Scandinavian Myth and Religion

Background
o Saami indigenous population of northern Scandinavian
o Iceland settled 870 930 by Scandinavians (mostly from Norway)
Icelandic language still similar to Old Norse
o Norway, Sweden, Denmark = Scandinavia
North Sea Empire of Canute the Great (1016 1035)
o England, Norway, Denmark
o Canute was a Christian
Kingdom of Norway, ca. 1265
o Tip of Greenland, Iceland (1262), modern Norway
Scandinavia
o Uncertain etymology, borrowed from latin in its present form
o Ultimate origin seems to be * skainawjo
Skain: damage (= German. Schade)?, loss?
Skain: jumping/dancing leader of cultic procession (Gronvik)
Cn. Latin: scateo gush out, spring forth
Awjo island
o Old Norse: Skney
o Modern Scandinavian: Skne
Myth
o Many definitions
Story
Traditional Story (G.S. Kirk)
Untrue story
Sacred narrative (Alan Dundes)
Ideology in narrative form (Bruce Lincoln)
An untrue story conveying a truth
o Myth in our context: Narratives in which Gods play a part
Religion
o From Latin religare tie, bind
o Religion in our context = Old Norse sir custom, habit
o Scandinavian Religion: forn sir the old custom
Timeline
o 500BCE: Iron Age
200CE: Oldest Runic inscriptions
400-550CE: Migration period
Sun cults disappear
References to the Norse gods as we know from later sources (Thor, Odin,
Frigg)
Asir old Norse gods (cult began in this period)
Great Crisis 536CE: dust veil over Europe, one theory is volcanic
eruption leading to temperature drop
793CE: Viking age begins
Runic inscriptions from this period start to make sense
9th c: Settlement of Iceland
10th and 11th c: introduction of Christianity in Scandinavia
o 1066CE: Scandinavian Middle Ages begin
1150CE: Direct evidence of vernacular parchment literacy in Scandinavia
Written Sources
o Two kinds of Old Norse Poetry (with a few exceptions, mostly from 13 th c onwards)
Skaldic early 9th c onwards
Skald neutral pronoun (king = he, queen = she)

Much violence
Basic Skaldic Metrics
o Eight lines per stanza (all Nordic poetry split into stanzas)
o Six syllables per line
o Alliteration according to a fixed pattern
o Assonance according to a fixed pattern
o The strict rules are believed to have helped preserve skaldic
poems unchanged through centuries of oral transmission
Only found in the West Norse world (Norway and Iceland + 1 Swedish
runic inscription)
Often by named skalds (references to these skalds by other texts, so
works can be dated)
Relatively stable during oral transmission
Difficult to understand; often fragmentary
Eddic unstable texts, impossible to date
Every performance/recitation of the poem is different (content, wording,
etc.)
Primarily preserved in one manuscript: Codex Regius of the Elder/Poetic
Edda (1270)
o 10 + 1 mythological poems
o 20 heroic poems
o
o Most important mythological skaldic poems
Bragi Boddasons Drpa of Ragnarr lodbrkr
Pjdlfr r Hvnis Autumn-long
lfr Uggasons House Drpa
Thors battle with the giant Hnngnir
Eilfr Godrnarsons Drpa of Prr
(Drpa a poem with refrain; the most noble kind)
Ekphrastic poems describe a shield
o Stave Churches made out of wood
o Most important prose sources (external observers)
Tacituss Germania, ca 97CE
Ibn Fadlans Risala, shortly after 921
Adam of Bremens History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, ca 1070
All focus on religious practice
o Most important Scandinavian sources (prose)
Saxo Grammaticus Deeds of the Danes 1208
Snorri Sturlusons Heimskringla (History of the Kings of Norway) 1230
Snorri Sturlusons Edda 1220
All focus on stories rather than practices
General attitude to pagan myth:
Saxo condemning
Snorri seemingly neutral
The Migration Myth
o The Aesir settled in Sweden where King Gylfi gives them land
o The Aesir found a New Troy and intermarry with the locals; eventually adopt their
language
Gylfaginning (The fooling of Gylfi)
o Myths told in elaborate frame narrative
Human king seeks out Aesir and engages in contest of wisdom
o Ties between Greek mythology and Snorris Edda
Beginnings
o Tacitus Germania 98 CE

Yngui
Ermin (rule in germanic lang.)
Jormun (very big) found in name
Big twister came out of the earth
o
The Seeresss Prophecy
Prophecy: Structure
1 frame narrative
o 2-27 the mythic past
Ymir primordial giant
Makes a settlement in a land of nothingness
After, Burs sons lifted the land out of the sea, shaping
Midgard (our world, Middle-Earth); then sun starts to shine
and grass begins to grow
Three concentric circles of worlds: Utgardar,
Midgard, Asgard
Golden Age interrupted by three giant women
Gods sit in thrones of fate to decide things
The Fates: Urd, Verdandi, Skuld
28-29 frame narrative
o 30-41 - the mythic present
o 42-66,7 the mythic future
68,8 frame narrative
Spyrr prophecy
Death of a god
The world will die and fall into the sea and a new better world will arise from
the sea
The seeress is very old she talks about giants
Vangr paradise
o Bible translated into Gothicm
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