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The toponym Útgarðr, used as a singular place name in Snorra Edda, is often applied to an outer region or peripheral realm inhabited by giants and other monstrous entities. This leads to a conception of Útgarðr as one side of an axiomatic binary opposition describing an Old Norse religious and cultural system of values. The article will present a brief overview of the most influential scholarly opinions on the use of the toponym Útgarðr as the basis of a system of values, discussing the problems attending such an interpretation of Útgarðr. The article goes on to take into consideration the Old Norse literary sources dealing with Útgarðr, so as to discuss the problem of such a superimposition of a toponym used in the diegesis of literary texts to a system of religious and cultural values, on the basis of the narratological use and function of Útgarðr in the text sources.
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