Old Norse Literature

With the recent publication of The Gospel of Loki (Joanne Harris, 2014), and the forthcoming Vikings exhibition at the British Museum, interest in the life and legends of early Scandinavia is at a high point, but the mythological Old Norse narrative of the birth of Sleipnir has always been treated with caution. Loki, an outcast from the Æsir, is required to assume the role of a female creature and give birth, in order to save the gods from disaster. This paper will look at the medieval poetical treatise, Snorra Edda, alongside a more recent reinvention by Brian Day in his poem: “Loki and Sleipnir” in his publication: Love is not Native to My Blood (2000), and intends to examine these two versions of Loki’s transformation from male to female, and human to animal; analysing the changes in form and perspective given to the text through time and translation. Many scholars have considered the ambiguous figure of Loki, but few have associated this ambiguity with contemporary social changes outside of the introduction of Christianity. This paper will suggest that Snorri Sturluson’s apparent appropriation of Loki’s shape and gender has less to do with Christian morality, and more with everyday medieval Icelandic social values. It will suggest that the shape-shifting of Loki’s story reflects the social and geographical circumstances of its audience; something that Day, in his presentation of Loki as a victim in the hyper-masculine world of the gods, uses to comment on contemporary social attitudes to sex and gender.

That by his death Grettir is treated by the saga's composer as a monster, similar to those he killed, and that this is done ironically, with echoic passages studying monstrosity throughout this latest extant version of the narrative. The composer does this for complex reasons, to which I intend to return at some point in the next year or two.

This chapter focuses on acts of speaking, writing, and hearing verbalized accounts of Icelandic place, and their role in establishing a distinct Icelandic identity in Íslendingabók and Landnámabók. The chapter opens by considering how the landscape of Iceland is verbally mapped, and argues that this is a textual priority for the Icelanders. While many of the places featured in Íslendingabók and Landnámabók were historically real, verbalized topographies, which can collapse time, animate foundational events and actors, accomplish something more. Like pilgrimage and travel accounts, verbal topographies enable moving, affective experiences and provide admission to an aspirational Icelandic national space fusing real and imagined elements. This chapter demonstrates that through the combination of writing, oral performance of placelore episodes (on site and otherwise), and the resultant experience of living within a re-imagined, storied landscape of Iceland, important lessons about Icelandic identity are transmitted.

Snorri contributed much to the image, prestige, and authority of poets in Old Norse vernacular literature. However, he did not originate or conclude this lionization of poets and poetry in the culture, and those who came before and after him also played their parts in establishing a robust and impressive written reputation for the poets. From almost the beginning, Old Nose vernacular literature would gradually come to exalt poets and poetry in many domains. These domains would include grammar, historic factuality, prestigious origins, mythology, narrative uses, runes, and magic. To show that, this essay surveys key Old Norse works over a two hundred year period. The works considered here have been chosen because they deal with poetry and poets in a wide variety of ways, and they are notable or represent significant developments in Icelandic literature.

Snorri à beaucoup contribué à l'image, au prestige et à l'autorité des poètes dans la littérature vernaculaire en ancien norrois. Cependant, il n'est ni l'instigateur ni le dernier chantre de cette glorification des poètes et de la poésie dans la culture, et ses prédécesseurs et successeurs jouent également un rôle dan l'établissement d'une réputation solide et impressionnante pour les poètes. Presque dés son commencement, la littérature vernaculaire en ancien Norrois exalte les poètes et la poésie dans de nombreux domaines. Ces derniers incluent la grammaire, la véracité historique, les origines prestigieuses, la mythologie, les usages narratifs, les runes et la magie. Afin de démontrer cela, cet essai passe en revue les travaux littéraires en ancien norrois sur une période de deux cent ans. Les oeuvres étudiées ici ont été choisies car elle adressent la question des poètes et de la poésie de manières variées et représentent des développements significatifs dans la littérature islandaise.

For medieval Icelanders, horses were among the most important animals. It should come as no surprise, as they were used for transport, in pagan rites (hippomancy, funerals, sacred horses), eating, and also for sports. These sports were the horse-fights (hestavígs) and horse-racing (skeið). Reading the sagas, one can find a lot of references to horse-fighting. This sport was considered of such importance among medieval Icelanders that laws have been written down regarding this entertainment, yet there is no exact description of how such events were organized. Only by putting all the references together can one endeavor to explain what these horse-fights may have actually been like. In my paper I would like to present the basis for these horse-fights. Their terminology has been frequently misinterpreted, and no critical investigation yet exists into the staging and organization of such events, which would shed light on the meaning and role of this sport to medieval Icelanders. It will be shown that horse-fighting functioned not only as brutal entertainment in itself, but also played a social role in the broader context of inter-district assemblies.

