Allegory in Old Norse Secular Literature: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges

This article argues that allegory in Old Norse secular narrative was often less stringent than in religious texts, and that it may sometimes be helpful to consider it a ‘universal analogy’rather than allegory in any strict sense. Further, it is argued that a fragmented reception of texts was common in the Middle Ages, and that indications of allegorical interpretation in one part of a text need therefore not imply a similar understanding of the text as a whole. The main examples to illustrate these points are Óðinn’s hanging in the tree in Hávamál and Þórólfr Mostrarskegg’s temple in Eyrbyggja saga. Where traces of allegory can be found in secular texts, prefigurative functions dominate, but often with vaguer constituents than one finds in theological literature (for instance practices rather than objects or persons) and without obvious connections to other parts of the text.