Old Norse Literature

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Viking Language 2: The Old Norse Reader immerses the learner in the legends, folklore, and myths of the Vikings. The readings are drawn from sagas, runes and eddas. They take the student into the world of Old Norse heroes, gods, and goddesses. There is a separate chapter on the ‘Creation of the World’ and another on ‘The Battle at the World’s End,’ where the gods meet their doom. Other readings and maps focus on Viking Age Iceland, Greenland, and Vínland. A series of chapters tackles eddic and skaldic verse with their ancient stories from the old Scandinavian past. Runic inscriptions and explanations of how to read runes form a major component of the book. Where there are exercises, the answers are given at the end of the chapter. Both Viking Language 1 and 2 are structured as workbooks. Students learns quickly and interactively. More information on our website: vikinglanguage.com

Viking Language 1: Learn Old Norse, Runes, and Icelandic Sagas is an introduction to the language of the Vikings offering in one book graded lessons, vocabulary, grammar exercises, pronunciation, student guides, and maps. It explains Old Icelandic literature, Viking history, and mythology. Readings include runestones, legends, and sagas.  Viking Language 1 focuses on the most frequently occurring words in the sagas, an innovative method which speeds learning. Because the grammar has changed little from Old Norse, the learner is well on the way to mastering Modern Icelandic. It provides a wealth of information about Iceland, where the sagas were written and Old Scandinavian history and mythology were preserved. Viking Language 1 is accompanied by Viking Language 2: The Old Norse Reader.

The article considers the image of the Old Norse Vanir gods and their religion that seems to have existed in Nordic oral tradition from pres-Christian times, underlining the degree to which this "religion" was seen as being different in nature to that of the æsir.

An updated and edited edition (Nov 2018) of the fully bilingual translation and commentary of the Old Norse poem Havamal. The poem of 164 stanzas has been translated from a more contemporary and poetic standpoint and is a work of both academia and poetry.

This paper presents a new understanding of the cosmology of pre-Christian Scandinavian myth. The sources appear to give contradictory information; for example, the Æsir are located in different places: at the centre of the world, in the west, in the east, under the sea, and in the sky; Hel is placed both in the underground and beyond the sea. In recent studies, this has led to the conclusion that there is no system. The author argues that there is, and that we misunderstand the passages to other worlds. The otherworld can be defined as ‘the world beyond what we can access by natural means’. The starting-point is the realm that is physically accessible to humans, forming a compressed, wide ‘bubble’ around him/her and the local community, since our natural range is very wide in the horizontal plane in all directions, but very short downwards and upwards. Still, people have always imagined that it is possible supernaturally to transcend this ‘bubble’ through certain passages. These passages point in many directions from the middle of the ‘bubble’, but the locations of the passages are not identical to the location(s) of the other world(s), the passages being interchangeable with each other and often lead to the same (kind of) land/place. The other worlds have interfaces with this world and with each other, but have no geographical location in relation to this world or to the others – they are simply ‘beyond the passages’, ‘on the other side’. Accordingly, the fundamental model may be construed as an opposition between ‘us’ and ‘the others’, with an ever-changing border. This system becomes clear when we examine not only the limited Old Norse sources, but consider them in the light of the abundant folktales and legends recorded in post-medieval times throughout Northern Europe.

In this article, the author attempts to sift out from Old Norse (ON) written sources the early Viking Age terms for ship types and to link them to actual ships and ship depictions from that period. The author argues that knǫrr, beit, skeið, kjóll, askr, and elliði were the main ship types of the early Viking Age in Scandinavia, at least in the west, and that knerrir referred during this period to warships like Oseberg and only later to cargo ships like Skuldelev 1. ‘A ship with a backwards curved stem’ seems to have been the original meaning of knǫrr. Kjólar were heavy, all-round ships like Gokstad, the author argues, and beit were very early ships with angular stems known from depictions. Skeiðar were low, narrow ships like Ladby. Askar were also very early, small, light ships with stitched planking, whereas elliðar were combined inland / sea vessels, originally Eastern  European.

