This creative thesis examines and explores the point of first-contact on Turtle Island: the Eastern Coast of what is now known as Canada, now named Newfoundland and Labrador, through a braided poetry/prose narrative of three different cultures and times. The Vikings landed near L’Anse-Aux-Meadows in the early 1000‘s, the Beothuks were last seen in the 18th century, and today’s cod fishery has been on a moratorium since the late 1980‘s/early 1990‘s. An assortment of the few recorded Beothuk words which have survived are also incorporated into the manuscript. ***Because this is a creative work, only the preliminary pages are available on the internet. The manuscript itself, and all publication rights, remains in the possession of the author.***

Thesis--Upsala. / Corrections and additions, 8 p. at end. Includes bibliographical references (p. [181]-194) and index.

Thesis--Upsala. / Corrections and additions, 8 p. at end. Includes index. Bibliography: p. [181]-194.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-17T15:02:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2138488 bytes, checksum: ae66b185cc75f70b808098d2382ca914 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-07-31 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The epics are universal masterpieces, relentless expressions of the people‟s soul. In this way, we elected the Völsunga saga as a platform for apprehension of the Norse pre-Christian religious phenomenon essential aspects, since it presents elements such as: magic, belief in a inevitability of fate, constancy of premonitory dreams and the intervention of the mythical figure of Óðinn in its composition. As inherent to mythological construction, we identify the Hero aspect as fundamental component of this Scandinavian oral tradition. / Os épicos são obras primas universais, expressões inexoráveis da alma dos povos. Neste sentido elegemos a Völsunga Saga como plataforma para apreensão de aspectos essenciais do fenômeno religioso nórdico pré-cristão, uma vez que esta apresenta elementos tais como: magia, crença na inexorabilidade do destino, constância de sonhos premonitórios, além da intervenção constante da figura mítica de Óðinn em sua composição. Conforme inerente às construções mitológicas, identificamos aqui a figura do herói enquanto componente fundamental dessa tradição oral escandinava.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:25:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PabloGM_DISSERT.pdf: 5790432 bytes, checksum: cb76708cd8a3b4cea9208b8627bcd3ed (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-09-24 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / The goal of our dissertation is to study how the Scandinavian writings produced a Norwegian identity of warlike ideals in a compilation of Icelandic sagas known as Heimskringla and has parts of its content focused on storytelling about a troubled time of Scandinavian monarchies rising between the 8th and 11th centuries, which is called the Viking Age. The Heimskringla, also known as The Circle of the World is a set of writings based on Icelandic oral memory about the Norwegian kings and the conception of a Norwegian territory. While we investigated the relationship between the members of royalty, their companions and the Scandinavian people, we delineate the relationship between memory, identity and war. Our study points out how the Scandinavian war produces, in its storytelling, proper spaces, in socio-political relations among the participants, in the organization of its conflicts or the location of war activities, where places are transformed into essential points in these narratives. The war is both a place of identity statements and a space of practices, necessary for the strengthening of royal power / O objetivo de nossa disserta??o ? estudar como os escritos escandinavos produziram uma identidade da Noruega em ideais b?licos dentro de uma compila??o de sagas islandesas chamada Heimskringla e que tem parte de seu conte?do voltado para narrativas de um momento conturbado do surgimento das monarquias escandinavas entre o s?culo VIII e XI, a chamada Era Viking. O Heimskringla, tamb?m conhecido como O C?rculo do Mundo , ? um conjunto de escritos baseados na mem?ria oral islandesa sobre os reis noruegueses e a forma??o do territ?rio noruegu?s. Na medida em que investigamos a rela??o entre os membros da realeza, seus companheiros e os povos escandinavos, passamos a delinear as rela??es de mem?ria, identidade e guerra. Nosso trabalho pontua a maneira como a guerra escandinava produz, em suas narrativas, espa?os pr?prios, seja nas rela??es pol?tico-sociais entre seus participantes, na organiza??o de seus conflitos ou na localiza??o das atividades guerreiras, sendo que os lugares transformam-se em pontos essenciais dessas narrativas. A guerra ? ao mesmo tempo um lugar de afirma??es identit?rias e um espa?o de pr?ticas necess?rias para o fortalecimento do poder real

