This paper addresses the burials of seið-kona, ritual specialists who perform seiðr, by attempting to reinterpret the use of boulders to crush the body, or the staff, of the interred. Through archaeological analysis, accompanied by textual evidence, I argue that these stone burials do not indicate deviance; rather, they display acts of awe or reverence.
2014, Arkiv för nordisk filologi
Focusing on Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, the present article closely examines Hervör’s assumption of male identity in the context of this character's confrontation with the dead on Sámsey, going beyond the conventional binary-gender model which still continues to be employed in saga criticism. Situating this study within the discursive matrix of Old Norse-Icelandic worldview, I engage recent research on seiðr and ergi which challenges standard readings of these concepts, expanding ergi from mere “unmanliness” to the broader notion of “queerness” as ambiguous magical otherness, and seiðr to supernatural empowerment. A closer examination of the ergi complex provides a platform from which an interplay of multiple gender possibilities may be observed – not as fixed dichotomous polarities as they appear in modern perspective, but as a polyphonic inter-gender continuum. One’s positioning within this continuum, then, depends upon the extent of one’s immersion into the supernatural. The case of Hervör is used as an illustration of how the inter-gender dynamics of incremental alterity play out in that situation. I argue that Hervör’s cross-dressing activity is not ad hoc, but is crucial for this character's supernatural transformation into a wielder of power that can awaken the dead at Sámsey.
Mortuary practices could vary almost indefinitely in the Viking Age. Within a theoretical framework of ritualization and architectural philosophy, this article explores how doors and thresholds were used in mortuary practice and ritual behaviour. The door is a deep metaphor for transition, transformation and liminality. It is argued that Viking Age people built ‘doors to the dead’ of various types, such as freestanding portals, causewayed ring-ditches or thresholds to grave mounds; or on occasion even buried their dead in the doorway. The paper proposes that the ritualized doors functioned in three ways: they created connections between the dead and the living; they constituted boundaries and thresholds that could possibly be controlled; and they formed between-spaces, expressing liminality and, conceivably, deviance. Ultimately, the paper underlines the profound impact of domestic architecture on mortuary practice and ritual behaviour in the Viking Age.
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This paper seeks to provide a new contribution to the debates on Viking Age women by focusing on a rather controversial notion of ‘female warriors’. The core of the article comprises a preliminary survey of archaeological evidence for female graves with weapons (axes, spears, swords and arrowheads) from Viking Age Scandinavia. Attention is focused not only on the types of weapons deposited with the deceased, but first and foremost on the meanings which similar practices may have had for the past societies. The author discusses why, where and how the weapons were placed in female graves and attempts to trace some patterns in this unusual funerary behaviour. In addition to exploring the funerary evidence, the iconographic representations of what could be regarded as ‘female warriors’ are also briefly considered. Lastly, a few remarks are also made on the notion of armed women in the textual sources.
Religious and burial studies in Scandinavia tend to heavily favor a “checklist” approach in order to determine whether a grave was Pagan or Christian, and in so doing, focus attention only on drastic changes of belief. Continuities, however, are a key component of religious syncretism and require more research. Applying a comparative approach to the graves of Vendel and later Viking Period graves from the cemetery of Barshalder on Gotland, Sweden, shows that Viking peoples not only had unique interpretations of Christian practices, but also retained formerly established practices by modifying them to fit into the new religious paradigm. This also shows that a binary “checklist” approach is inadequate for comparatively studying religions, in any context.
