Skaldic Poetry

Snorri contributed much to the image, prestige, and authority of poets in Old Norse vernacular literature. However, he did not originate or conclude this lionization of poets and poetry in the culture, and those who came before and after him also played their parts in establishing a robust and impressive written reputation for the poets. From almost the beginning, Old Nose vernacular literature would gradually come to exalt poets and poetry in many domains. These domains would include grammar, historic factuality, prestigious origins, mythology, narrative uses, runes, and magic. To show that, this essay surveys key Old Norse works over a two hundred year period. The works considered here have been chosen because they deal with poetry and poets in a wide variety of ways, and they are notable or represent significant developments in Icelandic literature.

Snorri à beaucoup contribué à l'image, au prestige et à l'autorité des poètes dans la littérature vernaculaire en ancien norrois. Cependant, il n'est ni l'instigateur ni le dernier chantre de cette glorification des poètes et de la poésie dans la culture, et ses prédécesseurs et successeurs jouent également un rôle dan l'établissement d'une réputation solide et impressionnante pour les poètes. Presque dés son commencement, la littérature vernaculaire en ancien Norrois exalte les poètes et la poésie dans de nombreux domaines. Ces derniers incluent la grammaire, la véracité historique, les origines prestigieuses, la mythologie, les usages narratifs, les runes et la magie. Afin de démontrer cela, cet essai passe en revue les travaux littéraires en ancien norrois sur une période de deux cent ans. Les oeuvres étudiées ici ont été choisies car elle adressent la question des poètes et de la poésie de manières variées et représentent des développements significatifs dans la littérature islandaise.

In 1932, in the periodical Sur, Borges published "Noticia de los Kenningar," his first essay on Scandinavian literature, which comprised a "report" on the type of metaphorical figures characteristic of Old Norse (and Old English) poetic diction known in English as kennings. The first part of this paper aims to provide an overview of the literature in Spanish which treats of the medieval north and its literature, prior to the publication of "Noticia de los Kenningar," with a view to situating Borges within this tradition. The second section provides a detailed survey of Borges' initial list of kennings, analysing the extent to which his translations diverge from the original Old Norse texts, as well as the implications of and reasons for these differences.

Col titolo islandese _Snorra Edda Sturlusonar_, tratto dal manoscritto più antico che lo contiene, è noto il principale trattato teorico dedicato all’arte scaldica del Medioevo scandinavo, l’Edda, attribuito non senza incertezze a Snorri Sturluson. Membro del potente clan degli Sturlungar, Snorri fu raffinato poeta, storico, e cinico uomo di potere, assassinato su ordine del re di Norvegia Hákon IV nel 1241. La ‘sua’ _Edda_(da non confondere con l’omonima raccolta poetica trascritta mezzo secolo più tardi) è un capolavoro ideologico di arte retorica e mito, realizzato a partire dagli anni ’20 del sec. XIII, benché tra ritocchi e integrazioni la forma attuale potrebbe perfino rappresentare il risultato di mani diverse. Il volume analizza il contesto storico coevo, le fonti manoscritte e ciascun capitolo dell’opera, soffermandosi infine sulla sua ricezione nel corso dei secoli e illustrandone il valore antiquario che ne fanno un oggetto di culto del 'mainstream' medievalista.

Although it is commonplace in scholarship today to talk about a ‘system’ of kennings or ‘kenning system’, critical discussion has tended to take the qualification ‘system’ for granted and left this topic unexplored. The present paper presents a study of extended kennings which reveals that the systemic network of kennings have different referents. It shows that kennings for MAN/WARRIOR are at the center of this network.

