In this article, a revised version of a lecture presented at the University of Iceland in May 2016, I discuss a number of recent books and articles about Njals saga, setting their interpretations against those of earlier works by Einar Olafur Sveinsson and myself. My conclusion is that although Einar Olafur Sveinsson’s views need to be revised in some respects, they still are very much valid and his scholarly results are, to a large extent, likely to stand.
{"title":"New and old interpretations of Njáls saga","authors":"Lars Lönnroth","doi":"10.1484/J.VMS.5.114352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1484/J.VMS.5.114352","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, a revised version of a lecture presented at the University of Iceland in May 2016, I discuss a number of recent books and articles about Njals saga, setting their interpretations against those of earlier works by Einar Olafur Sveinsson and myself. My conclusion is that although Einar Olafur Sveinsson’s views need to be revised in some respects, they still are very much valid and his scholarly results are, to a large extent, likely to stand.","PeriodicalId":404438,"journal":{"name":"Viking and Medieval Scandinavia","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131077133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
An anecdote in the Flateyjarbok version of Olafs saga helga tells how Knutr inn riki learned of the burgeoning sanctity of his old adversary Olafr Haraldsson (Sigurður Nordal and others 1944–45, II, 488; also printed in Johnsen and Jon Helgason, 1941, II, 832): Þorir hundr ferr til Englands ok segir Knuti konungi allt, hversu farit hafði. Konungr varð mjok oglaðr við þessa sogu. Þorir spurði, hverju þat gegndi. Konungr svarar: ‘Ek þottumst þat vita, at annarrhvarr okkar mundi heilagr vera, ok hafða ek mer þat aetlat. Þo skal ek nu leggja fe fyrstr til skrins Olafs konungs hans ovina ok trua fyrstr helgi hans, ok eigi skal ek koma i Noreg, með þvi er Olafr er heilagr.’ (Þorir hundr goes to England and tells King Knutr everything that had happened. The king became very unhappy at this narrative. Þorir asked what the reason for this was. The king answers: ‘I had expected that one of us would become a saint, and had intended that for myself. Nonetheless I shall now be the first of his enemies to give money to the shrine of King Olafr, and the first to believe in his sanctity, and I shall not enter Norway for as long as Olafr is a saint.’) Even though it is late and comic, this anecdote contains a recognition of two important points: first, that Olafr’s sanctity posed a problem for Knutr, and second, that the best way of dealing with it was in fact to acquiesce and positively promote Olafr’s cult. In this article I want to examine the genesis of Olafr’s cult, and the important early poem Glaelognskviða, from a Knutr-centred rather than Olafr-centred perspective; as will be seen, this is more or less equivalent to taking a view from England rather than a view from Norway. In short, the question to be asked is: what was the attitude of Knutr and his dynasty towards the cult of Olafr? In attempting to answer it, I shall place skaldic verse alongside Anglo-Saxon history, in the belief that the two are mutually illuminating; the investigation will also, I hope, cast light on various aspects of Anglo-Scandinavian elite culture in the second quarter of the eleventh century. In what follows, I shall look firstly at the context of Glaelognskviða, secondly at its content, and thirdly for confirmation elsewhere of what it implies about Knutr and the cult of St Olafr.
