Eddic Poetry

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.

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.

The aim of the thesis I submitted was to examine the role of eddic verse in its prose contexts, primarily in the fornaldarsǫgur, and to consider the probable status and development of the long prosimetric form in oral and written Old Norse literature, also primarily in the fornaldarsǫgur.

Hinum fornu eddukvaeðum hefur jafnan verið skipt í tvo flokka; goðakvaeði og hetjukvaeði. Flest kvaeðin er að finna í Konungsbók Eddukvaeða (K), en þó eru nokkur sem finnast aðeins í öðrum handritum. Hetjukvaeðin eru alls 24 talsins og fjalla þau mörg hver um sama fólkið. Sú saga sem er mest áberandi er sagan af Sigurði Fáfnisbana, Gjúkungum, börnum Buðla konungs og samskiptunum þeirra á milli. 1 Frásögnin sem er að finna í þessum kvaeðum er vaegast sagt aevintýraleg. Þau segja frá Sigurði, hinni miklu hetju, sem verður ástfanginn af Brynhildi Buðladóttur, en er ginntur af galdrakvendinu Grímhildi til að giftast dóttur sinni Guðrúnu Gjúkadóttur. Sá sem endar með því að giftast Brynhildi er hins vegar Gunnar, bróðir Guðrúnar. Þetta leiðir af sér miklar hörmungar, þar sem flestar sögupersónur láta líf sitt. Sigurður og Brynhildur deyja, Gunnar og braeður hans deyja, Guðrún er gift Atla, bróður Brynhildar, sem hún síðan drepur á hrottalegan hátt og deyr á endanum sjálf. Því maetti með sanni halda fram að sagan sé nokkuð tregablandin í heild sinni, en líkt og Vésteinn Ólason (2006) nefnir er skilgreiningin á hetjukvaeðunum sú að þau fjalla m.a. "um hörmuleg örlög hetjanna og þeirra sem eru þeim nákomnir". 2 Ein saga, sem ekki er þekkt í öðrum heimildum en í eddukvaeði, en er samt sem áður einnig að finna í Konungsbók; er sagan af Oddrúnu og harmi hennar. Kvaeðið Oddrúnargrátur er að hluta til kveðið í orðastað konu sem er sögð vera systir Atla, sem einnig er bróðir Brynhildar Buðladóttir og er aðalpersónan, Oddrún þar af leiðandi hluti af fjölskyldu Buðla konungs. Í kvaeðinu rekur Oddrún m.a. raunir sínar af því að hafa verið ástfangin, og þar að auki heitbundin Gunnari Gjúkasyni. Hún varð því fyrir miklum missi þegar Atli, bróðir hennar, drepur Gunnar en samt sem áður bregst hún við sorginni á annars konar hátt en tíðkast í kvaeðum í þessum flokki.

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.

The Old Norse myth of creation is not just an explanation of how the body of the giant Ymir was turned into the world. The meaning of Ymir's name in conjunction with new interpretations of Ginnungagap and the Old Norse word 'yppa' adds new layers to our understanding of the worldview behind the myth.

Imitative verse-translation (into ljóðaháttr and fornyrðislag in Modern English; I am also keen on the stylistic questions of rendering the ON prose).
This is a draft for a projected book of ON Eddic and Skaldic verse-translations, wherein each text should be presented furnished with an introduction and finished notes (the apparatus here is clearly far from finished; and I confess to being a compulsive reviser of all my efforts). I have, thus far, also made metricostylistically imitative translations of Vǫluspá, Hávamál, Hervararkviða, Alvíssmál, Vǫlundarkviða, Sigrdrífumál, and the Old Icelandic Rune Poem (with acrophony!), and hope to finish more in due course if I can.
These translations are commissioned and owned by Reaktion Books.