2018, Scandia: Journal of Medieval Norse Studies
Chapter 4 of Eiríks saga rauða has long drawn the attention of scholars due to its detailed description of a seiðr, a rare occurrence in Íslendinga sǫgur as well as in sagas of other genres. The protagonist of the scene, a Greenlandic seiðkona named Þorbjǫrg, is depicted as a social functionary who creates a relationship with the supernatural world and acquires a deeper knowledge and foreknowledge concerning the surrounding area, for the benefit of the local community. The performance takes place during a great famine at the beginning of the eleventh century, and the semi-public ritual had the purpose of predicting when the dearth would come to an end. It consisted – among other things-of a ritual meal: a porridge of kid's milk and of the cooked hearts of all the living creatures that inhabited the area. The present paper aims at casting light on this specific aspect of Þorbjǫrg's seiðr, and at contextualizing it within a wider literary and historical landscape. The intention is to integrate traditional interpretations with observations on the importance of sympathetic magic in ancient and medieval Europe, and particularly in medieval Scandinavia.
There are plenty of people so foolish that they believe nothing but what they have seen with their own eyes or heard with their own ears - never anything unfamiliar to them, such as the councils of the wise, or the strength and amazing skills of the great heroes, or the way in which seiðr [pronounced *sayther*] or skills of the mind ON huklaraskap and powerful sorcery ON fjolkyngi may seiðr death or a lifetime of misery for some, or bestow worldly honours, riches and rank on others. These men would sometimes stir up the elements, and sometimes calm them down, just like Othinn and all those who learnt from him these skills, of galðr and healing. Göngu-Hrólfs Saga Prologue
2019, Current Swedish Archaeology
The role of cats in Viking Age society is little investigated and has been dominated by un-critical adoptions of medieval mythology. Based on literary sources, the domestic cat is often linked to cultic spheres of female sorcery. Yet the archaeological evidence indicates an ambivalent situation. Cat bones from many trading centres show cut marks from skinning and highlight the value of cat fur. In contrast, the occurrence of cats in male burials points rather to a function as exotic and prestigious pets. The influence of Old Norse mythology on the traditional interpretation of cats as cultic companions therefore needs critical reconsideration. For this, a broad range of literary and historical sources-from Old Norse literature to Old Irish law texts-will be analysed and confronted with the archaeological evidence for domestic cats in Viking Age Scandinavia. The results will be discussed on a broader theoretical approach, involving concepts such as agency, and embedded in current research on human-animal-relations in order to achieve a more nuanced perspective on the roles and functions of cats in day-today reality as well as in the burial context.
2012, Medieval Archaeology
The small semi-subterranean buildings (jarðhús) with slab-built ovens that have been found on many Viking-Age farmsteads in Iceland (late 9th–11th century) have been subject to wide ranging interpretations, from short-lived, expedient dwellings to saunas, women’s workrooms, the houses of Slavic settlers and in one case a cult building. This paper tests these hypotheses by making a thorough revaluation of pit-house dates, architectural forms, internal structural features and artefacts, and presents new geoarchaeological evidence from the pit house at Hofstaðir, NE Iceland. This lends strong support to the interpretation that they were women’s workrooms, primarily for the production of woollen textiles. Their abandonment in the later 10th and 11th centuries may be interpreted in the light of changing religious beliefs and social structures, the growing importance of homespun cloth as a valuable export commodity, and the rise in status of the women who made it.
Despite its modern popularity, the domestic cat has been overlooked as a valuable tool in symbolic and interpretive understandings of the Viking Age. The cat’s importance in some cultures, such as Ancient Egypt, is abundantly clear, but since they rarely appear in the Norse archaeological record, they are overlooked. This project proposes that the scarcity of the cat in the Norse archaeological record is in fact quite telling of its significance, and it can be an effective tool in recognizing Norse beliefs and cultic practices. Although somewhat hidden, cats are there and quite prominent. One just needs to know how to find them and distinguish their meaning. Using archaeological data and medieval literature in a unique and analytical way, this thesis allows for new types of discussion of archaeological interpretation.
