De kvinnliga kultledarna som vi känner som völvan eller valan tolkas traditionellt utifrån de materiella tingen som följt kvinnorna i graven. Ofta är dessa gravar enastående i sin sammansättning där de värdefulla och kännetecknande föremålen signalerar om den upphöjda statusen vilka dessa kvinnor ägt och förvaltat. I sammanhanget lyfts ofta två sådana völvagravar, Osebergsgraven och grav 4 i Fyrkat där de botaniska lämningarna också har förstärkt denna kontext utifrån växternas verkningsgrad som drog med vanebildande och hallucinogena egenskaper.  Med en utgångspunkt i arkeobotaniken och ett tvärvetenskapligt förhållningssätt undersöks hur specifika botaniska spår kan tolkas i flera olika kvinnogravar som anlagts under järnåldern. Ofta finns en etnobiologisk och folkloristisk historia kring växtmaterialet som kan fungera som användbara verktyg för den arkeologiska tolkningen. De botaniska lämningarna är oftast underrepresenterade i det arkeologiska materialet vilket också ofta ger en uteslutande bild av dess närvaro och betydelse. Genom att vända på perspektivet och låta de botaniska lämningarna styra materialsamling, undersökning och analys kan också andra tolkningsvärden, för hur vi definierar völvan, uppnås. / This essay presents alternative ways to interpret how we can connect the völva to archaeological material. This is traditionaly done thrue high status objects and personal belongings. The völva also represents an adecvat knowledge of healing, magic and also the power to anticipate the future which included a props of botanical skills. With that starting point, with the botanical remains as a reference, and what we can se and interpret in the archaeobotanical remains I want to, if possible, extend how we characterize the concept of the völva.

L. T. Meade's Avaricious Anomaly: Madame Sara, British Imperialism, and Greedy Wolves in The Sorceress of the Strand. Laurie Langlois Denning, Department of English, BYU Master of Arts. Critics interested in the prolific late Victorian author L.T. Meade have primarily focused on her work as an author of girls' stories and novels for young people, which enjoyed fantastic commercial success in her lifetime but fell into obscurity after her death. Recent scholarship on her detective fiction shows Meade's significant contributions to the genre as well as her engagement with social and political discourse. Scholars have noted ways that Meade's popular series, The Sorceress of the Strand, contributes to the New Woman debate and expresses anxiety over the British imperial project. This project examines Meade's villain in the series as a social anomaly that functions to interrogate the greed at the heart of imperialism. Examining the series' conclusion and the unusual nature of its ending sheds new light on Meade's contribution to debate over empire at the fin de siécle. Meade's fascinating villain, Madame Sara, is doggedly pursued by two detective figures--one is considered the top forensic specialist in the British police force and the other is the head of a business fraud agency--but the detectives are never able to bring Madam Sara to justice. Instead, it is a wolf that finally defeats the brilliant criminal mastermind. Why a wolf? Madam Sara's unusual demise serves as a deus ex machina that invites the reader to consider the Dante symbolism embedded in the text. Other critics see Meade's ending as reinforcing the empire; however, given the Dante imagery that has Madam Sara symbolizing a greedy imperial force, Meade's series indicts imperial greed and warns British citizens about failure to apprehend the evil in empire.

Esta investigação analisa um número determinado de obras em gravura e desenho de Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) e Hans Baldung Grien (1484 - 1545) residentes nos territórios germânicos da Europa no período do Renascimento, produzidos entre 1497 e 1545. Constata-se que o corpo da bruxa concebido na Europa pré-moderna foi um corpo carregado de preceitos excessivamente masculinos e opressivos. É reconhecido também que, independente das pretensões dos artistas, fosse para desenvolver suas faculdades imaginativas, fosse para melhorar seu status social e econômico, a capacidade de criação do artista resultou numa imagem feminina adulterada. Para compreensão dos recursos culturais, políticos e sociais dos artistas em questão, analisou-se no primeiro capítulo, as perspectivas historiográficas de uma teorização da bruxaria, divididas em duas principais concepções: a crise na fé cristã e a questão de gênero. Após a publicação dos primeiros incunábulos no final do século XV, em especial o primeiro tratado inquisitorial ilustrado, De Laniis et phitonicis mulieribus (1489) de Ulrich Molitor, no segundo capítulo, observou-se o início de uma tradição iconográfica específica na Europa e a instauração da representação da bruxaria no âmbito das Artes Visuais por Albrecht Dürer, que estabeleceu dois modelos de representação, a bruxa de corpo grotesco e a bruxa de corpo afrodisíaco. No terceiro e último capítulo, analisou-se as obras do discípulo de Dürer, Hans Baldung Grien, que no decorrer da sua trajetória artística, tornou o corpo da bruxa protagonista de seus trabalhos. Elementos como a forquilha, os cabelos soltos, o corpo nu e os voos em animais são sancionados por ele e, de modo consequente, de seus contemporâneos. Assim, a última tarefa nesta parte foi apresentar uma herança iconográfica oriunda da tradição estabelecida por Dürer e Hans Baldung, como nas obras de Lucas Cranach, Peter Bruegel, Frans Francken, entre outros. / This research analyzes a number of engraving and drawing works by Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) and Hans Baldung Grien (1484 - 1545) residing in the Germanic territories of Europe during the Renaissance period, produced between 1497 and 1545. The body of the witch conceived in Early modern Europe will be a body laden with excessively masculine and oppressive precepts. It is also recognized that, regardless of the artists' pretensions, whether to develop their imaginative faculties or to improve their social and economic status, the artist's creative capacity has resulted in an adulterated female image. In order to understand the cultural, political and social resources of the artists in question, the historiographical perspectives of a theorizing of witchcraft were analyzed in the first chapter, divided into two main concepts: the crisis in the Christian faith and the question of gender. After the publication of the first incunabula, at the end of the 15th century, in particular the first illustrated inquisitorial treatise De Laniis et phitonicis mulieribus (1489) by Ulrich Molitor, the second chapter notes the beginning of a specific iconographic tradition in Europe and the establishment of representation of witchcraft in the field of Visual Arts by Albrecht Dürer, who established two models of representation, the grotesque body and the aphrodisiac body of the witch. In the third and last chapter, the work of Dürer's disciple, Hans Baldung Grien, who in the course of his artistic career, made the witch's body the protagonist of his works analyzed. Elements such as the fork, loose hair, naked body and flights on animals are sanctioned by him and, consequently, by his contemporaries. Thus, the last task in this part is to present an iconographic heritage derived from the tradition established by Dürer and Hans Baldung, as in the works of Lucas Cranach, Peter Bruegel, Frans Francken, among others.