Download or read book Gods and Humans in Medieval Scandinavia written by Jonas Wellendorf and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-12 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study shows some of the ways in which medieval Scandinavians received and re-interpreted pre-Christian religion.
Download or read book Norse Mythology written by John Lindow and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2002-09-19 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides information on the gods, heroes, rituals, beliefs, symbols, and stories of Norse mythology.
Download or read book Ancient Scandinavia written by Theron Douglas Price and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although occupied only relatively briefly in the long span of world prehistory, Scandinavia is an extraordinary laboratory for investigating past human societies. The area was essentially unoccupied until the end of the last Ice Age when the melting of huge ice sheets left behind a fresh, barren land surface, which was eventually covered by flora and fauna. The first humans did not arrive until sometime after 13,500 BCE. The prehistoric remains of human activity in Scandinavia - much of it remarkably preserved in its bogs, lakes, and fjords - have given archaeologists a richly detailed portrait of the evolution of human society. In this book, Doug Price provides an archaeological history of Scandinavia-a land mass comprising the modern countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway-from the arrival of the first humans after the last Ice Age to the end of the Viking period, ca. AD 1050. Constructed similarly to the author's previous book, Europe before Rome, Ancient Scandinaviaprovides overviews of each prehistoric epoch followed by detailed, illustrative examples from the archaeological record. An engrossing and comprehensive picture emerges of change across the millennia, as human society evolves from small bands of hunter - gatherers to large farming communities to the complex warrior cultures of the Bronze and Iron Ages, which culminated in the spectacular rise of the Vikings. The material evidence of these past societies - arrowheads from reindeer hunts, megalithic tombs, rock art, beautifully wrought weaponry, Viking warships - give vivid testimony to the ancient humans who once called home this often unforgiving edge of the inhabitable world.
Download or read book Scandinavia in the Middle Ages 900 1550 written by Kirsi Salonen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-02-14 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval Scandinavia went through momentous changes. Regional power centres merged and gave birth to the three strong kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. At the end of the Middle Ages, they together formed the enormous Kalmar Union comprising almost all lands around the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea. In the Middle Ages, Scandinavia became part of a common Europe, yet preserved its own distinct cultural markers. Scandinavia in the Middle Ages 900–1550 covers the entire Middle Ages into an engaging narrative. The book gives a chronological overview of political, ecclesiastical, cultural, and economic developments. It integrates to this narrative climatic changes, energy crises, devastating epidemies, family life and livelihood, arts, education, technology and literature, and much else. The book shows how different groups had an important role in shaping society: kings and peasants, pious priests, nuns and crusaders, merchants, and students, without forgetting minorities such as Sámi and Jews. The book is divided into three chronological parts 900–1200, 1200–1400, and 1400–1550, where analyses of general trends are illustrated by the acts of individual men and women. This book is essential reading for students of, as well as all those interested in, medieval Scandinavia and Europe more broadly.
Download or read book Routledge Revivals Medieval Scandinavia 1993 written by Phillip Pulsiano and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 770 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1993, Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia covers every aspect of the region during the Middle Ages, including rulers and saints, overviews of the countries, religion, education, politics and law, culture and material life, history, literature, and art. Written by a team of expert contributors, the encyclopedia offers those who lack command of the various Scandinavian languages a basic tool for the study of Medieval Scandinavia from roughly the Migration Period to the Reformation. With full-page maps, useful supplementary photos, cross-references and a comprehensive index, this work will be a valuable and absorbing volume for students of the Norse sagas, the Viking age, and Old English history and literature, and for anyone interested in the cultural and historical heritage of Scandinavia.
Download or read book Norse Mythology written by John Lindow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2002-10-17 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Norse Mythology explores the magical myths and legends of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Viking-Age Greenland and outlines the way the prehistoric tales and beliefs from these regions that have remained embedded in the imagination of the world. The book begins with an Introduction that helps put Scandinavian mythology in place in history, followed by a chapter that explains the meaning of mythic time, and a third section that presents in-depth explanations of each mythological term. These fascinating entries identify particular deities and giants, as well as the places where they dwell and the varied and wily means by which they forge their existence and battle one another. We meet Thor, one of the most powerful gods, who specializes in killing giants using a hammer made for him by dwarfs, not to mention myriad trolls, ogres, humans and strange animals. We learn of the ongoing struggle between the gods, who create the cosmos, and the jötnar, or giants, who aim to destroy it. In the enchanted world where this mythology takes place, we encounter turbulent rivers, majestic mountains, dense forests, storms, fierce winters, eagles, ravens, salmon and snakes in a landscape closely resembling Scandinavia. Beings travel on ships and on horseback; they eat slaughtered meat and drink mead. Spanning from the inception of the universe and the birth of human beings to the universe's destruction and the mythic future, these sparkling tales of creation and destruction, death and rebirth, gods and heroes will entertain readers and offer insight into the relationship between Scandinavian myth, history, and culture.
Download or read book Medieval Scandinavia written by Phillip Pulsiano and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1993 with total page 838 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With full-page maps and supplementary photos, this encyclopedia covers every aspect of Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, including rulers and saints, overviews of the countries, religion, education, politics and law, culture and material life, history, literature, and art.
Download or read book Norse Mythology Nordic Mythology Its Gods And History written by Harald Pedersen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2017-08-21 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you fascinated by the characters and myths of Thor and Odin, and eager to learn more about the Nordic gods, the significance of Ragnarok and the history of Norse mythology? By reading this book you will learn about the history of Norse mythology and become familiar with the Nordic gods. This book provides clear information about the numerous gods such as Thor, Odin, Loki, the Valkyries as you learn about their origins and legends. Discover the gloomy fate of Ragnarok, and what it meant for the gods and people of that mystic time. This book reveals not only the myths of Norse mythology, but also provides the reader with historical background information of the Norse people, their developments, their history, and Ragnarok. It reveals and explains many of the sagas and legends, and you will become familiar with the most important mystic places, legends, poems, and anecdotes of the Nordic gods and their meanings for humans.