The matter of ancestry and honoring one’s ancestors looms large for many modern Heathens. However, despite this common interest (which also holds undeniable political and social dimensions), modern Heathen ideas and practices surrounding the Cult of the Dead and ancestor cultus remain largely undeveloped and unsophisticated. In this paper, I will compare and contrast Old Norse and Ancient Greek necromantic accounts, archaeological evidence, and relevant secondary sources in order to discern elements of ritual technology that can be brought into modern Ancestor cult and cult of the dead practices. My methods include tracking areas of direct cultural transmission between the Greek and Germanic peoples, examining Indo-European overlaps, and individual examination of relevant practices as they pertain to necromancy and interaction with the dead in all their various forms. Sources utilized for this process include Svipdagsmál, 'Road to Hell' by HR. Ellis Davidson, Magic, Witchcraft and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman World by Daniel Ogden, and more. The examination of these elements has led to the conclusion that it is indeed likely that the Norse had a conception of interacting with the disembodied dead, and that they utilized what might be referred to as "intermediary structures" to do so. Moreover, as not all of these intermediary structures were found in conjunction with burials, this ritual technology is potentially transferable and therefore useful for modern Heathen practices.
This thesis focuses on the concept of female warriors during the Viking age. I list seven cases from different parts of the Norse world where women have been buried with weapons and compare these archaeological sources with written sources using methods of material culture studies and theories of gender identity and feminist thought. By looking at these I found evidence of special ideas on- and treatments of- female warriors in line with a concept of third genders which could explain the rarity of their existence. However I concluded that female warriors did indeed exist in the Viking age, even though there were very few of them.
04.2017, Family in the Premodern World: A Comparative Approach Workshop, Princeton University, USA.
2019, Scandia: Journal of Medieval Studies
Óðinn has long been a highly-debated figure with regard to his gender and sexuality. While some have interpreted him as a strictly masculine being, others have argued him to be queer, with caveats surrounding how this affected his role as a deity. I use a queer theoretical framework to firstly streamline my interpretation of Óðinn's gender, and set this within both a cultural context and a queer context. I then turn my attention to the context of the warrior hall. I demonstrate that the interpretation that this was a strictly masculine space is based in scholarly bias, primarily argued by Otto Höfler as part of his work for the National Socialist German Workers' Party (or Nazi Party), and has not since been sufficiently critically challenged. After reassessing the primary material to demonstrate the gender dynamics of the warrior hall, I then demonstrate that, by blurring boundaries and queering his gender, Óðinn acts in a way that mediates between the roles of men and women within the culture of the hall. Riassunto: Tradizionalmente Odino rappresenta una figura problematica e ampiamente dibattuta, soprattutto quando si considera la sua identità di genere o la sua sessualità. Sebbene molti abbiano letto l'identità di Odino in termini strettamente mascolini, altri hanno proposto un'interpretazione queer, sottolineando come questo aspetto possa aver avuto una grande influenza sul suo ruolo di divinità. In questo articolo la figura di Odino verrà inquadrata nel contesto teorico della Queer Theory, per delineare una prima interpretazione dell'identità di genere della divinità, situandola all'interno del corrispettivo contesto culturale e del contesto queer. L'articolo si concentra successivamente sulla dimensione spaziale della sala dei guerrieri, il Valhalla. Si dimostrerà che l'interpretazione di questo spazio sociale come prevalentemente maschile e mascolinizzante, a lungo tempo prevalente nella critica, è dovuta a un vizio interpretativo che risale a Otto Höfler, che si occupò del tema come parte del suo lavoro per il Partito Nazista, e che da allora non è stato esaminato criticamente a sufficienza. Dopo un'approfondita rilettura delle fonti primarie, riconsiderando le dinamiche di genere in 1 MA in Viking and Medieval Norse Studies from the University of Iceland (2018). Independent scholar.