(Updated Feb. 15, 2021) The first in-depth survey of English language translations of the Poetic Edda of its kind, intended for seasoned researchers, future translators, and enthusiasts searching for an 'ideal' translation to consult. This PDF edition is based on an ongoing web-based resource, a part of the Mimisbrunnr.info project. Readers can find it at the following URL: https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/eddic-to-english-introduction

In this study, McGillivray explores the cultural environment in which the Eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál was composed and reexamines the relationship between form and content in the poem and the respective influences of pre-Christian beliefs and Christian religion on the text. The poem has a dual aspect, acting as a poetic framework and functioning as a sacred story. It serves both as a representation of early pagan beliefs or myths and also as a myth itself, relating the journey of the Norse god Óðinn to the hall of the ancient and wise giant Vafþrúðnir, where Óðinn craftily engages his adversary in a life-or-death contest in knowledge. The dialogue continues to captivate those enthusiastic about myth and history in the present, even as it did the medieval audiences who heard it.

Did the tradition of Eddic Poetry survive in oral transmission past the Middle Ages?

A group of alliterative poems recorded from oral tradition in late 17th century Iceland share textual similarities or poetic formulas with each other and with older poetry in similar meters, including poems in the Poetic Edda. The present article contains a survey of the poetic formulas in one such poem, Vambarljóð.

The article explores the reason why Vambarljóð shares formulas with older poetry and argues in favor of a continuous oral tradition rather than learned borrowings.

A principal aim of the book is to establish the tendencies and technique in the literary treatment of love and eroticism in the Icelandic saga literature. How do the sagas tell about erotic themes and emotions of love? What literary function do these motifs have? What kind of differencies are there between the different parts of the Old Norse literature? On the basis of these examinations I analyze the theme of love in seven individual family sagas: Laxdoela saga, Bjarnar saga Hítdoelakappa, Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, Kormáks saga, Hallfreðar saga, Fóstbroeðra saga, and Víglundar saga. Another principal aim is to examine how the continental/courtly tradition of love depiction was received in Old Norse literature and to examine how the indigenous and the courtly tradition influence each other. These are some of the main conclusions of the book:

• There is a well-developed and distinctive indigenous tradition of love depiction. Love is in several family sagas a more important motif than most scholars have realized, due to their misinterpretation of elements in the technique of love depiction in the sagas.
• The indigenous saga literature and the indigenous poetic tradition show in all essentials different tendencies. There is not only one indigenous tradition of love depiction in Old Norse literature.
• The translated riddarasögur reproduce to a great extent the courtly continental tendencies from their originals as regards love/eroticism.
• The indigenous saga tendency does hardly at all influence the treatment of the motif of love/eroticism in the translated riddarasögur, and the continental tendency does only slightly influence the depiction of love/eroticism in the family sagas.
• Fornaldarsögur connect in their treatment of love on to the tradition of the indigenous saga literature. The theory of a strong influence on the fornaldarsögur from the translated riddarasögur and courtly literature is refuted. The indigenous riddarasögur connect in their treatment of love principally to the tendencies of the translated riddarasögur. The prevalent theory of a close relationship between the groups of fornaldarsögur and indigenous riddarasögur is strongly overstated.

Why does the volva perform an útiseta midway through her account in Voluspá? And when Odin comes to her, why does she tell him about his eye in the well of Mímir? How can Mímir drink from Odin's pledge? Here are a couple of new answers to these questions.

Eddic heroic poetry is known for its striking women: many are formidable, scheming, disobedient and uncompromising characters who frequently manage to follow their own agendas rather than those thrust upon them by men. Brynhildr is the primary example but characters who have received less attention, such as Oddrún and Borgný of Oddrúnargrátr, deviate in other ways, pursuing covert extra-marital sexual relationships. Principally, women use language rather than actions to carve out their roles and to subvert gender norms; speech acts (as defined by J. L. Austin and developed by John Searle and others) such as laments, prophesies, incitements and oaths, uttered by women and mainly directed at men, are used to claim female subjectivity and autonomy. Brynhildr, typically viewed in terms of whetting, is the archetypal ‘speaker’ and her identity is constructed through her speech throughout the Poetic Edda. Brynhildr’s oath-taking (e.g. in Sigurðarkviða in skamma), opens up the question whether she thus appropriates a masculine subject position and performs a male-coded speech act, and consequently, whether her vows are for this reason ‘infelicitous’ in Austin’s terms.
In addition to uttering oaths, Brynhildr must frequently, particularly in Guðrúnarkviða I and after her death in Helreið Brynhildar, defend herself against accusations of social deviance and immorality. Rather than subscribing to a notion of female solidarity, women often quarrel about appropriate female conduct; Brynhildr’s excessive language and behaviour after Sigurðr’s death is juxtaposed with other women’s indictments of her but their attempts to silence her unrestrained retorts are futile. In Guðrún’s laments, she more subtly calls attention to the grief her family have caused her, and her refusal to act or speak after Sigurðr’s death as well as her attempts to resist the machinations of her deceitful family signal her later deviance. Making use of feminist and poststructuralist theory, especially on language and subjectivity, female characters will be examined as sites of struggle over appropriate behaviour: women’s words and deeds are seen as an outlet for social critique with the potential to subvert the dominant order and express anxieties about their power.

