Old Norse Literature

The book is a product of well researched and profound readings of the works of the poets like, Tennyson, Swinburne, Morris and Yeats. The author has delved deep into not only the different myths and legends but has also taken up the trajectory of the lives and careers of the poets. The initial chapters give a thoughtful peep into the world of myths, the retelling of myths, dynamic status of myths and the relevance of myths in the contemporary scenario. The interesting part of the book is that Romantic myth poets like Keats have also been taken up adequately, covering all his great mythical poems. Not only the world of myths and legends, the structural components of a myth narrative, but the book tells us a lot about the socio-economic and the political conditions of the Victorian period. Obviously, one must have a foreknowledge of the Victorian epoch, and the major Greek, Celtic and Norse legends, but it is a must read for any researcher or academic who wants to have an in depth knowledge about the Victorian poetry and the literary appropriation of the Myths and Legends in the poetry of Tennyson, Swinburne, Morris and W. B. Yeats.

Embedded within Scandinavian history, the theme of extensive long-distance journey stands as a defining motif. Predominantly embodied by the Viking Age, spanning approximately two and a half centuries, this proclivity saw Scandinavians emerge as conquerors, raiders and traders across Europe and the British Isles -effecting considerable spatial traversals. As the Viking Age started to wane, the motif of longdistance journey persisted, yet transformed in character. Evolving from roles as marauders and settlers, a shift occured toward mercenary engagements under Russian princes, Varangian Guards service, and pilgrimages signifying a nuanced metamorphosis. This research focalises on three prominent elevent-century figures: Yngvarr víðförli, Haraldr Sigurðarson, and Eiríkr inn góði. Each emblematic of distinct categories of extensive peripatetic undertakings, their selection ensures a comprehensive portrayal of medieval Scandinavia, culled from the Icelandic sagas

This Thesis studies the relationship between mythological elements in the Eddic Poem “Vǫluspá” and The Lord of the Rings “The Mirror of Galadriel”by exploring their contests of speech, narrative roles, and unique character traits. The main argument of this Comparative Literature Study is that J.R.R. Tolkien is a conscious translator of old myths into modern fantasy who reworks the conversation between Óðinn and the Vǫlva into the meeting of Frodo and Sam with Lady Galadriel. Both Prophetesses bestow prophetic visions of the world’s impending doom, with revelations of the æsir gods and the elves vanishing alongside their magical crafts, leaving Middle-Earth to be rebuilt under the dominion of men. These echoing elements present themes of fatalism and decadence in the Vǫlva’s verses and the Lady of Lórien’s mirror. Furthermore, these Prophetesses behold the decay and rebirth of the old mythical domain, illustrating an overarching narrative of ‘eucatastrophe’ in the cataclysmic end of Ragnarǫk and The War of the Ring through the finality of a resurrection. Overall, this research aims to analyze how the author reconstructs ‘The Nature of the Vǫlva, the Patriarch, and Prophecy,’ translating these mythological elements from Eddic Poetry by adapting them into a high fantasy novel.

Icelandic poet Gerður Kristný's Blóðhófnir (2010) retells the myth of the god Freyr, his servant Skírnir, and the giantess Gerðr in the words of the giantess alone. In the myth, Freyr sends Skírnir to seduce Gerðr on his behalf. The mission is successful, though only after Skírnir has suppressed Gerðr's resistance using violent threats. This article examines how, in Blóðhófnir, voice and silence interact with structures of patriarchal power and violence to animate the ideology of feminine self-sacrifice. The poem encourages readers to reflect on the patriarchal tenets that place sacrificial demands upon women in both the past and present.

https://doi.org/10.18261/edda.112.3.4

O mundo medieval é um dos temas mais explorados pelos chamados "jogos de mesa modernos", sendo a temática viking um dos grandes e recentes atrativos, possivelmente impulsionada pelo crescimento contínuo da Escandinávia medieval nas diferentes mídias, fenômeno que pode ser entendido como "vikingmania". Nesse sentido, um dos objetivos deste trabalho é lançar possibilidades de pesquisa acerca do imaginário viking e a "vikingmania" nos jogos de tabuleiro modernos. Para tanto, como objeto principal de análise, elegemos Jórvík, jogo lançado em 2016, de autoria do game-designer alemão Stefan Feld com arte produzida pelo artista Marc Margielsky. Em comparação com os outros jogos de tabuleiro modernos que exploram a temática viking de forma bastante estereotipada e imaginativa, ou que focam apenas no imaginário mitológico e folclórico da cultura escandinava, Jórvík é o jogo que possui foco temático mais diferenciado, apresentando um momento específico da história da Era Viking: os assentamentos escandinavos no norte da Inglaterra.