2017, Death in Medieval Europe: Death Scripted and Death Choreographed
In this chapter the posthumously restless dead, or ‘ghosts’ of Old Icelandic saga literature will be discussed. The ghosts in sagas were not ethereal phantoms dressed in white, but dead people appearing to the living in their physical, recognizable and undecayed bodies. These corporeal, physical revenants seem to have both malevolent and benevolent functions in sagas: they may give assistance and advice to people, but may also cause the living trouble and fear, as well as madness, disease, or death. In the light of earlier studies (e.g. Byock 1982, 133; Vésteinn Ólason 2003, 161; Nedkvitne 2004, 38–43; Martin 2005, 75–80) the dead generally became restless of their own free and often malevolent will. Thus, activity after death was usually not a punishment for the deceased, but an expression of their wish to continue to participate in the society of the living. Behind this was presumably a belief in some kind of life power and vitality remained in the human body after death – “a pagan relic” (Vésteinn Ólason 2003, 167) that may have survived in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Iceland (see also Caciola 1996; and on similar ideas in Finnic folklore Koski 2011, 94–97). This idea fits well with the ghosts of the so-called Sagas of Icelanders, Íslendingasögur, which were written mainly in the thirteenth century, that is, over 200 years after Icelanders had adopted Christianity, but not with all ghosts in the saga literature. In other, more mythical saga genres such as Eddic poetry, often thought to derive from the heathen period (ca. 900) but available only in later manuscripts (ca. 1270), and the somewhat later fornaldarsögur (also called Legendary sagas, written ca. 1270–1400), the dead can be awakened against their will by various mythical beings such as heathen gods and goddesses, or witches using their skills to serve their own interests. Moreover, in some later fourteenth-century Íslendingasögur it is implied that restless corpses were made active by ‘unclean spirits’, possibly because the spirits invaded the dead bodies, thus suggesting a link with the phenomenon of demonic possession known in medieval Christianity. The contrast between the activeness and agency of the deceased in the earlier Íslendingasögur and the more subordinate role of the dead in the mythical sources and later Íslendingasögur will be the main theme of this chapter. I will consider the possibility that medieval Icelandic beliefs changed so that the dead became “less active” from the late thirteenth century onwards – that the dead were originally considered active agents that had a will and power of their own but, as foreign (Christian) ideas became more internalized and intertwined with indigenous ones, another mode of thought began to displace the old one. The restless dead were increasingly interpreted as objects that had no power of their own, but were awakened by use of magic or made active by unclean spirits that invaded their lifeless bodies.
2016, European Journal of Archaeology
This article explores a meshwork of citations to other material cultures and architectures created by the form and ornament of house-shaped early medieval recumbent stone monuments popularly known in Britain as 'hogbacks'. In addition to citing the form and ornament of contemporary buildings, shrines, and tombs, this article suggests recumbent mortuary monuments referenced a far broader range of contemporary portable artefacts and architectures. The approach takes attention away from identifying any single source of origin for hogbacks. Instead, considering multi-scalar and multi-media references within the form and ornament of different carved stones provides the basis for revisiting their inherent variability and their commemorative efficacy by creating the sense of an inhabited mortuary space in which the dead are in dialogue with the living. By alluding to an entangled material world spanning Norse and Insular, ecclesiastical and secular spheres, hogbacks were versatile technologies of mortuary remembrance in the Viking Age.
2018, European Journal of Archaeology
This thesis will explore the functionality of animals, specifically looking at dogs within Viking age society. Animals are essential in societal growth, from practical uses in farming; as food, transportation, and labor, the animals that are used reflect cultural norms and trends. Animals also play a significant role in Viking age religion and pagan ideologies. The key aim of this thesis is to explore the roles that animals play, focusing not only on roles within society, but also within ritualistic purposes. Using case studies, recorded literature, and historical documents to examine the use and purpose of animals in burial, and attempting to identify any links between how they are prepared and killed, and if there is any correlation to how they are buried in relation to their human counterparts. The research explores the relationships between human and animals, and will strive to delve into possible reasons behind including animals in the more personal aspects of life and death. This thesis will be exploring cases from Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, and further afield in Russia and Europe, looking at similarities and regional variations.