The reception of the Poetic Edda in Germany is as long as it is ambiguous. The remote connection of Germanic and Scandinavian culture and literature led to a distinctive, symptomatic identification with Nordic mythology and the Poetic Edda in particular. The actual, physical editions in German translation from roughly two hundred years document the interpretations, intentions, and approaches of editors, translators, and scholars who have aimed to make the Poetic Edda understandable to the German audience. This thesis is subjected to an analysis of the physical copies by means of Gérard Genette’s concept of paratexts that is applied as a major tool in order to reveal how the editing of a book is also a way of interpreting its content. The reader is taken on a journey through the Poetic Edda “from the inside out”. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular part of the paratext, such as questions of page construction, the ordering of the poems of Codex Regius, and the additional material the poems are equipped with. Later chapters deal with the outer parts of the editions, where obsolete, revised interpretations have survived in blurbs, titles, and on the cover. Thus, the author wishes to present the various, continuous, and changing ways of publishing the Poetic Edda in Germany that has led to a contradictory but nevertheless fascinating variety of editions.

Please note: This thesis is available as hard copy at the National and University Library of Iceland as well as online here at academia.edu and under the weblink above.

This paper presents a case study on formula selection and variation in eddic poetry. It includes a general discussion of approaches to formulae in eddic poetry, problems with these, and offers a new model for addressing the relative fixity of formulaic expressions.  Although focused on Old Norse poetry, this discussion has a broad relevance to approaching other oral-poetic traditions through limited medieval sources or their relationships.

The paper analyzes the thirteen formulaic stanzas in Alvíssmál which ascribe poetic synonyms to different types of mythic being. The formula is approached through linguistics rather than directly from Oral-Formulaic Theory. Meter and alliteration are discussed as conditioning and determinant factors. The ‘alliterative rank’ of terms is correlated with their formulaic use to accomplish alliteration. An inclination to non-variation is demonstrated for the poem - i.e. variation in the use of formulae is avoided rather than tapping its potential.  The concentration on a single text takes this discussion into detail, including e.g. observing indicators of some form of interruption in the documentation process evident through changes in use of manuscript abbreviations correlated with peculiarities in formula use. Binary models of ‘improvization’–‘memorization’ are shown to be insufficient to describe actual variation. ‘Crystallization’ is proposed as an alternative. Comparison with stanzas quoted in Snorri Sturluson’s Edda suggest that a formula and its variable element were inclined to crystallize as a whole-line unit in memory, and that constraints of alliteration, semantics and syllabic rhythm within a line limited variation as a process of social negotiation in transmission. The hypothesis of whole-line crystallization is tested elsewhere in the eddic corpus, drawing examples from Vǫluspá, Skírnismál and Þrymskviða, where it offers an explanation for grammatical peculiarities or inconsistencies associated with repeating lines.

This course will explore some important questions connected to the Viking age and its poetic corpus. Each session will focus on a specific eddic poem and a general question concerning that poem will lead the discussion. Problems that will be addressed include the sense of humor in Þrymskviða and Lokasenna: Do the Norsemen mock their own gods or were the poems parodies made by Christians? Other questions include: Is Hávamál a poem of pre-Christian wisdom or of secular ethics? To what extent does V lupsá ǫ contain Christian eschatology? And finally, does a mythology need to be coherent? The main goal of the class is to give students the opportunity to explore a poem in depth and develop critical approaches to sources and scholarship.