Bringing together the examples of a literary chronicle, a mural painting and a film, we propose to contribute to the necessary emphasis on aspects of growing importance for research, teaching and dissemination of astronomical sciences, such as those that stand out in the studies of Astronomy. Cultural, a field here outlined in quick brushstrokes, opening, however, to future research. Developing sensitivity and respect for the other's gaze, which is always fundamental, is an exercise that can begin with an interdisciplinary reading, attentive to the plural richness of the meanings of a text, verbal or non-verbal.

Dieser Artikel untersucht die Videoinstallation
„True North“ (2004), in der Julien die Leerstellen
polarer Heldenmythen – die Partizipation von
People of Colour,1 Frauen und Inuit an Expeditionen
– thematisiert und auf ihre koloniale Prägung
befragt. Im Zentrum der Analyse steht die
Arbeit des Künstlers mit Eis, das als eine feste
Bühne für heroische Taten und als ein sich verflüssigendes
Element mit deheroisierender Wirkung
auftritt. In der Videoinstallation dient das
Eis dazu, heroische Gesten zu bewahren, zu
verweigern und zugleich aufzulösen. Dieser Artikel
interpretiert das Eis in Juliens Videoinstallation
als eine Geste des künstlerischen Materials,
also als Äußerung eines nicht-menschlichen und
lebendigen Gegenübers, die zum Nachdenken
über die Gründe und Zusammenhänge gegenwärtiger
Krisen auffordert.

The legendary saga, Hervor and Heidrek, is named for the adventures of two martial women, both named Hervor. Saga literature, including Hervor and Heridrek was written down 200-400 years after the original narratives were orally conceived, after the Christianisation of Iceland. Hervor and Heidrek is first recorded in the fourteenth-century by male lawyer Hauker Erlendsson. Literature and story-telling are an important aspect of female secondary socialisation into cultural norms and values, providing acceptable role-modelling. In the intervening 200-400 years between inception of saga narratives and recording, cultural portrayals of acceptable feminine norms and values changed due to their oral nature, in line with changing social contexts of audiences and motivations of the transmitter.

First inspired by Carol Clover’s use of the key term’s hvatr (m.bold/vigourous) and blauðr (m.cowardly) as evidence in her 1993 research, this research sits at the intersection between history, archaeology, applied linguistics and literary analysis with sociological underpinnings; a truly multidisciplinary approach. It uses Systemic Functional Grammar alongside literary analysis to investigate the language used in Hervor and Heidrek, triangulated against corroborating history and archaeology to investigate how women are portrayed in Hervor and Heidrek to uncover Christian cultural influence on the representation of women in this saga.

The story of Ragnarök can be interpreted as a metaphor for Norse resistance to the process of forced conversion to Christianity. Its biblical appearance—apocalypse, resurrection, betrayal—is merely a veil intended to make the myth acceptable to the Christian ear, while retaining a deeper meaning for those who knew how to "read between the lines."

In this interpretation, it is not a question of an external invasion, but of an internal conflict: the gods represent the ancient cults, forced into conversion, just as kings and peoples were later forced to do so. Ragnarök thus denounces the brutality of Christianization, the imposition of an absolute and Manichean worldview, at odds with the balance and plurality of pagan traditions.

In this context, Loki is not a figure of betrayal but of active justice. Through his ruses, he highlights the flaws of the gods themselves: Sif's vanity, Idunn's naiveté (and thus the fragility of divine immortality), and Thor's pride. His final struggle against Baldr, a symbol of inactivity and the Christian absolute, marks the rejection of a rigid and authoritarian vision of the divine.

Thus, the gods are not demonized, but transformed or absorbed by the new faith, just as the Scandinavian sovereigns must have been over time. Ragnarök would then testify, in a mythological form, to the cultural and religious violence of an imposed conversion.

While there is no evidence that the Jews reached Iceland until the seventeenth century, it may be suggested that Saemundr inn fróði (the learned) Sigfússon (1056-1133), priest of Oddi and Iceland's first book-learned historian, lived as a stranger among them in the 1070s. 1 In his later years Saemundr was respected in Iceland as a pillar of the church and a leading chieftain and law-maker, although later centuries linked his learning with astrology, dark arts and the devil. As a young man he had studied in Europe, but where he studied is still unresolved. This essay will try to tease an answer out of three aspects of Saemundr's tradition. One is the name Frakkland and whether this relates to France or Germany; another, a legend about his education which was copied in the early fourteenth century and which is now known as Saemundar þáttr (Saemundr's tale); the third aspect of Saemundr's tradition is a great but now lost, and presumably Latin, work of history which he is thought to have written in the early twelfth century. Saemundr's achievements were many. Besides writing a now lost opus, he built St Nicholas's church and founded a school in his family seat in Oddi, teaching there from the late eleventh century; helped Bishop Gizurr Ísleifsson of Skálholt (1082-1118) to establish Iceland's tithe laws in 1097, years before this happened in Norway (in 1120-30); joined his family to royalty in 1120 when his son Loptr married Þóra, a daughter of King Magnús Barefoot of Norway (d. 1103); and drafted the Christian section of the Icelandic law code in 1123, with the help of Bishops Þorlákr Rúnólfsson of Skálholt (1118-1133) and Ketill Þorsteinsson of Hólar (1122-1145), from the southern and northern sees of Iceland. 2 In particular, Saemundr helped these bishops inspect the Íslendingabók ('book of Icelanders') of Ari Þorgilsson (1067-1148), priest of Snaefellsnes, which they may have My thanks to Haki Antonsson and John Sabapathy; and for their help with Judaic tradition and with Hebrew and Aramaic quotations, to Stewart Brookes, Israel Sandman and Sacha Stern.

