My Interdisciplinary dissertation examines illustrations in manuscripts and early print sources and reveals their participation in the transmission and reception of Old Norse mythology. My approach encompasses Material Philology and Media Specific Analysis. The reception history of illustrations of Old Norse Mythology affects our understanding of related Interdisciplinary fields such as Book History, Visual Studies, Literary Studies and Cultural Studies. Part One of my dissertation begins with a discussion of the tradition of Old Norse oral poetry in pagan Scandinavia and the highly visual nature of the poems. The oral tradition died out in Scandinavia but survived in Iceland and was preserved in vernacular manuscripts in the thirteenth century. The discovery of these manuscripts in the seventeenth century initiated a cycle of illustration that largely occurred outside of Iceland. Part One concludes with an analytical survey of illustrations of Old Norse mythology in print sources from 1554 to 1915 revealing important patterns of transmission. Part Two traces the technological history of production of digital editions and manuscript facsimiles back to the seventeenth century when manuscripts were hand-copied and published by means of copperplate engravings. Part Two also discusses the scholarly and cultural prejudices towards images that are only now slowly fading. Part Two concludes with a description of my prototype for a digital image repository named MyNDIR (My Norse Digital Image Repository). MyNDIR will facilitate the emergence of images of Old Norse Studies from the current informal crowd sourcing of material on the web to a digital image repository supporting the dissemination of accurate scholarly knowledge in a widely accessible form. Part Three presents two thematic case studies that demonstrate the value of applying the skills of visual literacy to illustrations of Old Norse mythology. The first study examines Jakob Sigurðsson’s illustrations of Norse gods in hand-copied paper manuscripts from eighteenth-century Iceland. The second study examines illustrations by prominent Norwegian artists in the editions of Snorre Sturlason: Kongesagaer published in 1899 and 1900 respectively. What emerged from these studies is an understanding that illustrations offer insights for the study of Old Norse texts that the words of the texts alone cannot provide. / Graduate / 0362 / 0377 / 0279 / pabaer@uvic.ca

This thesis focuses on the formal and stylistic analysis and comparison of two works written by English authors, namely William Morris' poem The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs (1876) and J. R. R. Tolkien's poetic work The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (published posthumously in 2009) with respect to how each of these works deals with the original Old Norse motives which they are based on. Both Sigurd the Volsung and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún can be described as poetic adaptations of the Old Norse tale of Sigurd Fafnisbani, which is recounted in the Saga of the Volsungs and in a cycle of poems found in the Poetic Edda. Both Morris and Tolkien borrowed this story to use it in their own works, yet each of them treats it in a different manner. Therefore, not only do both of the works differ from the original Old Norse texts on multiple levels, but they also differ one from another. The differences between them can be traced in the metrical properties of the individual poems, for instance, or in the use of specific stylistic elements. From this, it can be inferred that although it was the goal of both authors to evoke the atmosphere of the legendary heroic past where Sigurd's story takes place, each of them attempts to do so in a different way. This is probably caused by...

This dissertation focuses on the eddic poetry in the Codex Upsaliensis DG 11 4to, the Uppsala Edda. The manuscript has long been considered too far removed from the assumed original of the text to be of much use to editors, with the result that it was largely neglected by philologists during the last century. The eddic poetry in DG 11 differs in many instances from the other main manuscripts, and this study aims to examine these variants from the point of view of the 14th century scribe and reader of the manuscript. The dissertation’s framework comes close to what is known as New or Material Philology, but since the focus is more on the abstract than the material sides of the manuscript, the study’s theoretical framework is tentatively called descriptive reception philology. In all, 57 stanzas of eddic poetry are examined. The study does not include variation in names or metrics other than alliteration, which means that 10 stanzas consisting almost entirely of names have been excluded. The remaining 57 stanzas contain 137 variants that DG 11 shares with half or fewer of the other manuscripts. These variants are analysed with the aim of deciding whether they were consciously written by the scribe and to what extent the reader could have understood them. Consciously produced variants are said to belong to the sender witness, and if they were probably understood, they are also placed in the receiver witness. Variants not immediately understood by the readers are called incongruities and need to be reinterpreted in order to become part of the receiver witness. If they cannot be interpreted, they are categorised as actual errors. The analysis shows that the vast majority of deviating variants belong to both the sender and receiver witnesses. There are also indications that the eddic poetry was in part quoted from a different exemplar than the prose, an exemplar containing versions of the poems not otherwise known today. Rather than being regarded as confused and incomprehensible, DG 11’s eddic poetry was accepted as the version known by the manuscript’s contemporary users. / <p>Disputationsspråk är både danska och svenska.</p>