In order to investigate the compositional techniques of skaldic poetry and determine if any oral formulae or other compositional methods played a role in the creation of skaldic poetry, I have collected the alliterating and rhyming words from 1486 couplets by 68 different poets, including 19 anonymous poems, and investigated whether any of these word combinations were repeated within the poetry of different skalds. Many such examples of recurrent word constellations were found in this study; including some couplets by different poets which shared almost word for word similarity within and without the alliteration and hending categories, others couplets which shared a number of similar words within both hending and alliteration contexts, but few or none outside of those categories, and yet others that shared similarities only between alliteration or hending word pairs. While there are many examples of these word constellations of various sizes occurring within the works of different skalds, very rarely do they recur between more than two different poets. From this, it seems unlikely that oral formulae played a significant role in the composition of alliterative and hending word combinations in skaldic poetry. Rather, it seems that skalds may have appropriated convenient alliterating and hending word constellations from each other s works and incorporated these choice word combinations or phrases, often with great subtlety into their own work in an original context. This subtle appropriation allowed for originality in composition while, at the same time, taking inspiration or compositional aide from an earlier skald s work. Appropriation as a compositional technique supports the idea that skalds were very much aware of the skaldic corpus, both from their own time and from earlier centuries. The frequent subtlety of the appropriation which is found in my research could also be a way to avoid being accused of plagiarism by other knowledgeable skalds. Intelligent and original use of these borrowed word constellations also supports the argument for the importance of originality in the composition of skaldic poetry. From my research it appears that the appropriation of alliterative and hending word constellations was likely used as a compositional technique by skalds from the 9th to 11th centuries. The most notable skalds with inter-related alliterative and hending word constellations mentioned in this paper include Glúmr Geirason, Arnórr Þórðarson jarlaskáld, and Óttarr svarti, but a great number of other skalds also share word constellation similarities and I believe that with a more throrough and all encompassing analysis of the skaldic corpus, many more such examples may be found.

Skaldic poetry or court poetry differs significantly from other schools of Medieval European poetry. Scandinavian court poets, using complex literary techniques and various metres, composed verses on the events they witnessed or heard of from worthy witnesses. Along with this, they served kings and praised them – or blamed, being a part of an extremely interesting relationship. This essay shall very briefly explore the features and genres of Skaldic poetry, and analyse the role of the court poets in Old Scandinavian society. It shall focus on Norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning (Skj) anthology put together by Finnur Jónsson, which is the most entire and thorough collection of skaldic verses, Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla, and various sagas about skalds.

"In the year 1066, Anglo-Saxon forces surprised Harald Sigurdsson, King of Norway, while his army was lunching. The invading Norwegians were routed in the subsequent battle at Stamford Bridge and Harald the “Hard-ruler” met his unceremonious demise, signaling the end of the Viking Age and the beginning of medieval Scandinavia proper. Or so we are told.

Despite his apparent significance, scholarship devoted to Harald is relatively scant compared to other Viking Age kings. The historiography spares only a cursory glance at this dynamic figure before relegating him to the status of a convenient yet ultimately arbitrary historical bookend. In reality, Harald Sigurdsson was a complex character in the midst of a transformative process that had been occurring in Scandinavia since the 10th century and continued until well after he died. The circumstances of Harald’s lifetime were no less extraordinary than those of his death, truly demonstrating the breadth of the Viking experience. His is a story that deserves to be told on its own terms, as Harald himself would have had it.
"

It is proposed that an obscure phrase in a skaldic verse by Eyjolfr "skald of bold deeds" in praise of the late tenth-century Eric earl of Lade, Norway, refers to the earl's possession of a golden cup. The textual and material-culture evidence is reviewed, with comparisons from early English, Anglo-Latin, Welsh and Irish texts and from Carolingian art-work.

This article examines the constitutive features of the Old Norse dróttkvætt metre as it is used in poetry from the 9th to the 13th century by stating some basic rules. The rules – fifteen in all – are arranged both according to the features they address and in accordance with their specificity, beginning with stanzaic and alliterative rules that are valid for most Old Norse metres, before turning to the more specific rules of the dróttkvætt metre: position counting, different stress-patterns, internal rhyme, and finally the rather complicated rules for filling the positions. In an excursus on syllabic quantity it is concluded that bimoraic syllables in Old Norse should be regarded as metrically short.

Besides the kenning, the poetic category most fully discussed in the second section of Snorri’s Edda, is the (ókennt) heiti, a term usually translated as ‘poetic synonym’. A large number of heiti, most of them never used in the surviving skaldic corpus, are listed in specific metrical lists known as þulur (sing. þula). The aim of this paper is to highlight some aspects of these heiti collections with an analysis of the þula known as trǫllkvinna heiti (‘names of the trollwives’). Some observations of an etymological and morphological nature are made about 15 of the 61 heiti, selected for their semantic and formal features. Data concerning the use of these poetic terms in the skaldic corpus, and the strategies used to generate new heiti from well-established ones, lead to interesting conclusions. What to a modern reader may look like an aimless parade of erudition probably reflects a common practice in medieval Scandinavia, and one which played a major role in the construction of a literary identity through the preservation of traditional poetic material.