Literary Ballads: From Traditional Ballads
to the Authorship of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Literary ballads (Germ. Kunstballaden) are a narrative-dramatic genre originating in the eighteenth century, when European poets started to take their inspiration from traditional ballads (Germ. Volksballaden). The literary ballads of German and English poets were influential during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, becoming part of the vogue for gothic literature and the romantic revival of folk poetry. The article begins by defining some common features of the international ballad tradition and compares it to literary ballads. The two genres share some characteristics (dramatic storytelling in verse; the use of repetition, etc.), but they are different in other ways (anonymity vs. authorship, oral delivery vs. print culture, song and dance vs. reading, etc.). The article traces the development of literary ballads through gothic supernaturalism in Germany (Bürger, Goethe, Schiller), to a more nature-orientated ballad writing in England (Wordsworth). The English literary ballad often centres on character and human flaw, as is evident in such poems as “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere” in Lyrical Ballads (1798), where Coleridge uses supernatural beliefs to expose human nature.
The article shows how literary ballads made their way into Icelandic literature during the nineteenth century, both as original poems and as translations or adaptations. It then analyses three Icelandic poems which can be considered to be literary ballads. These are “Kötlukvísl” (1824) by Bjarni Thorarensen (1786–1841), “Barnafoss” (1866) by Grímur Thomsen (1820–1896), and “Eggert Ólafsson” (1878) by Matthías Jochumsson (1835–1920). All three tell a dramatic tale of death by drowning, which is either described in supernatural terms (Thorarensen, Thomsen), or as having natural causes (Jochumsson). In this respect, “Kötlukvísl” and “Barnafoss” share the common trait of Gothic supernaturalism and horror with a number of German literary ballads. The latter poem also centres on human flaw, since the children’s tragic accident results partly from their not heeding a warning of staying away from the waterfall they eventually drown in. “Barnafoss” can therefore be seen to combine both German and English ballad conventions. The third ballad, “Eggert Ólafsson”, proves to be closer to the English tradition, both in its emphasis on the natural and on the human flaw or hybris which causes the death of the people involved. The three poems show how Icelandic poets tapped into different ballad conventions and used them effectively when writing about tragic subjects, which were either based on contemporary events (Thorarensen), folklore (Thomsen), and legend (Jochumsson).

Cette traduction de Drap Niflunga, poème tardif rattaché au cycle héroïque de l’Edda, s’appuie sur l’édition critique de Guðni Jónsson, respectée pour son exactitude philologique et sa fidélité aux manuscrits conservés.
Composé en vers fornyrðislag, le Drap Niflunga (la « Drápa des Niflungar ») fait office de pont narratif entre la mort de Sigurðr et les épisodes ultérieurs impliquant Guðrún et Atli. Son style allusif et lapidaire témoigne d’une tradition orale encore vivace, où les événements tragiques sont évoqués avec une concision dense.
Ce travail de traduction a pour but d’offrir aux lecteurs francophones un accès fidèle à ce texte bref mais essentiel, en restituant son rythme archaïque, sa tension narrative et ses échos sombres, à l’image du destin funeste qui s’abat sur les descendants de Gjúki.

This translation of Drap Niflunga, a late poem from the heroic cycle of the Edda, is based on the critical edition by Guðni Jónsson, known for its philological precision and adherence to extant manuscripts.
Composed in fornyrðislag meter, Drap Niflunga (“The Niflungar Drápa”) serves as a narrative bridge between the death of Sigurðr and the later episodes involving Guðrún and Atli. Its terse and allusive style reflects a still-vivid oral tradition, in which tragic events are recounted with dense conciseness.
This translation seeks to provide French-speaking readers with faithful access to this brief yet pivotal text, preserving its archaic rhythm, narrative tension, and the somber resonance of the doom that befalls the descendants of Gjúki.