Why Odin hung on the tree, plus new interpretations of the name Yggdrasill, of the portrait of Christ on the Jelling rune stone, of the three-point stone monuments of Scandinavia, and of the connection between Askr the first man and Yggdrasill's Askr,  is what this paper offers.

The myth or tale of the theft of the thunder-instrument from the thunder-god by his adversary (ATU 1148b) is encountered almost exclusively in the Circum-Baltic.  It is found in Germanic, Sámic, Finnic and Baltic cultures.  It is otherwise only encountered in one early Greek source of questionable cultural provenance.  This paper reviews the evidence of the tradition in different cultures, with a critical reassessment of the Germanic traditions, which have often been given priority.  ATU 1148b will be addressed as a Circum-Baltic phenomenon.  The paper approaches the distinct forms of ATU 1148b in each culture’s traditions in relation as reflecting socio-historical processes.  Emphasis is given to patterns of social use and how these are conditioned by relationships to other traditions and conceptions in each cultural milieu.  The evolution of the tradition into its various forms is considered the result of a long and dynamic process of interaction between cultures.  This development makes it unreasonable to attribute the Circum-Baltic traditions and forms exclusively to either Finno-Ugric or Indo-European traditions.  It is proposed that ATU 1148b is best approached as a Circum-Baltic phenomenon and representative of a Circum-Baltic mythology which is dependent on historical processes of linguistic-cultural interaction and exchange.  It is proposed that the concentration of ATU 1148b across diverse cultures in the Circum-Baltic is at least partially attributable to the maintenance of corresponding mythic narratives in adjacent cultures.  This explanation would find parallels in the persistence and form of genres (e.g. oral epic in Northern Europe) and stylistic priorities (e.g. alliteration in Northern Europe), which also appear to exhibit isoglosses related to cultural contact.

This paper has received a surprising amount of attention. It has some interesting points.  There are also some places where I would handle material differently, and I thought it might be worthwhile to mention both its highlights and a soft spot that has been addressed better elsewhere. 

The observation had not, to my knowledge, been made before that the eddic poem Völundarkvida exhibits not only a shift in characters but that this co-occurs with a marked stylistic shift suggestive of different backgrounds to its two parts of the poem.  The most valuable part of the article is, to my mind, the comparison of the capture of Völundr in this poem with a traditional story-pattern found elsewhere in medieval Scandinavian sources: the story pattern accounts for the capture of a supernatural being and acquisition of its magical sword and ring/necklace/belt.  I would like to return to this at some point with some additional material.  I still find the most convincing explanation for the various evidence that Völundarkvida has evolved from the combination of the story pattern with the Germanic tradition of the avenging smith (presumably already in eddic form, noting the stylistic and narrative shift in the poem). 

It is nevertheless good to note that the publication is based on a student conference paper presented in 2006.  The discussion of Finno-Ugric bear traditions and comparison with Old Norse evidence is methodologically soft.  On this topic I would recommend a reader instead to the handling of the question in:
http://www.academia.edu/12361723/From_Mythology_to_Identity_and_Imaginal_Experience_An_Exploratory_Approach_to_the_Symbolic_Matrix_in_Viking_Age_%C3%85land
I would now reframe discussion in this article to view bears as a category of being that can blur with humans and with other categories of supernatural beings.  The whole study initially began, inspired by Kaaren Grmistad's work, through the exploration of possible links between Völundr and bear traditions.  In retrospect, I see that the argument about the combination of two plots in the evolution of Völundarkvida that developed is not dependent on the bear question, which in fact distracts from the more significant argument.  I would now be more inclined to separate these discussions before attempting to look at them in combination.

On the whole, there are a lot of interesting and fun details addressed here and I would like to return to this topic in the future.  On the other hand, this was very much at the beginning of my work; it anticipates my later research in many respects, but I now feel it is dated in more than years, even if it still contains a few observations that may be worthwhile.

