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This study investigates the unique features of Icelandic geographical terrain and its impact upon cognitive reality of medieval Iceland. The focus is on saga depictions of Viking-Age individuals on Iceland’s western coast passing into their local mountains when they die. This, I contend, does not constitute death in the conventional sense of ceasing to be but instead a transformation into ambiguous ‘other’ entities which continue to inhabit the landscape in an altered state. This study brings textual analysis in dialogue with archaeological data concerning placements of mounds and burial sites in the same region and time frame. The aim is to illuminate the role of Icelandic landscape as a stage shaping medieval Icelandic beliefs and attitudes vis-avis their dead. Instead of a dichotomous opposition between this-world and other-world, I argue that the medieval Icelandic landscape was perceived as both at the same time.

This dissertation explores post-classical sagas’ use of fantastic material. Following the celebrated classical Íslendingasögur are the fourteenth and fifteenth-century post-classical sagas. Historically, scholarship viewed this loosely defined genre negatively, condemning their fantastical episodes. Despite recent positive scholarship towards fantastical fornaldarsögur, the post-classical sagas remain maligned. By examining their supernatural episodes through Victor Turner and Arnold Van Gennep, this dissertation posits post-classical sagas use initiatory elements and liminal locations to construct meaning. Three locations are considered: doors, caves, and mounds. The first chapter explores doorways’ narrative purpose through two scenes in Svarfdæla Saga (1350-1400). These pivotal episodes use initiatory patterns, demarcated by doorways and poetry, to facilitate plot and character development. The second chapter examines caves in Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss (1350-1380), Kjalnesinga saga (1310-1320), and Gull-Þóris saga (1300-1350). While caves may facilitate heroic transitions into adulthood, they also have monstrous narrative consequences. My final chapter posits burial mounds in Grettis Saga Ásmundarson (1310-1320), Bárðar Saga, and Hárðar Saga create liminal experiences leading to the hero’s death. By studying liminality in post-classical sagas, this dissertation argues the post-classical sagas may be a coherent genre, structured through initiatory patterns and portrayals of liminal, fantastic encounters as transformative, corrupting, and deadly.

This paper examines the links between the Grettis saga-Beowulf discussion and the romances of William Morris, arguing that the Victorian writer's later works seem to engage with the debate and suggesting Eiríkur Magnusson as a likely source of inspiration.

New Norse Studies, edited by Jeffrey Turco, gathers twelve original essays engaging aspects of Old Norse–Icelandic literature that continue to kindle the scholarly imagination in the twenty-first century. The assembled authors examine the arrière-scène of saga literature; the nexus of skaldic poetry and saga narrative; medieval and post-medieval gender roles; and other manifestations of language, time, and place as preserved in Old Norse–Icelandic texts. This volume will be welcomed not only by the specialist and by scholars in adjacent fields but also by the avid general reader, drawn in ever-increasing number to the Icelandic sagas and their world. Table of Contents Preface; Jeffrey Turco, volume editor: Introduction; Andy Orchard: Hereward and Grettir: Brothers from Another Mother?; Richard L. Harris: “Jafnan segir inn ríkri ráð”: Proverbial Allusion and the Implied Proverb in Fóstbrœðra saga; Torfi H. Tulinius: Seeking Death in Njáls saga; Guðrún Nordal: Skaldic Poetics and the Making of the Sagas of Icelanders; Russell Poole: Identity Poetics among the Icelandic Skalds; Jeffrey Turco: Loki, Sneglu-Halla þáttr, and the Case for a Skaldic Prosaics; Thomas D. Hill: Beer, Vomit, Blood and Poetry: Egils saga, Chapters 44-45; Shaun F. D. Hughes: The Old Norse Exempla as Arbiters of Gender Roles in Medieval Iceland; Paul Acker: Performing Gender in the Icelandic Ballads; Joseph Harris: The Rök Inscription, Line 20; Sarah Harlan-Haughey: A Landscape of Conflict: Three Stories of the Faroe Conversions; Kirsten Wolf: Non-Basic Color Terms in Old Norse-Icelandic

I this study I have explored the medieval Icelandic folk theory of emotions - what emotions were thought to be, from what they originated and how they operated - and additionally, whether medieval Icelanders had alternative emotion discourses in literature, in addition to the usual manner of representation (poetry, dialogue, description of somatic changes).

