Myth, Magic, and Memory in Early Scandinavian Narrative Culture. Studies in Honour of Stephen A. Mitchell

Hardback, 456 pages, Size:156 x 234 mm, Illustrations:17 b/w, 19 col., 5 tables b/w., Language: English. ISBN 9782503589879. Summary Myth, magic, and memory have together formed important, and often intertwined, elements to recent studies in the narrative culture of Viking-Age and Medieval Scandinavica. Analytical approaches to myth (prominent in the fields of history of religion, archaeology, language, and literature, and central to studies of visual cultures up to modern times), magic (drawing on a wealth of Norse folkloric and supernatural material that derives from pre-modern times and continues to impact on recent practices of performance and ritual), and memory (the concept of how we remember and actively construe the past) together combine to shed light on how people perceived the world around them. Taking the intersection between these diverse fields as its starting point, this volume draws together contributions from across a variety of disciplines to offer new insights into the importance of myth, magic, and memory in pre-modern Scandinavia. Covering a range of related topics, from supernatural beings to the importance of mythology in later national historiographies, the chapters gathered here are written to honour the work of Stephen A. Mitchell, professor of Scandinavian Studies and Folklore at Harvard University, whose research has heavily influenced this multi-faceted field. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations Foreword Part I - Myth and Legend Same Place, Different Time: Temporal Aspects of Imagined Landscapes in Some Northern Contexts - JOHN LINDOW Jarl, Konr, and Óðinn in Rígsþula - JENS PETER SCHJØDT 'I remember giants': Mythological Remembering through V?luspá - CAROLYNE LARRINGTON AND JUDY QUINN On Rereading Oddrúnargrátr - JOSEPH HARRIS The Agency in F?r Scírnis - Subjects, Objects, and Différance. A Subversive Reading - LUKAS RÖSLI The Threat of Induced Desire in Skírnismál - RICHARD COLE Part II - Magic and Folklore Enchantments, Spells, and Curses: The Sorcery of Stories and the Magic in Them - MARIA TATAR Trolls in the Mill: The Supernatural Stakes of Waterpower - MERRILL KAPLAN A Prophylactic Pig, a Long-Lost Hunter, and the Recording of Oral Tradition - JOSEPH FALAKY NAGY A Male Cinderella and a Sea-Serpent's Teeth: Scandinavian Echoes in an Orkney Folk-Tale - SARAH KÜNZLER Axe on the Water. A Unique Magical Ritual in Ljósvetninga saga - TERRY GUNNELL 'In the Name of the 7 fatherless devils?': Pain, Fear, Anger and Revenge in Magical Practice - ANE OHRVIK Lessons in Magic: Making Use of Early Twentieth-Century Accounts of Magical Procedures in the Folklore Classroom - THOMAS A. DUBOIS A Conspiracy of Witches - TIMOTHY R. TANGHERLINI Part III - Memory and Reception Metaphors for Forgetting and Forgetting as Metaphor in Old Norse Poetics - KATE HESLOP Olavifications. Spatial and Temporal Formations of Trondheim as a Memory Place - LENA ROHRBACH The Middle Ages in the Construction of Nineteenth-Century Norway - ARNE BUGGE AMUNDSEN History and Cultural Memory in the Icelandic Annals 1400-1800 - AGNES S. ARNÓRSDÓTTIR Assembling Memory: The Questionnaire of 1817 from Den kongelige Commission til Oldsagers Opbevaring and the Origins of Icelandic Romantic Nationalism - SHAUN F. D. HUGHES The 'Asgard' Superphylum and Lokiarcheaota: Mythic Relapse in Evolutionary Biology - KIMBERLEY C. PATTON Part IV - Influence and Interaction OGu vergildi and Välde in Etelhem, Gotland - STEFAN BRINK The Judensau in Uppsala - ANDERS ANDRÉN The Devil is Awake. Pre-Reformation Church Murals in Post-Reformation Danish Churches - LOUISE NYHOLM KALLESTRUP A Female Job and a Witch. High and Low in Leonora Christina Ulfeldt's Jammers minde - PERNILLE HERMANN O'Brazile: The Short Textual Life of a Floating Island in Seventeenth-Century Scandinavian Book History - JÜRG GLAUSER Geijer och Eddornas 'sinnebildsspråk' - LARS LÖNNROTH List of Stephen A. Mitchell's Selected Publications Index 0 g.…