Denna uppsats ämnade att undersöka två fornskandinaviska myters potential som material i religionskunskapens etikundervisning på gymnasiet sett till ämnets syfte att bredda elevens kunskap om och förståelse inför olika etiska förhållningssätt. För att ta reda på detta gjordes en idéanalys av etiken i de valda myterna utifrån olika etiska teorier. Resultatet från idéanalysen visade att agerande utefter flera etiska teorier återfanns i båda myterna. Analysens resultat sattes i relation till ämnesplanen för religionskunskap och kursplanen för Religionskunskap 1 samt tidigare forskning om etikdidaktik och etik i fornskandinavisk mytologi. Utifrån diskussionen kunde flera slutsatser dras. En slutsats var att myterna verkar kunna användas sett till det undersökta ämnessyftet att bredda elevens kunskap om och förståelse inför olika etiska förhållningssätt. Detta kan bli möjligt bland annat genom goda förkunskaper om etiska teorier och sedan samreflektion med frivilligt deltagande. Då varken utrymme i uppsatsen, och inte heller tid fanns, avgränsades arbetet mot bland annat fler myter, kompletterande kvalitativa metoder och ytterligare etiska teorier.

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Tyr – A historical and comparative study of configurations and formations connected to the Old Norse god Tyr. Klas af Edholm   This thesis has two aims. One is a discussion of the history of the study of Old Norse religion and related aspects, centered on how general tendencies within the area of research have affected the interpretations of the god *Tīwaz/Tyr. Thereby, it treats a selection of influential trends of interpretation, and a selection of prominent scholars of the field. The second aim is an empirical and comparative analysis of the Old Norse source material and, to some degree, the continental Germanic, the Baltic, and the other Indo-European material. Tyr has been interpreted according to trends of research in the field; the mythological character has been used as a projection screen of the theories. Already from the beginning, Tyr was interpreted as a sky god; connected to this was the conception of an original high god. The interpretations of Tyr as a sun god, sky god, and/or law god are close related to this high god conception. These interpretations of the god Tyr has built their arguments upon the etymological connection to Indo-European words for ‘heaven, celestial’ and ‘god’, but they have not taken enough consideration of the Old Norse sources. Georges Dumézil interpreted Tyr, according to his système tripartite, as a law god. This understanding of the god has been widely adopted, but cannot be confirmed; the Old Norse material only speaks of Tyr as a war god. The comparative Indo-European etymological material indicates that his function as sky god is archaic, while the martial traits shared with the continental Germanic and Celtic counterparts prove that this characteristic must have evolved early. Tyr (or rather his predecessor *Tīwaz) lost his celestial traits and became an unmitigated war god, and as such we perceive him in the Old Norse religion.

<p>This thesis is a summary of five papers with focus on adsorption processes of various monocarboxylates and aminocarboxylates at the water/goethite interface. Interaction of organic acids at the water/mineral interfaces are of importance in biogeochemical processes, since such processes have potential to alter mobility and bioavailability of the acids and metal ions.</p><p>In order to determine the coordination chemistry of acetate, benzoate, cyclohexanecarboxylate, sarcosine, MIDA (methyliminediacetic acid), EDDA (ethylenediamine-N,N’-diacetic acid) and EDTA (ethylenediamine-N,N’-tetraacetic acid) upon adsorption to the goethite (alpha-FeOOH) surface, a combination of quantitative measurements with attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) was utilized.</p><p>Over the pH range studied here (pH 3- 9) all ligands, except for sarcosine, have been found to form surface complexes with goethite. In general, theses were characterized as outer sphere surface complexes i.e. with no direct interaction with surface Fe(III) metal ions. Furthermore, two types of different outer-sphere complexes were identified, the solvent-surface hydration-separated ion pair, and hydration-shared ion pair. For the monocarboxylate surface complexes distinction between these two could be made. At high pH values the solvent-surface hydration-separated ion pair was the predominating complex, while at low pH the surface complex is stabilized through the formation of strong hydrogen bonds with the goethite surface. However, it was not possible to clearly separate between the two outer-sphere complexes for coordination of the aminocarboxylates with the surface of goethite. Additionally, EDDA also formed an inner-sphere surface complex at high pH values. The EDDA molecule was suggested to coordinate to the surface by forming a five membered ring with an iron at the goethite surface, through the amine and carboxylate groups.</p><p>Contrary to the other ligands studied, EDTA significantly induced dissolution of goethite. Some of the dissolved iron, in the form of the highly stable FeEDTA- solution complex, was indicated to re-adsorb to the mineral surface as a ternary complex. Similar ternary surface complexes were also found in the Ga(III)EDTA/goethite system, and quantitative and spectroscopic studies on adsorption of Ga(III) in presence and absence of EDTA showed that EDTA considerably effects speciation of gallium at goethite surface.</p><p>The collective results in this thesis show that the affinity of these ligands for the surface of goethite is primarily governed by their chemical composition and structure, and especially important are the types, numbers and relative position of functional groups within the molecular structure.</p>

