Download or read book Magic Staffs in the Viking Age written by Leszek Gardeła and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Women and Weapons in the Viking World written by Leszek Gardela and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2021-09-02 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Invigorating . . . Gardeła reappraises the connections between women and violence in an early-medieval society that has left few texts to guide us.” —Studies in Late Antiquity This book sets out to investigate the idea of “the armed woman” in the Viking Age through a comprehensive and cross-cultural approach and weaves a nuanced picture of women’s lives in the Viking world. The Viking Age (c. AD 750–1050) is conventionally portrayed as a tumultuous time when hordes of fierce warriors from Scandinavia wreaked havoc across the European continent and when Norse merchants traveled to distant corners of the world in pursuit of slaves, silver and exotic commodities. Until fairly recently, Norse society during this pivotal period in world history has been characterized as male-dominated, with women’s roles dismissed or substantially downplayed. There is, however, ample textual and archaeological evidence to suggest that many of the most spectacular achievements of Viking Age Scandinavians—in craftsmanship, exploration, cross-cultural trade, warfare and other spheres of life—would not have been possible without the active involvement of women, and that, both within the walls of the household and in the wider public arena, women’s voices were heard, respected and followed. Lavishly illustrated, this pioneering book explores the stories of the female warrior and women’s links with the martial sphere of life in the Viking Age, using literature and archaeological evidence from Scandinavia and the wider Viking world to examine the motivations and circumstances that led women to engage in armed conflict.
Download or read book The Norse Sorceress written by Leszek Gardeła and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2023-08-31 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Old Norse literature abounds with descriptions of magic acts that allow ritual specialists of various kinds to manipulate the world around them, see into the future or the distant past, change weather conditions, influence the outcomes of battles, and more. While magic practitioners are known under myriad terms, the most iconic of them is the völva. As the central figure of the famous mythological poem Völuspá (The Prophecy of the Völva), the völva commands both respect and fear. In non-mythological texts similar women are portrayed as crucial albeit somewhat peculiar members of society. Always veiled in mystery, the völur and their kind have captured the academic and popular imagination for centuries. Bringing together scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds, this volume aims to provide new insights into the reality of magic and its agents in the Viking world, beyond the pages of medieval texts. It explores new trajectories for the study of past mentalities, beliefs, and rituals as well as the tools employed in these practices and the individuals who wielded them. In doing so, the volume engages with several topical issues of Viking Age research, including the complex entanglements of mind and materiality, the cultural attitudes to animals and the natural world, and the cultural constructions of gender and sexuality. By addressing these complex themes, it offers a nuanced image of the völva and related magic workers in their cultural context. The volume is intended for a broad, diverse, and international audience, including experts in the field of Viking and Old Norse studies but also various non-professional history enthusiasts. The Norse Sorceress: Mind and Materiality in the Viking World is a key output of the project Tanken bag Tingene (Thoughts behind Things) conducted at the National Museum of Denmark from 2020 to 2023 and funded by the Krogager Foundation.
Download or read book The Vikings Reimagined written by Tom Birkett and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-01-20 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Vikings Reimagined explores the changing perception of Norse and Viking cultures across different cultural forms, and the complex legacy of the Vikings in the present day. Bringing together experts in literature, history and heritage engagement, this highly interdisciplinary collection aims to reconsider the impact of the discipline of Old Norse Viking Studies outside the academy and to broaden our understanding of the ways in which the material and textual remains of the Viking Age are given new meanings in the present. The diverse collection draws attention to the many roles that the Vikings play across contemporary culture: from the importance of Viking tourism, to the role of Norse sub-cultures in the formation of local and international identities. Together these collected essays challenge the academy to rethink its engagement with popular reiterations of the Vikings and to reassess the position afforded to ‘reception’ within the discipline.
