Paranormal Encounters in Iceland 1150-1400

✍ Scribed by Ármann Jakobsson and Miriam Mayburd

• Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 440
• Series: The Northern Medieval World
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

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.

✦ Table of Contents

Frontmatter I

Contents V

Introduction: The Paranormal Encounter 1

Part I: Experiencing the Paranormal

“I See Dead People”: The Externalization of Paranormal Experience in Medieval Iceland
Ármann Jakobsson 9

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Haunted Saga Homesteads, Climate Fluctuations, and the Vulnerable Self
Miriam Mayburd 21

Happy Endings: The (Para)Normality of Miracles
Ásdís Egilsdóttir 39

Þórgunna’s Dinner and Other Medieval Liminal Meals: Food as Mediator between this World and the Hereafter
Andrea Maraschi 49

A Troll Did It?: Trauma as a Paranormal State in the Íslendingasögur
Marion Poilvez 71

Traversing the Uncanny Valley: Glámr in Narratological Space 89

On the Threshold: The Liminality of Doorways 109

The Burial of Body Parts in Old Icelandic Grágás
Sean B. Lawing 131

Paranormal Prose: “Para-Narrative” and Ice in the Icelandic Sagas
Daniel C. Remein 151

Part II: Figures of the Paranormal

Encounters with Hliðskjálf in Old Norse Mythology
Andrew McGillivray 175

“Ok flýgr þat jafnan”: Icelandic Figurations of Böðvarr bjarki’s Monster
Sandra Ballif Straubhaar 193

Demons, Muslims, Wrestling Champions: The Semantic History of Blámenn from the Twelfth to the Twentieth Century
Arngrímur Vídalín 203

The New Faith vs. The Undead: Christmas Showdowns
Kent Pettit 227

Following up on Female fylgjur: A Re-Examination of the Concept of Female fylgjur in Old Icelandic Literature
Zuzana Stankovitsová 245

Dólgr í byggðinni: Meeting the Social Monster in the Sagas of Icelanders
Rebecca Merkelbach 263

Part III: Literature and the Paranormal

Even a Henchman Can Dream: Dreaming at the Margins in Brennu-Njáls saga
Christopher Crocker 279

A Normal Relationship?: Jarl Hákon and Þorgerðr Hǫlgabrúðr in Icelandic Literary Context
Þórdís Edda Jóhannesdóttir 295

Priest Ketill’s Journey to Rome
Gunnvör S. Karlsdóttir 311

“Darraðarljóð” and Its Context within Njáls saga: Sorcery, Vision, Leizla?
Ingibjörg Eyþórsdóttir 327

Paranormal Tendencies in the Sagas: A Discussion about Genre
Martina Ceolin 347

Reading the Landscape in Grettis saga: Þórhallur, the meinvættur, and Glámur
Shaun F. D. Hughes 367

Trolling Guðmundr: Paranormal Defamation in Ljósvetninga saga
yoav tirosh 395

“Meir af viel en karlmennsku”: Monstrous Masculinity in Viktors saga ok Blávus
Védís Ragnheiðardóttir 421

Index 433