Icelandic Folklore and the Cultural Memory of Religious Change

Häftad, Engelska, 2021

Av Eric Shane Bryan, Missouri Univ. of Science and Technology) Bryan, Eric Shane (Assoc. Prof. of English

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Iceland’s uncommon proclivity towards storytelling, its robust tradition of medieval manuscripts, and the “re-oralization” of those narratives after the medieval period, create a body of folktales and legends that have encoded a hidden account of how orthodox and heterodox beliefs (sometimes pagan in origin) intermingled as Christianity, and later Reformation, spread through the North. This volume unlocks that secret story by placing Icelandic folktales in a context of religious doctrine, social history, and Old Norse sagas and poetry. The analysis herein reveals a cultural memory of belief.This book is available as Open Access.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2021-10-31
Mått152 x 229 x undefined mm
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
SerieBorderlines
Antal sidor172
FörlagArc Humanities Press
ISBN9781641894654

Tillhör följande kategorier

Sagor inom Skonlitteratur
Litteraturvetenskap inom Skonlitteratur
Sociala och etiska frågor inom Samhalle och politik
Religion: allmänt inom Filosofi och religion
Kristendom inom Filosofi och religion

Introduction: Stories, Memories, and Modalities BeliefChapter 1—The Dead Bridegroom Carries off his Bride: Pejoration and Adjacency Pairs in ATU 365Chapter 2—The Elf-Woman’s Conversion: Gender Spheres in Post-Medieval Icelandic FolktalesChapter 3— The Fylgjur of Iceland: Attendant Spirits and a Distorted Sense of GuardianshipChapter 4—The Elf Church: Memories of Contested Sacred SpacesChapter 5—The Stupid Boy and the Devil: Sæmundur Fróði, Magic, and RedemptionConclusion: The Transformation of Memory and of SelfSelected BibliographyIndex

The book is structured around five folktales taken from the great collection compiled in the mid-nineteenth century by Jon Arnason and Magnus Grimmson. Bryan situates these in relation to thematically linked stories from Icelandic sagas, Scandinavian literature and, indeed, the wider Indo-European narrative tradition. He is particularly interested in the way in which the Reformation affected the development of stories. Iceland’s long winter nights ensured the continuance of a strong oral tradition. Against a view which sees a popular oral culture preserving pagan resistances opposing a Christianising elite literary culture, Bryan argues that vernacular storytelling represented a continual reworking to achieve a unified religious worldview....This book is a fascinating exploration of the connections between various Icelandic folktales and a valiant attempt to relate them to religious change. ... I would recommend the book to anyone interested in Icelandic folklore, or indeed the functioning of folklore more generally.