In un’epoca che non riconosce più la centralità della storia della letteratura, dilaniata dal dibattito tra estetica e storicismo e polverizzata in una miriade di generi, sistemi e correnti, il volume fa luce in modo approfondito su un patrimonio letterario poco noto, discontinuo ed eterogeneo, risalente alle culture germaniche dell’Alto Medioevo.
Al netto degli stereotipi barbarici, queste rappresentavano il risultato di un lungo processo di integrazione tra la miriade di società segmentarie del Ferro, dalle Alpi alla Scandinavia, e le varie forme in cui si declinò l’esperienza culturale romana, diffusa ben oltre i limiti cronologici dell’Impero.
Lungamente dominate dall’oralità o da fenomeni scritturali epigrafici – o spesso di natura pragmatica e talora troppo intermittenti per essere definiti “letteratura” –, queste culture seppero dar vita, con il contributo essenziale del Cristianesimo e delle sue prerogative di trasmissione scritta, a una densa tradizione letteraria dalle caratteristiche disomogenee.

Why are there two different texts of Hávamál? The oldest edition of Hávamál, printed by P. H. Resen in 1665, has a text which is significantly different from that of the only medieval witness, the Codex Regius. The order of the stanzas is especially divergent in a way reminiscent of independent recordings from oral tradition. Scholars have flirted with the idea that Resen’s text was not derived from the Codex Regius but from another medieval version. While this idea is initially attractive a closer examination reveals its weaknesses. I suggest instead that Resen’s text is indeed derived from the Codex Regius but not entirely through a written transmission. Someone may have learned Hávamál by heart and later written the poem down from memory. This would explain the different order of the stanzas and the variant readings which seem uncharacteristic of scribal transmission. Quotations of Hávamál by Björn á Skarðsá in writings dated to 1626 and 1642 are related to Resen’s text so this version of Hávamál must have existed already in the early 17th century. Resen’s text is interpolated with a stanza from Sigrdrífumáland some material from Hugsvinnsmál and Vafþrúðnismál. This is further evidence  that  Icelandic  scholars  were  making  use  of  texts  from  the  Codex Regius before bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson obtained it in 1643.

в отечественной науке роль варягов в образовании древнерусского государства оценивается весьма высоко, в частности у исследователей уже практически не вызывает сомнений скандинавское происхождение самой княжеской династии Рюриковичей. Однако на сегодняшний день в так называемом варяжском вопросе наблюдается известное противоречие: при огромном массиве археологических данных, недвусмысленно свидетельствующих об активном присутствии варягов на Руси в X–XI вв., мы располагаем весьма ограниченным количеством лингвистических следов и примет этнокультурного взаимодействия русских и скандинавов в эту эпоху. Данная книга представляет собой опыт историко-филологического разыскания в области культурных контактов Скандинавии и Руси на излете эпохи викингов. Образ идеального правителя, практика обмена дарами, представления о статусе и наследственных правах незаконнорожденного, рассказ о предках как средство характеристики потомков, перекличка личных имен, прозвищ и торжественных панегириков — такова лишь часть тех напряженных точек этого взаимодействия, к которым мы попытались подступиться в нашем исследовании.
The Varangian contribution to the formation of the ancient Russian state is highly
evaluated in the national scholarly tradition, more specifi cally, there are practically
no doubts about the Scandinavian origin of the Rurik dynasty. However, there is
a certain contradiction in the so-called Varangian problem: given a huge body of
archaeological data unambiguously confi rming the active Varangian presence in Rus
in the 10th–11th centuries, we can only have at our disposal a very limited amount
of the linguistic traces of ethnic and cultural connections between Russians and
Scandinavians at that time.
This book presents an attempt at the historical and philological study in the
fi eld of the cultural contacts between Scandinavia and Rus before the very end of the
Viking age. The image of the ideal ruler, the practice of gift exchange, the concepts of
the status and inheritance rights of illegitimate children, a narrative about ancestors
as a way of characterizing descendants, and similarities between personal names,
nicknames and solemn eulogies — these are, to name just a few, the intense points of
this interaction which became the focus of our study.