The purpose of this thesis is an in-depth analysis of the Eddic poem Grímnismál found in the manuscript known as Codex Regius (GKS 2365 4to), located in Reykjavík, dated to c. 1270 and a fragment (AM 748 I 4to), located in Copenhagen, dated to c. 1300. While a great deal of work has been done on Grímnismál as part of the Elder Edda, there is yet no specific edition focusing on it alone.
New studies on Germanic paganism and mythology show its shifting nature and the absence of specific tenets or uniform beliefs throughout the Germanic speaking world and in time. The relatively absent sources are similarly scattered. As such, the thesis suggests a new method of study, following a focused historical approach in which only Grímnismál is analysed in an attempt to understand the beliefs of the people that composed it. The nature of pagan belief itself prevents one from drawing more general conclusions on ‘Norse mythology’ as a whole.
Part 1 is divided into two chapters and deals with my approach, the nature of Germanic belief, and the sources available as well as techniques of interpretation for them, all relevant to the production of the arguments made in the thesis. Part 2 deals with Grímnismál itself: Chapter 1 provides an analysis of the manuscripts, Chapter 2 contains my editing notes and Chapter 3 analyses the contents of the poem, Chapter 4 consists of my conclusions to this study, focusing on the cosmology and the dating of the poem. Part 3 contains the edition of Grímnismál and is followed by Part 4 which is the commentary to the poem. The thesis is followed by two appendices, one containing a facing transcription of the manuscripts and the other being a glossary to all words used in Grímnismál. Finally, this thesis includes a digital edition worked on xml. This is available in the following link: https://starescomp.github.io/grimnismal/#idm140518410334752

In recent scholarship, the Icelandic fornaldarsögur – legendary, “mythic-heroic” sagas – have typically been regarded as a locus for literary fiction in medieval Iceland, owing in part to their genetic and generic relation to romance literature. This thesis aims to redirect the debate and argues for the historiographical function of these sagas.  Following a discursive introductory chapter, each of the three main chapters analyses the various narrative and rhetorical strategies of individual fornaldarsögur in comparison with contemporaneous historiography, with particular emphasis of their prosimetrical form.

In Chapter 2 I analyse how the comic and folktale elements of Gautreks saga serve to historicise its moral exempla, and, drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Mikhail Bakhtin, argue that the saga’s representation of geography and space serves to compartmentalise its fictionality in discrete “chronotopes.” I also demonstrate how the quotation of poetry in Gautreks saga, modelled on the konungasögur (‘kings’ sagas’), serves to authenticate the prose narrative. In Chapter 3 I analyse how the author of Vǫlsunga saga drew on genealogical and biographical models of historiography to expand the Poetic Edda’s account of the early Vǫlsung dynasty and Sigurðr Fáfnisbani’s early life. Numerous verses in Vǫlsunga saga are quoted to corroborate the prose, but, I argue, they appeal to the anonymity and continuity of the oral eddic tradition for their authority, in contrast to the skaldic tradition of the konungasögur. In Chapter 4 I analyse how many of the verse quotations of Ragnars saga loðbrókar authenticate the prose narrative, despite their presentation as direct speech. I go on to analyse the significance of the Ragnarr legend in skaldic poetics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries – in particular, the remembrance of Ragnarr as a poet himself – and argue that this lent weight to the verse quotations in the saga as direct testimonials.

I conclude by analysing the geography and spatial representation, genealogical structures, and the prosimetrum of other fornaldarsögur, demonstrating that studying these texts in relation to medieval historiographical discourse furthers our understanding of the both the genre and thirteenth-century Icelandic literary culture more widely.

The human memory is treacherous. Ideas can become forgotten, be misattributed and mutate. As a result, the mythologies of oral cultures change over time. Taking literature about Þórr as a case study, this thesis aims to understand the operations underpinning both this change and stability in Old Norse mythological representations. To do so, I adopt, develop and evaluate a methodology from the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR), an amalgamation of disciplines including psychology, anthropology, neurobiology and zoology. I hope to contribute to the ongoing debate over the socio-cultural and cognitive roots of religion.

Many of the major sources of Old Norse religion are Christian documents, negotiating with a pagan heritage through the prisms of Biblical and classical religious traditions. After discussing the problems this creates for modern commentators examining diversity, I analyse two competing schools of thought in CSR, a context-focused model of transmission and a concept-focused model. Certain factors are distinguished as key to stability in oral transmission: culturally inculcated expectations regarding a concept, counterintuitive breaches of these expectations and the capacity of a concept to adapt to novel textual and extra-textual contexts.