The berserkir of Old Norse literature have been argued to be able to transform into wolves or bears when berserksgangr, or battle rage, is upon them. However, while an animalistic association cannot be denied, not all genres of saga literature depict berserkir as true shapechangers. This, however, does not mean that they are not ontologically ambiguous — that they are not monstrous. Reading the berserkir of the Íslendingasögur through the lens of monster theory offfers a new perspective on this much-studied character type that reveals that, rather than being physically hybrid, they are socially disruptive: especially in their relationships with women, berserkir in the Íslendingasögur reveal their monstrosity. Ultimately, this reading contributes both to our understanding of berserkir, and to our knowledge of their place in the medieval Icelandic imagination.

The present study scrutinizes the outlawry and outlaws that appear in the Icelandic Family Sagas. It provides a thorough description about outlawry on the basis of extant law and saga texts as well as an analysis of referential connotations attached to it. The concept of outlawry was fundamental for the medieval Icelanders conceptions of their past. Indeed, understanding outlawry is essential for understanding many of the Family Sagas. Outlaws appear in saga texts in significant roles. The Icelandic Family Sagas comprise a group of prose narratives that were written down in the 13th and 14th century Iceland. They are based on events and personae that belong to the 10th century Iceland. These narratives introduce many outlaws, out of which some 75 are named. The Family Sagas are studied here as one corpus and special emphasis is given to those narrative features that repetitively appear in connection with outlawry and the outlaw characters. Therefore, the eventual objects of this study are the medieval Icelanders general conceptions of the historical outlawry as well as the variations of these conceptions throughout the period of saga writing. The medieval Icelanders general conceptions about the 10th 11th century, which are reflected in the Family Sagas, are here referred to as the Saga World. The Saga World is the historically based taleworld to which all of the Family Sagas refer. The medieval law texts, which were derived from centuries old legislative traditions, reveal that outlawry meant banishing from the society and being denied all help, and that the outlawed person lost the protection of the law. In practice, outlawry was a death sentence. However, outlaws occupy many differing roles in the saga narratives even in connection with recurrent narrative motifs. These roles reflect the social and spatial structures of the Saga World. The inspection of outlawry within these structures reveals that the definition of outlawry as it appears in the law texts is insufficient for understanding outlawry in the saga texts. The social and spatial structures also provide a basis for the connotations of outlawry. In this study, these connotations are inspected primarily from the referential connections between outlawry in the Family Sagas and corresponding phenomena in other concurrent literature. This is done by studying the implementations of the basic elements of outlawry in the Family Sagas marginalization, banishing, rejection and solitariness within other literary genres and the taleworlds to which they refer. It is argued that these taleworlds reflect the same ideas that were associated with outlawry in the Family Sagas albeit in different forms and that these different forms reciprocally contributed to the conceptions of outlawry. The variety of denotations and connotations of outlawry that is visible in the medieval Icelandic texts reflects the ambiguity of outlawry in the Family Sagas. This ambiguity may shed light to questions such as why an outlaw could be perceived as a hero in a literary genre that predominantly promoted law and order and why the same outlaw could be perceived as a villain on another occasion.

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 article concentrates on two scenes of actual or anticipated posthumous restlessness in Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar and Eyrbyggja saga. Both are countered with special and similar rituals, but have different consequences, as the corpse in Egils saga remains peaceful but some restlessness occurs in Eyrbyggja saga. The episodes are examined from the perspective of power and authority. The article includes a discussion of the way in which some of the deceased who were expected to have “strong minds” were ascribed authority over the living in sagas. In this role the ghosts could interfere in the lives of the living, and occasionally adopt a moral function in that they could rectify injustices, although they were sometimes malevolent in nature. Nevertheless, some individuals could contest their post-mortem power and use various means, such as rituals, to control it or modify it according to their own needs. It is suggested that such a capability was possessed by a certain kind of character, one whose mind was strong enough to bridle the powers of death, but which could in turn be counteracted by magic.