Keywords: heiti , þulur, kenning, Snorri Sturluson, giantess, skaldic poetry, Edda.

A principal aim of the book is to establish the tendencies and technique in the literary treatment of love and eroticism in the Icelandic saga literature. How do the sagas tell about erotic themes and emotions of love? What literary function do these motifs have? What kind of differencies are there between the different parts of the Old Norse literature? On the basis of these examinations I analyze the theme of love in seven individual family sagas: Laxdoela saga, Bjarnar saga Hítdoelakappa, Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, Kormáks saga, Hallfreðar saga, Fóstbroeðra saga, and Víglundar saga. Another principal aim is to examine how the continental/courtly tradition of love depiction was received in Old Norse literature and to examine how the indigenous and the courtly tradition influence each other. These are some of the main conclusions of the book:

• There is a well-developed and distinctive indigenous tradition of love depiction. Love is in several family sagas a more important motif than most scholars have realized, due to their misinterpretation of elements in the technique of love depiction in the sagas.
• The indigenous saga literature and the indigenous poetic tradition show in all essentials different tendencies. There is not only one indigenous tradition of love depiction in Old Norse literature.
• The translated riddarasögur reproduce to a great extent the courtly continental tendencies from their originals as regards love/eroticism.
• The indigenous saga tendency does hardly at all influence the treatment of the motif of love/eroticism in the translated riddarasögur, and the continental tendency does only slightly influence the depiction of love/eroticism in the family sagas.
• Fornaldarsögur connect in their treatment of love on to the tradition of the indigenous saga literature. The theory of a strong influence on the fornaldarsögur from the translated riddarasögur and courtly literature is refuted. The indigenous riddarasögur connect in their treatment of love principally to the tendencies of the translated riddarasögur. The prevalent theory of a close relationship between the groups of fornaldarsögur and indigenous riddarasögur is strongly overstated.

A number of kennings in the extant corpus of skaldic poetry collocate a term for wind with a term for a giantess, the resultant referent identified by Snorri Sturluson in Skáldskaparmál as hugr, though that term is itself exemplified by Snorri in three wide-ranging lists of terms denoting desire, passion, and hostility. In his taxonomy of kenning types, Rudolf Meissner gathered together ‘wind of the giantess’ kennings and identified their referent as Sinn. A number of the examples in Meissner’s list, however, are based on Finnur Jónsson’s emended texts, necessitating a close examination of the manuscript evidence in each case. The analysis
presented in this article places the ‘wind of the giantess’ kennings in the context of the well-attested kenning type ‘wind of the valkyrie’ in order to explore how the collocation of affect with a supernatural female figure appears to have operated in the skaldic imagination. While some of
the examples in Meissner’s group suggest the referent ‘desire’, others seem to refer instead to ‘battle spirit’ and some simply to ‘battle’. There is very little evidence to suggest that the referent can be equated with ‘thought’ in an abstract sense, an identification that has nonetheless become a commonplace in skaldic scholarship.

Gísla saga has often been described as “enigmatic,” and the riddles posed by Iceland’s best-known murder-mystery indeed appear irresolvable. At least equally puzzling, I suggest, is Gisli’s “confession” of his subsequent act of vengeance through an obscure bit of skaldic verse, which has not received similar attention. Setting aside the psychological and forensic approaches traditionally brought to bear on the saga’s persistent enigmas, I offer that Gisli's “confession” forms the crux of an unnoted narrative structure, made plain by the saga’s treatment of  medieval Icelandic concepts of masculinity and femininity. In so doing, I identify an undetected analogue in Norse myth to the events that precipitate the saga’s “whodunit,” as well as reexamine widely-held assumptions about the view of gender enunciated in the saga, particularly as articulated in Carol Clover‘s seminal 1993 article, “Regardless of Sex.”