In the following chapters, two major concepts now associated with Þórr are examined. Strength is shown to be integral to the deity’s mythological representation, but thunder and lightning, despite the breadth of sources considered, is not. According to the factors previously identified, therefore, thunder and lightning cannot offer a transmission advantage. However, a dichotomy between Icelandic and Scandinavian material is observed regarding the importance of thunder and lightning to Þórr’s characterization.

Þórr is demonstrated to be a very flexible supernatural concept. The pivotal quality of strength facilitates the formation of new associations with culturally salient concepts like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, whilst irrelevant associations are shed. Coalitions of strongly associated concepts act as narrative vessels for the deity’s survival, preserving conceptualizations about the god over successive authors’ iterations on a narrative and perhaps assisting in the stability of traditional poetry in oral transmission. 

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.

The cult surrounding the complex and seemingly core Old Norse deity Óðinn encompasses a barely known group who are further disappearing into the folds of time. This thesis seeks to shed light upon and attempt to understand a motif that appears to be well recognised as central to the worship of this deity but one rarely examined in any depth: the motivations for, the act of and the resulting image surrounding the act of human sacrifice or more specifically, hanging and the hanged body. The cult of Óðinn and its more violent aspects has, with sufficient cause, been a topic carefully set aside for many years after the Second World War. Yet, with the ever present march of time, we appear to have reached a point where it has become possible to discuss such topics in the light of modernity. To do so, I adhere largely to a literary studies model, focusing primarily upon eddic and skaldic poetry and the consistent underlying motifs expressed in conjunction with descriptions of this seemingly ritualistic act. To these, I add the study of legal and historical texts, linguistics and contemporary chronicles. I further include the results of modern archeology and toponymy, with additional examples drawn from directly related and comparative time periods and cultures.

The primary chapters first assess Óðinn in connection with men and specifically, trees. These three elements (god, worshiper and object) can be seen to link into the overarching motif and practice of hanging, as observed in theophoric places-names of Scandinavia. It then follows to link the deity and the motif and practice of hanging more specifically, through close analysis of the gods’ own hanging and how that related to, or created, ritual practice. It is also essential to understand how methods of execution were understood in the Viking Age and as such, evaluate hanging’s social reputation in order to bring the effects of cultic practice into Viking reality.
Through contemporary poetic and historical examples, I examine the method and academically suggested motivations for this practice and by highlighting the specific factors of proper death, reputation, personal honour and essentially, lasting memory, find that the two do not match. Lastly, I examine the social response to death and the importance of entering the afterlife correctly and additionally, being left to rest peacefully. With hanging lying in direct opposition to this belief, it is possible to show that the practice of hanging, dedicated to Óðinn, is not a sacrifice of an individual to a war deity, but a multipurpose wartime sacrifice of knowledge as well as performing the role of highly destructive and dangerous political and social weapon.

This document is available in an edited/adapted format as the Kindle ebook entitled "The Deathly Gallows".

Runic inscriptions have often been interpreted both from the internal information they provide or from the intention of the one that produced it. In the present article, the approach would be by reconstructing the stage of runicity, and the role that interpreters of runes provided for a community given the presence of runic inscriptions. The focus will be set on the most public displays of runicity as an interaction that demands a reader and interpreter that translates the runic information from its literary reality, to a population that is imbued in an oral culture.

I would like to acknowledge the libraries that have helped me, particularly Bergen University humanities library and special collections, St. Deniol's Library in Hawarden (who also gave me a generous scholarship to read there), and the British Library reading rooms.

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.

The orientation of this study is to explore what the sources for each narrative tradition can (and cannot) tell us about their respective histories, in order to reach a point at which it becomes possible to discuss a relationship between them and the significance of that relationship. This is not intended as an exhaustive study of every element of each source or every aspect of each tradition. It will present a basic introduction to sources for each tradition ( §3-4) followed by a basic context for approaching the possibility of a cultural exchange ( §5-7). The APE and its "powers" are introduced with specific examples from both traditions ( §8-13). This will be followed by sections on the activation and manipulation of "identities" from the level of cultural figures to textual and extra-textual entities ( §14-16) followed by relationships of traditions to individuals and social groups who perform them, and the impact which this has on the evolution of tradition as a social process ( §17-18). The study will then address more specific issues in relationships between source and application in the medieval and iconographic representations of the Baldr-Cycle where so little comparative material is available to provide a context ( §19).

