vindandin forna

Old Norse

Noun

vindandin forna f

1. (poetry) 'the ancient use of vend'; the use of letter v before an r in poetry
   • c. 1250, Óláfr ‘White Skald’ Þórðarson, Third Grammatical Treatise

     Auferesis er gagnstaðlig prothesi, ok tekr hon af upphafi ords staf eða samstǫfu, sem þá at v sé af tekit í þessu nafni vrungu, þvíat þyðerskir menn ok danskir hafa v fyrir r í þessi nafni ok mǫrgum ǫðrum, ok þat hyggjum vér fornt mál vera, enn nú er þat kallat vindandin forna í skaldskap, þvíat þat er nú ekki haft í norrænu máli.

     Auferesis is the opposite of prothesis, and it removes a letter or syllable from the beginning of a word, as when v is removed in this word: vrungu—for the Germans and Danes still have v before r in this word and in many others, and we judge that to be ancient speech—but it is now called the ancient use of vend, for it is no longer pronounced in West Nordic speech.

Usage notes

• In Norwegian and Icelandic, the letter v was lost before r in the 900s, which resulted in earlier vreiðr (“wroth, angry”), vrangr (“wrong, crooked”) becoming reiðr, rangr. In the oldest preserved poetry, however, these words consistently alliterate with words beginning with v-, like verri (“worse”), vega (“fight”).