This essay proposes that the Nowell codex, or most of it, was copied in Mercia for the new regime, for a Danish earl or his English ally, not long after Cnut's defeat of Edmund Ironside in 1016, and that King Cnut used a different manuscript of 'Beowulf' to win the east of Denmark in 1019-20. To come out in 'The Anglo-Danish Empire: from Æthelred II to Cnut the Great', ed. Richard North, Alison Finlay and Erin Goeres.

The paper by my friend Kevin Kiernan, “The Reformed Nowell Codex and the "Beowulf" Manuscript”, will be appearing in 'Anglo-Saxon England' 46 (2018).

The human memory is treacherous. Ideas can become forgotten, be misattributed and mutate. As a result, the mythologies of oral cultures change over time. Taking literature about Þórr as a case study, this thesis aims to understand the operations underpinning both this change and stability in Old Norse mythological representations. To do so, I adopt, develop and evaluate a methodology from the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR), an amalgamation of disciplines including psychology, anthropology, neurobiology and zoology. I hope to contribute to the ongoing debate over the socio-cultural and cognitive roots of religion.

Many of the major sources of Old Norse religion are Christian documents, negotiating with a pagan heritage through the prisms of Biblical and classical religious traditions. After discussing the problems this creates for modern commentators examining diversity, I analyse two competing schools of thought in CSR, a context-focused model of transmission and a concept-focused model. Certain factors are distinguished as key to stability in oral transmission: culturally inculcated expectations regarding a concept, counterintuitive breaches of these expectations and the capacity of a concept to adapt to novel textual and extra-textual contexts.

In the following chapters, two major concepts now associated with Þórr are examined. Strength is shown to be integral to the deity’s mythological representation, but thunder and lightning, despite the breadth of sources considered, is not. According to the factors previously identified, therefore, thunder and lightning cannot offer a transmission advantage. However, a dichotomy between Icelandic and Scandinavian material is observed regarding the importance of thunder and lightning to Þórr’s characterization.

Þórr is demonstrated to be a very flexible supernatural concept. The pivotal quality of strength facilitates the formation of new associations with culturally salient concepts like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, whilst irrelevant associations are shed. Coalitions of strongly associated concepts act as narrative vessels for the deity’s survival, preserving conceptualizations about the god over successive authors’ iterations on a narrative and perhaps assisting in the stability of traditional poetry in oral transmission. 

In this article, the author attempts to sift out from Old Norse (ON) written sources the early Viking Age terms for ship types and to link them to actual ships and ship depictions from that period. The author argues that knǫrr, beit, skeið, kjóll, askr, and elliði were the main ship types of the early Viking Age in Scandinavia, at least in the west, and that knerrir referred during this period to warships like Oseberg and only later to cargo ships like Skuldelev 1. ‘A ship with a backwards curved stem’ seems to have been the original meaning of knǫrr. Kjólar were heavy, all-round ships like Gokstad, the author argues, and beit were very early ships with angular stems known from depictions. Skeiðar were low, narrow ships like Ladby. Askar were also very early, small, light ships with stitched planking, whereas elliðar were combined inland / sea vessels, originally Eastern  European.

The cult surrounding the complex and seemingly core Old Norse deity Óðinn encompasses a barely known group who are further disappearing into the folds of time. This thesis seeks to shed light upon and attempt to understand a motif that appears to be well recognised as central to the worship of this deity but one rarely examined in any depth: the motivations for, the act of and the resulting image surrounding the act of human sacrifice or more specifically, hanging and the hanged body. The cult of Óðinn and its more violent aspects has, with sufficient cause, been a topic carefully set aside for many years after the Second World War. Yet, with the ever present march of time, we appear to have reached a point where it has become possible to discuss such topics in the light of modernity. To do so, I adhere largely to a literary studies model, focusing primarily upon eddic and skaldic poetry and the consistent underlying motifs expressed in conjunction with descriptions of this seemingly ritualistic act. To these, I add the study of legal and historical texts, linguistics and contemporary chronicles. I further include the results of modern archeology and toponymy, with additional examples drawn from directly related and comparative time periods and cultures.