The article examines cultural conceptions of the possible afterlives of suicides in medieval (ca. 1200–1400) Iceland: whether those who committed suicide were expected to return as restless dead. It is suggested that suicide corpses were not regarded as inherently dangerous in medieval Iceland. According to the law, those who committed suicide would not be buried in the churchyard, but repentance before the actual moment of death could still make burial in the cemetery possible. The second chance allotted to self-killers raises the question of whether the burial method implied danger and contagion, or merely social exclusion. It is argued that suicide per se was not expected to make the corpse restless. People who were considered weak and powerless in life would not return after death, since posthumous restlessness required that the person had a strong will and motivation to come back. Consequently, in the case of suicides, possible posthumous restlessness depended on the person's character in life. People with strong will and special magical skills were anticipated to return, whereas other suicides remained passive and peaceful.

What are the psychological forces that imbue certain spaces with emotional power? Michel Foucault described one such space as “heterotopia.” Heterotopias are places of extreme colour and diversity, where the magical coming-together of usually contradictory forces exerted profound influence on people’s emotions. This article presents spaces in Old Norse literature where it is not difference and strangeness that have dramatic impact, but rather sameness and familiarity. The term “homotopia” is proposed to describe such spaces. Scenes depicting two particular farmsteads from the sagas, Helgafell and Hlíðarendi, are considered as homotopias. Moreover, with reference to Karl Marx’s theory of labour alienation, it is argued that homotopias have the potential to serve as political propaganda, convincing workers that their workplaces are not sites of exploitation, but are instead objects of aesthetic enjoyment. With this political purpose in mind, literary artifacts from the Old Norse-speaking world are integrated into an intellectual genealogy arriving at the present day. In closing it is therefore suggested that some of the homotopias of the Íslendingasögur provide parallels with the homotopian industrial estates and strip malls of late capitalism.

Was Icelandic outlawry exceptional? The legal and historical aspect of Icelandic outlawry has been widely studied and commented by scholars (Spoelstra, 1938), either by following indications from the Grágás or through the use of literary examples spread in the sagas (Frederic Amory, 1992). As main characters of a narrative, Grettir and Gísli were allusively compared through the theme of home and homelessness in medieval Iceland (Miller, 2004), or connected with other tales about outlaws from Europe gathered in the so-called «Matter of Greenwood» (Maurice Keen, 1987), or even supposed to belong to a large Anglo-Norse common tradition on outlaws (Joost De Lange, 1935). However, the two stories have been so far mainly discussed in connection with other tales on outlaws from Europe, but surprisingly not very often together. Grounded on historical, literary and anthropological views, this thesis will attempt to relocate the two sagas in their specific Icelandic context and underline the specific nature of the Icelandic full outlawry as well as its consequences in the narrative. While being banned from the community in continental Europe allowed a man to start a new life in another place, Icelandic outlaws were excluded from the social space of the island, yet kept inside (oferjanði). Why keep trouble-makers inside the enclosed space of the island instead of forcing them to leave the place definitely, as it was the case with sentences to lesser outlawry? The fact to be stuck on the island but out of the public scene leads to the creation of new original and individualized narrative spaces: the haunted wilderness for Grettir, the haunted dreams for Gísli. Through the analysis of the concepts of exile and liminality, this study defines the space the outlaw is forced to occupy (out and under) and teases out the picture of an “inner-exile”, both cause and consequence of outlawry. This inner exile is revealed through a contrastive narrative process, a common structure in the two sagas. From this analysis, the theory of the scapegoat (René Girard, 1982) is discussed and will help to understand the ambiguity held towards outlaws: hunted down and feared, they are nevertheless admired by and useful for the society.

