Eddic Poetry as World Literature
This article focuses on eddic issues including orality, dating, relationship to the ballad, provenance, international sources, and broadly typological literary relations.
Understanding Grettir as an Ethical Hero: Comparing Havamal and Grettir’s Saga
The Icelandic family sagas are replete with heroes, fighting men and strong women who stood with their teeth to the wind and carved a life for themselves out of an inhospitable world
Ten Old Norse Proverbs: Wisdom from the Hávamál
The Hávamál (Sayings of the High One) is part of the Poetic Edda, a collection of Old Norse poems that survive in a 13th century manuscript.
The Colors of the Rainbow in Snorri’s Edda
In the second part of his Edda, the Gylfaginning, Snorri Sturluson gives a systematic account of Norse mythology from the creation of the world to its end.
The Extreme Emotional Life of Völundr the Elf
In this article, my aim is to determine the function of elves in Old Norse narratives from the thirteenth century by concentrating on the figure of Völundr, the protagonist of Völundarkviða, who to my mind is the most important Old Norse elf.
Viking Age Queens: The example of Oseberg
The Oseberg ship burial is a Viking Age burial mound containing a double female inhumation, which is located in the Oslofjord area in Norway.
Dead and famous, or unknown but alive? Heroism and common sense in medieval Scandinavian and African tradition
Although some scholars see heroism as a characteristic of the whole Germanic tradition, a careful study of Scandinavian literature reveals that this is not the case
What did Dragons look like for the Vikings?
While the modern image of the dragons often depicts a beast that has four legs, leathery wings and breathes fire, the medieval image of the creature could be very different. In the article, ‘Dragons in the Eddas and in Early Nordic Art,’ Paul Ackey shows that the Vikings and Norse society had their own ideas of what dragons looked like.
The Elder Edda Revisited: Past and Present Performances of the Icelandic Eddic Poems
What first struck me when I started my research on the Elder Edda is that, during the past four decades, several theatre practitioners have experimented with presentations of some of the poems and demonstrated that they can be highly effective in dramatic performance.
Re-forging the smith: an interdisciplinary study of smithing motifs in Völuspá and Völundarkviða
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.
Odin and his Brothers: Common Threads of the Odinic Tradition
Within the Poetic Edda Odin, Lodur (Loki) and Haenir are responsible for the creation of humanity in Nordic mythology.