This study offers a comparative analysis of the Brunanburh poem and the Head-Ransom poem preserved in Egil's saga in Icelandic. The two compositions display striking similarities in diction, style, and textual treatment. On this basis, both poems should be attributed to Egill Skallagrímsson. This work focuses on the arguments and comparative analyses that highlight the close relationship between the two texts.

is the online translation journal of the Department of Interpreting and Translation (DIT) of the University of Bologna, Italy. This printout was generated directly from the online version of this article and can be freely distributed under Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

is the online translation journal of the Department of Interpreting and Translation (DIT) of the University of Bologna, Italy. This printout was generated directly from the online version of this article and can be freely distributed under Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Saxo’s versions of Old Norse poetry represent a virtually untapped source to a material that has mostly been lost. This dissertation aims at examining all fifty of his poems, along with several prose passages that appear, wholly or partly, to be based on Old Norse compositions. The analysis has reinforced nearly all proposed links to Old Norse poems, while also disproving some. New interpretations and suggestions have also been formulated. By comparing Saxo’s work with the surviving sources, I attempt to identify the principles for his free translation and thereby distinguish the traits that characterize his own innovations and changes. In many cases, Saxo seems to retain certain stylistic features, likely intending for his Latin poetry to convey an impression of his sources’ poetic tradition. The translation method varies from poem to poem, which means that nearly every passage raises new questions. In the final chapter, I summarize my attempts at answering these, while drawing conclusions regarding Saxo’s selection of poems, the distribution of poetry within the work, the attributes and content of his source material, his translation methods, adaptation of Old Norse stylistic features, meter and fixed expressions, as well as affirming the likelihood that poems lacking direct parallels are in fact based on Old Norse sources.

The volume Mythological Motifs in Narratives brings together a wide-ranging collection of scholarly studies that engage with myth across multiple textual, oral, and visual traditions. Rather than treating myth as a static or unified system, the chapters in this collection explore the diverse and dynamic ways in which myth is formed, transmitted, and reinterpreted. The contributions reflect a sustained scholarly effort to uncover the processes through which myths are constructed, circulated, dismantled, and reassembled. Drawing from a wide field of disciplines, the volume offers a framework for understanding myth not through origin or essence, but through usage, adaptation, and transformation. This engagement with myth requires attention to both textual specificity and broader cultural processes. The studies in this volume investigate how myth functions as a narrative tool, a symbolic reservoir, and a site of ideological struggle. Contributors explore how myths adapt to changing historical and social conditions, how they are reshaped in response to new media and interpretive communities, and how they continue to inform aesthetic production and theoretical reflection. Through this approach, the volume presents myth not as inherited truth but as a set of discursive practices that remain active across languages and traditions.

This article offers several theses on the natura deorum and the formation of pantheons in Old Norse religion, engaging the debate (e.g., Gunnell) over whether pre-Christian Scandinavia possessed a coherent pantheon or primarily local/tribal gods later systematized by Snorri. It argues that this debate presupposes a prior question: how Norse gods functioned and what their nature was. The study critiques Snorri’s concretising and didactic reworking of myth, which encourages an anachronistic search for narrative consistency (“who is Óðinn’s real consort?”), and proposes that the lived tradition was kaleidoscopic, with overlapping variants and situational identifications (interpretatio at local levels).

Drawing on comparative cases from Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt, and Hinduism, the article models pantheon-building as a recurrent historical synthesis: elites and broader communities integrate local deities into wider constellations as societies cohere, rather than presuming a fixed, original “family of gods.” It further advances a theoretical view of deities as emergent entities—“strange attractors” constituted by collective experience and expressed through genre-specific representations (epic anthropomorphism versus hymn-like vagueness), with Old Norse materials compared to Homeric registers. Case illustrations (e.g., Heimdallr/Rígr/Óðinn identifications; the Vodník analogy) ground the model.

The conclusion formulates four theses: (1) gods and pantheons arise from synthetic, similarity-based processes; (2) gods are emergent integrators of social, cosmic, and intrapsychic domains; (3) narrative personifications must not be equated with the deities’ operative nature; and (4) plurality and analogy, not identity and exclusion, structure the tradition.

