Reflections on Old Norse Myths

192 Pages·2007·2.623 MB·English

by  Pernille Hermann, Jens Peter Schjødt, Rasmus Tranum Kristensen

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REFLECTIONS ON OLD NORSE MYTHS
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STUDIES IN VIKING AND MEDIEVAL SCANDINAVIA
General Editors
Judy Quinn, Stefan Brink, and John Hines
Volume 1
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REFLECTIONS ON OLD NORSE MYTHS
Edited by
Pernille Hermann, Jens Peter Schjødt,
and Rasmus Tranum Kristensen
H
F
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Reflections on Old Norse myths. – (Studies in viking and medieval Scandinavia; 1)
1. Mythology, Norse 2. Old Norse literature – History and criticism 3. Mythology, Norse,
in literature
I. Hermann, Pernille II. Schjodt, Jens Peter III. Kristensen, Rasmus Tranum
398.2'0948
ISBN-13: 9782503526140
© 2007, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
D/2007/0095/102
ISBN: 978-2-503-52614-0
Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vii
Preface ix
List of Contributors xiii
Contemporary Research into Old Norse Mythology 1
JENS PETER SCHJØDT
Íslendingabók and History 17
PERNILLE HERMANN
Why Did Christians Continue to Find Pagan Myths Useful? 33
JOHN MCKINNELL
Male or Female Initiation? The Strange Case of Ragnars saga 53
RORY MCTURK
Skírnismál and Nordic Charm Magic 75
STEPHEN A. MITCHELL
‘Hildr Prepares a Bed for Most Helmet-Damagers’: 95
Snorri’s Treatment of a Traditional Poetic Motif in his Edda
JUDY QUINN
Myth, Genealogy, and Narration: Some Motifs in Vo(cid:51)lsunga saga 119
from the Perspective of the History of Religions
CATHARINA RAUDVERE
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Ibn Fadlan’s Account of a Rus Funeral: 133
To What Degree Does It Reflect Nordic Myths?
JENS PETER SCHJØDT
Why Was Óðinn Killed by Fenrir? A Structural Analysis 149
of Kinship Structures in Old Norse Myths of Creation and Eschatology
RASMUS TRANUM KRISTENSEN
Index 171
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ILLUSTRATIONS
Rasmus Tranum Kristensen, ‘Why Was Óðinn Killed by Fenrir?’
Figure 1, p. 155. Differentiation of kinship.
Figure 2, p. 162. Loki’s kinship structures.
Figure 3, p. 166. Transformations between myths of creation and Ragnaro(cid:51)k.
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PREFACE
Myths from pre-Christian Scandinavia, as they are known to us from
medieval authors and redactors, play a significant role in contemporary
culture — in popular books, films, cartoons, etc. This, of course, is due
to a powerful fascination they hold, which creates new challenges and inspiration
for each new generation. Artists of all kinds are naturally free to use these myths as
they wish, but at the same time it is valuable to remember that in the Viking Age
and during the Middle Ages they had a rather different significance, having played
an existential role in the world view of the people of that past. With this publica-
tion we aim to provide a window on the research being undertaken by scholars
representing a range of disciplines in a number of different countries. The study of
Old Norse mythology at the beginning of the third millennium incorporates per-
spectives from a range of specializations — the history of religion, folklore, literary
studies, and philology — and the current collection of essays presents reflections
on Old Norse myths from some of these many angles. One of the major problems
is how we may use sources from the Middle Ages when seeking to understand the
function of mythology in the pagan past and in medieval Iceland, and many of the
essays thus discuss methodological problems in dealing with the texts. These
problems are of different kinds and comprise arguments from different fields of
study, including those fields represented in this volume.
Jens Peter Schjødt opens the volume with an introduction to aspects of the
scholarship on Old Norse mythology that have emerged over the last ten to fifteen
years. Schjødt’s introductory chapter is not meant to be exhaustive; rather than
articles, it considers books selected as representative of the key trends. Schjødt is
a historian of religions, and the works treated are particularly relevant to that
specific field, and so do not deal with only mythology but also with pagan religion
in general. The structure of Schjødt’s introduction is mainly chronological,
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x Preface
although occasionally a thematic structuring will be found and a range of work by
the same author dealt with together.
In the second chapter Pernille Hermann discusses Íslendingabók as history and
myth. She points out the problem that even a text like Íslendingabók, which explicitly
aims at being objective, represents the pagan past through the conceptual framework
of the time of recording as well as through the author’s narrative organization and
interpretation. The analytical part of the article is concerned with the significance
of the Irish monks said to have populated Iceland before the settlement. It is dis-
cussed how the specific historicity of Íslendingabók is related to medieval Christian
schemata indebted to transcendent systems of meaning. Thus, historical events
represented in Íslendingabók are not to be approached and interpreted primarily
in terms of their factual content and context, but rather from their textual context.
It is shown how in particular respects Íslendingabók took on the function of a myth
— a foundation narrative capable of explaining the origin of the Icelandic culture.
In the third chapter John McKinnell examines the motives that drove Christian
writers to describe pagan mythology, and in doing so he compares Old Norse exam-
ples with material from other Germanic-speaking areas. McKinnell concludes that
practical magic, Christian condemnations of paganism, and impressive ancestry are
found both in Old Norse and in other comparative material, but that the Old
Norse examples are treated in more sophisticated literary ways than their parallels.
McKinnell explains this difference through the fact that Icelanders were trained
to become professional poets. The preservation of the myths, including the eddic
poetry of mythological character, is also explained by the social conditions in
Iceland in which the pagan material was considered useful by the Icelandic aristo-
crats when they wished to investigate important personal, social, and moral issues.
In the following chapter Rory McTurk investigates whether Ragnars saga loð-
brókar reflects pre-Christian Scandinavian initiation practices in its portrayal of
the protagonist Ragnarr loðbrók and his wife Áslaug. Arguing that there had been
a goddess Loþkona/Loðbróka, McTurk maintains that this goddess has been mixed
up with historical figures. He then discusses Jan de Vries’s ideas of the initiation
sequence and how far this might apply to the saga. Considering both Áslaug and
Ragnarr, the sequence can be shown to be divided between the two, and it is
concluded that Áslaug’s ‘career’ in particular can be understood in the light of the
initiation model. Nevertheless the possibility of loans from Greek romance must
also be taken into account.
The book continues with a chapter by Stephen A. Mitchell who examines
magical charms concerned with manipulating physical and emotional relation-
ships, especially in relation to love magic. This topic is explored with special ref-
erence to the eddic poem Skírnismál, and the central action discussed is Skírnir’s
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