在 Flateyjarbok 版本的《奥拉夫传奇-赫尔加》中，有一则轶事讲述了克努特尔-因里基如何得知他的老对手奥拉夫-哈拉尔德松（Sigurður Nordal and others 1944-45, II, 488; also printed in Johnsen and Jon Helgason, 1941, II, 832）正在茁壮成长：Þorir hundr ferr til Englands ok segir Knuti konungi allt, hversu farit hafði.他的名字是 "鬣狗"（þessa sogu）。他的驰骋，他的翱翔。他说："我的生命是神圣的，我的世界是神圣的，我的生活是神圣的。'（Þorir hundr 去了英国，把发生的一切都告诉了国王克努特尔。国王听后非常不高兴。Þorir问这是什么原因。国王回答说："我本来以为我们中会有一个人成为圣人，我自己也是这么想的。尽管如此，我现在将是他的敌人中第一个向奥拉夫国王的神龛捐钱的人，也是第一个相信他是圣人的人，只要奥拉夫还是圣人，我就不会进入挪威。） 尽管这则轶事既晚又滑稽，但它包含了对两个重要问题的认识：第一，奥拉夫的神圣性给克努特尔带来了麻烦；第二，解决这个问题的最好办法实际上是默认并积极宣传对奥拉夫的崇拜。在本文中，我将从以克努特尔为中心而不是以奥拉弗为中心的角度来探讨奥拉弗崇拜的起源以及重要的早期诗歌《Glaelognskviða》。简而言之，我们要问的问题是：克努特尔及其王朝对奥拉弗崇拜持什么态度？在试图回答这个问题时，我将把斯卡尔德诗歌与盎格鲁-撒克逊历史放在一起，因为我相信这两者可以相互启发；我希望，这项调查还将揭示十一世纪第二季度盎格鲁-斯堪的纳维亚精英文化的各个方面。在下文中，我将首先探讨《Glaelognskviða》的背景，其次是它的内容，第三是在其他地方确认它对克努特尔和圣奥拉夫尔崇拜的暗示。
{"title":"Knútr and the Cult of St Óláfr: Poetry and Patronage in Eleventh-Century Norway and England","authors":"M. Townend","doi":"10.1484/J.VMS.2.3017473","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1484/J.VMS.2.3017473","url":null,"abstract":"An anecdote in the Flateyjarbok version of Olafs saga helga tells how Knutr inn riki learned of the burgeoning sanctity of his old adversary Olafr Haraldsson (Sigurður Nordal and others 1944–45, II, 488; also printed in Johnsen and Jon Helgason, 1941, II, 832): \u0000Þorir hundr ferr til Englands ok segir Knuti konungi allt, hversu farit hafði. Konungr varð mjok oglaðr við þessa sogu. Þorir spurði, hverju þat gegndi. Konungr svarar: ‘Ek \u0000þottumst þat vita, at annarrhvarr okkar mundi heilagr vera, ok hafða ek mer þat aetlat. Þo skal ek nu leggja fe fyrstr til skrins Olafs konungs hans ovina ok trua fyrstr helgi \u0000hans, ok eigi skal ek koma i Noreg, með þvi er Olafr er heilagr.’ \u0000(Þorir hundr goes to England and tells King Knutr everything that had happened. The king became very unhappy at this narrative. Þorir asked what the reason for this was. \u0000The king answers: ‘I had expected that one of us would become a saint, and had intended that for myself. Nonetheless I shall now be the first of his enemies to give \u0000money to the shrine of King Olafr, and the first to believe in his sanctity, and I shall not enter Norway for as long as Olafr is a saint.’) \u0000 \u0000Even though it is late and comic, this anecdote contains a recognition of two important points: first, that Olafr’s sanctity posed a problem for Knutr, and second, that the best way of dealing with it was in fact to acquiesce and positively promote Olafr’s cult. In this article I want to examine the genesis of Olafr’s cult, and the important early poem Glaelognskviða, from a Knutr-centred rather than \u0000Olafr-centred perspective; as will be seen, this is more or less equivalent to taking a view from England rather than a view from Norway. In short, the question to be asked is: what was the attitude of Knutr and his dynasty towards the cult of Olafr? In attempting to answer it, I shall place skaldic verse alongside Anglo-Saxon history, in the belief that the two are mutually illuminating; the investigation \u0000will also, I hope, cast light on various aspects of Anglo-Scandinavian elite culture in the second quarter of the eleventh century. In what follows, I shall look firstly at the context of Glaelognskviða, secondly at its content, and thirdly for confirmation elsewhere of what it implies about \u0000Knutr and the cult of St Olafr.","PeriodicalId":404438,"journal":{"name":"Viking and Medieval Scandinavia","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128612643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines enthronement as a rite of inauguration in early Rus in the tenth to twelfth centuries, and what the practice of enthronement suggests in terms of the earliest mechanics of pri...
{"title":"Enthronement in Early Rus: Between Byzantium and Scandinavia","authors":"A. Vukovich","doi":"10.1484/j.vms.5.116396","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1484/j.vms.5.116396","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines enthronement as a rite of inauguration in early Rus in the tenth to twelfth centuries, and what the practice of enthronement suggests in terms of the earliest mechanics of pri...","PeriodicalId":404438,"journal":{"name":"Viking and Medieval Scandinavia","volume":"80 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121601809","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There is no doubt that the Isle of Man, in the middle of the Irish Sea, was settled by Vikings, as is demonstrated by a rich archaeological heritage. But the important questions of when the Vikings first reached the Island and when they settled there, whether they conquered Man by force or assimilated peacefully into the local community have not yet been answered satisfactorily. The two different approaches hitherto adopted have reached two different - and mutually exclusive - conclusions. This paper organizes, summarizes, and evaluates their respective arguments and conclusions and presents a third hypothesis on the early Viking Age in the Isle of Man.