Este trabalho parte das reflexões de Marshall Sahlins em Ilhas de História (1985), onde o antropólogo questiona modelos estruturalistas ao destacar que cada sociedade possui práticas históricas próprias, orientadas por tradições e significações específicas. A partir desse prisma, analisamos o Íslendingabók (“Livro dos Islandeses”), considerado o mais antigo vestígio escrito em língua vernácula islandesa medieval e redigido por Ari inn fróði no início do século XII. O texto, composto a partir de relatos orais e modelos literários eclesiásticos, revela uma concepção particular de historicidade, distinta da perspectiva moderna, mas capaz de suscitar paralelos. A análise organiza-se em três eixos: fundamentação teórico-metodológica (inspirada na Vorstellungsgeschichte, na sociologia do conhecimento e na teoria geral dos sistemas), estudo da figura de Ari e exame da representação dos islandeses pagãos como uma categoria socialmente construída.
[English]: This paper builds on Marshall Sahlins’ reflections in Islands of History (1985), where the anthropologist challenges structuralist models by emphasizing that each society possesses its own historical practices, shaped by particular traditions and meanings. From this perspective, we analyze the Íslendingabók (“Book of the Icelanders”), regarded as the oldest written record in medieval vernacular Icelandic and composed by Ari inn fróði in the early 12th century. The text, based on oral accounts and ecclesiastical literary models, reveals a distinctive conception of historicity, different from the modern perspective yet still capable of suggesting parallels. The analysis is organized into three axes: theoretical-methodological foundation (inspired by Vorstellungsgeschichte, sociology of knowledge, and general systems theory), study of Ari’s figure, and examination of the representation of pagan Icelanders as a socially constructed category.

The title *Edda*, associated with both Snorri Sturluson's *Prose Edda* (c. 1220) and the mythological anthology later known as the *Poetic Edda*, remains etymologically uncertain. Traditional explanations connect it to Old Norse *edda* "great-grandmother" (attested once in *Rígsþula*), to *óðr* "poetry, inspiration," or to Oddi, the Icelandic cultural center where Snorri studied. This paper advances a new hypothesis: that *Edda* may derive from, or have been influenced by, Gaelic linguistic traditions. Gaelic words such as *éitheach* ("lineage"), *athaid* ("forefather"), *éideadh* ("raiment, poetic clothing"), and *sinnsear*/*sinsir* ("ancestors") provide both phonological and semantic parallels. In contrast to the solitary Norse attestation, the Gaelic lexicon offers a robust semantic field consistent with the cultural functions of the *Eddas*. This hypothesis is further supported by the strong presence of Gaelic loanwords, names, and traditions in Iceland. The paper argues that the Gaelic interpretation does not negate the "grandmother" reading, but subsumes it, reframing *Edda* within the North Atlantic cultural hybridity of the Viking Age.

This study investigates the onomastic evolution of the surname Polizovski, originally examined under the hypothesis of a derivation from Polyzois (Πολύζωης, “many lives”). The Polyzois interpretation was initially considered in a symbolic framework, emphasizing vitality (zoē) and continuity of life. However, further philological and onomastic research demonstrates that the true and consistent origin lies in Polyzos (Πολύζως), attested in Byzantine and modern anthroponymy and directly related to Polyzeus (Πολύζευς).

The distinction is crucial: zoē (“life”) derives from the Proto-Indo-European root gʷeyh₃- (“to live”), whereas Zeus/Dios/Zos derives from Dyēus (“bright sky, heavenly deity”). Slavic transformations confirm this conclusion: Greek names ending in -os consistently become -ovski (e.g., Nikolaos → Nikolovski, Kostadinos → Kostadinovski). Thus, Polyzos → Polizovski is phonologically and historically consistent, while a derivation from Polyzois would have produced Polizoiski, a form unattested in Slavic anthroponymy.

Therefore, the surname Polizovski must be understood as preserving the theophoric connection to Zeus rather than to zoē (“life”), making Polyzos the decisive key in tracing the sacred and historical continuity of this lineage.

One prominent thing in Old Norse literature is Grotti, a mill which has a plot-determining function in the Eddic poem which bears its name, Grottasǫngr. This article examines the mill from an object-oriented perspective to find answers to three questions: 1. Can the Grotti mill be understood as a nonhuman actant with own agency in the network around King Fróði? 2. Can the actor-network-theory help us to understand the nature of magic and its localization in the structure of action better? 3. What poetological and stylistic insights may be gained from an objectoriented consideration of Grottasǫngr and its transmission context? An examination of Grotti as an actant with its own agency reveals how human and nonhuman actants in the network at King Fróði's court influence one another and drive the plot forward. The magical dimension of the plot is to be understood as a relation between the actants rather than being attributed unilaterally to either the mill or the giantesses. Poetologically, analyzing Grotti as a thing can serve to illustrate the role objects play in the construction and interpretation of kennings: The kenning as an at least bipartite replacement of a noun (base-word plus determinant) is always based on a change of reference of the base word, which often denotes a material object. In this way, tropical kennings (metaphor, synecdoche and metonymy) introduce additional associations, pre-semantizations or intertextual references into a poem. Explaining this is the project of the Snorra Edda, in whose context the Grottasǫngr has been handed down. The song itself is a narrative unfolding of kennings, which connect the myth of the mill with two, ultimately incompatible references to this thing: the gold kenning ›meal of Fróði‹ and the kenning ›man-hostile Grotti [hand-mill] of the skerries‹, which probably refers to a grinding current in the sea.