Earlier versions of most of the essays in this collection were delivered at the Viking Society Student Conference on the theme of Old Norse Made New held at the University of Oxford on 25 February 2006 (Clark, Fimi, Finlay, O'Donoghue, Phelpstead, and Townend). These papers are published alongside others on medievalist topics from previous Viking Society Student Conferences (Ashurst and Larrington). This collection addresses students and scholars with an interest in the ways in which Old Norse literature and the medieval culture of Iceland and Scandinavia have influenced writers, especially writers in English, after the Middle Ages. The essays collected here cover a wide chronological span (from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first) and a range of literary genres (poetry, novel, libretto, children's literature, fantasy fiction).

Any cursory read through the medieval Scandinavian literature pertaining to the Viking Age or earlier will demonstrate that alcohol played an important role in pre-Christian society.  Law-codes show that aristocrats used it in their political and religious rites, the mythic narratives of the Poetic and Prose Eddas are full of competitions between deities and monsters for the liquid or for the means to make it, and it’s prominent in the pseudo-historic accounts of the Scandinavian sagas.  The archaeological record has also demonstrated the importance of alcohol with an extensive catalogue of imagery, drinking vessels, and brewing equipment.  This article will overview some of the more prominent written examples of ritual drinking and put them into a model that demonstrates the role that alcohol may have had in heathen Scandinavian society.

Undergraduate Dissertation- Grade 1:2

A comparison between Odin and Loki, focusing on the similarities in character and how these similarities seem to change in face of changing society, religion and belief. Focusing on a number of issues such as eschatology and cultural themes in religious literature.

This paper explores the accounts of Norse Greenland in the medieval Icelandic sagas, looking past the Vínland sagas to examine ways in which Greenlandic settings are employed in the 'post-classical' saga-tradition and other texts. The style and content of these tales varied over time, but the recurrence of certain conventional patterns indicates that stories set in Greenland retained important thematic continuities for Icelandic saga audiences. From as early as the 12th century, Icelandic writers identified Greenland as a peripheral space in the Norse world, connected with Iceland, but markedly distinct and remote. This marginalization is evident in the Vínland sagas and developed further in the post-classical tradition, which made Greenland a place of exile in which Icelandic heroes were tested by extreme adversity in the settlements and wilderness. Embodying the preoccupations of Icelandic writers and audiences, these writings tell us little about historical realities in Norse Greenland; but they do show how details of geographical and historical lore were subsumed and transformed in the Icelandic narrative tradition.

This essay is an attempt to construct an annual calendrical model that would have existed among the heathen peoples of Scandinavia and Northern Europe prior to the advent of the Christian “Julian“ calendar.  The evidence suggests that this annual cycle would be based around the movements of the sun and the moon, which determined when seasonal festivals and “holy times” took place.  Such a model should help to reveal widespread and deep rooted traditions around the annual cycle that existed among heathen people prior to and during the Viking Age.

“I have mentioned that my first essay on editorial methodology concerned the number of branches in family trees, and my latest concerned editing with the aid of computer programmes. On these topics and many another, Paolo Trovato’s combative and richly instructive book leaves me far behind, and it is a privilege to have the opportunity of commending it” (from M.D. Reeve’s foreword)
"It is a didactic tool and at the same time a passionate and combative pamphlet; it speaks to students and colleagues at the same time and with the same stance" (Morato, French Studies) - Available in both a print edition and an e-book, the book is distributed  by major online retailers, such as  libreriauniversitaria.it and Amazon.

Masa tua bahagia adalah suatu harapan dan impian semua orang. Pada masa tua banyak faktor yang dapat meningkatkan kebahagiaan seseorang. Masa lansia merupakan periode terakhir dalam kehidupan manusia. Masa lansia ditandai dengan adanya beberapa perubahan baik secara fisik, psikologis maupun sosial, dimana perubahan ini akan mempengaruhi kondisi fisik dan mental lansia. Perkembangan fisik yang lebih dekat dengan penuaan. Perkembangan kognitif di masa dewasa akhir, secara garis besar terbagi dalam lima bagian yaitu: Fungsi kognitif pada orang lanjut usia, perkembangan bahasa, pekerjaan dan pensiun, kesehatan mental, dan Agama. Ada tiga aspek yang dilihat terkait dengan proses perkembangan pada masa lansia terkait dengan pendidikan, yaitu: perkembangan fisik lansia, perkembangan kognitif lansia, dan perkembangan sosio-emosi pada lansia. Jadi makalah ini membahas tentang perkembangan pada masa dewasa Akhir dalam rentang kehidupan manusia.