Download or read book Tracing Textile Production from the Viking Age to the Middle Ages written by Ingvild Øye and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2022-05-05 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book concerns textile production at the fringes of north-western Europe - areas in western Norway and the North Atlantic in the expanding, dynamic and transformative period from the early Viking Age into the Middle Ages. Textiles constitute one of the basic needs in human life - to protect and keep the body warm but also to show social status and affiliations. Textiles had a wide spectrum of use areas and qualities, fine and coarse in various contexts, and in the Viking Age not least related to the production of sails - all essential for the development and character of the period. So, what were the tools and textiles like, who made them, who used them and who exposed them? By tracing textile production from the remains of tools and textiles in varied landscapes and settings - Viking Age graves and in situ workplaces from the whole period - and combining this with textual information, many layers of information are exposed about technology and qualities as well as gender, gender roles, social relations, power and networks. By combining tools, textiles and texts in various settings, this book aims to contextualize dispersed archaeological finds of tools and textiles to uncover patterns across larger areas and in a long-term perspective of half a millennium.
Download or read book The Vikings written by Neil Price and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-12 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Vikings provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to the complex world of the early medieval Scandinavians. In the space of less than 300 years, from the mid-eighth to the mid-eleventh centuries CE, people from what are now Norway, Sweden, and Denmark left their homelands in unprecedented numbers to travel across the Eurasian world. Over the last half-century, archaeology and its related disciplines have radically altered our understanding of this period. The Vikings explores why we now perceive them as a cosmopolitan mix of traders and warriors, craftsworkers and poets, explorers, and settlers. It details how, over the course of the Viking Age, their small-scale rural, tribal societies gradually became urbanised monarchies firmly emplaced on the stage of literate, Christian Europe. In the process, they transformed the cultures of the North, created the modern Nordic nation-states, and left a far-flung diaspora with legacies that still resonate today. Written by leading experts in the period and exploring the society, economy, identity and world-views of the early medieval Scandinavian peoples, and their unique religious beliefs that are still of enduring interest a millennium later, this book presents students with an unrivalled guide through this widely studied and fascinating subject, revealing the fundamental impacts of the Vikings in shaping the later course of European history.
Download or read book Vikings Across Boundaries written by Hanne Lovise Aannestad and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the changes that occurred during the Viking Age, as Scandinavian societies fell in line with the larger forces that dominated the Insular world and Continental Europe, absorbing the powerful symbiosis of Christianity and monarchy, adapting to the idea of royal lineage and supremacy, and developing a buzzing urbanism coupled with large-scale trade networks. Presenting research on the grand context of the Viking Age alongside localised studies, it contributes to the furthering of collaborations between local and ‘outsider’ research on the Viking Age. Through a diversity of approaches on the Viking homelands and the wider world of the Vikings, it offers studies of a range of phenomena, including urban and rural settlements; continuity in the use of places as well as new types of places specific to the Viking Age; the social significance of change; the construction and maintenance of social identity both within the ‘homelands’ and across large territories; ethnicity; and ideas of identity and the creation and recreation of identity both at home and abroad. As such, it will appeal to historians and archaeologists with interests in Viking-Age studies, as well as scholars of Scandinavian studies.
Download or read book Children of Ash and Elm written by Neil Price and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 629 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of the Vikings -- from arts and culture to politics and cosmology -- by a distinguished archaeologist with decades of expertise The Viking Age -- from 750 to 1050 -- saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe. But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture. Based on the latest archaeological and textual evidence, Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology and religion, their material world. Known today for a stereotype of maritime violence, the Vikings exported new ideas, technologies, beliefs, and practices to the lands they discovered and the peoples they encountered, and in the process were themselves changed. From Eirík Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is the definitive history of the Vikings and their time.
Download or read book Re imagining Periphery written by Charlotta Hillerdal and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume delves into the current state of Iron Age and Early Medieval research in the North. Over the last two decades of archaeological explorations, theoretical vanguards, and introduction of new methodological strategies, together with a growing amount of critical studies in archaeology taking their stance from a multidisciplinary perspective, have dramatically changed our understanding of Northern Iron Age societies. The profound effect of 6th century climatic events on social structures in Northern Europe, a reintegration of written sources and archaeological material, genetic and isotopic studies entirely reinterpreting previously excavated grave material, are but a few examples of such land winnings. The aim of this book is to provide an intense and cohesive focus on the characteristics of contemporary Iron Age research; explored under the subheadings of field and methodology, settlement and spatiality, text and translation, and interaction and impact. Gathering the work of leading, established researchers and field archaeologists based throughout northern Europe and in the frontline of this new emerging image, this volume provides a collective summary of our current understandings of the Iron Age and Early Medieval Era in the North. It also facilitates a renewed interaction between academia and the ever-growing field of infrastructural archaeology, by integrating cutting edge fieldwork and developing field methods in the corpus of Iron Age and Early Medieval studies. In this book, many hypotheses are pushed forward from their expected outcomes, and analytical work is not afraid of taking risks, thus advancing the field of Iron Age research, and also, hopefully, inspiring to a continued creation of new knowledge.