This article argues that eddic poetry, where females are described attending assemblies, swearing oaths, receiv-ing compensation, and taking revenge, can provide some insight into the real “ladies of law” of pre-Christian Scandinavia. In Christian times, when “law” was seen to emanate from the male God, considerable changes were introduced.

In the Poetic Edda, a multitude of understandings and ideas exist concerning the Otherworldly collective known as the álfar (Old Norse pl., sg. álfr). While the understandings are indeed many, they are not arbitrary. There seems to exist what Jens Peter Schjødt has termed a "semantic centre" for a number of "discourses" on the álfar. In this article, I will suggest various discourses of and construct a semantic centre for the álfar though an analysis of the stanzas of the Poetic Edda in which the álfar feature, supported when it is relevant by other Old Norse textual sources. I propose that constructing a semantic centre focusing on death and fertility, and thus viewing the álfar as chthonic beings, will help us make sense of the diversity in the discourses of the álfar in the eddic poems.

This article builds on the survey of evidence of ATU 1148b traditions in "Circum-Baltic Mythology?" (2011) with concentration on the Germanic evidence. It argues that Thor's adventure to the home of the giant Geirrøðr is an adaptation of or has adapted models from the 'Theft of the Thunder-Instrument' (tale-type ATU 1148b) tradition, which in Germanic culture seems to have become connected with motifs linked to iron-working technologies.  It also shows that the eddic poem Þrymskviða is a culture-specific adaptation of ATU 1148b and that internal evidence of the poem indicates that this adaptation is some form of parody against the thunder god, most likely reflecting a Christian perspective within the contemporary discourse on paganism. This view of Þrymskviða is consistent with the poem's later adaptation and wide circulation as a Scandinavian ballad while the idiom of Þrymskviða makes it highly probable that the poem was composed in Iceland, most likely in the thirteenth century.

This paper addresses variation in lexical semantics by oral-poetic register and genre, including semantic variation in formulaic language.  It reviews uses of the Old Norse term þurs (commonly translated 'ogre') in verse contexts, including runic inscriptions.  It argues that the semantics of this term varied in relation to the genre in which it was used, including uses with reference to mythological giants (jötnar) in mythological narratives, agents of illness in charms, and as a vague synonym for 'monster' in death-songs more like the prose narratives in which these appear.  It proposes that variation by genre includes genres embedded in narrative as speech acts, approaching these as 'registral irruptions' in mertical narrative.

It shows that, especially in the fornyrðislag meter, use of this term was highly formulaic and considers the question of whether it may have indexed excessive or inappropriate sexuality.

Thor, Ukko e Horagalles são, respectivamente, as divindades nórdica, finlandesa e sámi do trovão. O presente estudo visa investigar as principais fontes primárias que mencionem esses deuses ou apresentem quaisquer tipos de narrativa mitológica a seu respeito, evidenciando os principais atributos e traços mais elementares a eles conferidos em tais fontes. Numa tentativa de captar as dimensões mitológicas, simbólicas e culturais dessas divindades, analisaremos suas figuras em obras literárias inseridas em seus contextos culturais e históricos específicos, oferecendo antecipadamente as críticas e contextualizações necessárias desses materiais. Feito isso, elencaremos quais convergências e divergências foram observadas entre essas três figuras divinas no que diz respeito aos atributos e descrições que as englobam. Elegemos a perspectiva do comparativismo conforme proposta por Schjødt. Mais especificamente, e segundo o próprio autor, executaremos o chamado comparativismo de terceiro nível: compararemos os nórdicos com outros povos politeístas com quem estes estiveram em contato. Também faremos uso do conceito de centros semânticos como ferramenta auxiliar para percebermos as categorias de identificação atribuídas a esses deuses dentro de seus respectivos discursos míticos.