This article proposes that the oft-dismissed Sneglu-Halla þáttr (Tale of Sarcastic Halli) is not simply a series of virtuoso vituperations peppered with sexual-cum-barnyard humor, nor “a series of episodes that could have been arranged otherwise as well,” but a text that repays close attention, both for original audiences as well as for scholars of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. I argue that its eponymous hero establishes his social position at the royal Norwegian court by ensconcing himself within a sustained series of allusions to myths of the Norse god Loki, while framing his peers, and even his superiors, as the sexual deviants, low-lifes, and numbskulls of a déclassé “folktale” world. Sneglu-Halla þáttr thus presupposes considerable literary connoisseurship, detailed knowledge of the Norse mythographic tradition, and a consciousness of high and low genre that reflects concerns of shifting social classes and political powers in thirteenth and fourteenth-century Iceland. Ultimately, I leverage this reading to articulate a reappraisal of medieval Icelandic narrative prose—most often lauded for its “realism," "straightforwardness," and "objectivity”: I offer that this deceptively “simple” tale adheres to the same aesthetic principles of complexity, ambiguity, and allusiveness that characterize the Skaldic poetry that is its ostensible subject.

Archaeological data from 32 surveyed and excavated caves and rockshelters in western Norway show that dwelling was uncommon at these sites; they were more often used for placed (ritual) deposits, burials, and as workshops for metal smiths and stone masons. An extensive study of medieval Icelandic saga texts, Eddic poetry and other written sources reveals that caves were often scenes of negative activities and incidents for humans. They are also portrayed as homes for giants and other supernatural beings and powers in Norse mythology. It is argued here that people in western Norway associated caves with these beings during the Late Iron Age and that these perceptions continued well into the Christian Middle Ages. This resulted in a general avoidance of caves and rockshelters for dwelling purposes. On the other hand, they were important sites for worship and rituals.

Cannibalism has been connoted negatively among many Western civilizations throughout history, medieval Iceland included. Icelandic giants were characterized by a diet consisting mainly of horsemeat (banned by the Church) and human flesh (an ancient taboo). But cannibalism was also connoted positively when it was performed by heroes in accordance with the laws of sympathetic magic: in this case, eating specific parts of the human body would transfer the qualities of the eaten to the eater. The intention of this article is to discuss the role that the human body played as identity marker, and its different connotations depending on who consumed it.

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This article discusses the value of Bárðar saga as a source for the reconstruction of pre-Christian religion. The title’s question mark should be stressed. Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss is certainly not one that stands out as a valuable source for the reconstruction of Old Nordic religion since it is considered a late saga and is dominated by fantastic and clearly fictitious elements. But, it is argued, some information, especially on cosmology and the supernatural beings inhabiting the local landscapes, probably is valuable. That information must be used with caution, because it seems to be ‘contaminated’ by literary inventions. The saga’s references to pre-Christian gods – Bárðr’s byname Snæfellsáss, the Óðinn-figure Rauðgrani, and the references to Þórr and Frigg – seem too problematic to be of any use.

The article concerns the ghost story of Eyrbyggja saga, the so-called ‘wonders of Fróðá’ (Fróðárundr), and examines the symbolic meanings of this episode as they were interpreted in medieval Iceland. The analysis presupposes that, although the restless dead could be understood as ‘real’ by medieval readers and as part of their social reality, the heterogenic nature of the audience and the learning of the writers of the sagas made possible various interpretations of the ghost-scene, both literal and symbolic. It is argued that the living dead in Eyrbyggja saga act as agents of order, whose restlessness is connected to past deeds of those still living that have caused social disequilibrium. In Fróðárundr these actions involve expressions of disapproved sexuality and birth of offspring with indeterminate social status. For the ghost-banisher the hauntings represent an opportunity to improve his own indeterminate status.

