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The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia
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About The Viking Way: Magic And Mind In Late Iron Age
Product Description Magic, sorcery and witchcraft are among the most common themes of the great medieval Icelandic sagas and poems, the problematic yet vital sources that provide our primary textual evidence for the Viking Age that they claim to describe. Yet despite the consistency of this picture, surprisingly little archaeological or historical research has been done to explore what this may really have meant to the men and women of the time. This book examines the evidence for Old Norse sorcery, looking at its meaning and function, practice and practitioners, and the complicated constructions of gender and sexual identity with which these were underpinned.Combining strong elements of eroticism and aggression, sorcery appears as a fundamental domain of women's power, linking them with the gods, the dead and the future. Their battle spells and combat rituals complement the men's physical acts of fighting, in a supernatural empowerment of the Viking way of life. What emerges is a fundamentally new image of the world in which the Vikings understood themselves to move, in which magic and its implications permeated every aspect of a society permanently geared for war.In this fully revised and expanded second edition, Neil Price takes us with him on a tour through the sights and sounds of this undiscovered country, meeting its human and otherworldly inhabitants, including the Sámi with whom the Norse partly shared this mental landscape. On the way we explore Viking notions of the mind and soul, the fluidity of the boundaries that they drew between humans and animals, and the immense variety of their spiritual beliefs. We find magic in the Vikings' bedrooms and on their battlefields, and we meet the sorcerers themselves through their remarkable burials and the tools of their trade. Combining archaeology, history and literary scholarship with extensive studies of Germanic and circumpolar religion, this multi-award-winning book shows us the Vikings as we have never seen them before.Table of ContentsList of figures and tablesAbbreviationsPreface and acknowledgements to the first editionPreface and acknowledgements to the second editionA note on languageA note on seid1. Different Vikings? Towards a cognitive archaeology of the later Iron AgeA beginning at BirkaTextual archaeology and the Iron AgeThe Vikings in (pre)historyThe materiality of textAnnaliste archaeology and a historical anthropology of the VikingsThe Other and the Odd?Conflict in the archaeology of cognitionOthers without OtheringIndigenous archaeologies and the VikingsAn archaeology of the Viking mind?2. Problems and paradigms in the study of Old Norse sorceryEntering the mythologyResearch perspectives on Scandinavian pre-Christian religionPhilology and comparative theologyGods and monsters, worship and superstitionReligion and beliefThe invisible populationThe shape of Old Norse religionThe double world: seiðr and the problem of Old Norse ‘magic’The other magics: galdr, gandr and ‘Óðinnic sorcery’Seiðr in the sourcesSkaldic poetryEddic poetryThe sagas of the kingsThe sagas of Icelanders (the ‘family sagas’)The fornaldarsögur (‘sagas of ancient times’, ‘heroic sagas’)The Bishop’s sagas (Biskupasögur)The early medieval Scandinavian law codesNon-Scandinavian sourcesSeiðr in research3. SeiðrÓðinnÓðinn the sorcererÓðinn’s namesFreyja and the magic of the VanirSeiðr and Old Norse cosmologyThe performersWitches, seeresses and wise womenWomen and the witch-rideMen and magicThe assistantsTowards a terminology of Nordic sorcerersThe performers in death?The performanceRitual architecture and spaceThe clothing of sorceryMasks, veils and head-coveringsDrums, tub-lids and shieldsStaffs and wandsStaffs from archaeological contextsNarcotics and intoxicantsCharmsSongs and chantsThe problem of trance and ecstasyEngendering seiðrErgi, níð and witchcraftSexual performance and eroticism in seiðrSeiðr and the concept of the soulHelping spirits in seiðrThe domestic sphere of seiðrDivinat