Download or read book The Odd the Unusual and the Strange written by Tracy K. Betsinger and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abnormal burial practices have long been a source of fascination and debate within the fields of mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology. The Odd, the Unusual, and the Strange investigates an unparalleled geographic and temporal range of burials that differ from the usual customs of their broader societies, emphasizing the importance of a holistic, context-driven approach to these intriguing cases. From an Andean burial dating to 3500 BC to mummified bodies interred in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Sicily, during the twentieth century, the studies in this volume cross the globe and span millennia. The unusual cases explored here include Native American cemeteries in Illinois, “vampire” burials in medieval Poland, and a mass grave of decapitated soldiers in ancient China. Moving away from the simplistic assumption that these burials represent people who were considered deviant in society, contributors demonstrate the importance of an integrated biocultural approach in determining why an individual was buried in an unusual way. Drawing on historical, sociocultural, archaeological, and biological data, this volume critically evaluates the binary of “typical” versus “atypical” burials. It expands our understanding of the continuum of variation within mortuary practices, helping researchers better interpret burial evidence to learn about the people and cultures of the past. A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen
Download or read book Exploring Ireland s Viking Age Towns written by Rebecca Boyd and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-10-20 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring Ireland’s Viking-Age Towns discusses the emergence of towns, urban lifestyles, and urban identities in Ireland. This coincides with the arrival of the Vikings and the appearance of the post-and-wattle Type 1 house. These houses reflect this crucial transition to urban living with its attendant changes for individuals, households, and society. Exploring Ireland’s Viking-Age Towns uses household archaeology as a lens to explore the materiality, variability, and day-to-day experiences of living in these houses. It moves from the intimate scale of individual households to the larger scale of Ireland’s earliest urban communities. For the first time, this book considers how these houses were more than just buildings: they were homes, important places where people lived, worked, and died. These new towns were busy places with a multitude of people, ideas, and things. This book uses the mass of archaeological data to undertake comparative analyses of houses and properties, artefact distribution patterns, and access analysis studies to interrogate some 500 Viking-Age urban houses. This analysis is structured in three parts: an investigation of the houses, the households, and the town. Exploring Ireland’s Viking-Age Towns discusses how these new urban households managed their homes to create a sense of place and belonging in these new environments and allow themselves to develop a new, urban identity. This book is suited to advanced students and specialists of the Viking Age in Ireland, but archaeologists and historians of the early medieval and Viking worlds will find much of interest here. It will also appeal to readers with interests in the archaeology of house and home, households, identities, and urban studies.
Download or read book The Demise of Norse Religion written by Olof Sundqvist and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-12-18 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When describing the transition from Old Norse religion to Christianity in recent studies, the concept of "Christianization" is often applied. To a large extent this historiography focuses on the outcome of the encounter, namely the description of early Medieval Christianity and the new Christian society. The purpose of the present study is to concentrate more exclusively on the Old Norse religion during this period of change and to analyze the processes behind its disappearance on an official level of the society. More specifically this study concentrates on the role of Viking kings and indigenous agency in the winding up of the old religion. An actor-oriented perspective will thus be established, which focuses on the actions, methods and strategies applied by the early Christian Viking kings when dismantling the religious tradition that had previously formed their lives. In addition, the resistance that some pagan chieftains offered against these Christian kings is discussed as well as the question why they defended the old religious tradition.
