Miðaldastofa Háskóla Íslands

Fyrirlestrar Miðaldastofu

Ryder C. Patzuk-Russell

Financing Piety, Work, and Retirement

Exploring Próventa and Próventumenn

Fimmtudaginn 9. nóvember 2023 kl. 16.30 / Thursday, November 9, 2023, at 16.30
Fyrirlestrasal Eddu / Edda auditorium

Ryder C. Patzuk-Russell

The issue of retirement is at the center of the current reappraisal of Icelandic monasteries and monastic culture. In the past often viewed as little more than retirement homes for aristocrats, recent research has helped illuminate the variety of social and cultural functions Icelandic monasteries could perform. And yet, some medieval Icelanders did move to monasteries late in life, and lived at monasteries without living under the Rule. Retirement, in whatever form the concept can be understood in a medieval context, was a part of Icelandic monastic culture, but in a more complex and nuanced way than has yet been explored.

This paper will present preliminary research exploring the term próventa, its uses and significations, and its relationship to the idea of retirement. A próventa was a type of financial agreement, a payment for long term housing and services, made by a próventumaður. Most próventumenn lived at monasteries, but some also lived at cathedrals, or even outside any such major religious institution. Some of them worked, some had children. Examining the various meanings and contexts of the term próventa can thereby give us not only greater insight into monastic culture, but into medieval Icelandic social and religious history more broadly.

Ryder C. Patzuk-Russell is a Polonez Bis research fellow at the University of Silesia in Katowice. He finished his MA in Medieval Iceland Studies at the University of Iceland in 2012, and a PhD at the University of Birmingham in 2017. His first book, The Development of Education in Medieval Iceland, was published by De Gruyter and MIP in 2021. His current project, „Monasteries on the Edge of the World: Church and Society in Late Medieval Iceland,“ explores monastic history in Iceland from numerous perspectives, and he is also producing a new English translation of Lárentíus saga byskups.

Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn á ensku og er öllum opinn. / The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.

Fyrirlestrar Miðaldastofu

Ciaran McDonough

What relevance did medieval Irish law have in the nineteenth century?

Fimmtudaginn 2. nóvember 2023 kl. 16.30 / Thursday, November 2, 2023, at 16.30
Fyrirlestrasal Eddu / Edda auditorium

Ciaran McDonough

The project to translate the corpus of medieval Irish law was the antiquarian project of the longest duration in nineteenth-century Ireland, running between 1853 and 1901. At its inception, the proposed legal translations were widely anticipated for their purported potential in unlocking the secrets of Ireland’s “ancient” past. At the publication of the first volume in the series in 1865, European Celticists celebrated the work for its philological value. Yet, early Irish law has held a special place in the popular imagination for what various non-scholarly authors have imagined society under these laws to have been. Tying in with the idea of a golden age, this frequently includes an egalitarian society with little gender disparity and, as such, means that the laws were imagined to provide an alternative justice which was denied through official channels.

This lecture will focus on the afterlife of medieval Irish law by discussing the genesis and production of Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland and how this publication made the legal corpus more accessible for further use. It will begin with an overview of the medieval corpus before turning to previous attempts to translate the laws. The mid-nineteenth century will be discussed and will be set in the context of the pan-European phenomenon of medieval legal translations from around the same time period. It will then look at the project itself and the various problems which led to its long duration. The remainder of the presentation will examine how the publication and translation of the laws led to discussions about their contents and potential for use. This included Nationalist views about a potential law code for an imagined future independent Ireland; a court case where early Irish law was invoked in the 1930s and 1940s; and a series of articles on early Irish land law in a Norwegian newspaper in the 1880s.

Ciaran McDonough is a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow in the Institute of History at the University of Iceland, where she runs her project Medieval Irish and Medieval Icelandic Texts in Nineteenth-Century Translation. She was awarded a PhD by the University of Galway in 2017 for a thesis on nineteenth-century Irish antiquarian research. Her research focuses on antiquarian research and scholarly networks in nineteenth-century Europe.

Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn á ensku og er öllum opinn. / The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.

Málþing — Symposium

Forn kveðskapur norrænn og bragarhættir — Old Norse Poetry and Metrics

Málþing á vegum Miðaldastofu Háskóla Íslands — A University of Iceland Centre for Medieval Studies Symposium

Föstudaginn 27. október 2023 kl. 14.00-17.00 — Friday, October 27, 2023, at 14.00-17.00

Fyrirlestrasal Eddu —  Edda auditorium

Dagskrá — Program:

14.00-14.30 Bianca Patria, University of Oslo: Pseudo-Egill, the Víkingr Poet

14.30-15.00 Klaus Johan Myrvoll, University of Stavanger: Did the Norwegians Understand Skaldic Poetry?

15.00-15.30 Leiv Olsen, University of Iceland: Are There Still Too Many Emendations in Skaldic Poetry?

