Nordic & Germanic religions & mythologies
More general subjects:
Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries in Studies of the Viking Age
What happens when scholars cross outside the perceived ‘boundaries’ of their discipline? What problems arise when a scholar trained in one field employs materials or methodologies from an adjacent subject area engaging with new sources research methodologies and traditions and how can such issues be resolved? Taking as its starting point the increasing shift towards interdisciplinarity seen within Viking-age studies this collection of essays aims to explore the benefits and pitfalls that can arise from crossing disciplinary borders in this area and to gain new knowledge about how to address issues that have occurred in previous examples of interdisciplinary combinations. The volume draws together contributions from authors in different disciplines among them philology history archaeology literary studies folklore studies and history of religion in order to hold a constructive and multi-perspective discussion on the benefits and issues arising from interdisciplinary research in studies of the Viking Age. Together these chapters aim to bridge the gap that often exists between scholars from adjacent fields of research and in doing so to stimulate the trend in interdisciplinary approaches to research that can improve our understanding of the past.
Myth, Magic, and Memory in Early Scandinavian Narrative Culture
Studies in Honour of Stephen A. Mitchell
Myth magic and memory have together formed important and often intertwined elements to recent studies in the narrative culture of Viking-Age and Medieval Scandinavica. Analytical approaches to myth (prominent in the fields of history of religion archaeology language and literature and central to studies of visual cultures up to modern times) magic (drawing on a wealth of Norse folkloric and supernatural material that derives from pre-modern times and continues to impact on recent practices of performance and ritual) and memory (the concept of how we remember and actively construe the past) together combine to shed light on how people perceived the world around them.
Taking the intersection between these diverse fields as its starting point this volume draws together contributions from across a variety of disciplines to offer new insights into the importance of myth magic and memory in pre-modern Scandinavia. Covering a range of related topics from supernatural beings to the importance of mythology in later national historiographies the chapters gathered here are written to honour the work of Stephen A. Mitchell professor of Scandinavian Studies and Folklore at Harvard University whose research has heavily influenced this multi-faceted field.
Myths and Magic in the Medieval Far North
Realities and Representations of a Region on the Edge of Europe
The history of the Far North is tinged by dark fantasies. A remote location harsh climate a boundless and often mountainous wasteland complex ethnic composition and strange ways of life: all contributed to how the edge of Europe was misunderstood by outsiders. Since ancient times the North has been considered as a place that exuded evil: it was the end of the world the abode of monsters and supernatural beings of magicians and sorcerers. It was Europe’s last bastion of recalcitrant paganism. Many weird tales of the North even came from within the region itself and when newly literate Scandinavians began to re-work their oral traditions into written form after 1100 AD these myths of their past underlay newer legends and stories serving to support the development to Christian national monarchies.
The essays in this volume engage closely with these stories questioning how and why such traditions developed and exploring their meaning. Through this approach the volume also examines how historiographical traditions were shaped by authors pursuing agendas of nation-building and Christianization at the same time that myths surrounding and originating among the multi-ethnic populations of the Far North continued to dominate the perception of the region and its people and to define their place in Norwegian medieval history.
Margins, Monsters, Deviants
Alterities in Old Norse Literature and Culture
Medieval Icelandic literature has often been reduced to the supposedly realist Íslendingasögur and their main protagonists at the expense of other genres and characters. Indeed such a focus obscures and erases the importance of those beings and narratives that move on the margins of mainstream culture - whether socially ethnically ontologically or textually. This volume aims to offer a new perspective on a variety of theoretical and comparative approaches to explore depictions of alterity monstrosity and deviation. Engaging with the interplay of genre character text and culture and exploring questions of behavioural socio-cultural and textual alterity these contributions examine subjects ranging from the study of fragmented and ‘Othered’ saga narratives to attitudes towards foreign people and lands and alterities in mythological and legendary texts. Together the papers effectively challenge long-held perceptions about the lack of ambiguity in medieval Icelandic literature and offer a far more nuanced understanding of the importance of the ‘Other’ in that society.
The Pre-Christian Religions of the North: History and Structures
The product of an international interdisciplinary team the History and Structures strand of the Pre-Christian Religion of the North series aims to approach the subject by giving equal weight to archaeological and textual sources taking into consideration recent theories on religion within all the disciplines that are needed in order to gain a comprehensive view of the religious history and world view of pre-Christian Scandinavia from the perspective of the beginning of the twenty-first century. Volume I presents the basic premises of the study and a consideration of the sources: memory and oral tradition written sources religious vocabulary place names and personal names archaeology and images. Volume II treats the social geographical and historical contexts in which the religion was practiced and through which it can be understood. This volume also includes communication between worlds primarily through various ritual structures. Volume III explores conceptual frameworks: the cosmos and collective supernatural beings (notions regarding the cosmos and regarding such collective supernatural beings as the norns valkyries giants and dwarfs) and also gods and goddesses (including Þórr Óðinn Freyr Freyja and many others). Volume IV describes the process of Christianization in the Nordic region and also includes a bibliography and indices for the entire four-volume work.
Making the Profane Sacred in the Viking Age
Essays in Honour of Stefan Brink
The term ‘sacred’ is often used in relation to the pre-Christian religions of Iron Age and medieval Scandinavia. But what did sacred really mean? What made something sacred for people? Why was one particular person place act or text perceived to hold a sacral quality while others remained profane? And what impact did such sacrality have on wider society culture politics and economics both for contemporaries and for future generations?
This volume seeks to engage with such questions by drawing together essays from many of the pre-eminent scholars of Old Norse in order to reinterpret the concept of the sacred in the Viking Age North and to challenge pre-existing frameworks for understanding the sacred in this space and time. Including essays from Margaret Clunies Ross Stephen Mitchell John Lindow and Judy Quinn it is a treasury of commentary and information that ranges widely across theories and sources of evidence to present significant primary research and reconsiderations of existing scholarship. This edited collection is dedicated to Stefan Brink an outstanding figure in the study of early Scandinavian language society and culture and it takes as its inspiration the diversity interdisciplinarity and vitality of his own research in order to make a major new contribution to the field of Old Norse studies.