In this article I concentrate on the effects that ghosts have on the living people in sagas. I use examples in such Íslendingasögur as Flóamanna saga, Eyrbyggja saga, Eiríks saga rauða and Laxdæla saga. I have concentrated on two aspects of the influence of the dead on the living in these sagas, fear and physical illness, and discuss medieval Icelandic conceptions of mental disorder by examining the meanings given to fear and illness intertextually. Consequently, the article also contributes to the study of the medieval Icelandic conceptions of mind and emotion, and emphasises the problems inherent in using modern concepts in historical studies. I also give special emphasis to two diverse discourses extant in medieval Iceland: indigenous folk conceptions and foreign medical theories. I show that these views sometimes overlapped but were sometimes in conflict, which makes the definition of a single concept of ‘mental disorder’ held by medieval Icelanders difficult. In this article, I argue that for medieval Icelanders ‘mental’ was something rather physical, and, although the symptoms caused by the restless dead—fear, insanity, illness and death—would be categorized by us as mental or physical, in the sagas these were all considered bodily in nature. Moreover, I also suggest that medieval Icelanders did not make a clear distinction between emotions and physical illnesses, since emotions could be part of the illness or even its actual cause. I argue that both emotions and (physical) illness encompassed state of disequilibrium and were dependent of external agents and forces that had the power to influence the bodily balance and trigger the onset of ‘mental disorder’. Consequently, ‘mental disorder’ could be manifested also in physical illness.

Using the lives of impaired individuals catalogued in the Íslendingasögur as a narrative framework, this study examines medieval Scandinavian social views regarding impairment from the ninth to the thirteenth century. Beginning with the myths and legends of the eddic poetry and prose of Iceland, it investigates impairment in Norse pre-Christian belief; demonstrating how myth and memory informed medieval conceptualizations of the body. This thesis counters scholarly assumptions that the impaired were universally marginalized across medieval Europe. It argues that bodily difference, in the Norse world, was only viewed as a limitation when it prevented an individual from fulfilling roles that contributed to their community. As Christianity’s influence spread and northern European powers became more focused on state-building aims, Scandinavian societies also slowly began to transform. Less importance was placed on the community in favor of the individual and policies regarding bodily difference likewise changed; becoming less inclusive toward the impaired.

This article is a study of AM 152 fol., an early-sixteenth-century vellum manuscript. One of its scribes was Þorsteinn Þorleifsson, the brother of the rich and powerful Björn Þorleifsson in Reykhólar in Northwest Iceland. I argue that Björn was the manuscrip’s patron and may have been involved in the selection of texts. The sagas in the codex are a varied collection of family sagas, legendary sagas and romances; despite the sagas’ disparate settings, they have many themes in common. By analysing these sagas, we can recover certain historical attitudes regarding moral values and social behaviour, and they speak to the patron’s (and perhaps his associates’) self-image and ideology or mentality. The sagas of AM 152 fol. are often narratives about young upper-class men and their development into responsible adults who behave according to certain norms and moral values. A heavy emphasis is placed on fraternal bonds and remaining loyal and supportive to one’s brother despite his possible deficiencies. The heroes’ (and their brothers’) antagonists are usually immoral, ill-tempered and deceitful men who are characterised by a lack of moderation, prudence, and justice. I argue that such narratives would have been appealing to Björn and his brother Þorsteinn, who were involved in a long-standing inheritance dispute with their cousin Björn Guðnason, who may have embodied the same kinds of qualities as the sagas’ villains. Second, another frequent theme in the sagas is monstrosity and especially its connections to violence against women. Monstrous figures are marginalised and othered, but when examined more closely, the saga heroes often have monstrous physical features and engage in the same behaviour as these characters. Their violence against women is usually displayed in a comic light or otherwise suppressed and dismissed but there is a great deal of overlap in the natures of humans and monsters, suggesting certain vulnerabilities when it comes to social conduct. The latter could be contextualised with fears regarding the presence of foreign merchants and fishermen in Iceland in the late medieval period, but they could just as well be a vehicle to discuss such behaviour in the audience’s own community.