{"title":"Early Vikings in the Isle of Man: Old Paradigms and New Perspectives","authors":"Dirk H. Steinforth","doi":"10.1484/J.VMS.5.109604","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1484/J.VMS.5.109604","url":null,"abstract":"There is no doubt that the Isle of Man, in the middle of the Irish Sea, was settled by Vikings, as is demonstrated by a rich archaeological heritage. But the important questions of when the Vikings first reached the Island and when they settled there, whether they conquered Man by force or assimilated peacefully into the local community have not yet been answered satisfactorily. The two different approaches hitherto adopted have reached two different - and mutually exclusive - conclusions. This paper organizes, summarizes, and evaluates their respective arguments and conclusions and presents a third hypothesis on the early Viking Age in the Isle of Man.","PeriodicalId":404438,"journal":{"name":"Viking and Medieval Scandinavia","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130709495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Are the Spinning Nornir Just a Yarn","authors":"Karen Bek-Pedersen","doi":"10.1484/J.VMS.2.302716","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1484/J.VMS.2.302716","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":404438,"journal":{"name":"Viking and Medieval Scandinavia","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114664500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This contribution focuses upon the role of external forces (strangers) in state formation. In many societies, the process of state formation appears to have conflicted with traditional patterns of social organization, which constrained the leading promoters of the state. In this situation, the incorporation of a third party of agents constitutes a potential strategy for those promoters to bypass the established order of society and implement a new organizational structure. Based on this assumption, archaeological data relating to a particular process of state formation, namely Viking-Age south Scandinavia (c. 900–1050), are evaluated. Individuals and groups of people of foreign origin are identified in the context of runic monuments, settlements, burials, and treasure finds. The roles of these ‘strangers’ in internal social affairs and the presuppositions and consequences of their involvement are discussed. It is argued that they functioned as influential catalysts, not only in the implementation of struc...
{"title":"The State and the Strangers: The Role of External Forces in a Process of State Formation in Viking-Age South Scandinavia (c. AD 900–1050)","authors":"A. Dobat","doi":"10.1484/J.VMS.1.100674","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1484/J.VMS.1.100674","url":null,"abstract":"This contribution focuses upon the role of external forces (strangers) in state formation. In many societies, the process of state formation appears to have conflicted with traditional patterns of social organization, which constrained the leading promoters of the state. In this situation, the incorporation of a third party of agents constitutes a potential strategy for those promoters to bypass the established order of society and implement a new organizational structure. Based on this assumption, archaeological data relating to a particular process of state formation, namely Viking-Age south Scandinavia (c. 900–1050), are evaluated. Individuals and groups of people of foreign origin are identified in the context of runic monuments, settlements, burials, and treasure finds. The roles of these ‘strangers’ in internal social affairs and the presuppositions and consequences of their involvement are discussed. It is argued that they functioned as influential catalysts, not only in the implementation of struc...","PeriodicalId":404438,"journal":{"name":"Viking and Medieval Scandinavia","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114705170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article attempts to gain a better understanding of the ways in which medieval writers used gender in their writing about the past. Taking Landnamabok as its case study, it discusses the depiction of Auðr in djupauðga and the other female colonists proposing that the variety of representations of female settlers (as colonists of varied statuses and in different places in the physical and human landscape) could be connected with the way in which Landnamabok itself was compiled and thus that varied (competing?) ideas existed in medieval Iceland about the status of women in relation to men.
