Thesis--Utrecht. / "Stellingen" inserted at end.

Thesis (doctoral)--Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen, 1985. / Summaries in English and Dutch. Includes bibliographical references (p. 218-224) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1976. / Vita. Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1966. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis examines and analyzes the extant archaeological, historical, and literary evidence for the beliefs and practices of the Greenland Norse, their influences, and their evolution over time. By critically examining previously held assumptions about the cultural, climatic, and religious conditions of Greenland during this time the available data is placed in its proper context and reveals the geoconceptual world of the Greenlanders and their place in it. This interdisciplinary approach illustrates the extent to which the physical environment and location of Greenland played a role in the transition from a collective of enterprising colonists to an established Christian community over the course of almost 500 years. Specific questions addressed within include: 1 ­ How does archaeology challenge, support, or augment the historical and literary narrative of Greenland’s transition into a Christian place?; 2 – What are the physical correlates of the Greenlanders’ beliefs and practices, and how have they been interpreted? This thesis finds that the development of Christianity was driven by the Greenlanders’ increasing perception of their place in the world as one of marginality and spiritual danger.

In the eddic poem Hávamál, the god Óðinn gives advice, including a warning about the fickleness of human, and divine, nature. He cites his own flagrant deception of giants who trusted him in order to win the mead of poetry as evidence for this deep-seated capacity for deceit, asking of himself: ‘how can his word be trusted?’ This is an intriguing question to ask in a poem purporting to relate the wisdom of Óðinn, and it is a concern repeatedly voiced in regard to him and other speakers in the elaborate narrative frames of the Old Norse wisdom poems. The exchange of wisdom in poetic texts such as this is no simple matter. Wisdom is conceived of as a body of knowledge, experience and observation that binds together all aspects of human life, the natural world and the supernatural realms. But its application depended heavily on the way in which it was passed on and interpreted. This dissertation examines the ways that these poems reflect on the interpretation and value of their own contents as a function of the particular speaker and circumstances of each wisdom exchange. The texts which form the foundation of this enquiry are the so-called eddic poems: alliterative verses largely preserved within a single manuscript of the thirteenth century, though many are arguably of much earlier date. About a dozen of the surviving poems might be classed, however tentatively, as concerning wisdom, though the route to this classification is not straightforward. Definition of this corpus, and of the genre of wisdom literature more widely, is thus the principal aim of the introductory Chapter I, while Chapter II expands on the question of material and methodology by scrutinizing the idea of wisdom in general within Old Norse. Crucial here is an examination of the terms used for wisdom and associated concepts, which suggest an antagonistic view of how knowledge might pass from one person to another. Close readings of the text and sensitivity to the manuscript context of each poem, as well as consideration of the significance of their potential oral prehistory and awareness of comparable literatures from other contexts, are established here as the dominant mode of analysis. Observations derived from the interpretation of comparable literatures also inform my approach. With a grounding in wisdom literature more generally and with the salient concepts relating to knowledge transfer thus established, I go on to examine specific points and groups within the body of eddic wisdom poetry which shed light on the evolving interpretation of wisdom exchange. An important case-study analyzed in this way in Chapter III is perhaps the most complex: Hávamál itself, a famous but notoriously problematic text probably reflecting multiple layers of composition. It is at the heart of the question of how mankind relates to supernatural beings - a relationship which could be particularly fraught where the transmission of wisdom occurred. Thus this chapter also contains analysis of terminology for men, gods and other supernatural beings which sheds light on the relationships between the human and the divine. Chapter IV expands on these issues to consider three paradigms of mythological wisdom instruction which bridge different worlds, human and supernatural, or between different supernatural domains: poems in which Óðinn dispenses wisdom; those in which he acquires it from a contest with another living being; and those in which he acquires it from the dead through sacrifice and magical ability. These chapters establish the 'traditional' form of wisdom exchange as defined through eddic verses that adopt a broadly pre- or non-Christian setting. Yet eddic verse-forms did not die out with conversion, and in some cases were exploited for new compositions written from an explicitly Christian perspective or with parodic intent. These poems, discussed in Chapter V, cast an important sidelight onto the associations of eddic verse as a medium for conveying information of complicated or questionable authority. The concluding Chapter VI then addresses questions of what we may deduce from the preceding chapters about evolving cultural attitudes towards wisdom, authority and truth in medieval Iceland.

Yes / Understanding the chronology of Norse settlement is crucial for deciphering the archaeology of many sites across the North Atlantic region and developing a timeline of human-environment interactions. There is ambiguity in the chronology of settlements in areas such as the Northern Isles of Scotland, arising from the lack of published sites that have been scientifically dated, the presence of plateaus in the radiocarbon calibration curve, and the use of inappropriate samples for dating. This novel study uses four absolute dating techniques (AMS radiocarbon, tephrochronology, spheroidal carbonaceous particles and archaeomagnetism) to date a Norse house (the “Upper House”), Underhoull, Unst, Shetland Isles and to interpret the chronology of settlement and peat which envelops the site. Dates were produced from hearths, activity surfaces within the structure, and peat accumulations adjacent to and above the structure. Stratigraphic evidence was used to assess sequences of dates within a Bayesian framework, constraining the chronology for the site as well as providing modelled estimates for key events in its life, namely the use, modification and abandonment of the settlement. The majority of the absolute dating methods produced consistent and coherent datasets. The overall results show that occupation at the site was not a short, single phase, as suggested initially from the excavated remains, but instead a settlement that continued throughout the Norse period. The occupants of the site built the longhouse in a location adjacent to an active peatland, and continued to live there despite the encroachment of peat onto its margins. We estimate that the Underhoull longhouse was constructed in the period cal. AD 805–1050 (95% probability), and probably in cal. AD 880–1000 (68% probability). Activity within the house ceased in the period cal. AD 1230–1495 (95% probability), and most probably in cal. AD 1260–1380 (68% probability). The Upper House at Underhoull provides important context to the expansion and abandonment of Norse settlement across the wider North Atlantic region.

