magician king, perhaps a sacred king. Dumézil pointed out that Kon alone represents the supernatural function, represented by the Brahmin caste in India, the flamen function in Rome, the druids in some Celtic cultures, and the clergy in the three estates of medieval Europe. Instead of the three estates of clergy/priest, warrior, and commoner, with serfs outside the system, the Rígsþula presents three estates or castes in which the clergy/priest class has been subsumed within the warrior class and identified with royalty. Also, although in Rome and India the color white is assigned to the sacred and to priests and red to warriors, here the noble warrior is white in color while the red coloration is ascribed instead to the commoner in place of the green, blue, or yellow color assigned to the lower classes in other cultures associated with Proto-Indo-European society. Dumézil saw this as a Germanic adaptation of the Indo-European heritage. Jean Young and Ursula Dronke, among others, have suggested that the Rígsþula story is Celtic in origin and that the name Rígr is an indication of this. References Bibliography External links Rígsþula in Old Norse and Olive Bray's translation on pages 202-217 of The Elder of Poetic Eddathrough openlibrary.org MyNDIR (My Norse Digital Image repository) illustrations from Victorian and Edwardian retellings of Rígsþula. Clicking on the thumbnail will give you the full image and information concerning it. 10th-century poems 11th-century poems 12th-century poems 13th-century poems Æsir Eddic poetry Legendary progenitors Norse gods Old Norse literature Old Norse philosophy Social classes