Since prehistoric times, the Baltic Sea has functioned as a northern 'mare nostrum' ― a crucial nexus that has shaped the languages, folklore, religions, literature, technology, and identities of the Germanic, Finnic, Sámi, Baltic, and Slavic peoples. This anthology explores the networks among those peoples.
The contributions to 'Contacts and Networks in the Baltic Sea Region: 'Austmarr' as a Northern 'mare nostrum', ca. 500-1500 AD' address different aspects of cultural contacts around and across the Baltic from the perspectives of history, archaeology, linguistics, literary studies, religious studies, and folklore. The introduction offers a general overview of crosscultural contacts in the Baltic Sea region as a framework for contextualizing the volume’s twelve chapters, organized in four sections. The first section concerns geographical conceptions as revealed in Old Norse and in classical texts through place names, terms of direction, and geographical descriptions. The second section discusses the movement of cultural goods and persons in connection with elite mobility, the slave trade, and rune-carving practice. The third section turns to the history of language contacts and influences, using examples of Finnic names in runic inscriptions and Low German loanwords in Finnish. The final section analyzes intercultural connections related to mythology and religion spanning Baltic, Finnic, Germanic, and Sámi cultures. Together these diverse articles present a dynamic picture of this distinctive part of the world.
Author(s): Maths Bertell, Frog, Kendra Willson (eds.)
Series: Crossing Boundaries. Turku Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 296
Preface 9
Introduction: Looking across the Baltic Sea and over linguistic fences / Frog, Kendra Willson, and Maths Bertell 11
Section 1. Mental maps
1. The northern part of the Ocean in the eyes of ancient geographers / Aleksandr Podossinov 29
2. 'Austmarr' on the mental map of medieval Scandinavians / Tatjana Jackson 49
3. The connection between geographical space and collective memory in 'Jómsvíkinga saga' / Sirpa Aalto 67
Section 2. Mobility
4. Rune carvers traversing 'Austmarr'? / Laila Kitzler Åhfeldt 91
5. Polish noble families and noblemen of Scandinavian origin in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The case of the Awdańcy family: by which route did they come to Poland and why? / Leszek Słupecki 117
6. A medieval trade in female slaves from the north along the Volga / Jukka Korpela 129
Section 3. Language
7. Ahti on the Nydam strap-ring: On the possibility of Finnic elements in runic inscriptions / Kendra Willson 147
8. Low German and Finnish revisited / Mikko Bentlin 173
Section 4. Myth and religion formation
9. Mythic logic and meta-discursive practices in the Scandinavian and Baltic regions / Lauri Harvilahti 187
10. The artificial bride on both sides of the Gulf of Finland: 'The Golden Maiden' in Finno-Karelian and Estonian folk poetry / Karolina Kouvola 211
11. Local Sámi bear ceremonialism in a Circum-Baltic perspective / Maths Bertell 235
12. Mythologies in transformation 263
Symbolic transfer, hybridisation, and creolisation in the Circum-Baltic arena (illustrated through the changing roles of '*Tīwaz', '*Ilma', and 'Óðinn', the fishing adventure of the thunder god, and a Finno-Karelian creolisation of North Germanic religion) / Frog 263
Contributors 289
Indices 291