This article reconsiders the early critical reception of Algernon Charles Swinburne’s 1866 collection Poems and Ballads with a view to articulating the extent to which the critical hostility that famously greeted the book upon publication was mediated by the category of ‘boyishness’. I show that the complaint that the 29-year-old Swinburne wrote, and by implication thought and felt, too much like a boy and not enough like an adult man lay at the core of the critical onslaught and contributed to underpin critics’ various complaints of obscenity, blasphemy, bad taste and so on. After considering the nature of the connection between the boyish quality often associated with Swinburne as a person throughout his life and the poetical ‘boyishness’ critics perceived in his work, I propose a taxonomy of three main meanings of boyishness that emerge from the early critics’ attacks: boyishness as lack of virility, boyishness as lack of self-restraint, and boyishness as lack of intellectual maturity. By analysing these critical readings in the context of various medical, pedagogical and more broadly cultural discourses of the time, I make the case that Swinburne found himself cast as someone who presented precisely the characteristics of boyhood of which a functioning adult man was supposed to rid himself. The broader argument is that by giving close attention to age-based slurs, we can gain a more fine-grained account of mid-Victorian attitudes to childhood and maturity, and society’s self-image more generally.

This paper argues for a paradigm shift in Old Norse studies away from the source-hunting legacy of Sophus Bugge and toward the literary-cultural hermeneutics exemplified by Ursula Dronke. Bugge’s comparative positivism, though groundbreaking in the 19th century, has become an obstacle to interpretive renewal, reducing Eddic poetry to derivative reflections of Christian and classical sources. Despite sustained critique, his framework persists in syllabi, editions, and reference works through academic inertia and the rhetorical appeal of provenance claims. By contrast, Ursula Dronke’s The Poetic Edda editions foreground the artistry, thematic coherence, and cultural embedding of the poems, situating them as products of an autonomous Norse mythic imagination.

The article outlines a systematic plan for institutionalizing a “Dronkean Turn” across pedagogy, research practice, editorial commentary, and disciplinary rhetoric. A case study of Baldrs draumar demonstrates the interpretive stakes: where Bugge’s reading reduces the poem to a Christian apocryphon, Dronke’s reveals a tragic meditation on fate, vengeance, and the limits of foreknowledge. The conclusion argues that only by canonizing Dronke’s approach can Old Norse studies revitalize itself and join broader medieval literary scholarship on equal terms.

This paper reexamines the Old Norse concept of *sumbl*, traditionally characterized in scholarship as a semi-religious drinking ritual. By critically reassessing the primary sourcessagas, eddic poetry, and legal codes-this study argues that *sumbl* is better understood as a cultural form of alcohol consumption and social bonding, with occasional ritual overtones in specific contexts such as funerary feasts (*graföl*), sacrificial blót, or political gatherings. The analysis demonstrates that the inherent meaning of *sumbl* is neither sacred nor inherently ritualistic, but rather refers to social drinking practices that could be imbued with symbolic significance depending on circumstance. Comparative evidence from linguistic survivals and anthropological parallels further supports this interpretation.

This paper examines the overlapping timelines of Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum and Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda. Traditional scholarship dates Saxo's work to c. 1185-1220 and Snorri's to c. 1218-1220, yet questions remain as to which text reached completion first. While Saxo began earlier, the scale of his Latin chronicle meant a decades-long project, whereas Snorri, with abundant source material at hand in Iceland, could complete the Prose Edda in only a few years. The study also considers the possibility that Snorri left the Edda unfinished and that his nephew, Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson, contributed to its transmission and systematization. A comparative timeline and authorship table are presented to clarify these overlapping and collaborative dynamics.

The Poetic Edda and Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda preserve overlapping yet divergent accounts of Old Norse mythology. Neither text presents the myths in chronological order; instead, the poems are arranged by theme, and Snorri organizes myths as exempla for skaldic kennings. This paper reconstructs a continuous chronological sequence of Norse myth, aligning poems of the Poetic Edda with Snorri's prose accounts, and highlights unique vs. shared traditions. The analysis demonstrates how the two corpora both complement and contradict one another, while also revealing how Christian redactors and later legendary þaettir altered the mythic cycle.

The legendary Viking leader Ívarr hinn Beinlausi ("Ivar the Boneless") is described in Old Norse saga tradition as unable to walk, borne instead on a shield by his warriors. Modern scholarship has usually interpreted this as evidence of a physical condition such as brittle bone disease or spina bifida. This paper argues, however, that the image of Ívarr being carried on a shield may reflect a ritualized display of power rooted in Germanic and Indo-European traditions of elevating leaders on shields, rather than literal proof of immobility. By examining parallels in Norse, Germanic, and Celtic traditions, and contrasting saga narratives with contemporary sources such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, this study reconsiders Ívarr's epithet and the possibility that his "bonelessness" was symbolic, metaphorical, or exaggerated.

