(no subject)

[lwood]

Uh.

Y'all heathen guys?

I found a thing...

THE THIRTEENTH INTERNATIONAL SAGA CONFERENCE

Durham and York, 6th-12th August, 2006

Major Theme: The Fantastic in Old Norse / Icelandic
Literature

Secondary Theme: Sagas and the British Isles, especially
Northumbria

Sponsored by: The Viking Society for Northern Research

The British Academy

The Royal Norwegian Embassy, Moscow

http://www.dur.ac.uk/medieval.www/

They've got a few fascinating papers kicking around there and here's a few:

Snorri’s Invention of Hermóðr’s helreið
Are the Spinning Nornir just a Yarn?
Riding the Tree
Land-spirits and Iceland’s Fantastic Pre-conversion Landscape
I'm just starting to go through these, but I think my favorite so far is: "How Elvish Were The Álfar?"


This is probably because it has a killer paragraph like this:

As anyone with any knowledge of archaeology or Nordic and Celtic folklore knows, the idea that there was ever one basic Nordic religion, or one Nordic mythology accepted and known by all of those living across the Nordic (and even Germanic) world is patently absurd. Religious ideas and beliefs in these areas have always varied by time and place, by fashion, by cultural and social environment, and by the general demands of society. Snorri’s suggestion that Óðinn was the accepted leader of the Nordic pantheon is seriously questioned by place name evidence in Norway and Sweden, and by the simple facts that Freyr is called Freyr (‘Lord’); that Þórr has pride of place amongst the gods in both Uppsala (Adam of Bremen) and Mære (Snorri Sturluson 1941-1951: I, 317); and that Óðinn is totally unmentioned in Landnámabók. The idea that there was one idea of the world being created from Ymir (given in Vm. st. 21 and Gylfaginning ch. VII-VIII) seems conflicted by the statement in Vsp. st. 4 that the earth rose from the sea (deftly avoided by Snorri). As John McKinnell has effectively demonstrated in Both One and Many (1994), there were clearly several different images of Loki over time, and a variety of different accounts about Þórr’s fishing trip (some of which ended with him killing the serpent long before Ragnarök).The range of conflicting myths that must have been in existence within the wonderful multicultural gathering of peoples that settled in Iceland in the late ninth century is particularly evident in Snorri’s desperate attempts to construct one image of Nordic cosmology in the Prose Edda, and in the words of the Icelandic editor of the Sigurðr poems in the Codex Regius as he attempts to explain how Sigurðr died (Frá dauða Sigurðar). Written history wants facts. The oral culture, on the other hand, is and has always been happy with variation which is the name of the game in folkloristics.
It is quite clear that if Snorra Edda had been written in northern Norway or south-eastern Sweden, it would have been a very different work. It is also quite possible that the worldview reflected in different Eddic poems is very different. (Compare, for example, Grm. to Vsp. or Skm.) Putting all of these poems together to try to recreate a single cosmology is a questionable process. As both Neil Price and Thomas DuBois have argued, it is time we ceased using Snorra Edda as a starting point for neat structural analyses of a set Nordic cosmology (where whole ideas are sometimes based on a single reference) and start thinking instead of broad, ever-changing ‘belief systems’ (see Price 2002: 26 and 54-55; and DuBois 1999: 7-8; and 10-12; on the untrustworthiness of Snorri, see Hall 2004: 53 and Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson 1988: 129 and 131-132).

Am I going to agree with everything in here? Of course not. But passionate inquiry and discussion of ideas are what keeps heathenry--or any faith!--strong, vibrant, and alive. Some stability is necessary, of course, but not stagnation.

I seek equilibrium...and it's necessarily a dynamic state; dancing on a spearpoint.

Oh, and one more title to tease people:

Spirits Through Respiratory Passages Yes. Exactly what it sounds like.

*swoon*

Now--back to work; that paper won't write itself...

-- Lorrie

Comments

[hagazusa.livejournal.com]

Are you and Diana going to be attending? Would summer in general be a good time to possibly have you guys over for the Seidr seminar? There's quite a lot of interest here. My people have been talking to New Aeon Bookstore in Manchester and they think they could also get a lot people.

