Hrafn Broethr

Part of re-enacting the early medieval period is trying to get inside the head of the character you are portraying, in order to try to get across to the public a little of what it would have been like to be alive in that period, as well as to increase your own enjoyment.

As a Viking warrior and seaman, it is almost certain that you would have been well-versed in a wide variety of insults and curses, so it is always fun to know a few words of old Norse and English in order to give more of a feeling of the people at the time. For re-enactment purposes, most conversation is carried out in modern english, a compromise that at least allows us to understand eachother without a degree in an ancientlanguage. That said, what could be more fun than wandering into an enemy camp and shouting out insults in ancient Norse, or having a line of Danish warriors march forwards chanting out insults in their native language.

Besides, what can be more enjoyable than marching into your camp, shouting out


slamming down your drink, then going into a short fist fight and a bit of display combat. It's a bit stagey, but if it's done right can make you feel like your right there, as well as giving any members of the public who are about something to watch between battles.

Not all of the battle cries used were insults by any means. Historically, the vikings were famous for their tendency to use screaming and animal noises to further intimidate their enemies, in fact the word ''Ahoy'' dates from this time, and was used as to frighten their enemies before battle and during the charge (although its use by sailors over the centuries since has lessened its fear factor). Other historic war cries from this period are:


Some other good battle cries include:


The list below can be used to create new insults and battle cries. Note that it was commonplace for vikings to have insulting nicknames, so some of these can also be added to your names to create titles, as what can be taken as being an insult can also have good qualities (ie galti (wild boar) suggests unruliness and lack of discipline, but could also denote a hot-headed, hard to control warrior).

This list is not meant to be a conclusive list of insults for you to memorise, just a guide to allow a re-enactor to choose a few choice phrases to add colour to their character.

All words in yellow are Norse, whereas those in red are Old English, apologies for any mistakes in tense, I am a Physicist not a historian and my grasp of any language is poor at best.

ald	old	illskaldr	plagariser
alicurl	fat churl, fatso	inoborna	unborn
andsaca	enemy	istrumagi	fat gut
attor	venom	kamphundr	carrion eater
baulufotr	cow foot	kerling	old hag
beiskaldi	bitch (scold)	kuensami	skirt chaser
blatqnn	black tooth	kort	short
blot	heathen	lodinkinni	shaggy hair
bqllr	ball, penis	matarilli	stingy with food (greedy)
braudnefr	breadnose	merr	mare
broga	terror	meyla	little girl
brusi	he-goat	miklimunnr	loud mouth
burlufotr	clumsy foot	mjonefr	thin nose
daufi	deaf-mute, stupid	murtr	small fish
dofni	dopey	musa	mouse
dragi	slow	oflati	dandy, a show-off
feald	simple	ormstunga	wyrm tongue (wyrm as in serpent)
galti	wild boar	oskilgetinn	bastard (one born out of wedlock)
gam	old	ox	ox
gargan	snake	qlfuss	drunkard
gaugbrojotr	grave robber	rella	gripe, moaner
gellir	yeller, screamer	sipill	potlicker
gifre	greedy	skand	disgrace
gleidr	bow-legged	skirja	young cow
griss	piglet	skreyja	incompetent
haensa	chicken	slefja	dribbler
halftroll	half troll	telic	horrible
hauknefr	hawk nose	tik	bitch (female dog)
hausakljufr	skull cleaver	sur	sow
hladhqnd	clean hands (therefore not much of a warrior)	tunga	tongue (one who talks too much)
hqfdi	head	vifill	beetle
hrafnasueltir	raven starver (therefore a coward)	vitskertr	shortwit
hrypa	shouter	wierg	cursed
huglausi	cowardly

This list has been written in order to give a bit of colour to the living history we do as a part of the re-enactment, and is not devised as a conclusive list of medieval insults. The main aim is that we can then use these insults as  a way of adding character to the individuals we are portraying both on and off the field without offending anyone or resorting to modern terms.

Note that in order to reduce the risk of causing offence to anyone accidentally none of these terms are translations of modern swearwords.