This paper reexamines the semantic origins of several major figures in Old Norse mythology whose names are often regarded as opaque. By returning to manuscript spellings and contextualizing the figures within their narratives, it proposes new readings that align nomenclature with function: Loki as the lurer (from lokka), Baldr as light/hope, Týr as the original 'god', Heimdallr as compressing the world through superhuman senses, Frigg linked to frijjō / frýgð (intimacy, desire, festivity, magnificence), Skaði as damage/vengeance, and Ratatöskr as the bellow that finds its way (rata + öskr).

Este artigo explora o contexto cultural e religioso da Inglaterra do período anglo-saxônico. Argumenta-se que uma compreensão mais profunda das fontes materiais é essencial para captar a complexidade do “universo espiritual da Inglaterra Anglo-Saxônica”. Nesse sentido, o tesouro encontrado no sítio arqueológico de Sutton Hoo é fundamental para revelar aspectos cruciais da cosmovisão dessa sociedade. Por meio da análise detalhada desses artefatos, podemos explorar como as crenças e mentalidades do período se refletem na Cultura Material, oferecendo uma janela única para a espiritualidade e a visão de mundo dos anglo-saxões dos séculos VI – VII.

This article explores the patrilineal origins of families bearing the Terry surname, particularly those settled in Counties Cork and Waterford, Ireland. Genetic evidence identifies two distinct lineages with continental European roots, dating back to the Bronze Age and early centuries of the Common Era (CE). The article centres on where these ancestors may have lived around 250 CE, with a focus on the Roman frontier (Limes), locations of surrounding Germanic tribes, and early naming traditions for one of these tribes. The findings cannot be said to challenge traditional genealogies that assert Norman or Merovingian descent but offer new perspectives rooted in genetic and historical analysis.

This paper is concerned with approaches to the analysis of an immediately post-Conversion episode of Njáls saga, a brief, strange and violent account of vengeance taken by Ámundi the Blind upon Lýtingr of Sámstaðir for the killing of his father. It is a passage invariably noticed, usually with some merriment, by students in my classes, and upon which there is no clear consensus of scholarly or literary critical interpretation. I think that a paroemiologically informed awareness of the conceptual background of the narrative as a whole can be helpful at this point to our understanding of the composer's likely purpose in shaping and placing it as he does. Ámundi the Blind. In Chapter 106, Ámundi the Blind suddenly emerges on stage at the

Presupposti del Sacrificio Umano, Angelo Brelich emphasized the historical specificity and, consequently, the problematic nature that human sacrifice presents within the framework of historical-religious research. The choice to begin this short study with that quotation is not incidental, given its dual function. On one hand, it underscores how a practice as symbolically powerful and central to many cultures as human sacrifice still lacks, even more than half a century after Brelich's lectures, a cohesive scientific treatment. Academic literature on the subject remains fragmented, composed mostly of monographic studies limited to specific civilizations or brief sections within broader works. On the other hand, this opening introduces the fundamental methodological contribution that Brelich's work has had in shaping the present research. In his lectures, and the corresponding notes, the scholar outlines a key distinction: that between ritual killing and human sacrifice. While the boundaries between these two concepts may appear blurred, this distinction remains, in

Vikings commonly feature in the Íslendingasögur (Sagas of Icelanders). The words víking (the act of raiding) or víkingr (a raider) appear over 180 times across the forty-some texts of the corpus. Here, they are a ubiquitous part of the cultural landscape of the late ninth-to mid-twelfth-century North Atlantic. The Íslendingasögur are not contemporary sources such as those from England and Francia that report experiences of viking raids. The sagas do, however, represent stories of the societies from which the vikings came. Here there are nuances to the depictions of the raiders that contrast with the accounts of their victims. This article examines the intersection of viking activity and the Icelandic conversion in the year 1000 (kristnitaka) in the Íslendingasögur. It posits that while, in the saga worldview, víking could be lauded prior to kristnitaka, with the coming of Christianity, Icelandic heroes could no longer easily pursue víking without censure.

