Viking Way

Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia

Inbunden, Engelska, 2019

589 kr

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Magic, sorcery and witchcraft are among the most common themes of the great medieval Icelandic sagas and poems, the problematic yet vital sources that provide our primary textual evidence for the Viking Age that they claim to describe. Yet despite the consistency of this picture, surprisingly little archaeological or historical research has been done to explore what this may really have meant to the men and women of the time. This book examines the evidence for Old Norse sorcery, looking at its meaning and function, practice and practitioners, and the complicated constructions of gender and sexual identity with which these were underpinned. Combining strong elements of eroticism and aggression, sorcery appears as a fundamental domain of women's power, linking them with the gods, the dead and the future. Their battle spells and combat rituals complement the men's physical acts of fighting, in a supernatural empowerment of the Viking way of life. What emerges is a fundamentally new image of the world in which the Vikings understood themselves to move, in which magic and its implications permeated every aspect of a society permanently geared for war. In this fully-revised and expanded second edition, Neil Price takes us with him on a tour through the sights and sounds of this undiscovered country, meeting its human and otherworldly inhabitants, including the Sámi with whom the Norse partly shared this mental landscape. On the way we explore Viking notions of the mind and soul, the fluidity of the boundaries that they drew between humans and animals, and the immense variety of their spiritual beliefs. We find magic in the Vikings' bedrooms and on their battlefields, and we meet the sorcerers themselves through their remarkable burials and the tools of their trade. Combining archaeology, history and literary scholarship with extensive studies of Germanic and circumpolar religion, this multi-award-winning book shows us the Vikings as we have never seen them before.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2019-04-30
Mått216 x 280 x 33 mm
Vikt1 750 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor432
Upplaga19002
FörlagOxbow Books
ISBN9781842172605

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List of figures and tablesAbbreviationsPreface and acknowledgements to the first editionPreface and acknowledgements to the second editionA note on languageA note on seid1. Different Vikings? Towards a cognitive archaeology of the later Iron AgeA beginning at BirkaTextual archaeology and the Iron AgeThe Other and the Odd?An archaeology of the Viking mind?2. Problems and paradigms in the study of Old Norse sorceryEntering the mythologyResearch perspectives on Scandinavian pre-Christian religionGods and monsters, worship and superstitionThe shape of Old Norse religionThe double world: seiðr and the problem of Old Norse ‘magic’Seiðr in the sourcesSeiðr in research3. SeiðrÓðinnFreyja and the magic of the VanirSeiðr and Old Norse cosmologyThe performersThe performanceEngendering seiðrSeiðr and the concept of the soulThe domestic sphere of seiðrSeiðr contextualised4. NoaidevuohtaSeiðr and the SámiSámi-Norse relations in the Viking AgeSámi religion and the Drum-TimeRydving’s terminology of noaidevuohtaWomen and noaidevuohtaThe rituals of noaidevuohtaThe ethnicity of religious context in Viking-Age Scandinavia5. Circumpolar religion and the question of Old Norse shamanismThe circumpolar cultures and the invention of shamanismThe shamanic world-viewShamanism in ScandinaviaSeiðr and circumpolar shamanism6. The supernatural empowerment of aggressionSeiðr and the world of warValkyrjur, skaldmeyjar and hjálmvitrSupernatural agency in battleThe projection of destructionBattle magicSeiðr and the shifting of shapeBerserkir and ulfheðnarEcstasy, psychic dislocation and the dynamics of mass violenceWeaving war, grinding battle: Darraðarljóð and Grottas˛ongr in context7. The Viking wayA reality in storiesViking women, Viking men8. Magic and mindReceptions and reactionsCracks in the ice of Norse ‘religion’Walking into the seiðr: contested interpretations of Viking-Age magicQueering magic?The social world of warThe Viking mind: a conclusionReferencesPrimary sources, including translationsPre-nineteenth-century sources for the early Sámi and Siberian culturesSecondary sourcesSources in archiveIndex

This is a brilliant and beautifully written book, as evidenced, for instance, by Price’s evocative retelling of Ragnarǫkr in Chapter 2. The first edition of Viking Way was a watershed publication for Viking archaeology, and as it has now been updated and extended, this book will only cement its position as a truly fundamental piece of scholarship painting a much richer, more complex, and more disconcerting picture of what are frequently caricatured and romanticized people. The Viking Way will undoubtedly be read, cited, and remembered for a very long time.