The Mead of Poetry: Old Norse Poetry as a Mind-Altering Substance

Abstract

This chapter examines the Old Norse myth of the mead of poetry in light of the distributed cognition hypothesis. It explains how Norse skaldic poetry scaffolds various cognitive processes, and then argues that the myth of the poetic mead, which sees poetry as an alcoholic substance, is exploited by Old Norse poets to understand and describe poetry’s effect on the mind. Examples are given that suggest poets saw poetry as ‘mind altering’ in ways that resonate with certain aspects of the distributed cognition hypothesis: in particular, that poetry is cognition-enabling through feedback-loop processes; that the mind can be extended into the world and over time in poetry; that cognition can be shared and/or furthered by engaging with other minds; that the body plays a non-trivial role; and that poetry performs mental and affective work in the world.