The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia

ISBN: 1842172603

Author: Price, Neil

Condition: New

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 Smi 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.Table of ContentsList of figures and tablesAbbreviationsPreface and acknowledgements to the first editionPreface and acknowledgements to the second editionA note on languageA note on seid1. Different Vikings? Towards a cognitive archaeology of the later Iron AgeA beginning at BirkaTextual archaeology and the Iron AgeThe Vikings in (pre)historyThe materiality of textAnnaliste archaeology and a historical anthropology of the VikingsThe Other and the Odd?Conflict in the archaeology of cognitionOthers without OtheringIndigenous archaeologies and the VikingsAn archaeology of the Viking mind?2. Problems and paradigms in the study of Old Norse sorceryEntering the mythologyResearch perspectives on Scandinavian pre-Christian religionPhilology and comparative theologyGods and monsters, worship and superstitionReligion and beliefThe invisible populationThe shape of Old Norse religionThe double world: seir and the problem of Old Norse magicThe other magics: galdr, gandr and innic sorcerySeir in the sourcesSkaldic poetryEddic poetryThe sagas of the kingsThe sagas of Icelanders (the family sagas)The fornaldarsgur (sagas of ancient times, heroic sagas)The Bishops sagas (Biskupasgur)The early medieval Scandinavian law codesNon-Scandinavian sourcesSeir in research3. Seirinninn the sorcererinns namesFreyja and the magic of the VanirSeir and Old Norse cosmologyThe performersWitches, seeresses and wise womenWomen and the witch-rideMen and magicThe assistantsTowards a terminology of Nordic sorcerersThe performers in death?The performanceRitual architecture and spaceThe clothing of sorceryMasks, veils and head-coveringsDrums, tub-lids and shieldsStaffs and wandsStaffs from archaeological contextsNarcotics and intoxicantsCharmsSongs and chantsThe problem of trance and ecstasyEngendering seirErgi, n and witchcraftSexual performance and eroticism in seirSeir and the concept of the soulHelping spirits in seirThe domestic sphere of seirDivination and revealing the hiddenHunting and weather magicThe role of the healerSeir contextualised4. NoaidevuohtaSeir and the SmiSmi-Norse relations in the Viking AgeSmi religion and the Drum-TimeThe world of the godsSpirits and Rulers in the Smi cognitive landscapeNames, souls and sacrificeNoaidevuohta and the noaidiRydvings terminology of noaidevuohtaSpecialist noaidiDiviners, sorcerers and other magic-workersThe sights and sounds of tranceInvisible power and secret sorceryWomen and noaidevuohtaSources for female sorceryAssistants and jojker-choirsWomen, ritual and drum magicFemale diviners and healers in Smi societyAnimals and the natural worldThe female noaidi?The rituals of noaidevuohtaThe role of jojkThe material culture of noaidevuohtaAn early medieval noaidi? The man from VivallenSexuality and eroticism in noaidevuohtaOffense and defence in noaidevuohtaThe functions of noaidevuohtaThe ethnicit