Íslensk þjóðtrú er síbreytilegur og spennandi efniviður sem gaman er að glíma við. Þjóðtrú er meðal annars miðlað í gegnum fjölbreyttar þjóðsögur og sagnir, baeði af yfirnáttúrulegum verum og vaettum, svo sem draugum, tröllum og álfum, eða frásagnir úr daglega lífinu, sem stundum er aetlað að útskýra eitthvað í umhverfinu eða annað sem fyrir ber. Þjóðtrú, sögur og sagnir, miðla gjarnan hugmyndum um hvernig fólk á að haga sér, hvað er aeskileg hegðun og hvað ekki. Þegar fólk gerir vel í þjóðsögum er það verðlaunað, en þegar það brýtur gegn ríkjandi hugmyndum um aeskilega hegðun er því refsað og oft grimmilega (Mullen 1971, 408-11; Gunnell 2008, 15). Daemi um slíkar sögur eru frásagnir um álagabletti, en slíka staði kannast flestir við. "Ég trúi ekki beint á þetta, en ég myndi samt ekki taka neina áhaettu," er algengt svar þegar Íslendingar eru spurðir um trú sína á yfirnáttúruleg fyrirbaeri (Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir og Sigurlaug Dagsdóttir 2024). Þetta kom m.a. fram í spjalli í nýlegum hlaðvarpsþaetti þar sem tekið var viðtal við Terry Gunnell sem hefur skoðað álagabletti út frá ýmsum sjónarhornum, meðal annars hugmyndum um trú og einnig gert samanburð við trúarhugmyndir í þjóðsagnaefni í nágrannalöndunum (sjá t.d. Gunnell 2007; 2018). Í þessari grein langar okkur hins vegar að beina sjónum að hugmyndum fólks um áhaettuna og þá refsingu sem vofir yfir ef brotið er gegn bannhelginni og hvaða máli trúarhugmyndir skipta í því samhengi. Hvaða reglur er fólk að brjóta þegar það slaer, spillir eða eyðileggur álagablett og hverjar eru afleiðingarnar? Og hvað geta þessar sagnir sagt okkur um samfélag fólksins sem sagði þessar sögur, ótta þess og drauma? Við höfum skoðað sögur og sagnir um álagabletti og álagastaði á Ströndum frá árinu 2013. Það sumar settum við upp tímabundna sögusýningu um álagabletti á listasviðinu * Aðjunkt við Háskóla Íslands og sjálfstaett starfandi fraeðimaður. ** Rannsóknasetur HÍ á Ströndum -Þjóðfraeðistofa, Hólmavík.

One of the salutary lessons of reading Chris Stray's Classics Transformed 1 is to see with sudden clarity how the set of authors canonised by taste and curricula has changed over the generations, often narrowing rather than widening in the process. This awareness is essential not only as a corrective to the all-too-common belief that to learn or teach Latin and Greek is to pass on a stable tradition, but also as a reminder of the countless once-famous texts that are waiting to be brought back out of the shadows. My aim is to explore one such story, in which a forgotten poet from a once-vibrant tradition of Latin hexameter composition can be found lurking behind the familiar figure of Homer. As a starting-point, I want to look at a celebrated letter written in 1800 by Thomas Jefferson to the radical English scientist, educationalist and theologian Joseph Priestley, who had recently settled in America as a political and intellectual exile. 2 The letter follows upon an earlier one in which Jefferson had been describing his plan to found a new university. In the first letter he had written only of applied and scientific studies, and he now sets out to emphasise the study of 'the languages', meaning primarily or exclusively Latin and Greek. He begins with their usefulness as sources of 'models… of fine composition', plainly directed at the practical task of training future leaders and politicians in the art of rhetoric, but goes on to make a more idealised claim:  1 Stray 1998, 7-29 and passim. There is an interesting contrast in the approach taken by Silk, Gildenhard and Barrow 2014, where the authors tend to construct the Classical canon as a stable edifice over time.

Like the majority of Icelanders of his generation, Sigurður Þórarinsson was born and brought up at a farm, in Vopnafjörður, NE-Iceland. Being a precocious child he was enrolled in the Akureyri Gymnasium from which he matriculated in 1931. Influenced by his natural-science teacher Pálmi Hannesson, he entered the Copenhagen University the following fall to study geology. After one winter in Denmark, however, he transferred to Stockholm to continue his studies, now in geography and botany as well as geology. After receiving his doctoral degree at the University of Stockholm in 1944, he returned to Iceland and worked for a while with the Research Council. In January 1947 he became Director of the Department of Geology and Geography, Museum of Natural History in Reykjavik, a position he held until 1968 when he became Professor of Geology and Geography at the University of Iceland. While Director of the Natural History Museum he was twice appointed Professor and Director of the Geographic...

Draumkvedet, ofte omtalt som Norges mest kjente folkeballade, er et visjonsdikt som skildrer en manns reise inn i dødsriket. Diktets sterke, billedrike uttrykk har blitt sammenlignet med Dantes Den guddommelige komedie, og det antas å stamme fra senmiddelalderen. En nøkkelfigur i forståelsen og formidlingen av Draumkvedet er Moltke Moe (1859–
1913). Som sønn av Jørgen Moe, en av P. Chr. Asbjørnsens samarbeidspartnere, banet Moltke vei for folkeminnefaget i Norge. I 1886 ble han landets første professor i folkeminnevitenskap, og hans innsats bidro sterkt til at faget ble institusjonalisert og anerkjent akademisk.