2019, Current Anthropology
OPEN ACCES. If the file does not load then please visit the Current Anthropology website or copy this link https://doi.org/10.1086/706608. Although the Viking Age (ca. 750-1050 CE) is often characterized as a time of violence, significant questions remain regarding how conflict was conducted during the period. For example, there have been few attempts to understand the cultural norms, attitudes, and practices that drove individuals to participate in warfare. This article reports the results of a study that sought to shed light on this issue by considering the process of enculturation during Viking Age childhood. This was achieved by exploring how the influences of militarism and hegemonic masculinity conditioned those living within Scandinavian societies to participate in conflict from a young age. Through examining the archaeological and literary evidence for childhood pastimes, the study found that everyday aspects of Viking Age society reinforced militaristic, hegemonic hierarchies of masculinity. This can be seen, for example, in the form of toy weapons that were modeled on full-sized, functional weapons; strategic board games that conveyed messages regarding the ideological power of kingship; and physical games that provided opportunities for successful individuals to enhance their social status. The evidence therefore suggests that Viking Age societies perpetuated a series of self-reinforcing cultural norms that encouraged participation in martial activities.
Boat-burial is a well-known feature of Viking Age funerary ritual. The boat-graves from Scar (Sanday, Orkney) and Kaldárhöfði (Árnessýsla, Iceland), each draw on powerful symbolism to link the deceased and their survivors to the Scandinavian homeland. Scar represents Scotland’s richest Viking Age grave excavated under modern conditions; it was a multiple burial of a surprisingly elderly woman, a young child and mature man. The boat-burial at Kaldárhöfði, which held the remains of two individuals, demonstrates a combination of religious and secular messages that is at home within the Viking diaspora. Using the boat-burial of a woman from Vinjum (Sogn og Fjordane, Norway) for a basis of comparison, this paper will examine these two graves in order to understand how the emigrants used funerary ritual and material culture to display, construct and define new identities on the Viking frontier. It also considers how they adapted existing funerary rituals to new physical and social environments. In E. Anderson, A. Maddrell, K. McLoughlin and A. Vincent (eds.), Memory, Mourning and Landscape, pp. 165-187. At the Interface/Probing the Boundaries, vol 71. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
2018, International Journal of Student Research in Archaeology
Many interpretations have been applied to ship symbolism in Scandinavian mortuary contexts, the most common of which describes the ship as a vessel to transport the dead from one world to the next. However, many of these interpretations fail to address the role of the ship in the context of cultic practices described in contemporary literature. Through an assessment of literary sources and archaeological evidence present in ship burials, stone ship settings, and picture stones, this paper aims to address these interpretive gaps, making a case for ancestral referencing and veneration as well as necromantic ritual in ship-themed burials. I do not attempt to disentangle ship symbolism from the concept of travel, but rather argue that mortuary ships allow the dead the freedom to depart from and return to the world of the living.
Háskóli Íslands. This thesis is a study of the valkyrjur (‘valkyries’) during the late Iron Age, specifically of the various uses to which the myths of these beings were put by the hall-based warrior elite of the society which created and propagated these religious phenomena. It seeks to establish the relationship of the various valkyrja reflexes of the culture under study with other supernatural females (particularly the dísir) through the close and careful examination of primary source material, thereby proposing a new model of base supernatural femininity for the late Iron Age. The study then goes on to examine how the valkyrjur themselves deviate from this ground state, interrogating various aspects and features associated with them in skaldic, Eddic, prose and iconographic source material as seen through the lens of the hall-based warrior elite, before presenting a new understanding of valkyrja phenomena in this social context: that valkyrjur were used as instruments to propagate the pre-existing social structures of the culture that created and maintained them throughout the late Iron Age.
