Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 274-277) / Microfiche. / xii, 277 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

By examine cremated remains from graves dated to late Iron Age I wanted to find out what sorts of animals were placed in the graves. But also to see if the animal sacrifices had any connection to the Old Norse religion. The osteological material that were analysed were from both cremated humans and animals and had been dated to Viking Age. The material is from burial ground 59 at Laxare, Boge parish on Gotland. In addition to the human remains, the material contains bones from horse, cattle, sheep/goat, pig, dog, cat, bear, birds and fish. The combination between the species seems to be common all over Scandinavia during the late Iron Age. Except from analysing the material from Laxare I also studied litterature written by other scientist on the subject of animals in Old Norse religion. This was made to understand as much as possible about the religion and how people looked upon animals before Christianity. It seemed that animals were very important in religion during the Viking Age in this area on Gotland. Some of the species that were sacrifices in the graves had big importance in peoples daily life but also in myths. The world needed humans, animals and gods to survive and everything were depending on the harmony between them. The horse was clearly a religious animal, and it shows both in the archaeological material and in the written stories from this time. Even cattle, goat and pig are other animals that describe to be important for the religion. The dog seems to be important in the archaeological material but is not mentioned very much in the written myths. It is rather clear that the animal sacrificed in graves from the late Iron Age in Sweden is not only for food in the afterlife but also has a very important meaning for the religion and peoples understanding about Cosmos.

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.

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.

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.

This thesis examines the function of commemorative skaldic verse at the Viking-age court. The first chapter demonstrates that the commemoration of past kings could provide a prestigious genealogical record that was used to legitimize both pagan and early Christian rulers. In the ninth and early tenth centuries, poets crafted competing genealogies to assert the primacy of their patrons and of their patrons’ religions. The second chapter looks at the work of tenth-century poets who depict their rulers’ entrances into the afterlife. Such poets interrogate the role public speech and poetic discourse play in the commemoration of the king, especially during the political turmoil that follows his death. A discussion follows of the relationship between poets and their patrons in the tenth and eleventh centuries: although this relationship is often praised as one of mutual trust and reliance, the financial aspects of the relationship were often juxtaposed uneasily with expressions of emotional attachment. The death of the patron caused a crisis in these seemingly contradictory bonds between poet and patron. The final chapter demonstrates the dramatic development in the eleventh century of deeply emotional commemorative verse as poets become adopted into their patrons’ families through such Christian ceremonies as baptism and marriage. In these verses poets express their grief after the death of the king and record the performances of public mourning on the part of the kings’ followers. As the petty warlords of the Viking age adapted to medieval models of Christian kingship, the role of the skald changed too. Formerly serving as a propagandist and retainer in the king’s service, a skald documenting the lives of kings at the end of the Viking age could occupy an almost infinite number of roles, from kinsman and friend to advisor and hagiographer.

Comparison of Old Norse and Proto-Norse Noun Declension The purpose of this thesis is to follow the development of noun declensions from Proto-Norse to the Old Norse (Old Icelandic) language. The first of the three chapters seeks to give a comprehensive overview of Proto-Norse noun declensions. This overview is based on the evidence of the older runic inscriptions and on reconstruction using relevant linguistic literature. Each of the declensions is presented in the form of a paradigm accompanied by commentary and quotations of preserved grammatical forms. The second and largest chapter presents a survey of Old Norse (Old Icelandic) noun declensions. The survey has two aims. The first aim is to provide a synchronic description of the Old Norse noun declension system which would not be encumbered by an excess of diachronic approach as is often the case in the traditional grammars of Old Norse. At the same time, however, it should show how Old Norse inflectional exponents and classes continue the Proto-Norse declensions as presented in the first chapter. There is also a discussion of some of the systemic causes leading to morphological changes in inflection. The third chapter sums up the previous diachronic analysis and questions the validity of the traditional designations of declension classes based on...