Download or read book Myths of the Pagan North written by Christopher Abram and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-05-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engaging account of the world of the Vikings and their gods.
Download or read book Old Norse Religion in Long term Perspectives written by Anders Andrén and published by Nordic Academic Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of Old Norse Religion is a truly multidisciplinary and international field of research. The rituals, myths and narratives of pre-Christian Scandinavia are investigated and interpreted by archaeologists, historians, art historians, historians of religion as well as scholars of literature, onomastics and Scandinavian studies. For obvious reasons, these studies belong to the main curricula in Scandinavia but are also carried out at many other universities in Europe, the United States and Australia a fact that is evident to any reader of this book. In order to bring this broad and varied field of research together, an international conference on Old Norse religion was held in Lund in June 2004. About two hundred delegates from more than fifteen countries took part. The intention was to gather researchers to encourage and improve scholarly exchange and dialogue, and Old Norse religion in long-term perspectives presents a selection of the proceedings from that conference. The 75 contributions elucidate topics such as worldview and cosmology, ritual and religious practice, myth and memory as well as the reception and present-day use of Old Norse religion. The main editors of this volume have directed the multidisciplinary research project Roads to Midgard since 2000. The project is based at Lund University and funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation.
Download or read book The Downfall of the Gods written by Villy Sørensen and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wonderful first-excursion into Norse mythology for those unfamiliar with the stories. Based on the lyrical poetic Edda, the myths contained are presented in plain, no-frills prose, therefore making it readily accessible to the curious and the unviking.
Download or read book Odin s Ways written by Annette Lassen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-24 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about the Old Norse god Odin. It includes references to all occurrences of Odin in the Old Norse/Icelandic texts, including Saxo’s Gesta Danorum, the eddic poems, Snorri’s Edda, and Ynglinga saga and analyses the high medieval reception and literary representations of Odin rather than the religious character of the god. This is the only existing study of Odin in all the Old Norse/Icelandic texts and applies a contextual method: the different guises of Odin are studied on the basis of the various textual contexts and on their background in the literary and Christian intellectual milieu of the time. Contrary to existing studies, this method is non-reductive in that it does not aim at providing a synthesis about Odin’s original nature on the basis of the differing textual uses of Odin in the Middle Ages. The book argues that the perceived complexity of Odin, often highlighted in research, is first and foremost a function of the complex textual material spanning a wide variety of genres each with its particular literary conventions and of the reception of Odin in early modern and modern mythological studies.
Download or read book Old Norse Mythology written by John Lindow and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book treats from the perspective of the series "World mythologies in theory and in everyday life" the body of texts from medieval Scandinavia, mostly Iceland, usually known as "Norse mythology" or "Scandinavian mythology." Specifically, it constitutes a case study of a "literary or textual mythology," that is, a mythology from the past that we know only through written texts that have been left to us, augmented in a few cases by artifacts and images. This case is particularly interesting because the texts (with a tiny handful of enigmatic exceptions) were recorded centuries after the Nordic peoples had abandoned the religion associated with the mythology and converted to Christianity. The mythology lived on without direct connection to ritual activity or religious conviction. Drawing both on sources from before the conversion and on comparative analysis, it is certainly possible to reach informed inferences about the mythology before the conversion to Christianity-that is, when it existed as part of the pre-Christian religion of the Nordic peoples and their successors. From the perspective of the mythologies of the world, what is perhaps most important about these inferences is that this pre-Christian mythology was not a canonical mythology, since it almost certainly lacked a canon of sacred texts such as one finds in the great world religions of today. The focus of the book is not the mythology in and of itself, as would be true of a handbook, but rather how particular historical and intellectual circumstances formed conceptions about it."--
Download or read book Gods and Myths of Northern Europe written by H. Davidson and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 1990-12-13 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveys the pre-Christian beliefs of the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples. Provides an introduction to this subject, giving basic outlines to the sagas and stories, and helps identify the charachter traits of not only the well known but also the lesser gods of the age.
Download or read book War of the Gods written by Poul Anderson and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Readers bored with Tolkien-clone fantasies will be enthralled by the intricately detailed world and characters Anderson brings to life here.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review The Grand Master of Science Fiction delivers “a Dark Age saga based on Old Scandinavian mythology and the exploits of the legendary Danish King Hadding . . . A brilliantly accomplished yarn” (Kirkus Reviews). In a scheme arranged by the god Odin, Hadding is born to King Gram Skjoldung of Denmark but is sent to be raised by giants for his own safety. After his father is murdered, Hadding must claim his destiny. Prey to the follies of humans and gods, he rises to the challenges of war, fate, and love in a mythic adventure “episodic in character, gory in detail, fatalistic in atmosphere, and spiked with sinister, chthonic Norse magic” (Interzone). “War of the Gods struck me like a hammer-bolt out of the sky.” —Black Gate Praise for Poul Anderson “Anderson has produced more milestones in contemporary science fiction and fantasy than any one man is entitled to.” —Stephen Donaldson “One of science fiction’s most revered writers.” —USA Today “The great canvas of interstellar space comes alive under Anderson’s hand as it does under no other.” —Gordon R. Dickson “One of science fiction’s most influential and prolific writers.” —The Daily Telegraph
Download or read book The Viking Way written by Neil S. Price and published by Oxbow Books Limited. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Norse Mythology written by Peter Andreas Munch and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