This anthology explores depictions of alterity, monstrosity and deviation in medieval Icelandic literature, Scandinavian history, and beyond. The authors explore issues of identity, genre, character and text and the interplay between them, challenging long-held perceptions about the lack of ambiguity 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.

http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503585864-1

The three Íslendingasögur about major outlaws have long fascinated scholars and readers alike, and the question why medieval Icelanders told tales in which social outsiders play the part of the hero has been the concern of scholarship for a number of years. At the heart of this scholarship has been a preoccupation with the characters and their families, for these families play a prominent role in the texts: Gísli is outlawed for killing one brother-in-law to avenge another; Hörðr does not trust any of his male relatives, and this eventually leads to his downfall; and Grettir's difficult relationship with his father seems to lead to his reckless and arrogant behaviour later in life. But why are these stories about outlaw heroes so focussed on the relationships between the individual and his kin group? And why were Icelanders – medieval and modern – so fascinated by these marginal, destructive figures?
In this article these questions are addressed by approaching the outlaw from the perspective of monster theory. The monster, as a creature that points towards or even embodies meaning beyond itself, lends itself well to such an investigation into social and cultural concerns whose reflection we might see in the literary products of said culture. So far, outlaws have not been included into the corpus of Íslendingasögur monsters, and therefore, the article consists of four parts. First, the concept of social monstrosity is established, based on Cohen’s monster theory but more suited to the unique situation in the Íslendingasögur. This concept is then applied to the three major outlaws before turning to the discussion of outlaws within their matrix of family ties. In the final step, the monstrous outlaw in his disrupted, disruptive family will be read as symptomatic of medieval Icelandic socio-cultural concerns about the fragmentation of family structures.

This paper argues that seiðr was about spinning a mind emissary, sending forth such a spun emissary, or attracting things or doing other things with such a mind emissary. Further arguments for this view can be read in my dissertation on gand(r). (Gand, seid og åndevind.)

Chapter 4 of Eiríks saga rauða has long drawn the attention of scholars due to its detailed description of a seiðr, a rare occurrence in Íslendinga sǫgur as well as in sagas of other genres. The protagonist of the scene, a Greenlandic seiðkona named Þorbjǫrg, is depicted as a social functionary who creates a relationship with the supernatural world and acquires a deeper knowledge and foreknowledge concerning the surrounding area, for the benefit of the local community. The performance takes place during a great famine at the beginning of the eleventh century, and the semi-public ritual had the purpose of predicting when the dearth would come to an end. It consisted – among other things-of a ritual meal: a porridge of kid's milk and of the cooked hearts of all the living creatures that inhabited the area. The present paper aims at casting light on this specific aspect of Þorbjǫrg's seiðr, and at contextualizing it within a wider literary and historical landscape. The intention is to integrate traditional interpretations with observations on the importance of sympathetic magic in ancient and medieval Europe, and particularly in medieval Scandinavia.

The present volume responds to the rising boom of interest in folklore and folklore research in the study of Old Norse mythology. The twenty-two authors of this volume reveal the dynamism of this lively dialogue, which is characterized by a diversity of perspectives linking to different fields and national scholarships.

The chapters open with a general overview of how the concepts of “folklore” and “mythology” have been understood and related across the history of Old Norse studies, which is followed by a group of chapters that discuss and present different approaches and types of source materials, with methodological and theoretical concerns. The interest in folklore is bound up with interests in practice and lived religion, which are brought into focus in a series of chapters relating to magic and ritual. Attention then turns to images that link to mythology and different mythic agents in studies that explore a variety of usage in meaning-making in different forms of cultural expression. The next group of studies spotlights motifs, with perspectives on synchronic usage across genres and different media, cross-cultural exchange, and long-term continuities. The volume culminates in discussions of complex stories, variously in oral traditions behind medieval sources and relationships between accounts found in medieval sources and those recorded from more recent traditions.

Individually, the chapters variously offer reflexive and historical research criticism, new research frameworks, illustrative studies, and exploratory investigations. Collectively, they illustrate the rapidly evolving multidisciplinary discussion at the intersections of folklore and Old Norse mythology, where the transformative impacts were recently described as a paradigm shift. They open new paths for scholarly discussion with the potential to inspire future research.

