Download or read book Women in Old Norse Literature written by J. Friðriksdóttir and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-03-12 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Old Norse texts offer different ideas about what it is to be female, presenting women in diverse social and economic positions. This book analyzes female characters in medieval Icelandic saga literature, and demonstrates how they engaged with some of the most contested values of the period, revealing the anxieties of both the authors and audiences.
Download or read book Women in Old Norse Society written by Jenny Jochens and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-21 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jenny Jochens captures in fascinating detail the lives of women in pagan and early Christian Iceland and Norway—their work, sexual behavior, marriage customs, reproductive practices, familial relations, leisure activities, religious practices, and legal constraints and protections. Women in Old Norse Society places particular emphasis on changing sexual mores and the impact of Christianity as imposed by the clergy and Norwegian kings. It also demonstrates the vital role women played in economic production.
Download or read book Cold Counsel written by Sarah M. Anderson and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Old Norse Images of Women written by Jenny Jochens and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2016-11-11 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Working from the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and Old Norse prose narratives and laws, Jenny Jochens argues for an underlying cultural continuum of a pagan pantheon and a set of heroic figures shared by the Germanic tribes in Europe, Britain, Scandinavia, and Iceland from A.D. 500 to 1500. Old Norse Images of Women explores the female half of this legacy, which involves images both divine and human. In a society marked by sharp gender divisions, women were frequently portrayed as one of four conventional types. The warrior woman was exemplified by the valkyrie, sheildmaiden, or maiden king. The wise woman was a prophetess or sorceress. The avenger is best seen in Gudrun, whose focus of revenge shifted from husband to brothers. Last, there were the whetters or inciters, who appear both in the Continental setting as Brynhildr and as ubiquitous figures in medieval Icelandic literature, ranging from Norwegian queens to humble milkmaids.
Download or read book Women in the Viking Age written by Judith Jesch and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 1991 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through runic inscriptions and behind the veil of myth, Jesch discovers the true story of viking women.
Download or read book Old Norse Women s Poetry written by Sandra Ballif Straubhaar and published by DS Brewer. This book was released on 2011 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Text, with English translation in two formats, of all the Old Norse poetry attributed to women - skáldkonur. The rich and compelling corpus of Old Norse poetry is one of the most important and influential areas of medieval European literature. What is less well known, however, is the quantity of the material which can be attributed to women skalds. This book, intended for a broad audience, presents a bilingual edition (Old Norse and English) of this material, from the ninth to the thirteenth century and beyond, with commentary and notes. The poems here reflect the dramatic and often violent nature of the sagas: their subject matter features Viking Age shipboard adventures and shipwrecks; prophecies; curses; declarations of love and of revenge; duels, feuds and battles; encounters with ghosts; marital and family discord; and religious insults, among many other topics. Their authors fall into four main categories: pre-Christian Norwegian and Icelandic skáldkonur of the Viking Age; Icelandic skáldkonur of the Sturlung Age (thirteenth century); additional early skáldkonur from the Islendingasögur and related material, not as historically verifiable as the first group; and mythical figures cited as reciting verse in the legendary sagas (fornaldarsögur). Sandra Ballif Straubhaar is Senior Lecturer in Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Download or read book Valkyrie written by Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-02 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE Valkyries: the female supernatural beings that choose who dies and who lives on the battlefield. They protect some, but guide spears, arrows and sword blades into the bodies of others. Viking myths about valkyries attempt to elevate the banality of war – to make the pain and suffering, the lost limbs and deformities, the piles of lifeless bodies of young men, glorious and worthwhile. Rather than their death being futile, it is their destiny and good fortune, determined by divine beings. The women in these stories take full part in the power struggles and upheavals in their communities, for better or worse. Drawing on the latest historical and archaeological evidence, Valkyrie introduces readers to the dramatic and fascinating texts recorded in medieval Iceland, a culture able to imagine women in all kinds of roles carrying power, not just in this world, but pulling the strings in the other-world, too. In the process, this fascinating book uncovers the reality behind the myths and legends to reveal the dynamic, diverse lives of Viking women.
Download or read book Cultural Legacies of Old Norse Literature written by Dustin Geeraert and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2022-08-23 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cultural and literary legacy of medieval Iceland, with its roots in Norse heathen religion, heroic literature, and Viking Age history, is the focus of this volume. Its chapters examine the history and reception of a particular text or topic within this remarkable tradition. They treat a number of topics, including the legendary dragon-slayer Sigurd, the many personas of the mysterious god Odin, aspects of the ancient mythology of gods and giants, the early settlement of Iceland, the defiant Viking warriors known as the "Sworn Brothers", the entrepreneurial role of cloth production in medieval Scandinavia, the codicology and book history of key literary works, the many references to medieval Nordic lore in modern fiction and poetry, and the cultural position of islands such as Iceland in relation to the ebb and flow of religions, institutions and empires. Reconsidering these areas of Old Norse-Icelandic literary culture reveals the striking resilience and adaptability of its traditions, through a startling variety of transformations.
Download or read book Masculinities in Old Norse Literature written by Gareth Lloyd Evans and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2020-07-17 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compared to other areas of medieval literature, the question of masculinity in Old Norse-Icelandic literature has been understudied. This is a neglect which this volume aims to rectify. The essays collected here introduce and analyse a spectrum of masculinities, from the sagas of Icelanders, contemporary sagas, kings' sagas, legendary sagas, chivalric sagas, bishops' sagas, and eddic and skaldic verse, producing a broad and multifaceted understanding of what it means to be masculine in Old Norse-Icelandic texts. A critical introduction places the essays in their scholarly context, providing the reader with a concise orientation in gender studies and the study of masculinities in Old Norse-Icelandic literature. This book's investigation of how masculinities are constructed and challenged within a unique literature is all the more vital in the current climate, in which Old Norse sources are weaponised to support far-right agendas and racist ideologies are intertwined with images of vikings as hypermasculine. This volume counters these troubling narratives of masculinity through explorations of Old Norse literature that demonstrate how masculinity is formed, how it is linked to violence and vulnerability, how it governs men's relationships, and how toxic models of masculinity may be challenged.
