Margins, Monsters, Deviants: Alterities in Old Norse Literature and Culture

Abstract

Editors Rebecca Merkelbach and Gwendolyne Knight introduce the volume with a robust descriptive definition of the terms “Otherness” and alterity as employed in Old Norse Studies over a range of publications over the last fifteen years. They acknowledge that many of the volume's contributions engage with “Otherness” rather than alterity, but defend the volume's focus on alterity; drawing on postmodern and postcolonial theory, they argue that alterity disrupts the dichotomy between the “Self” and the “Other” and allows scholars to discuss difference without the hegemonic associations implied by “Otherness” (pp. 10–12).The terminology employed in the volume's title and section headings is at times misleading. The term deviancy, for example, is not critically employed in any contribution. The contributions under “Paranormal Beings” all specifically explore transformations. “Rogue Sagas” contributions address issues of canonicity and critical attention within the Íslendingasögur. Contributions to “Marginality and Interconnectedness” all present valuable additions to our understanding of Scandinavia within the global Middle Ages, addressing in turn Old Norse-Icelandic literary and/or cultural engagements with Spain, Turkic nomads, and the various medieval peoples deemed blámenn [lit. blue men] in Old Norse-Icelandic sources. This ambitious collection thus attempts to unite a broad range of studies and critical approaches under the term alterity; the editors write that the volume interrogates alterity both “as a discursive result” of representations within and between texts and as a result of “hegemonic discourses of canonization and marginalization” (p. 12).Gwendolyne Knight's opening chapter lays bare the shortcomings of the etic term “shapeshifting” and argues for a “historical anthropological” (p. 29) understanding of the emic terms hamr, hugr, and fylgja, that in fact describe a “plurality of shapeshifting phenomena” (p. 42) rather than a unified tradition. A standout strength is the dense summary of the history of scholarly use of the terms (pp. 30–33), which demonstrates how “internal inconsistency” (p. 33) of their use, both within the field and the medieval corpus, can lead to imprecise analysis. Knight differentiates between doubling/projection, for which she draws from Tolley and Frog's work on representations of the Sámi, and physical transformation, which includes the use of skins. Knight's striking observation that nearly all extant Old Norse stories of wolf transformation postdate Marie de France's Lai de Bisclavret works against the final conclusion that “trying to separate the ‘native’ from the ‘new’ traditions hardly holds any water” (p. 42).Minjie Su provides an incredibly successful interpretation of Bisclaretz ljóð that relates the stages of Bisclaret's journey to three categories of wolf-related kennings that Su defines (pp. 55–6) —bestial, human, and supernatural—and argues that Bisclaret's werewolf status ultimately enables him to become closer to the king and an extension of his divine justice (p. 61). Su's chapter presents Bisclaret as a static “Other”—a werewolf—and reveals, through the different aspects of wolves’ relational identities explored in kennings, that what it means to be a werewolf is altered over the course of the poem. Woven throughout the piece are reflections on the shared metamorphic qualities of kennings and wolf-transformation.Tom Grant and Jonathan Y. H. Hui provide an exhaustive comparison of the presentations of Goðmundr of Glæsisvellir across a number of Old Norse and Latin sources. They identify a core set of common characteristics—Goðmundr is large, heathen, he has some Úlfrs in his family tree, and has important family connections—on which individual texts then diverge: is he a giant? Is his heathenry benign or malevolent? To whom, exactly, is he related? Examining in particular the stories of Goðmundr in Gesta Danorum and Þorsteins þáttr bæjarmagns, Grant and Hui reveal the ways in which Goðmundr's character is used to adapt motifs found in myths with Þórr and the giant Skrýmir (Útgarða-Loki). Grant and Hui present a convincing argument that Goðmundr's flexible identity and stock features make him attractive to saga writers looking for a legendary stand-in to serve a variety of narrative needs, but the complete omission of Gísli Sigurðsson's work on immanence is notable.Rebecca Merkelbach's contribution complements Yoav Tirosh and Ármann Jakobsson's criticism from the same year of the tautological arguments employed by nationalistically motivated scholars in the Icelandic School to date and distinguish “classical” from “post-classical” sagas. Merkelbach is right to argue that the so-called “post-classical” sagas deserve more critical attention, but the subsequent arguments in favor of preserving the generic distinctions as valid categories