Download Free Myth And Environment In Early Iceland Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Myth And Environment In Early Iceland and write the review.

Volcanoes in Old Norse Mythology details how Viking Age Icelanders, migrating from Scandinavia to a new and volcanically active environment, used Old Norse mythology to understand and negotiate the hazards of the island. These pre-Christian myths recorded in medieval Iceland expound an indigenous Icelandic theory on volcanism that revolves around the activities of supernatural beings, such as the fire-demon Surtr and the gods Odin and Thor. Before the Icelanders were introduced to Christianity and its teachings, they formulated an indigenous theory of volcanism on basis of their traditional mythology much like other indigenous peoples across the world.
Icelandic folklore is rife with tales of elves and hidden people that inhabited hills and rocks in the landscape. But what do those elf stories really tell us about the Iceland of old and the people who lived there? In this book, author Alda Sigmundsdóttir presents twenty translated elf stories from Icelandic folklore, along with fascinating notes on the context from which they sprung. The international media has had a particular infatuation with the Icelanders’ elf belief, generally using it to propagate some kind of “kooky Icelanders” myth. Yet Iceland’s elf folklore, at its core, reflects the plight of a nation living in abject poverty on the edge of the inhabitable world, and its people’s heroic efforts to survive, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. That is what the stories of the elves, or hidden people, are really about. In a country that was, at times, virtually uninhabitable, where poverty was endemic and death and grief a part of daily life, the Icelanders nurtured a belief in a world that existed parallel to their own. This was the world of the hidden people, which more often than not was a projection of the most fervent dreams and desires of the human population. The hidden people lived inside hillocks, cliffs, or boulders, very close to the abodes of the humans. Their homes were furnished with fine, sumptuous objects. Their clothes were luxurious, their adornments beautiful. Their livestock was better and fatter, their sheep yielded more wool than regular sheep, their crops were more bounteous. They even had supernatural powers: they could make themselves visible or invisible at will, and they could see the future. To the Icelanders, stories of elves and hidden people are an integral part of the cultural and psychological fabric of their nation. They are a part of their identity, a reflection of the struggles, hopes, resilience, and endurance of their people. What you will read about in The Little Book of the Hidden People: • The fascination in the international media: why are they so obsessed with elves? • The meaning of elf: what do hidden people stories tell us about the psyche of the Icelanders of old? • The elves' badassery—they could make or break your fortune so you’d better be nice! • The ljúflingar ... hidden men who became the lovers of mortal women • Glamorous and regal: why were the elves so damn good-looking? • The grim realities: what do scholars believe about all those children abducted by elves? ... and so much more!
The Eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál serves as a representation of early pagan beliefs or myths and as a myth itself; the poem performs both of these functions, acting as a poetic framework and functioning as sacred myth. In this study, the author looks closely at the journey of the Norse god Óðinn to the hall of the ancient and wise giant Vafþrúðnir, where Óðinn craftily engages his adversary in a life-or-death contest in knowledge.
An innovative and accessible overview of how ancient Scandinavians understood and made use of their mythological stories. Old Norse Mythology provides a unique survey of the mythology of Scandinavia: the gods Þórr (Thor) with his hammer, the wily and duplicitous Óðinn (Odin), the sly Loki, and other fascinating figures. They create the world, battle their enemies, and die at the end of the world, which arises anew with a new generation of gods. These stories were the mythology of the Vikings, but they were not written down until long after the conversion to Christianity, mostly in Iceland. In addition to a broad overview of Nordic myths, the book presents a case study of one myth, which tells of how Þórr (Thor) fished up the World Serpent, analyzing the myth as a sacred text of the Vikings. Old Norse Mythology also explores the debt we owe to medieval intellectuals, who were able to incorporate the old myths into new paradigms that helped the myths to survive when they were no longer part of a religious system. This superb introduction traces the use of the mythology in ideological contexts, from the Viking Age until the twenty-first century, as well as in entertainment.
