What is an ‘utangardsmann’?

Flem-ish

Sounds like a defenceless person... but if this site can be relied upon it might also be a person without estate. http://www.freedict.com/onldict/swe.html Online English to Swedish to English Dictionary. There should be that little "circle" above the a of gard. Wish I remembered its name. Aug 13 08, 9:46 AM

author

"Utangards" does not mean "without an estate/farm", though the utangardsmann will logically probably also be without an estate. This is Icelandic, as you can see: I hope the spelling is right. The person is in a way 'defenceless', but you have to specify. This is a historical concept - I doubt of there are 'utangardsmenn' any more, at least not in the original sense of the word. Utangardsmenn was the name of an Icelandic punkband - they had a separate name in English which partly explains the consept. http://icelandia.shop-pro.jp/?pid=891770 Oh, I see why you guessed this, but it 'utangards' does not mean without a guard. Hint: Check the meaning of 'gard'. I didn't find any information in your reference - by the way, you should check Icelandic, not Swedish. 'A person without estate' is also partly right, but this person's situation is (I guess) even more dramatic than just being without an estate (many were). Aug 13 08, 9:47 AM

zbeckabee

utangarðs/maður m ( -manns, -menn) misfit http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/IcelOnline/IcelOnline.TEId-idx?type=simple&size=First+100&rgn=lemma&q1=gard ...This in spite of the fact that Utangardsmenn, Outsiders, were recently named "Best Icelandic Rock Band of The 20th Century." Michael chose the bands name from British writer Colin Wilson's book The Outsiders. http://www.jackmagazine.com/issue5/essayzartemis.html Aug 13 08, 9:58 AM

author

I was going to correct myself - actually the word in singular should have been maðr (Old Norse) or maður (modern Icelandic). And yeah, this was a good hard rocking punk band - I had a hell of a party along with them when they visited Stavanger in the early 1980s. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ma%C3%B0r And, historically, an utangarðsmaður or however you spell it with this strange Icelandic letters was not only a 'misfit' (this must be the modern notion), he was an outlaw. Therefore he had to be 'utangards', which literally means: Outside the farm, or even outside the farm's stone fences. 'Gard' can mean both 'farm' and 'stone fence' - it still has these two meanings even in Norwegian. Aug 13 08, 10:10 AM