Kata Kunci: perkembangan kognitif, fisik, dan sosio-emosi pada lansia

Some recent studies concerning early medieval Europe have suggested that Scandinavia and Francia represented two ideological poles with which other populations within the Germanic world might have intended to align themselves. While such a view sometimes may be useful, it may also over-simplify a more complex situation. Scandinavians must have recognised cultural distinctions between themselves and Christian Europeans, but may not have viewed these distinctions necessarily as emblems of opposition unless faced by a direct political or military threat. Indeed, ideological contrasts concerning the way society was structured and power was wielded may have cut across apparent ethnic boundaries.

Roman influences on early Germanic society may have assisted in the creation of a ‘Germanic’ identity. Roman pressure also may have affected the development of Germanic governmental structures, encouraging king-centred governmental ideologies that contrasted with possibly older, assembly-centred systems. Scandinavia, never threatened by Roman domination, may have retained assembly-centred structures longer than other Germanic societies. Southern Scandinavia’s ‘central places’ of the Early Germanic Iron Age, such as Gudme, may have had functions comparable with those of the later Old Saxon Assembly and Icelandic Alþingi. Such sites may have provided a focus for an emergent Scandinavian identity. This assembly-centred system may have been disrupted as chieftains struggled to attain the kind of power enjoyed by their counterparts in king-centred societies (much as happened in medieval Iceland), perhaps explaining the poverty of archaeological finds in the region from the Late Germanic Iron Age.
The growing Frankish threat to Scandinavia in the eighth century may have both spurred further consolidation of power in the hands of the élite and, initially, provoked an ideological reaction against Christian Europe. Yet while wary of domination by Christian European kingdoms, the Viking-Age Scandinavian élite may have envied their powerful model of lordship and had an interest in accessing elements of their culture. Such a situation may be reflected in historical legends, particularly the Scylding-Skjöldung cycle, which perhaps developed during the Viking Age. These legends might represent not source material for historical glimpses of early northern Europe (as is often assumed) but rather Scandinavian attempts at self-definition in relation to the burgeoning and powerful cultures of Christian Europe. Scandinavia’s eventual adoption of Christianity and Christian lordship in the course of the Viking Age largely resolved the ideological contrasts that had existed both within Scandinavian society and between Scandinavia and Christian Europe.

This article re-examines the much-debated question of the indebtedness of the medieval Icelandic scholar-poet-politician Snorri Sturluson to the Christian-Latin tradition. I offer an argument for a relationship between the construction of Snorri’s mythography in the Edda and two figurative traditions stemming from the Old Testament,  most notably codified in the 9th chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes, and their subsequent reception in the medieval commentary tradition in Latin and Icelandic, the Old Norse liturgy, vernacular saints’ lives, and lives of the Icelandic bishops. My central claim is that two pervasive figures, the bird and the fish—prototypically represented as captured in Ecclesiastes 9:12 and elsewhere in the Christian literary tradition—merit consideration not as “sources” of certain myths of Loki but of Snorri’s representation of them. Previous scholarship, I suggest, has overlooked a Christian background to the Norse gods’ final fishing expedition, which leads to the binding of Loki and his captivity until Ragnarǫk, when Loki is caught in a net of his own invention: a widespread biblical topos concerning the devil and other “evil-doers.” Snorri’s treatment of the “The Matter of Loki” is hence relevant more broadly to long-standing debates concerning the intellectual debt of Snorri’s conception of Norse myth as “mythic history” to the formative influence of Christian eschatology.

“This book is not a dusty compendium but a virtuoso performance. It is truly
outstanding on account of its comprehensive coverage of the field, the depth of
its analysis, the lucidity of its presentation, and the sheer sense of fun that is conveyed
by many of its pages […]. It deserves to be read by every textual scholar” (Dániel Kiss, Exemplaria Classica, 20, 2016).

“A new book came out last October that I think deserves the attention of NT text
critics, especially those working on all things stemmatic […]. Written with verve
but also with a thorough knowledge of the subject, it should serve beginning students
and seasoned scholars admirably” (Peter J. Gurry, http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.it/2015/6/).

“This volume is a didactic tool and at the same time a passionate and combative
pamphlet; it speaks to students and colleagues at the same time and with the
same stance” (Nicola Morato, French Studies, 2015).