are surprising after Merkelbach's initial criticisms, as is her call for a new methodological approach to the “post-classical” sagas. This chapter also overstates the degree to which the “post-classical” sagas are understudied by omitting relevant citations, like Richard Perkins’ work on Flóamanna saga. The case study of Svarfdæla saga offered here is hindered by a disinterest in engaging with “classical” sagas with whom comparison could potentially yield fruitful results. A conclusion would perhaps have offered a model for showing how centering these “post-classical” sagas might shed new light on our understanding of sagas and saga genre.Joanne Shortt Butler takes Heiðarvíga saga as a case study for how physical and narrative absences in texts, as well as how those absences are represented typographically, affect “Othered” perceptions and interpretations of those texts. Heiðarvíga saga is a “fragmented text” (p. 130), parts of which are missing and parts of which have been recovered or reconstructed from memory (pp. 131–35). This fragmented state, Butler argues, has limited scholarly attention to the saga. Butler evaluates the credibility of the narrative content of Jón Ólafsson's reconstruction in light of contemporary science of memory and cognition, the similarly dynamic style of the extant medieval portions of the saga, and Jón's own scrupulous notes (pp. 138–42), and then examines how scholars have approached, transmitted, and studied the saga. She draws on absence theory to consider how scholars have visually represented lacunae in editions (pp. 142–48) and compares how editors present textual gaps to how authors use “literary gaps” to rhetorical effect (p. 149), ultimately recommending that gaps be considered as part of the whole.Roderick W. McDonald presents an exhaustive study of textual references to the Iberian peninsula and successfully demonstrates that Spain functions as a place of alterity in Norse imaginations. McDonald argues that King Hákon Hákonarson's “international interests and connections” and “high level statecraft” (p. 164) are clearly reflected in the depictions of Spain as a place of learning, chivalry, and courtly manners found in Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar and in early riddarasögur associated with his reign (pp. 163–71). McDonald demonstrates that these depictions are consistent from early to late romances, but in Karlamagnús saga and some later romances, McDonald shows that Spain is increasingly characterized as a place where Christians battle heathens in “holy war,” which McDonald connects to thirteenth-century Crusade ideology (p. 172). He concludes by considering how alterity “in no way requires that strangeness is necessarily negative, or that foreigners, or even monsters, are necessarily all enemies” (p. 183).Csete Katona provides a comparative overview of the ritual traditions of the Rus’ and Turkic nomads as described primarily in three tenth-century accounts: Ibn Fadlan's account of the Rus’, Leo the Deacon's Historia, and De administrando imperio (p. 193). Acknowledging that each of these sources are not by Rus’, Katona nevertheless draws forth an astoundingly long list of shared or similar practices as evidence for religious syncretism in Rus’ culture, specifically borrowing from the many Turkic—and Slavic—cultures active in the tenth century in Eastern Europe (p. 194). Katona suggests that the high level of cultural exchange between the Rus’, Slavic, and Turkic groups may be due in part to preexisting similarities of religious elements between the groups, namely, “a polytheistic pantheon of the gods, the veneration of natural spots [near the water's edge,] and the sacrifice of animals or humans” (p. 203).In the collection's final contribution, Arngrímur Vídalín argues that the presentation and function of blámenn, a word used to denote a variety of peoples in Old Norse literature, demonstrates a “very active pre-racial mode of thought” (p. 234) that marginalizes and dehumanizes groups of people based on “superficial characteristics like skin colour and on difference in faith” (p. 219). Arngrímur further argues against distinguishing between a medieval “pre-racial thought” and modern “racism;” he methodically and convincingly argues that both concepts describe the same cognitive processes with the same social effects (p. 225). Arngrímur provides an imminently approachable essay that serves as a primer on the scholarship of racism and its so-far limited application in the field of Old Norse Studies and should be required reading for all students and scholars of Old Norse Studies.This book is a welcome resource for the concepts of “Otherness” and alterity as applied to Old Norse Studies for graduate students and early career scholars. Especially valuable is the partial bibliography included at the end of the introduction, which includes general theory works and specific Old Norse studies (pp. 17–23).