Download or read book Women and Weapons in the Viking World written by Leszek Gardela and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Viking Age (c. 750–1050 AD) is conventionally seen as a tumultuous time when hordes of fierce warriors from Scandinavia wreaked havoc across the European continent and when Norse merchants travelled to distant corners of the world in pursuit of slaves, silver, and exotic commodities. Until relatively recently, archaeologists and textual scholars had the tendency to weave a largely male-dominated image of this pivotal period in world history, dismissing or substantially downplaying women's roles in Norse society. Today, however, there is ample evidence to suggest that many of the most spectacular achievements of Viking Age Scandinavians - for instance in craftsmanship, exploration, cross-cultural trade, warfare and other spheres of life - would not have been possible without the active involvement of women. Extant textual sources as well as the perpetually expanding corpus of archaeological evidence thus demonstrate unequivocally that both within the walls of the household and in the wider public arena women’s voices were heard, respected and followed. This pioneering and lavishly illustrated monograph provides an in-depth exploration of women's associations with the martial sphere of life in the Viking Age. The multifarious motivations and circumstances that led women to engage in armed conflict or other activities whereby weapons served as potent symbols of prestige and empowerment are illuminated and interpreted through an interdisciplinary approach to medieval literature and archaeological evidence from Scandinavia and the wider Viking world. Additional cross-cultural excursions into the lives and legends of female warriors in other past and present cultural milieus - from the Asiatic steppes to the savannas of Africa and European battlefields - lead to a nuanced understanding of the idea of the armed woman and its embodiments in Norse literature, myth and archaeological reality.
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 Runelore written by Edred Thorsson and published by Weiser Books. This book was released on 1987-05-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Runework authority and author Edred Thorsson, explores the riddle of the runes. Combing historical lore with a detailed investigation, Runelore focuses on the esoteric aspects of the runic tradition. In Part One, Historical Lore, Thorsson uses archaeological evidence to explain where the runes come from, what they mean, and how they evolved. In Part Two, Hidden Lore, he takes a more psychological view of the runes and looks at the entire cosmology of the Old Norse to explain the role runes played and how they were used over time. Included are specific sections on rune magic and divination, rune poems, runic numerology, and concise explanations of the mysteries of the 24 runes. Reprinted with a newly designed cover, Runelore offers a complete picture of the Runes.
Download or read book Heathen Garb and Gear Ritual Dress Tools and Art for the Practice of Germanic Heathenry written by Ben Waggoner and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018-11-22 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Germanic tribes, Goths, and other Germanic-speaking tribes are renowned today in myth, legend, and popular culture. But how did they live? What did they wear? How did they worship? What did they eat? And how did their traditional ways of life reflect their spiritual beliefs? Heathen Garb and Gear takes you on a tour of the world that our forebears knew. More importantly, it shows you how their ways of dressing and living-from weaving woolen cloth and cooking food, to making music and taking steam baths-are reflected in the myths and traditions that have come down to us. Anyone who's ever wanted to wear Viking clothing, or serve authentic Viking feasts, will find plenty of practical tips here. But even if you're not interested in re-enacting the old ways, you'll find much vital information and inspiration for the practice of Heathenry as a living religious tradition.
Download or read book Elves Witches Gods written by Cat Heath and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2021-03-08 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Weave the Threads of Ancient Heathen Magic into Your Life Journey into the fascinating depths of Heathenry with this tremendous source of history, inspiration, and practical information. Based on decades of research and experimentation, Elves, Witches & Gods provides explanations and hands-on techniques for galdr, seidr, fiber magic, herb craft, journeying, going under the cloak, and connecting with deities and elves. Working with authentic source material, Cat Heath has carefully pieced together and recreated Heathen magic techniques, and she shares the theories, skills, and tools you need to begin or deepen your own practice. This book introduces you to deities such as the Spinning Goddess, the Spear God, Odin, and Ingvi-Freyr. You will discover recipes, spells, and prayers, as well as learn how to work with specific oils and charms. Whether you are interested in using magic to influence your fate or you want to take a deep dive into the craft of the helrune and the völva, this book's guidance will help you take the next steps on the Heathen path. Includes a foreword by Patricia M. LaFayllve, author of A Practical Heathen's Guide to Asatru