“A scholar said that before entering into an edition, one should first read Maas and
Pasquali. This is a very good idea, but I think that Trovato’s book will do perhaps
equally well. There is a clear presentation of problems, illustrated by a wealth
of examples, there is fairness towards those who cherish another view, bringing
forward what is good in what is considered mistaken. This is scholarship on a high
level” (Bengt Alexanderson, Augustinianum, 2016)

In this article some aspects of Tolkien’s work with regard to his relationship to folklore and nationalism are presented. It is also argued, contrary to Lauri Honko’s view of literary epics, that pre-literary sources constitute a problem for the creators of literary epics and that their elements can direct the choice of plot and form. Tolkien felt that there was a British – but no English – mythology comparable to the Greek, Finnish or Norse ones. He tried to reconstruct the ‘lost mythology’ with building blocks from existing mythologies, and dedicated his work to the English people. In this, he saw himself as a compiler of old source material. This article considers his use of Old Norse sources. With Honko’s notion of the second life of folklore it is argued that Tolkien managed to popularise folklore material while his efforts to make his work exclusively English failed; for a contemporary audience it is rather cross-cultural.

The present work investigates the eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál through a theoretical lens constructed by the author that is based on the work of Paul Ricoeur, Aron Gurevich, and Mircea Eliade. By bringing together these three writers the intention is to allow for a close examination of the poem on narrative grounds that also allows for the possibility for general conclusions to be drawn about the cultural environment in which the poem was composed, namely medieval Iceland. The theoretical framework is the stage on which the interpretation of the poem occurs, which is done so in the tradition of a New Critical close reading that explores a wide range of comparative possibilities within the Old Norse-Icelandic literary corpus. Vafþrúðnismál survives in full in the Codex Regius manuscript of eddic poetry (GKS 2365 4to; R) that is housed in Reykjavík, Iceland. The manuscript was composed in Iceland in the 13th century, and is one of the most revered of Iceland’s national treasures. Vafþrúðnismál has been written about extensively, but not to the point of exhaustion, and it is the intention of this work to incorporate all of the important prior studies into the interpretation, while for the first time attending to the poem in a book-length study in English. The thesis is that in the mythological corpus Vafþrúðnismál is both a representation of a myth (i.e. a mythical representation) and a dramatic framework used by the poet to store and transmit a great wealth of mythological information. Its narrative setting—that is its mythical representation—is the poem’s means to convey ancient mythological wisdom. The nature of the mythological wisdom that is conveyed in the poem is the subject of much of the study, and cross references to other sources from the corpus are explored when necessary. To introduce the formal analysis of the poem the author supplies a history of the transmission of the poem, and a description of the works that Vafþrúðnismál has travelled with from the medieval period to the modern day. This transmission history is in turn preceded by an overview of the source texts, the author’s theoretical framework, and the critical scholarship that most concerns Vafþrúðnismál. In the concluding chapter of the work the various threads that have been drawn through the work will be tied together with the intention to draw arguments to a close and to suggest future avenues for interpretation, in the humanities generally, and in medieval Icelandic studies specifically.

This article proposes that the oft-dismissed Sneglu-Halla þáttr (Tale of Sarcastic Halli) is not simply a series of virtuoso vituperations peppered with sexual-cum-barnyard humor, nor “a series of episodes that could have been arranged otherwise as well,” but a text that repays close attention, both for original audiences as well as for scholars of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. I argue that its eponymous hero establishes his social position at the royal Norwegian court by ensconcing himself within a sustained series of allusions to myths of the Norse god Loki, while framing his peers, and even his superiors, as the sexual deviants, low-lifes, and numbskulls of a déclassé “folktale” world. Sneglu-Halla þáttr thus presupposes considerable literary connoisseurship, detailed knowledge of the Norse mythographic tradition, and a consciousness of high and low genre that reflects concerns of shifting social classes and political powers in thirteenth and fourteenth-century Iceland. Ultimately, I leverage this reading to articulate a reappraisal of medieval Icelandic narrative prose—most often lauded for its “realism," "straightforwardness," and "objectivity”: I offer that this deceptively “simple” tale adheres to the same aesthetic principles of complexity, ambiguity, and allusiveness that characterize the Skaldic poetry that is its ostensible subject.