"Featuring timeless stories from such countries as Iceland, Norway, and Denmark, this is your entryway into the magical world of Scandinavian folklore. With vividly detailed illustrations that pair with each myth, you'll feel like you are defending Asgard on the battlefield with the almighty Odin, shape-shifting from a snake to a hawk with the trickster Loki, slaying dragons with the brave Sigurd, and much more. Follow these engaging Norse mythology legends, and learn everything there is to know about the tall tales of the Norse"--
Gift of Joan Wall. Includes index. Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-248) and index. * glr 20090610.
An engaging account of the world of the Vikings and their gods.
Iron Age Myth and Materiality: an Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400-1000 considers the relationship between myth and materiality in Scandinavia from the beginning of the post-Roman era and the European Migrations up until the coming of Christianity. It pursues an interdisciplinary interpretation of text and material culture and examines how the documentation of an oral past relates to its material embodiment. While the material evidence is from the Iron Age, most Old Norse texts were written down in the thirteenth century or even later. With a time lag of 300 to 900 years from the archaeological evidence, the textual material has until recently been ruled out as a usable source for any study of the pagan past. However, Hedeager argues that this is true regarding any study of a society’s short-term history, but it should not be the crucial requirement for defining the sources relevant for studying long-term structures of the longue durée, or their potential contributions to a theoretical understanding of cultural changes and transformation. In Iron Age Scandinavia we are dealing with persistent and slow-changing structures of worldviews and ideologies over a wavelength of nearly a millennium. Furthermore, iconography can often date the arrival of new mythical themes anchoring written narratives in a much older archaeological context. Old Norse myths are explored with particular attention to one of the central mythical narratives of the Old Norse canon, the mythic cycle of Odin, king of the Norse pantheon. In addition, contemporaneous historical sources from late Antiquity and the early European Middle Age - the narratives of Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, and Paul the Deacon in particular - will be explored. No other study provides such a broad ranging and authoritative study of the relationship of myth to the archaeology of Scandinavia.
The early modern Middle East was a crucial zone of connection between Europe and the Mediterranean world, on the one hand, and South Asia, the Indian Ocean, and sub-Saharan Africa, on the other. Accordingly, global trade, climate, and disease both affected and were affected by what was happening in the Middle East s many environments. The trans-territorial and trans-temporal character of environmental history helps shed new light on the history of the region, and Alan Mikhail s latest tackles major topics in environmental history: natural resource management, climate, human and animal labor, water control, disease, and the politics of nature. It also reveals how one of the world s most important religious traditions, Islam, has related to the natural world. This is a model book that sets the course for Middle East environmental history."
Old Norse literature abounds with descriptions of magic acts that allow ritual specialists of various kinds to manipulate the world around them, see into the future or the distant past, change weather conditions, influence the outcomes of battles, and more. While magic practitioners are known under myriad terms, the most iconic of them is the völva. As the central figure of the famous mythological poem Völuspá (The Prophecy of the Völva), the völva commands both respect and fear. In non-mythological texts similar women are portrayed as crucial albeit somewhat peculiar members of society. Always veiled in mystery, the völur and their kind have captured the academic and popular imagination for centuries. Bringing together scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds, this volume aims to provide new insights into the reality of magic and its agents in the Viking world, beyond the pages of medieval texts. It explores new trajectories for the study of past mentalities, beliefs, and rituals as well as the tools employed in these practices and the individuals who wielded them. In doing so, the volume engages with several topical issues of Viking Age research, including the complex entanglements of mind and materiality, the cultural attitudes to animals and the natural world, and the cultural constructions of gender and sexuality. By addressing these complex themes, it offers a nuanced image of the völva and related magic workers in their cultural context. The volume is intended for a broad, diverse, and international audience, including experts in the field of Viking and Old Norse studies but also various non-professional history enthusiasts. The Norse Sorceress: Mind and Materiality in the Viking World is a key output of the project Tanken bag Tingene (Thoughts behind Things) conducted at the National Museum of Denmark from 2020 to 2023 and funded by the Krogager Foundation.