The primary chapters first assess Óðinn in connection with men and specifically, trees. These three elements (god, worshiper and object) can be seen to link into the overarching motif and practice of hanging, as observed in theophoric places-names of Scandinavia. It then follows to link the deity and the motif and practice of hanging more specifically, through close analysis of the gods’ own hanging and how that related to, or created, ritual practice. It is also essential to understand how methods of execution were understood in the Viking Age and as such, evaluate hanging’s social reputation in order to bring the effects of cultic practice into Viking reality.
Through contemporary poetic and historical examples, I examine the method and academically suggested motivations for this practice and by highlighting the specific factors of proper death, reputation, personal honour and essentially, lasting memory, find that the two do not match. Lastly, I examine the social response to death and the importance of entering the afterlife correctly and additionally, being left to rest peacefully. With hanging lying in direct opposition to this belief, it is possible to show that the practice of hanging, dedicated to Óðinn, is not a sacrifice of an individual to a war deity, but a multipurpose wartime sacrifice of knowledge as well as performing the role of highly destructive and dangerous political and social weapon.

This document is available in an edited/adapted format as the Kindle ebook entitled "The Deathly Gallows".

Runic inscriptions have often been interpreted both from the internal information they provide or from the intention of the one that produced it. In the present article, the approach would be by reconstructing the stage of runicity, and the role that interpreters of runes provided for a community given the presence of runic inscriptions. The focus will be set on the most public displays of runicity as an interaction that demands a reader and interpreter that translates the runic information from its literary reality, to a population that is imbued in an oral culture.

This article proposes that the oft-dismissed Sneglu-Halla þáttr (Tale of Sarcastic Halli) is not simply a series of virtuoso vituperations peppered with sexual-cum-barnyard humor, nor “a series of episodes that could have been arranged otherwise as well,” but a text that repays close attention, both for original audiences as well as for scholars of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. I argue that its eponymous hero establishes his social position at the royal Norwegian court by ensconcing himself within a sustained series of allusions to myths of the Norse god Loki, while framing his peers, and even his superiors, as the sexual deviants, low-lifes, and numbskulls of a déclassé “folktale” world. Sneglu-Halla þáttr thus presupposes considerable literary connoisseurship, detailed knowledge of the Norse mythographic tradition, and a consciousness of high and low genre that reflects concerns of shifting social classes and political powers in thirteenth and fourteenth-century Iceland. Ultimately, I leverage this reading to articulate a reappraisal of medieval Icelandic narrative prose—most often lauded for its “realism," "straightforwardness," and "objectivity”: I offer that this deceptively “simple” tale adheres to the same aesthetic principles of complexity, ambiguity, and allusiveness that characterize the Skaldic poetry that is its ostensible subject.

"The God-semantic Field: A Cognitive Philological Analysis" analyses eight different lexemes that belong to the same semantic field – god. The research is a comparative and contrastive analysis of the lexemes within Old Norse prose and poetry according to their use and function within texts with Christian and non-Christian topic.The aim was to use a different approach in the analysis of the words in question in order to give a better structured semantic field according to the use of the words.

This work has been copyrighted and every use of it should be referenced. For any questions regarding the work, please do not hesitate to contact me.

© Petra Mikolić

This thesis aims to demonstrate that, through use of literary genre, vocabulary, and emphasis of detail, the authors of Christian skaldic verse in the twelfth to fifteenth centuries continually reshaped a specific set of representations for Christ to suit each poem’s individual purpose, its audience, and the literary tastes of the periods in which they were written. In order to show how Christ’s portrayal changes over time and according to each poem’s overarching purpose, I have selected the following five Christian skaldic poems and made each the focus of a chapter: Einarr Skúlason’s Geisli, Gamli kanóki’s Harmsól, and the anonymously-composed poems Leiðarvísan, Líknarbraut, and Lilja. Within each chapter I provide an overview of the poem, selecting stanzas that highlight features of Christ that are prevalent or striking in some way, and analyse how these representations not only influence the poem itself, but also shape perceptions of Christ’s relationship with humanity. Each chapter leads to an overall consideration both of the image of Christ as this has been represented, and of the degree to which this has been influenced by biblical and patristic writings, Old Norse literature and culture, or by a combination of these elements. In the concluding chapter I identify the prevailing representations of Christ throughout these five poems, dividing these characterisations into five categories: Christ as Warrior Chieftain, as Healer and Abundant Nourisher, as Legal Authority, as Beguiler, and as Light. I assess the changing importance of each of these representations over time and in these poems, in order to enable a better understanding of the changing images of Christ in the medieval skaldic corpus and how these may reflect locally specific perceptions of Christ.

