The wood-of-the-cross legend is actually a group of narratives that trace the pre- history of the wood used to make Christ’s cross back to Old Testament figures, or in some cases back to paradise itself.
The Cross as Tree: The Wood-of-the-Cross Legends in Middle English and Latin Texts in Medieval England
December 28, 2012 By
St Edmund of East Anglia and his miracles: variations in literature and art
December 23, 2012 By
Edmund was said to have been crowned at the age of just fourteen years by St Humbert on 25 December 855 in the then royal capital Burna, (probably Bures St Mary, Suffolk). Almost nothing is known of his life and reign, though he was recorded as a just and uncompromising ruler, the embodiment of the Greek ideal of the kalòs kai agathòs – that is, the right balance of the Good and the Beautiful, the combination of virtues that could create the perfect nobleman.
Drauginir: Revenants in Old Icelandic Sagas
December 22, 2012 By
It is this humanity in a monster that helps to show why these draugar fascinate us so much. The “others” that exist outside the boundaries of society: the weird old ladies that people label as evil witches, the misshapen, the “freaks” that Tod Browning made famous are funhouse mirror images of ourselves.
Tolkien’s Cauldron: Northern Literature and The Lord of the Rings
December 14, 2012 By
Tolkien was a scholar of Old Norse literature and much of his work in the Lord of the Rings is informed by his knowledge of old Norse mythology, Eddic poetry, and saga. Tolkien’s use of these sources enriched this complex story of Middle-earth.
INTERVIEW: Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths
December 13, 2012 By
An interview with author Nancy Brown on her latest medieval offering: “Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths”.
Language and Legend in the Fantasy Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien
December 12, 2012 By
There was something so real in the languages that he created, and critics wanted to find the inspirations behind Tolkien‘s worlds. Elves, dwarves, men, hobbits, and various other creatures occupied the pages of his books, but the languages he created were complex and had real elements in them. Examples of his invented languages were those spoken by the Elves, Sindarin and Quenya.
“Far-off gleams of evangelium” : a study of how J. R. R. Tolkien’s The lord of the rings reflects the biblical “Kingdom of Heaven”
December 11, 2012 By
The findings of this thesis confirm that the values of LOTR and the Kingdom are notably similar, and that the reader of LOTR does indeed derive from it an experience of what the Kingdom ideally is. But all this is “under the surface”, and Tolkien did not impose his Christianity.
Where does Old Norse religion end?
December 1, 2012 By
How did the believers of the Old Norse religion perceive other religions, and to what extent did people from the outside get in contact with myths and rituals?
Medieval Halloween! Great books for Ghosts, Goblins, Witches & Ghouls!
October 29, 2012 By
Some spooktacular reads to celebrate Medieval Halloween!
The Language of Birds in Old Norse Tradition
September 30, 2012 By
Special individuals capable of understanding the language of birds are spread throughout the medieval Icelandic literary corpus. This phenomenon has received surprisingly little academic attention and is deserving of detailed, extensive, and interdisciplinary study. Capable of flight and song, birds universally hold a special place in human experience. Their effective communication to people in Old Norse lore offers another example of their unique role in humanity’s socio-cosmic reality.
When a Knight meets a Dragon Maiden: Human Identity and the Monstrous Animal Other
September 24, 2012 By
The amount of research into the field of medieval monsters has been growing within the past few decades, but the monster has not always been accepted as a worthwhile topic of serious study
Lofty Depths and Tragic Brilliance: The Interweaving of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Mythology and Literature in the Arthurian Legends
September 20, 2012 By
Arthur and his knights are set apart from other literary heroes because of their unique construct, a blending of two cultures into one legend.
The Virtuous Pagan in Middle English Literature
September 14, 2012 By
From the first through the fourteenth centuries, a succession of solutions to the problem of these virtuous pagans evolved. For the Early Church, an attractive solution was that Christ descended into Hell to convert the souls he found there.
Sources of Medieval Demonology
September 11, 2012 By
Greek philosophy, Jewish apocryphal literature, Biblical doctrine, and pagan Germanic folklore all contribute elements to the demons which flourished in men’s minds at the close of the medieval period.
Francis Bacon’s use of ancient myths in Novum Organum
September 8, 2012 By
In this paper, I will show how the ancient myths of Pan, Perseus, Dionysius, and Prometheus have an impact on Book I of Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum.
Re-forging the smith: an interdisciplinary study of smithing motifs in Völuspá and Völundarkviða
August 29, 2012 By
In this dissertation I examine key smithing motifs in the eddic poems Võluspá and Võlundarkviña in relation to the socio-cultural role of smithing techniques and sites in early medieval Scandinavia.
The Riddle of Gollum: Was Tolkien Inspired by Old Norse Gold, the Jewish Golem, and the Christian Gospel?
August 23, 2012 By
I would like to speculate on Tolkien’s sources for Gollum. As a start, it is likely that Tolkien’s conscious sources for Gollum were the same as his sources for ents.
Hƒdr’s Blindness and the Pledging of Ódinn’s Eye: A Study of the Symbolic Value of the Eyes of Hƒdr, Ódinn and fiórr
August 19, 2012 By
The supreme god of the Old Norse pantheon, Óðinn, is one-eyed, and þórr is described as having particularly sharp eyes
Vilification of Identity and the Exilic Narrative: The Illustrated Pied Piper Story
July 22, 2012 By
This paper situates The Pied Piper story as an exilic narrative, part of a larger repertoire of stories that follow the romantic quest-myth formula, a formula that conveys a totla metaphor for the “journey of life”.
Imagining Samarkand: Fruitful Themes in 13th-16th Century Literature on a Silk Road City
June 28, 2012 By
… Samarkand was seen as the last great urban Islamic stop.4 Perhaps because of this, the period between the Arab invasion of Samarkand and the Mongol invasion in 1220 fomented many of the mythologies about the city which will feature prominently in this paper.
Creativity, the trickster, and the cunning harper king: A study of the minstrel disguise entrance trick in “King Horn” and “Sir Orfeo”
June 17, 2012 By
What does a hero do when he finds himself in an impossible situation where customary tactics are useless; magic is not in the cards, and divine intervention unlikely? He could give up. Or he could use cunning. In both King Horn and Sir Orfeo, the hero wiggles out of just such a squeeze by using a minstrel disguise entrance trick—a sort of musical Trojan horse for which the enemy’s closely guarded gates swing open in welcome.
Near-Death Folklore in Medieval China and Japan : A Comparative Analysis
June 17, 2012 By
Medieval Chinese and Japanese literature provides numerous examples of near-death experiences, episodes in which the narrator claims to have gained personal images of the after life.
Cryptozoology in the Medieval and Modern Worlds
May 6, 2012 By
Albertus Magnus’s thirteenth-century work, De animalibus, a lengthy compilation based on Aristotle and on a handful of commentators, is as close as the Middle Ages comes to a systematic natural history in our understanding of the term.
Recreating Beowulf’s “Pregnant Moment of Poise”: Pagan Doom and Christian Eucatastrophe Made Incarnate in the Dark Age Setting of The Lord of the Rings
May 4, 2012 By
The following chapters will explore how Tolkien fuses themes and imagery from the pagan Norse apocalyptic myth of Ragnarök with Christian apocalyptic imagery and themes in a recreated Dark Age historical setting to create The Lord of the Rings.
VAGANTES: “I See Red: Language of Blood and Feminity in Táin Bó Cúailnge
April 6, 2012 By
This paper examined the role of Medb and Fedelm, the seer in the Táin. It focuses on this conversation between the seer and Medb.
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