I intend to design an interactive educational experience that teaches guests about the culture, society, and beliefs of Scandinavian peoples during the Viking age. The concepts are illustrated through a dynamic narrative designed to be experienced through exploration of a themed environment. Immersion into the narrative is intended to instill a sense of active participation with the culture itself. This interaction is intended to inspire guests to further investigate the culture and history outside the limits of the experience. These qualities, unique to an immersive environmental themed experience, capture the lasting attention of an audience such as other mediums may not. Design and narrative decisions in the experience will be supported and justified by research of primary sources (untranslated medieval sagas from Iceland and Norway, archeological artifacts from the region and period, the prose and poetic Eddas) and secondary sources (translations and interpretations of Viking age literature and mythology, archeological documentation and interpretation of primary sources.) One goal of this experience will be to dispel common misconceptions of medieval Scandinavian culture and society propagated by popular literary, film, television, and video game representations, and to present a historically justified representation as equally compelling. Strict historical exactitude, however, is not the intent. A model of a historical Viking archeological site could be accurately created. However, it will not necessarily be as engaging as an endeavor that takes certain creative license. This thesis is also an experiment in establishing a groundwork for educational representations of historic and modern cultures in themed experiences. I use Viking iv Age Scandinavia, a culture with which I have significant academic experience prior to this thesis, as a test case for this idea. The scope of the project includes a designed and planned themed experience expressed through written and visual mediums where appropriate, as well as historical justification for design and narrative choices.

This essay deals with the concept of 'soul' in beliefs among north germanic pagans. As it comes forth in written sources, this concept can easely be seen as an odd contradiction, since the concept of 'soul' after the demise of a person seems to split. There seems to exist both an idea of different realms for the dead, and a thought that the dead would 'live' on in their graves. Some researchers, i.e. Price (2002) and Kaliff (1997), think that the soul of the dead human according to Nordic pagan belief split apart in a way, that there was an idea of the human soul being made up of several aspects, each with its own goal an purpose. Five such aspects have been identified - a protective free-soul, a personification of the inviduals luck (and possibly part of his/her destiny), a physical body or an aspect of the soul abilitating shape shifting, a persons thoughts and goals and very essence, and finally the dead body 'living' on in the burial mound. An alternative interpretation (i.e. Ellis 1968) is that the different explanations of the future of the dead are results of different traditions, connected to geographically and/or chronologically fixed ideas, but that certain remnants of earlier traditions could remain even when a new view of the afterlife has taken over. I have chosen to discuss these different viewpoints by comparing them with each other and with later swedish folklore, that is documented and seemingly originating during christian times. By peeling off views and beliefs of known christian origin, suprisingly well preserved representations of presumably older (pagan) views of the 'soul' and and its aspects have been identified. Furthermore, representations of soul aspects not yet described in connection with nordic paganism, and still not traceable to christian views, have been found. The result of the essay is that the theory of several soul aspects in pre-christian or pagan nordic beliefs seems to hold up best. Even if there, without a doubt, to some degree existed local variations and even though no tradition remains unchanged over time, it still would seem that the influence of these factors cannot in full explain the observed variation in views on soul aspects in pre-christian viking age Norse religion.

The nature of life after death is only tentatively sketched out in the canonical writings of the Christian Church, yet it represents one of the most prominent literary subjects in medieval Europe. The so-called Visiones represent a genre that enjoyed a particularly broad dissemination between the fourth and thirteenth centuries. This study aims to assess the impact of this Latin tradition on Norse-Icelandic authors and processes of cultural appropriation evident in medieval vernacular adaptations of the genre. The first chapter outlines the historical and theological conditions surrounding the genre’s dissemination in Western Scandinavia and identifies the primary corpus of vernacular adaptations of the genre to be analysed in this study. Chapter II considers the literary contexts in which Visio-conventions have been integrated, highlighting the distinctive generic and creative diversity exhibited in the primary corpus. Chapters III and IV are concerned with the literary motif of the journey to the otherworld and its importance in Old Norse literary traditions across the period of Christianisation. The former examines signs of continuity on a conceptual level between traditional native and Christian narratives about the otherworld, suggesting that the journey motif represented a sustained source of literary creativity in pre- and post-conversion societies. The latter examines this notion of continuity with reference to two significant literary symbols, the otherworld shoe and the otherworld bridge, and their pregnant resonances in Norse Icelandic records of myth, law, and religious ritual; it will here be shown how certain symbols found in vernacular accounts of the afterlife produce a rich set of connotations meaningful within their particular cultural setting. The final Chapter analyses the social mentality encoded in portrayals of the idealised hereafter, and it will be argued that portrayals of eschatological justice and the topography of heaven reflect attitudes characteristic of the societies from which these visions emerge. The thesis as a whole thereby calls attention to the broad and deep nature of the Visio genre’s impact on Western Scandinavian literary culture, suggesting that this particular genre-oriented study may serve as a case study of the reception of Christian literary traditions in medieval Iceland and Norway more generally.