2018, META. Historiskarkeologisk tidskrift
The cross-cultural phenomenon of prone burials, which can be found on several cemeteries in Viking Age Scandinavia, is often regarded as a sign for so-called ‘deviant burials‘, indicating a pejorative and post-mortem humiliation, an exclusion of the dead, or an apotropaic rite to avert supernatural threats, based on some famous but single cases of decapitations in prone burials from Viking Age Scandinavia. The case study of the late Viking Age cemetery of Kopparsvik on the Island of Gotland, Sweden, offers a rather different perspective. Due to their disproportionately high number and the often carefully arranged interment of the deceased, the prone burials at Kopparsvik should not to be regarded as ‘deviant‘, but as a variation of the norm which in most cases seems to indicate a purposefully intended burial-rite with a presumably religious significance and conferring a special identity. According to archaeological as well as historical sources, a burial in prone position seems to indicate a special gesture of humility towards God. Based on these results, it seems necessary to reconsider the traditional interpretation of prone burials in Christian societies as well as our general understanding and utilization of the concept of ‘deviant burials‘.
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".
It can be demonstrated, from celestial observations in 19th century Icelandic tradition, that certain ideas in Old Norse mythology referred directly to peculiar celestial phenomena, beyond the obvious idea of the bridge Bifröst being a mythological interpretation of the rainbow. In view of the actual proof from the 19th century it should be worth discussing the possibility of taking that idea a step further and read the entire Snorri's Edda as a mythological interpretation of the world as it appears to the naked eye: The earth below and the sky above where the stars and other heavenly bodies move around, as well as up and down, some in a clearly regular pattern and others less so, day and night. This approach changes radically all our discussion about systematic thought behind the individual myths as well as about their source value as reflections of pre-Christian ideas in the north.
The purpose of this study is to analyze the distribution, forms, and function(s) of iron amulets deposited in the late Iron Age gravefields of Lovö, with the goal of ascertaining how (and so far as possible why) these objects were utilized in rituals carried out during and after burials. Particular emphasis is given to re-interpreting the largest group of iron amulets, the iron amulet rings, in a more relational and practice-focused way than has heretofore been attempted. By framing burial analyses, questions of typology, and evidence of ritualized actions in comparison with what is known of other cult sites in Mälardalen specifically– and theorized about the cognitive landscape(s) of late Iron Age Scandinavia generally– a picture of iron amulets as inscribed objects made to act as catalytic, protective, and mediating agents is brought to light. Keywords: Iron Age, Viking Age, burial, amulets, Thor’s hammer ring, torshammarringar, practice theory, ritual studies, New Materialism, cognitive archaeology, archaeology of ritual
2017, RMN Newsletter
The paper discusses the metre and the diction of a previously unpublished short poem composed in the 18th century about characters of Laxdæla saga. The stanzas are ostensibly in skaldic dróttkvætt. Analysis shows them to be a remarkably successful imitation of the classical metre, implying an extraordinarily good grasp of dróttkvætt poetics on the part of a poet who was composing several centuries after the end of the classical dróttkvætt period.
2015, Skemman
Working from the premise that falconry was introduced in Scandinavia from an eastern origin sometime in the course of the 6th century AD, this paper suggests that the practice may have harboured cognitive and spirituals dimensions unshared by the rest of the feudal, Christian European kingdoms. Falconry is thus reinterpreted in light of an inherited prehistoric human-animal relationship in Scandinavia, in addition to a reconstructed Viking Age cosmology. The multidisciplinary approach of this paper permits us to suggest that falconry was shaped by the culture already in place around 500 AD and that, in turn, it influenced its subsequent development into the Viking Age. The unique relationship between a falconer and a bird of prey may have been the inspiration to the development of the avian hybridity motif of Scandinavian animal art. It may also be likened to the numerous Norse concepts of animalistic souls and shamanistic shape shifting, such as the myths have preserved in memorable images and situations.
![Gardeła L. (2019) Tomboys and Little Vikings [A Comment on Ben Raffield's article "Playing Vikings"], Current Anthropology 60(6).](https://0.academia-photos.com/attachment_thumbnails/61254731/mini_magick20191118-19263-1gcnce9.png?1574096207)
