This anthology of international scholarship offers new critical approaches to the study of the many manifestations of the paranormal in the Middle Ages. The guiding principle of the collection is to depart from symbolic or reductionist readings of the subject matter in favor of focusing on the paranormal as human experience and, essentially, on how these experiences are defined by the sources. The authors work with a variety of medieval Icelandic textual sources, including family sagas, legendary sagas, romances, poetry, hagiography and miracles, exploring the diversity of paranormal activity in the medieval North. This volume questions all previous definitions of the subject matter, most decisively the idea of saga realism, and opens up new avenues in saga research.
Author(s): Ármann Jakobsson, Miriam Mayburd (eds.)
Series: Medieval Institute Publications. The Northern Medieval World: On the Margins of Europe
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 446
City: Berlin
Introduction: The Paranormal Encounter 1
Part I: Experiencing the Paranormal
Ármann Jakobsson / "I See Dead People": The Externalization of Paranormal Experience in Medieval Iceland 9
Miriam Mayburd / It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Haunted Saga Homesteads, Climate Fluctuations, and the Vulnerable Self 21
Ásdís Egilsdóttir / Happy Endings: The (Para)Normality of Miracles 39
Andrea Maraschi / Þórgunna’s Dinner and Other Medieval Liminal Meals: Food as Mediator between this World and the Hereafter 49
Marion Poilvez / A Troll Did It?: Trauma as a Paranormal State in the 'Íslendingasögur' 71
Sarah Bienko Eriksen / Traversing the Uncanny Valley: Glámr in Narratological Space 89
Anna Katharina Heiniger / On the Threshold: The Liminality of Doorways 109
Sean B. Lawing / The Burial of Body Parts in Old Icelandic 'Grágás' 131
Daniel C. Remein / Paranormal Prose: 'Para-Narrative' and Ice in the Icelandic Sagas 151
Part II: Figures of the Paranormal
Andrew McGillivray / Encounters with Hliðskjálf in Old Norse Mythology 175
Sandra Ballif Straubhaar / 'Ok flýgr þat jafnan': Icelandic Figurations of Böðvarr bjarki’s Monster 193
Arngrímur Vídalín / Demons, Muslims, Wrestling Champions: The Semantic History of 'Blámenn' from the Twelfth to the Twentieth Century 203
Kent Pettit / The New Faith vs. The Undead: Christmas Showdowns 227
Zuzana Stankovitsová / Following up on Female 'fylgjur': A Re-Examination of the Concept of Female 'fylgjur' in Old Icelandic Literature 245
Rebecca Merkelbach / 'Dólgr í byggðinni': Meeting the Social Monster in the Sagas of Icelanders 263
Part III: Literature and the Paranormal
Christopher Crocker / Even a Henchman Can Dream: Dreaming at the Margins in 'Brennu-Njáls saga' 279
Þórdís Edda Jóhannesdóttir / A Normal Relationship?: Jarl Hákon and Þorgerðr Hǫlgabrúðr in Icelandic Literary Context 295
Gunnvör S. Karlsdóttir / Priest Ketill’s Journey to Rome 311
Ingibjörg Eyþórsdóttir / 'Darraðarljóð' and Its Context within 'Njáls saga': Sorcery, Vision, 'Leizla'? 327
Martina Ceolin / Paranormal Tendencies in the Sagas: A Discussion about Genre 347
Shaun F. D. Hughes / Reading the Landscape in 'Grettis saga': Þórhallur, the 'meinvættur', and Glámur 367
Yoav Tirosh / Trolling Guðmundr: Paranormal Defamation in 'Ljósvetninga saga' 395
Védís Ragnheiðardóttir / 'Meir af viel en karlmennsku': Monstrous Masculinity in 'Viktors saga ok Blávus' 421
Index 433