The paper provides a brief summary of the Old Norse Grettis Saga and examines it in terms of research aspects outside of the field of literary studies. It highlights the historical, cultural, social, and religious contexts of the work, giving explanation as to where indications of them can be found in the saga. At the same time it tries to explain some of the more obscure aspects, such as the supernatural elements, in order to give clarity to the method of interpretation. Vital information on the grouping of Old Norse sagas, as well as the importance of ancestry in the texts, are provided and elaborated. Definitions of key terms essential to understand the source material are provided and kept on a level clear to a reader not fluent in the topic. Categorizations of the mentioned saga genre are also provided, with the hope to spark interest in the vast variety of motifs and key aspects of the Old Norse sagas. Further suggestions for research outside of the field are presented; however, they are not taken up completely. The paper shows the Old Norse sagas as potent, yet often overlooked, literary works worthy of attention as possible research material in the field of humanities.

Child in exile, Russian warlord, mercenary for the Greek Emperor, Christian warrior in the Holy Land, King of Norway; Harald Hard-ruler was many things in the course of a brilliant and blood-soaked career, but he is mostly remembered today (if he is remembered at all) as the Viking king who scuppered the chances of successful English resistance to the Normans at the battle of Hastings in 1066. But Harald, often regarded as the last of the Viking kings, deserves to be more than a mere footnote to the familiar story of the Norman Conquest. This book, an illustrated retelling of Harald’s life and legend, with factual sections exploring the Viking world, sets out to put that right.

This chapter makes a close reading of a short vignette in Eyrbyggja saga - the attempted forced marriage between the Swedish berserk Halli and Víga-Styrr's daughter Ásdis - exploring the ways that various norms and normative expectations are deliberately manipulated by the characters in question to further their own social goals in the narrative.

This paper examines the obscure concluding sequence in the Old Norse eddic poem Baldrs draumar. In the poem, the god Odin travels in disguise to the realm of the dead in order to raise a dead sorceress; he interrogates her about the bad dreams of his son Baldr; the sorceress prophesies Baldr's death and the revenge sequence that Odin will orchestrate to follow it.  In the final sequence of the poem, Odin asks a peculiar question identifiable as a riddle for 'waves'; rather than answering the question, the sorceress reveals the identity of Odin as the figure interrogating her, and in response, Odin appears to reveal the identity of the sorceress, who then takes the last word with reference to Ragnarök - the end of the world at which Odin will die.

Building on the premises that the final sequence of stanzas would have reasonable sense to a vernacular audience and engage concepts conventional to the mythology (rather than simply being accepted as obscure or disconnected from broader discourses), this paper proposes the following interpretation: Odin's final question is relevant and engages a mythic image as a means of asking whether Ragnarök will follow from the revenge-cycle of the previous questions; this question enables the other figure to identify him unambiguously as Odin; this identification allows Odin to identify the other figure as someone other than expected, in which case the most probable recognizable figure would probably be Loki; the final response of this figure then both responds to Odin's question as a threat with direct reference to the release of Loki, relevant to the situation.

This paper engages possibilities of variation in the underlying ideas of the mythology found in different sources.  It introduces the observation that the cycle of material associated with the revenge prophesies in this and other sources seems to be rooted in different basic concepts than narrative material associated with Baldr's mother and her attempts to prevent Baldr's death (developed further in _Baldr and Lemminkäinen_).  If the interpretation is correct that the sorceress addressed by Odin is Loki in disguise, the circumstances present the possibility that this poem is engaging models of the mythology somewhat different from what is found in Snorri Sturluson's Edda.

Gísli Súrsson’s Saga is one of the most popular outlaw sagas in the corpus of Icelandic literature. In this story, Gísli experiences a series of prophetic dreams where two mysterious female figures appear to foretell his fate. Although the identities of these figures are not revealed, they do contain some of the same qualities that parallel other sources that might identify them as the Norns of fate of Norse mythology. This short paper will summarize Gísli’s dreams, and then compare them with a few other sources in order to investigate this potential connection. Finally, a short critique will be provided on this correlation that might help us lend some insight into the purpose behind these mythical beings, as well as to provide a basis for later inquiry on the subject.