Download or read book A Companion to Old Norse Icelandic Literature and Culture written by Rory McTurk and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-03-11 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This major survey of Old Norse-Icelandic literature and culturedemonstrates the remarkable continuity of Icelandic language andculture from medieval to modern times. Comprises 29 chapters written by leading scholars in thefield Reflects current debates among Old Norse-Icelandicscholars Pays attention to previously neglected areas of study, such asthe sagas of Icelandic bishops and the fantasy sagas Looks at the ways Old Norse-Icelandic literature is used bymodern writers, artists and film directors, both within and outsideScandinavia Sets Old Norse-Icelandic language and literature in its widercultural context
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 Real Valkyrie written by Nancy Marie Brown and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra, Brown lays to rest the hoary myth that Viking society was ruled by men and celebrates the dramatic lives of female Viking warriors “Once again, Brown brings Viking history to vivid, unexpected life—and in the process, turns what we thought we knew about Norse culture on its head. Superb.” —Scott Weidensaul, author of New York Times bestselling A World on the Wing "Magnificent. It captured me from the very first page." —Pat Shipman, author of The Invaders In 2017, DNA tests revealed to the collective shock of many scholars that a Viking warrior in a high-status grave in Birka, Sweden was actually a woman. The Real Valkyrie weaves together archaeology, history, and literature to imagine her life and times, showing that Viking women had more power and agency than historians have imagined. Nancy Marie Brown uses science to link the Birka warrior, whom she names Hervor, to Viking trading towns and to their great trade route east to Byzantium and beyond. She imagines her life intersecting with larger-than-life but real women, including Queen Gunnhild Mother-of-Kings, the Viking leader known as The Red Girl, and Queen Olga of Kyiv. Hervor’s short, dramatic life shows that much of what we have taken as truth about women in the Viking Age is based not on data, but on nineteenth-century Victorian biases. Rather than holding the household keys, Viking women in history, law, saga, poetry, and myth carry weapons. These women brag, “As heroes we were widely known—with keen spears we cut blood from bone.” In this compelling narrative Brown brings the world of those valkyries and shield-maids to vivid life.
Download or read book Scandinavia in the Age of Vikings written by Jon Vidar Sigurdsson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Scandinavia in the Age of Vikings, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson returns to the Viking homeland, Scandinavia, highlighting such key aspects of Viking life as power and politics, social and kinship networks, gifts and feasting, religious beliefs, women's roles, social classes, and the Viking economy, which included farming, iron mining and metalworking, and trade. Drawing of the latest archeological research and on literary sources, namely the sagas, Sigurðsson depicts a complex and surprisingly peaceful society that belies the popular image of Norsemen as bloodthirsty barbarians. Instead, Vikings often acted out power struggles symbolically, with local chieftains competing with each other through displays of wealth in the form of great feasts and gifts, rather than arms. At home, conspicuous consumption was a Viking leader's most important virtue; the brutality associated with them was largely wreaked abroad. Sigurðsson's engaging history of the Vikings at home begins by highlighting political developments in the region, detailing how Danish kings assumed ascendency over the region and the ways in which Viking friendship reinforced regional peace. Scandinavia in the Age of Vikings then discusses the importance of religion, first pagan and (beginning around 1000 A.D.) Christianity; the central role that women played in politics and war; and how the enormous wealth brought back to Scandinavia affected the social fabric—shedding new light on Viking society.
Download or read book The Far Traveler written by Nancy Marie Brown and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2008 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Brown's enthusiasm is infectious as she re-teaches us our history."--The Boston Globe Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed off the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, no one believed that the details of Gudrid's story were true. Then, in 2001, a team of scientists discovered what may have been this pioneering woman's last house, buried under a hay field in Iceland, just where the sagas suggested it could be. Joining scientists experimenting with cutting-edge technology and the latest archaeological techniques, and tracing Gudrid's steps on land and in the sagas, Nancy Marie Brown reconstructs a life that spanned--and expanded--the bounds of the then-known world. She also sheds new light on the society that gave rise to a woman even more extraordinary than legend has painted her and illuminates the reasons for its collapse. "Brown rightly leaves scholarly work to scholars. Instead, her account presents an enthusiastic appreciation of her education in how fieldwork and literature offer insights into the past."--The Seattle Times "[Brown has] a lovely ear for storytelling."--Los Angeles Times Book Review NANCY MARIE BROWN is the author of A Good Horse Has No Color and Mendel in the Kitchen. She lives in Vermont with her husband, the writer Charles Fergus.
Download or read book Matrons and Marginal Women in Medieval Society written by Robert Edwards and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 1995 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploration of differences between women: good women who were absorbed into society, and those whose social role condemned them to its fringes.
Download or read book The Cold Counsel written by Sarah M. Anderson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cold Counsel is the only collection devoted to the place of women in Old Norse literature and culture. It draws upon the disciplines of history, sociology, feminism, ethnography and psychoanalysis in order to raise fresh questions about such new subjects as gender, class, sexuality, family structure and ideology in medieval Iceland.
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.