This chapter explores the significance of the Old Norse myth of the mead of poetry, in which poetry is represented as an alcoholic drink, for understanding how early Scandinavians thought about the mind and specifically about poetry’s relationship to and effect on it. I begin by introducing the two main types of Old Norse poetry, and go on to describe one of those types, skaldic poetry, in more detail. Skaldic poetry can be understood as a specialised ‘cognitive niche’ (Clark 2006) in which its complex form and diction scaffold various cognitive processes, including composition, memorisation and interpretation. I then describe the myth of the mead of poetry and the metaphorical complex surrounding it. I argue that the myth offers the possibility of understanding poetry as ‘mind altering’, and that certain poets used it to express processes of socially shared cognition, the enabling of new modes of thought, and the mental and affective work poetry does in the world. In the final section I analyse examples from skaldic poetry and argue that they suggest understandings of the mind that are akin to certain elements of the distributed cognition hypothesis.

This book is an examination of some of the principal issues arising from the study of the kings’ sagas, the main narrative sources for Norwegian history before c. 1200. Providing an overview of the past two decades of scholarship, it discusses the vexed relationship between verse and prose and the reliability as historical sources of the verse alone or the combination of verse and prose; the possibility and extent of non-native influence on the composition of these texts; and the function of the past, in particular given that most of the historiography of Norway was produced in Iceland. This book aims to stimulate studies of medieval Scandinavian historiography with its critical perspective on the texts and the scholarship, while also providing a useful work of reference in order to make this area of research accessible to scholars in cognate fields.

Welcome to my PhD-defense on May 28, 2022!  TIME: 13:15.

PLACE: Humanistiska teatern, Thunbergsvägen 3C, 75238 Uppsala.

OPPONENT: Professor Elna Siv Kristoffersen (Stavanger University).

PhD THESIS: 'Transformationer i vikingatidens djurornamentik.'

Vol. 1: 'En multiperspektiv-studie om figurknoppspännen av Birkatyp' (320 pp.).

Vol. 2: 'Appendix med tekniska och konstnärliga analyser' (370 pp.) .

ABSTRACT: During the past 150 years, different generations of scholars have been approaching Scandinavian Animal Art with queries that were as multifaceted as the materials that they studied. The focal point of this study are Birka type brooches, which are best likened to interactive sculptures that change shape as the viewer changes perspective. Sculptural brooches do not only breathe new life into traditional research questions, but raise new ones that steer us into uncharted waters. Here, we make field observations which fall outside the established paradigms of archaeology. Following the parable of the six blind men who tried to come to terms with the unknown phenomenon ‘elephant’, this study approaches the sculptural brooch phenomenon from different angles, by combining different methods which have been developed within separate research disciplines such as archaeology, art history, cognitive science and sociosemiotics. The methodological framework for my multi-method approach is informed GT, i.e. a variant of grounded theory which uses established theories to identify distinct patterns that previously went unnoticed. Contradictions that arise from the mix of methods are not seen as a hinderance, but as a generator for progress that gives rise to a new theory. By combining dynamic typology, Panofskyan hermeneutics and multimodal semiotics, my study on sculptural brooches uncovers hitherto unknown parallels between Animal Art and skaldic poetry in regards to context, cognition and imagery. As a result, one is inclined to look for a potential link between those distinct expressions of Viking Age culture. Did objects with Animal Art serve as points of reference for skaldic ekphrasis? Or was Animal Art a material anchor for the same conceptual blends that also transpired through skaldic poetry? The outcome is an empirically grounded theory which links the pictorial language of the smith to the verbal imagery of the skald, more precisely in the context of Old Norse íþrótt ideology.

An edition and commentary for 'Húsdrápa' ('eulogy on the house') of Úlfr Uggason, dating this poem to c. 995. Published in 'Image, Word, Text: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in Honour of Éamonn Ó Carragáin', ed. Alastair Minnis and Jane Roberts, Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 18 (Turnhout, 2006), 369-404.

