The main purpose of this paper is to examine how the Westviking were influenced by winter, snow and cold in their day-to-day life as they were making progress in the West.
Norse Elements in the work of J.R.R. Tolkien
December 15, 2014 By
The books of J.R.R. Tolkien contain multiple Characters, Places and Plots that remind the reader of Old Norse Poetry. This essay gives a short and incomplete overview on the most obvious elements.
Norsemen And Vikings: The Culture That Inspired Decades Of Fear
November 24, 2014 By
Thoughts of these monstrous men link themselves with words such as bloodlust, raids, and conqueror. Which leaves one to ponder why these men have come to be forever linked with such carnage, surely they must have had some redeeming qualities?
Bárðar saga as a source for reconstruction of pre-Christian religion?
November 19, 2014 By
Paper by Eldar Heide given at the second meeting of the Old Norse Folklorist Network
Þur sarriþu þursa trutin: Monster-Fighting and Medicine in Early Medieval Scandinavia
October 30, 2014 By
This paper seeks evidence among our extensive Scandinavian mythological texts for an area which they seldom discuss explicitly: the conceptualisation and handling of illness and healing.
Norse Religion and Ritual Sites in Scandinavia in the 6th – 11th century
October 19, 2014 By
Today we have increasing opportunities for archaeological identification of the pre-Christian rites in the various accounts given by the written sources.
Can you solve Odin’s Riddles?
October 9, 2014 By
Here are 14 riddles that the Norse god Odin says to King Heidrek. Can you solve them?
Houses and domestic life in the Viking Age and medieval period
September 28, 2014 By
This thesis examines the representations of houses as physical structures in the Íslendingasögur with specific emphasis on the material aspect of housing culture in the Viking Age and medieval period, as well as the interactions between material culture and text.
Holy Islands and the Otherworld: Places Beyond Water
September 1, 2014 By
In this article I attempt to demonstrate that there is a connection between holy islands and notions of an Otherworld beyond water. I believe that the essence of holy islands is their location on the other side of water.
Ancient Viking Art
August 18, 2014 By
These skilled warriors and seamen had a unique art. Probably the best known artifices of them are the tombstones with engraved drawings; most of them preserve writings with rune scripts and therefore they are called runastones.
Amending the Ascetic: Community and Character in the Old English Life of St. Mary of Egypt
August 12, 2014 By
Among the most eligible saints for such treatment, Mary of Egypt deserves particular consideration: her popularity is evidenced by over a hundred extant Greek manuscripts of her Life and her uniquely prominent position in the Lenten liturgical cycle in the Eastern Church.
Greenland Norse Knowledge of the North Atlantic
August 10, 2014 By
What did the Norse know about climate, and what was the role of driftwood in their lives?
Yggdrasill and the divine ‘food chain’
August 10, 2014 By
One of the better-known images Old Norse mythology has passed down to us is, without a doubt, that of the ash Yggdrasill: the holy place of the gods. There, as High said to Gangleri, each day the Nordic deities held their courts.
Of Fire and Water: The Old Norse Mythical Worldview in an Eco-Mythological Perspective
August 3, 2014 By
How do the actions of the gods in these narratives express man’s mythical notions of his relationship with the land and sea in the Scandinavian and North Atlantic ecosystems?
Creation and Food in Old Norse Mythology
July 23, 2014 By
Not surprisingly, as we can ascertain by reading the Bible and many other religious and mythological texts of the past, also in Norse beliefs food and fecundity were central elements in the origin of all things
Viking-Age Queens and the Formation of Identity
July 12, 2014 By
One may ask, then, not why there exists such a paucity of these women in the written record, but why any are mentioned at all, and for what purposes?
How Nordic are the old Nordic Laws?
July 3, 2014 By
Medieval legislation plays a peculiar and very important role in Nordic legal history.
Which Norse God Are You?
July 3, 2014 By
Thor and his fellow Norse Gods are surrounded by a rich, ancient mythology. Which medieval Norse Deity are you most like?
The effects of Viking activity on Scandinavian society
June 29, 2014 By
Three ways in which Viking raids and conquests in western Europe affected Scandinavian society are discussed
Climatic Change and the North Atlantic Seaways During the Norse Expansion
June 24, 2014 By
In order to appreciate how the Norse expansion might have been influenced by climatic fluctuations it is necessary to consider in outline the mechanisms which control weather and climate in the North Atlantic area at the present day, and which also obtained in the past.
Viking Nicknames
June 1, 2014 By
Of all the various cultures of the Middle Ages, it was probably the Norse who had the best nicknames. Ranging from the Eirik the Red to Ivar the Boneless, the Viking Age has hundreds of interesting and strange nicknames.
New study to look at Norse farming on the Orkney Isles
May 12, 2014 By
A year-long study will begin this fall that will look look at herding economies in the Orkney Isles from the 8th to the 15th century AD.
Seals and Sea Ice in Medieval Greenland
May 5, 2014 By
With a view to placing such developments in the context of changes in the past, the focus of this paper is an interdisciplinary study of the interaction of different seal species in Arctic/North Atlantic regions with sea ice, and, more specifically, the implications for the Norse settlements in Greenland in medieval times.
Norse cultural reaction to climate change during the little ice age and their societal collapse in Greenland
April 12, 2014 By
This study aims to understand the adaptations of the Norse Greenlanders to climate change in their new home.
Bjarmaland and interaction in the North of Europe from the Viking Age until the Early Middle Ages
April 6, 2014 By
This article intends to look at interaction in the very north of early medi- eval Europe with Bjarmaland as a starting point. After a short introduction to sources and historiography about Bjarmaland, the main content of the sources will be shortly discussed in order to establish what kind of informa- tion the written sources have to offer.
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