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In this lesson we talk about verbs, which end on an -a in Imperative. We also look at the words in the present tense and infinitive form.

Verbs in this group are constructed like this:

Super easy, right? Can you find all the words in the text that belong to this group?

In addition, all verbs look the same for each person! This means that this template is for not only me but for you too!

Jag studerar.
I study.

Du studerar.
You study.

Han studerar.
He studies.

Hon studerar.
She studies.

Vi studerar.
We study.

Ni studerar.
You study.

De studerar. Mehrzahl
They study.

Days of the Week

We also talked about the Swedish days of the week. All of them except Saturday are put together with a god’s/godesses’ name and the word dag (day).

Norse Mythology

The gods, in which the Scandinavians believed 1000 years ago, have their origin in Germanic beliefs. How much the Nordic paganism, ”Asatro”, and the old Germanic religion have in common no one knows, but as far as we know, at least the names seem to be similar. Why don’t you compare the god’s name ”Oden” with the Germanic ”Wodan” (whose etymology has the meaning, ”fury”), as well as ”onsdag” (Oden’s day) and Wednesday (Wodan’s day).

This religion had less to do with beliefs than with tradition. It was more like an ethnic nature religion, which wasn’t constructed, but developed over generations and then spread. Because of that, there was no united belief. People believed in nature figures, but there were a couple of gods that resemble gods from other polytheistic religions, such as those in Roman mythology. Historians think that there was some influence from the Roman Empire around the year 0.

There were three god clans, the most known one being the ”Asarna” clan. Swedish children are taught about them in school. We won’t speak about the clans here but rather we’ll mention a few gods that are known and were important. A couple have more names, because it’s not known if they are regional names or regional gods.

Oden (Old-Oorse Óðinn, Germanic Woudan, German. Wutan ”furious”) – He is also called Tund and is a war god and the greatest and wisest. He has only one eye, because he sacrificed it in Mimer’s Well to get greater wisdom. Thus, he’s also the god of the poetry and it is told that he invented the runes, the alphabet of the Vikings. He’s also know as Jolner – a god of Jul (Christmas – Yule). More names are to be found on Wikipedia.

Tor  (Old-Norse Þórr, German Donar ”Donner”) – He was the god of thunder and heavily resembles the Indian god Indra, the Greek god Zeus and the Roman god Jupiter. It’s thought that, originally, he was the greatest of gods, but suddenly it seems that Oden took his place and Tor became his son. His mother was Jörð, The Earth in Old-Norse (Jorden in Swedish).

Frej, Frö (Old-norse FrøyR) – He’s the son of Njord and brother of Freja. He belongs to the Vaner clan and not Asa, but lived as a hostage of peace among the Asagods. He is a fertility god like his sister, and it’s said that he’s the progenitor of the royal family of ”Yngling”. This means that the male name Yngve could be another name for him.

Freja, Fröja, Frigg (Old-Norse Freyja) – She’s the daughter of Njord and Freja’s sister. She belongs to the Vaner family but was also a hostage of peace and lived among the Asagods. She’s a fertility godess and godess of love. Her husband was Od, which also could be Oden. She had more names e.g. Syr, ”Sow”, or Menglöd, ”The one fond of Necklaces”.

Tyr (Germanic Tiw) – He was the son of Oden and a war god. It’s believed that he is a war god because his day, Tuesday, is the same day as dies Martis in Latin – Mars’ day. That indicates that maybe he had the same function as the Roman god Mars. Etymologically, his name means ”god” (compare Greek ”Zeus”, Greek genitive ”Dios”, Latin ”Deus”, Islandic ”Týr” etc.) Other than that, little is known about him. He isn’t mentioned that often.

Balder  (Old-Norwegian Baldr, ”the illiminous”, ”lord”) – He is, like several other gods, the son of Oden and Frigg and is the good god. We cannot tell you anything bad about him. After the apocalypse, ”Ragnarök”, he’s going to rule the new world. He’s not told about a lot, though. We know that he was murdered by his blind brother Höder, after the half-god/half-giant Loke fooled Höder. There are a lot of similarities to Jesus Christ and some people think that Christianity has its origin here. Balder and Christ were probably developed out of different traditions.

Njord (Njǫrðr, Old-Westnorse. ”power”) – He belongs to the Vaner clan and is no Asagod. He is, among other things, the god for the sea, for weather, for business and for sea voyages. He’s the father of Frej and Freja.

Some tales of these gods may seem a bit illogical, but there are few texts that tell us about them and there was no unified religion which explains how it really was. All people in Scandinavia believed in different things. Also, the fact that most people know these gods as gods only of the Asa clan might seem a bit strange because they belong to other clans. We don’t, however, learn many details about this in school and that could be the reason.