Author: Noel Braucher

The (unedited and error-ridden) manuscript for the paper I gave at the 2016 Nordic Mythology Conference at Berkeley, October 29-30, "Paganism Past". The paper addresses Paganism Past and Ideas of Authenticity, and argues that any ideas of authenticity in the representation of Nordic mythology in Snorri's texts should be abandoned for another approach. My suggestion for an alternative approach is the concept of cultural complexity, in the sense that all sources available to the student of Nordic mythology, be they textual or part of the material culture, should be approached as expressions of the cultural phenomenon 'Nordic mythology', and variation should be addressed through the lens of social or cognitive differences and variations. With this perspective, we can abandon ideas of an authentic version of Nordic mythology; chronological and geographical variation become less essential, and distortions of the material brought about by the conversion process must be considered less interesting than the possibility of the available sources to Nordic mythology representing a plausible and viable system of thought and culture.

This definitive and complete Annotated Version of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story of "Young Goodman Brown" contains 114 Footnotes, 1 Old Norse translation and 9 EndNotes. History is unpacked as to the numerous references to the Salem Witch Trials. (19 pp.)

Medieval North Atlantic Studies, which is broadly defined as the study of the British Isles, Iceland, Scandinavia, the English Channel, and the Low Countries, has a tendency to research two types of interactions. First, it focuses on common themes between these cultures, which then strengthens the argument for their grouping. Second, it emphasizes that these cultures traveled throughout Africa, Europe, and the East, participating in a “Global Middle Ages.” These current approaches to the North Atlantic, however, are compatible with the ideologies of white supremacists, and, for this reason, they should be examined. These approaches focus on the globality of the North Atlantic mainly in order to discuss how Northern cultures changed the rest of the globe, and not to show how these North Atlantic cultures were themselves changed by these interactions. The arguments assume an all‐white North Atlantic, maintaining that Old Norse literature and culture does not deal with issues of race. Evidence of the racial awareness of medieval Scandinavians has been dismissed as atypical, further exacerbating the problem. A decentered Global North Atlantic approach is benecial to the study of the North Atlantic because it centers those most harmed by white supremacists' ideologies, counteracting white supremacists' wrongful understanding of the middle ages. The essay uses the Icelandic Saga af Tristram ok Ísodd as an example to show that the saga dehumanizes characters through religious, racial, and geographical markers. Moreover, these examples have been ignored by academics who continue to disregard discussions of race in Old Norse literature and culture, as they imagine Vikings as devoid of racial understanding.

This volume is the first book-length study of masculinities in the Sagas of Icelanders. Spanning the entire corpus of the Sagas of Icelanders—and taking into account a number of little-studied sagas as well as the more well-known works—it comprehensively interrogates the construction, operation, and problematization of masculinities in this genre.

Men and Masculinities in the Sagas of Icelanders elucidates the dominant model of masculinity that operates in the sagas, demonstrates how masculinities and masculine characters function within these texts, and investigates the means by which the sagas, and saga characters, may subvert masculine dominance. Combining close literary analysis with insights drawn from sociological theories of hegemonic and subordinated masculinities, notions of homosociality and performative gender, and psychoanalytic frameworks, the book brings to men and masculinities in saga literature the same scrutiny traditionally brought to the study of women and femininities. Ultimately, the volume demonstrates that masculinity is not simply glorified in the sagas, but is represented as being both inherently fragile and a burden to all characters, masculine and non-masculine alike.

Odin's millennial crisis: Norse mythology and Nordic identities in Janne Teller's Odins ø and Cornelius Jakhelln's Gudenes fall

In this essay, I will discuss the use of elements from Old Norse mythology in two recent novels: Janne Teller’s
Odins ø (1999) and Cornelius Jakhelln’s Gudenes fall (2007). In both works, the Norse god Odin is placed in
modern, Nordic societies close to the millennial shift, raising questions and debate about (national) identity,
history and memory in times of globalization and mass immigration. The works are read from a postnational
perspective, in which Homi K. Bhabha’s idea of «writing the nation» serves as a theoretic starting point. Through
several examples, I show how both novels deconstruct the idea of a national narrative, by letting pre-national
(mythic), national and postnational narratives, symbols and imaginations collide into apocalyptic visions without
fixed perspectives or closed endings. The essay also puts these two Nordic examples in the broader perspective
of new world literature and migrant literature, in which the shape and content of the (national) self and history is
constantly under debate.