Let me know when you guys think you could potentially come over.

[ardaniel]

That particular Saga Conference was this year, not next year; the site changes every time (the 12th was in Germany, the 11th in Sydney, Australia).

You obviously need to find a More Compelling Reason to get those two off their butts and over to Britain. ;) ;)

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Hey!

England is an excellently compelling reason to go by itself--time, however, is the great hurdle...

-- Lorrie

[hagazusa.livejournal.com]

Oops. Reading comprehension is my friend! :)

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Had we known, and if we could have had a seidh workshop to pay our way in, we woulda been on it like white on rice.

However, seeing the papers is also peachy keen, and less expensive...

-- Lorrie

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Er...it was in August. Attending would be hard. No, I'm just burbling about the papery goodness. Mmm, papers.

As for scheduling a seidh workshop, requirements for what it takes to get us are available via www.seidh.org -- mostly we need a place to hold it, and our travel and expenses paid.

The time is always the real headache. Speaking engagements and conventions are lining up, and much of 2007 is already gone, although if I recall correctly August is actually fairly well untouched. E-mail the both of us and we'll see what we can do...

-- Lorrie

[hagazusa.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Lorrie!

[thorolf.livejournal.com]

I need to check back at that site and see what else they've put up since the last time I looked... I know a guy who attended, and have been waiting for him to post reactions, reviews, etc. - may have to send him an e-nudge.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

And that's only the pre-posted stuff. Dammit I want the real things!

-- Lorrie

[emberleo.livejournal.com]

I liked this bit:

"Connections between the vanir and the álfar are, of course, underlined still further by the statement in Grm. st. 5 that Freyr received Álfheimr as tannfé; as well as in the implicit connections between Freyr, his ‘servant’/ alter-ego Skírnir and the sun (known as álfröðull in Vm. st. 47, and Skm. st. 4); in the associations between the vanir and whiteness (cf. the description of Heimdallr in Þrm. st. 15); and in the earlier mentioned parallels between the grave mound worship of Freyr and Ólafr Geirstaðaálfr. These connections were clearly well-noted by J. R. R. Tolkien who seems to have gone out of his way to underline the idea for his ur-mythology that ‘Ingwë’ was ‘the most high lord of all the Elvish race. He... sits at the feet of the Powers and all Elves revere his name... The Vanyar were his people; they are the Fair Elves...’ (Tolkien 1977: 52-53). In Tolkien’s elvish, ‘Vanyar’ means ‘the fair’, something which, knowing Tolkien’s approach, might well be meant to reflect the Indo-European word albh* meaning ‘white’ or brightness"

--Ember--

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. Clearly, the author's fannish, which can lead to a whole chicken-and-egg thing about whether fascination with Northern things came before, or after, fascination with Tolkien things.

However, if you go to the main site where they list all the papers, you'll also see one titled "Frigga and Freyja: One Great Goddess or Two?"--which you might also enjoy.

-- Lorrie

[estaratshirai.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I read that one...and while I agree with the thesis that They're two Ladies Who happen to have some overlap, I still find it disconcerting how often people who write about Them feel compelled to essentially side with One or the Other - this author, for example, obviously being more enthralled with Freyja.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

*ahem* They Are Both Nice Ladies--and I get on well with both of them.

Separately.

In Hrafnar proper, we occasionally touch on Heide as separate from Freyja. The Vanic Conspiracy deals with both Gullveig and Heide as separate from Freyja, and Frigga's Aett chugs through Frigga and all her handmaidens as, well, pretty much all they do.

When I do need to address that place where their spheres of influence overlap, though, that seems to be about where Gefjon lives.

-- Lorrie

[arc-stormcrow.livejournal.com]

Ooohhh! ::bookmarks to read later:: Thanks!

[lwood.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!

-- Lorrie

[estaratshirai.livejournal.com]

Mmm, brain candy. Thanks for the link!

[lwood.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!

-- Lorrie

[murstein.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I've saved the index of abstracts, and will doubtless be mulling them over for a bit.