This thesis represents an attempt at developing and testing new methodologies for the study of diachronic trends in kenning use and skaldic stylistics in the early dróttkvætt production. The target of the analysis is the effect of lexical choice in kennings, and to what extent skalds would make a pointed use of this resource in their verse. The survey has highlighted important dynamics concerning three aspects that are often treated as peripheral, marked or exceptional to the functioning of the ‘kenning-system’, namely, the kenning’s contextual motivation, the stylistic exploitation of the kenning’s inherent imagery and intertextual strategies such as borrowing, imitation and allusion. Depending on the nature of the source, lexical and literary analysis was combined and supported by metrical, palaeographic and philological considerations. Positive results emerged, encouraging the adoption of a qualitative, diachronic analysis of skaldic diction alongside the most common systemic one, in order to fully appreciate the dynamics of early dróttkvætt composition.

The eighteen articles of Approaching Methodology open broadly international and cross-disciplinary discussions on different aspects of methods and methodology. This volume brings many complementary perspectives on approaching and analyzing aspects of culture and cultural expression into dialogue, especially from fields of folklore studies, ethnology, philology, medieval studies, linguistics and semiotics. The introcuction will be valuable for students and young scholars who are trying to orient themselves amid the questions, challenges and potentials associated with methods and methodologies.


CONTENTS


Introduction 

Ulrika Wolf-Knuts:
The Omnipresent Method

Part I: Method in Practice

Frog (in collaboration with Pauliina Latvala)
Opening Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue: A Virtual Workshop on Methodology 

Espen Suenson:
Method and Fieldwork in a Hermeneutical Perspective 

Jill Bradley:
Building a Visual Vocabulary: The Methodology of ‘Reading’ Images in Context

Frog:
The Parallax Approach: Situating Traditions in Long-Term Perspective 

Sonja Peterson-Lewis:
The Ghost of Methodologies Past: untangling Methods, Methodologies, and Methodologists in Black Studies 
 
Part II: Constructing Data 

Francisco Martínez Ibarra:
Qualitative Research and the Study of Language Use and Attitudes

Venla Sykäri:
Dialogic Methodology and the Dialogic Space Created after an Interview

Erin Michelle Goeres:
Editing Skaldic Verse and the Problem of Prosimetra 

Dani Schrire:
Ethnographic Questionnaires: After Method, after Question 

Part III: Culturally Sensitive Reading         

Rebecca M. C. Fisher:
The Anglo-Saxon Charms: Texts in Context

Pauliina Latvala & Kirsi Laurén:
The Sensitive Interpretation of Emotions: Methodological Perspective on Studying Meanings in Oral History Texts 

Thelma Lazo-Flores:
Design Poiesis: An Inquiry on Outcomes in the Use of Method and Methodology 

Helen F. Leslie:
Younger Icelandic Manuscripts and Old Norse Studies 

Fjodor Uspenskij:
Ferocious Beast (óarga dýr) between North and East 

Part IV: Function, structure and statistics 

Emily Osborne:
Categorising Christ within an Age-öld Paradigm: The ‘kenning System’ and Shifting Cultural Referents 

Haukur Þorgeirsson:
Poetic Formulas in Late Medieval Icelandic Folk Poetry: The Case of Vambarljóð

Mathias Nordvig:
A Method for Analyzing World-Models in Scandinavian Mythology 

Vladimir Glukhov (†) & Natalia Glukhova:
A System of Techniques and Stratagems for Outlining a Traditional Ethnic Identity

In this article, we aim to analyze the pilgrimage to Santiago that is mentioned in Hrafnsdrápa (“Encomium
for Hrafn”), a poem composed in Iceland during the first half of the thirteenth century honouring the local chieftain
Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson. Comparing the poem with the prose texts about the chieftain (the two versions of Hrafns
saga), we conclude that the poem shows a marked emphasis on the devotion and skills of Hrafn that distinguishes him
from other Icelandic secular leaders of his time. Moreover, we connect the maritime motifs present in several stanzas
of the drápa with a probable veneration of the apostle (as patron of pilgrims) by Hrafn. Finally, we offer a translation
of the poem to Spanish in parallel with the original Norse text.

A coordinated multidisciplinary collection focusing on methods that engages folklore studies, medieval studies, ethnography, linguistic anthropology, oral poetry, semiotics, iconography, design, medieval literature, mythology, textual studies...