of Homosexuality. University of Chicago Press. p. 249. ISBN 0-226-30627-5.
- ^ Ruth Karras Mazo: Sexualität im Mittelalter. Aus dem Amerikanischen von Wolfgang Hartung, Düsseldorf 2006, pp. 275-277.
- ^ Project Samnordisk Runtextdatabas Svensk - Rundata entry for Vg 67.
- ^ MacLeod, Mindy; Mees, Bernard (2006). Runic Amulets and Magic Objects. Boydell Press. pp. 225–226. ISBN 1-84383-205-4.
- ^ Moltke, Erik (1985). Runes and their Origin, Denmark and Elsewhere. Copenhagen: Nationalmuseets Forlag. p. 140. ISBN 87-480-0578-9.