This thesis investigates several key aspects of warfare and its participants in the Viking Age insular world via a comparison of the image which warriors occupy in heroic literature to their concomitant depiction in sources which are primarily nonliterary in character, such as histories, annalistic records, and law codes. Through this method, the thesis seeks to add to the scholarship regarding organized violence in this era in two principle manners. First, this study will depart from nearly all previous studies of warriors by moving beyond a single cultural milieu and treating them in a ‘pan-insular’ context. Second and perhaps more importantly, in choosing to address the heroic literature as a genre distinct from other contemporary texts, this thesis will allow progress beyond the bulk of pre-existing ‘warfare scholarship’ for this era, which tends to utilize any and all manner of sources as a reflection of historical reality. In considering the context of heroic poetry and sagas, the thesis will allow one to make conclusion regarding its likely authorship and intended audience, as well as the goals of the former and expectations of the latter. Studies of warfare are always of particular relevance, due to their intersection with many areas of history long studied, such as constitutional and legal history, as well as those which have only recently received their due attention, such as questions of group cohesion, violence, and community. This thesis was largely inspired by the attempt by Stephen S. Evans to study the institution of the war-band in a crosscultural reference in his 1997 book Lords of Battle. Evans provided a good analysis of this body in its fifth- through eighth-century Anglo-Saxon and British manifestation but failed to achieve his primary stated goal – a comparison of the image and reality of the war-band. His decision to limit his research to the Anglo- Saxon and Welsh cultural spheres in the era predating the first Viking invasions led him to omit much relevant Irish and Insular Norse material, as well as a great deal of later heroic literature. It was with these two shortcomings in mind that I set out to write a more thorough treatment of the war-band. Yet, what began initially as an attempt to remedy the shortcomings of Lords of Battle soon grew into a slightly more wide-ranging study that has moved beyond focussing solely upon the war-band to look at attitudes about warfare and its participants amongst contemporary audiences and authors during the Viking age insular world.

Doct. diss.--Department of archaeology--University of Göteborg, 1998. / Bibliogr. p. 253-278. Index. Résumé en anglais.

When all available sources on the Viking world are combined, there is a strong sense that the Scandinavians of the late Iron Age (8th-11th centuries AD) recognised no clear distinctions between the profane and the sacred. The latter could manifest itself in different ways, in places, beings or objects, and it often aroused ambivalent feelings of both fear and awe. This thesis explores these entanglements and the notion of ambivalence in relation to a particular group of Viking-Age individuals involved in the practice of magic (e.g. seiðr). Chapters 1-3 form the background for the considerations on ritual specialists' lives, tools of trade and ways of burial. After a detailed review of Viking-Age funerary practices, focus shifts towards the corpus of so-called ‘deviant burials', which in recent years have often been interpreted as belonging to ritual specialists. Chapter 4 compares the written and archaeological evidence for the funerary treatment of ritual specialists. Particular attention is devoted to graves where the deceased are covered with stones, since in the written sources execution by stoning is often employed as a punishment for malevolent magic. Nonetheless, caution is suggested in labeling all of them as belonging to ritual specialists and the necessity of a more individual, contextual approach is proposed. Chapter 5 examines a specific group of Viking-Age artefacts that usually take the form of iron rods, which have recently been interpreted as magic staffs. These items are discussed in the light of Old Norse texts and comparative materials from other areas of the world. Ultimately, the thesis embraces the notion of ambiguity in Viking attitudes to the supernatural, viewing this not as an obstructive problem but as an active component of interpretation. This combines an appropriate caution in approaching a difficult aspect of past societies, with a sensible refusal to introduce more rigid definitions than those used by the Vikings themselves.

Zugl.: Diss. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of St Andrews, March 2010. / Electronic version restricted until 1st March 2013.