{"title":"Putting Women in their Place? Gender, Landscape, and the Construction of Landnámabók","authors":"Chris Callow","doi":"10.1484/J.VMS.1.102613","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1484/J.VMS.1.102613","url":null,"abstract":"This article attempts to gain a better understanding of the ways in which medieval writers used gender in their writing about the past. Taking Landnamabok as its case study, it discusses the depiction of Auðr in djupauðga and the other female colonists proposing that the variety of representations of female settlers (as colonists of varied statuses and in different places in the physical and human landscape) could be connected with the way in which Landnamabok itself was compiled and thus that varied (competing?) ideas existed in medieval Iceland about the status of women in relation to men.","PeriodicalId":404438,"journal":{"name":"Viking and Medieval Scandinavia","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115208656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Myth and Cultural Memory in the Viking Diaspora","authors":"J. Jesch","doi":"10.1484/J.VMS.1.100312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1484/J.VMS.1.100312","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":404438,"journal":{"name":"Viking and Medieval Scandinavia","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123740651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Of the many references to runes in the Poetic Edda, the depiction of the runic communication between Guðrun and Kostbera in the poem Atlamal in grœnlenzko is one of the most intriguing. This is due in part to certain authentic-sounding details, which have prompted a number of misguided attempts to reconstruct the message itself. In this article, I offer a reading of this much-discussed episode in light of the runic tradition in medieval Scandinavia and the treatment of the script elsewhere in the Edda, suggesting that rather than representing a realistic depiction of runic correspondence, it is best read as a poetic expression of contemporary concerns about long-distance communication within the North Atlantic littoral. In particular, I address the question of the conventional identification of this poem with Greenland, and examine the historical circumstances that may have occasioned the introduction of the runic subplot. I argue that the episode partakes in a sophisticated discourse about the possibilit...
{"title":"A Cautionary Tale: Reading the Runic Message in Atlamál in grœnlenzko","authors":"Tom Birkett","doi":"10.1484/J.VMS.1.103874","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1484/J.VMS.1.103874","url":null,"abstract":"Of the many references to runes in the Poetic Edda, the depiction of the runic communication between Guðrun and Kostbera in the poem Atlamal in grœnlenzko is one of the most intriguing. This is due in part to certain authentic-sounding details, which have prompted a number of misguided attempts to reconstruct the message itself. In this article, I offer a reading of this much-discussed episode in light of the runic tradition in medieval Scandinavia and the treatment of the script elsewhere in the Edda, suggesting that rather than representing a realistic depiction of runic correspondence, it is best read as a poetic expression of contemporary concerns about long-distance communication within the North Atlantic littoral. In particular, I address the question of the conventional identification of this poem with Greenland, and examine the historical circumstances that may have occasioned the introduction of the runic subplot. I argue that the episode partakes in a sophisticated discourse about the possibilit...","PeriodicalId":404438,"journal":{"name":"Viking and Medieval Scandinavia","volume":"76 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115558342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Viga-Glums saga and Reykdoela saga ok Viga-Skutu each contain a scene depicting the conflict between the characters Viga-Skuta and Viga-Glumr. Based on the similarities in wording between the episodes, scholars have concluded that the text of one saga was based on the other, but there is no consensus about which text is the source and which the adaptation. In this paper we introduce new ‘lexomic’ methods of computer-assisted statistical analysis that provide evidence that has some bearing on this long-standing problem of priority. After testing the methods against ‘control’ texts in Old Norse (texts whose sources and relationships were established by traditional methods), we demonstrate that the distribution of vocabulary in the Viga-Skuta episode in Reykdoela saga is in fact closer to that of the entire text of Viga-Glums saga than it is to the rest of Reykdoela saga, while the distribution of vocabulary of the episode in Viga-Glums saga is very much like the rest of that text. Viga-Glums saga, therefore...
{"title":"The relationship between Víga-Glúms saga and Reykdoela saga : evidence from new lexomic methods","authors":"Rosetta M. Berger, Michael D. C. Drout","doi":"10.1484/J.VMS.5.109598","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1484/J.VMS.5.109598","url":null,"abstract":"Viga-Glums saga and Reykdoela saga ok Viga-Skutu each contain a scene depicting the conflict between the characters Viga-Skuta and Viga-Glumr. Based on the similarities in wording between the episodes, scholars have concluded that the text of one saga was based on the other, but there is no consensus about which text is the source and which the adaptation. In this paper we introduce new ‘lexomic’ methods of computer-assisted statistical analysis that provide evidence that has some bearing on this long-standing problem of priority. After testing the methods against ‘control’ texts in Old Norse (texts whose sources and relationships were established by traditional methods), we demonstrate that the distribution of vocabulary in the Viga-Skuta episode in Reykdoela saga is in fact closer to that of the entire text of Viga-Glums saga than it is to the rest of Reykdoela saga, while the distribution of vocabulary of the episode in Viga-Glums saga is very much like the rest of that text. Viga-Glums saga, therefore...","PeriodicalId":404438,"journal":{"name":"Viking and Medieval Scandinavia","volume":"119 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123251086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：