<p>Min ambition med denna uppsats har varit att visa på hur Loke har utsatts för ett justitiemord. Han anklagas för att ligga bakom mordet på Balder, och därigenom förlusten av odödlighet i den fornnordiska gudavärlden. Jag har velat visa hur Loke till sin karaktär är en maliciös trixter, detta genom att jämför hans roll med andra trixters, och hur ovanlig hans utveckling till att bli fiendens härförare egentligen är. Vid jämförelser av de tre föreliggande källorna: Den Poetiska Eddan, Snorres edda och Saxos Den Store Danmarkshistorie, har det visat sig att de har väldigt olika saker att säga om Loke, och den roll han eventuellt spelar i omständigheterna kring Balders död. I polemik med den store auktoriteten på området, George Dumézil, som vill hävda att Loke är identisk med den indoeuropeiska Duryodhana vill jag hävda att Dumézils tes i alltför hög grad bygger på Lokes agerande i Snorres version av händelserna kring Balders död och att de två andra källorna avviker från denna beskrivning av det inträffade.</p>

<p>Uppsatsen är en studie av det sätt på vilket författaren Johanne Hildebrandt har använts sig av den fornskandinaviska mytologin när hon skrivit sin trilogi om Freja och Valhalla. Hon har använt flera karaktärer, myter och beskrivningar från bronsålder, Skandinaviens i allmänhet och Sveriges i synnerhet, och lagt dem som grund för sina böcker. Hon väljer att vinkla boken ur ett feministiskt perspektiv och sätter stort fokus på matriarkatet. Ingen vet säkert hur samhället var uppbyggt för 2700 år sedan, och Hildebrandt såg sin chans att skriva boken ur ett perspektiv där kvinnan och Gudinnan stod i centrum.</p><p>Hon har onekligen använt mycket från mytologin. Ju mer påläst man är om fornskandinavisk religion desto mer kopplingar märker man. Hildebrandt har på ett mer eller mindre framträdande sätt lagt in olika likheter och olikheter. Jag har valt att lägga fokus på de tre kvinnorna som givit namn åt de olika böckerna, Freja, Idun och Saga. Freja och Saga är de gudinnor som likar sina förebilder, mytologins Freyja och Sága, mest. Fokus läggs på den starka kvinnan som klarar sig med hjälp av egen vilja och maskin. Hildebrandt har fokuserat på det passionerade och handlingskraftiga hos dessa kvinnor. Idun, som har mytologins Iðunn som grundare, har däremot getts en svagare roll. Idun är undfallande och är mycket osäker på sig själv. Hildebrandt väljer här att lägga fokus på Iduns moderlighet.</p><p>Karaktärerna i boken är lättare att översätta till dagens samhälle än hela den struktur samhället i Hildebrandts bok är uppbyggt på. Inget samhälle idag kretsar kring kvinnan vilket ter sig mer som ett önsketänkande från Hildebrandts sida. Böckernas syfte är trots allt att underhålla.</p>

Min ambition med denna uppsats har varit att visa på hur Loke har utsatts för ett justitiemord. Han anklagas för att ligga bakom mordet på Balder, och därigenom förlusten av odödlighet i den fornnordiska gudavärlden. Jag har velat visa hur Loke till sin karaktär är en maliciös trixter, detta genom att jämför hans roll med andra trixters, och hur ovanlig hans utveckling till att bli fiendens härförare egentligen är. Vid jämförelser av de tre föreliggande källorna: Den Poetiska Eddan, Snorres edda och Saxos Den Store Danmarkshistorie, har det visat sig att de har väldigt olika saker att säga om Loke, och den roll han eventuellt spelar i omständigheterna kring Balders död. I polemik med den store auktoriteten på området, George Dumézil, som vill hävda att Loke är identisk med den indoeuropeiska Duryodhana vill jag hävda att Dumézils tes i alltför hög grad bygger på Lokes agerande i Snorres version av händelserna kring Balders död och att de två andra källorna avviker från denna beskrivning av det inträffade.