In this article, it is argued that the English noun "giant" is unfit as an analytical term in scholarship on Old Norse literature. It is demonstrated that a significant semantic distinction exists between the words risi and jötunn, which are most often rendered collectively as “giant” in English. This problematises the use of the English term. A basis for this distinction between risi and jötunn is established by looking at the etymologies of the words; their presence or absence in mythological literature; and their use in early Old Norse translations of continental literature. On these grounds, it is argued that these terms were distinct by the time that saga authors inherited them. The continuation of this distinction in the sagas themselves is explored and the physical and social differences between risar and jötnar in the corpus are reviewed. In the concluding section, cases where saga authors directly contrast risar and jötnar are considered. After reviewing the above evidence, some final thoughts are offered on the appropriateness of the term “giant”.

Eyrbyggja saga is thought to have been written at the monastery that was located at Helgafell on the south side of Breiðafjörður during the 13th century. Many have considered the saga to have had relatively little Christian influence due to its vivid descriptions of what is purported to be heathen objects and customs within the saga. Recent research has turned this view on its head, leading scholars to ponder where heathen influence ends and Christian begins. It is the purpose of this thesis to explore the idea that a Christian cleric modelled the saga based on the oral sources that he had at his disposal, weaving these sources together to suit his own aims. Rather than searching for the pagan and the Christian elements explicitly, the text will be inspected for one particular aspect of Latin education, well known to have been taught all over Europe at the time the saga is purported to have been written. This aspect is a part of the trivium of Latin learning, known as dialectic. The implications of this type of education is first inspected, then a text available and extremely popular during the time is consulted for an understanding of the content of this education, Boethius’ De topicis differentiis. Finally this understanding is applied to a portion of the text of Eyrbyggja saga with the express goal of looking at the text from a similar lens as that of the Christian cleric that may have written it.

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.

The legal and historical aspect of Icelandic outlawry in the Middle Ages has been widely studied and commented by scholars, either by following formal indications from the Grágás or through the use of literary examples spread in the sagas. The two main Icelandic outlaw sagas, Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar and Gísla saga Súrssonar have been so far mainly discussed in connection with other tales on outlaws from Europe (Robin Hood, Hereward), but surprisingly not often together. Through the analysis of the concepts of exile and liminality, this paper will attempt to relocate the two sagas in their specific Icelandic context and underline the specific nature of the Icelandic full outlawry as well as its consequences in the narrative. Icelandic medieval outlaws were excluded from the social space of the island, yet forbidden to leave it (óferjandi). The fact to be stuck on the island but out of the public scene leads to the creation of new original and individualized narrative spaces: the supernatural wilderness for Grettir, the tortured dreams for Gísli.

This paper presents a new understanding of the cosmology of pre-Christian Scandinavian myth. The sources appear to give contradictory information; for example, the Æsir are located in different places: at the centre of the world, in the west, in the east, under the sea, and in the sky; Hel is placed both in the underground and beyond the sea. In recent studies, this has led to the conclusion that there is no system. The author argues that there is, and that we misunderstand the passages to other worlds. The otherworld can be defined as ‘the world beyond what we can access by natural means’. The starting-point is the realm that is physically accessible to humans, forming a compressed, wide ‘bubble’ around him/her and the local community, since our natural range is very wide in the horizontal plane in all directions, but very short downwards and upwards. Still, people have always imagined that it is possible supernaturally to transcend this ‘bubble’ through certain passages. These passages point in many directions from the middle of the ‘bubble’, but the locations of the passages are not identical to the location(s) of the other world(s), the passages being interchangeable with each other and often lead to the same (kind of) land/place. The other worlds have interfaces with this world and with each other, but have no geographical location in relation to this world or to the others – they are simply ‘beyond the passages’, ‘on the other side’. Accordingly, the fundamental model may be construed as an opposition between ‘us’ and ‘the others’, with an ever-changing border. This system becomes clear when we examine not only the limited Old Norse sources, but consider them in the light of the abundant folktales and legends recorded in post-medieval times throughout Northern Europe.