15.30-16.00 Kaffihlé — Coffee Break

16.00-16.30 Mikael Males, University of Oslo: The Skald’s Victory over Formal Constraints

16.30-17.00 Haukur Þorgeirsson, Árni Magnússon Institute: Words for Witchcraft

Sjá ágrip að neðan — Abstracts below.

Málþingið fer fram á ensku og er öllum opið. — The symposium will be conducted in English. All are welcome to attend.

Miðaldastofa Háskóla Íslands — The University of Iceland Center for Medieval Studies

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Bianca Patria

Pseudo-Egill, the Víkingr Poet

Bianca Patria

This presentation will focus on a lausavísa contained in chapter 49 of Egils saga, concerning a sea-battle between Egill and Þórólfr, on the one hand, and a villain named Eyvindr skreyja on the other, who is introduced in the saga as the brother of Queen Gunnhildr. The lausavísa contains several indications of being a product of the saga author, rather than of the historical Egill, to whom it is attributed. The stanza will first be compared to other sources about the elusive figure of Eyvindr skreyja, in particular the poetic ones, namely lausavísur 3–5 by Eyvindr skáldaspillir Finnsson, first attested in Fagrskinna. It will then be analysed formally and metrically, contrasting its characeristics with the ones observed in other pseudonymous stanzas in Egils saga. The analysis will reveal traits that are typical of the poetry of Pseudo-Egill, some of which have gone unnoticed until now, including the fondness for the use of the word víkingr (otherwise rare in tenth-century verse), as well as a systematic and creative use of echoes from earlier poems.

Bianca Patria is a postdoctoral research fellow in Old Norse Philology at the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies of the University of Oslo. She is currently a member of the research project Norrøn poesi og utviklingen av saga litteratur. Her interests include Old Norse and Germanic poetry, historical linguistics, and metrics, while her research focuses mainly on the diction of skaldic poetry.

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Klaus Johan Myrvoll

Did the Norwegians Understand Skaldic Poetry?

Klaus Johan Myrvoll

A widespread conception among Old Norse scholars is that, in the Middle Ages, only Icelanders could handle considerable amounts of skaldic poetry and thus be able to write sagas in a fully developed prosimetrum. The claim is that Norwegians lacked the knowledge necessary to produce such elaborate prosimetra, skaldic poetry being cultivated by Icelanders and poorly understood by Norwegians. A game-changer in this debate was the unearthing of skaldic poetry on runic sticks from Bryggen, Bergen, in the 1950s. Not only are some of these inscriptions in fully fledged dróttkvætt; they are also all written – and composed! – in the contemporary Old Norwegian language of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This shows that knowledge of skaldic poetry did exist among Norwegians at the time of saga writing, and the question of provenance for many kings’ sagas opens anew. This paper will explore the implications of the Bryggen findings for Fagrskinna and the oldest Óláfs saga helga.

Klaus Johan Myrvoll is professor of Nordic Linguistics at the University of Stavanger. He is currently co-leader of the research project Old Norse poetry and the development of saga literature. Myrvoll has published on a wide range of topics, including Old Norse metrics, skaldic poetry, historical-comparative linguistics, name studies and runology.

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Leiv Olsen

Are There Still Too Many Emendations in Skaldic Poetry?

Leiv Olsen

When we have problems understanding a skaldic poem, the solution has often been to emend it. But are emendations needed? Over time, philologists have found solutions without emendations on problems which were declared insoluble. Many emendations in Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning edition have been solved in the new Skaldic Poetry edition. After all, we could do without these emendations. Still, there are great many proposed emendations in the poetry, and they may be different and contradicting. I have tried to find solutions without emendations, and with very few exceptions, I have found possible solutions. I claim that almost all poems can be given a meaningful interpretation without emendations, only by correct understanding of the correct words in the manuscripts.

There are many faults in the manuscripts, and it is often difficult to find the meaning in the texts. But emendations are risky. We cannot know if proposed emendations will bring the text closer to the original — or, on the contrary, add new faults to the “old” ones. We should work hard to find meaning in the texts we have in the manuscripts. Everyone will agree on that, but are we working hard enough to look for meaningful solutions?

A few established emendations give meanings which seem to be the opposite of what the skald intended. Many more emendations fail to express the very striking wording the artist had chosen. Some emendations ignore the striking visualizations the skald had formulated. Skáldskapr was an art, the skalds created formulations well-adjusted to each individual case, and they were clever to find visualizing wordings — often very vivid allegories. They could tell stories “between the lines” at the same time as they told the main story with words “on the line”.

I cannot be sure that the solutions I present are better than solutions proposed by others. But I can present solutions which do not presuppose any emendations. Are those solutions sound? And should philologists be much more eager to search for solutions without emendations, and to search for the artistic traits in the poems?

Leiv Olsen is a Ph.D. student at the University of Iceland. He holds an MA in Norse philology from the University of Bergen and a cand. philol. in history, also from the University of Bergen.

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Mikael Males

The Skald’s Victory over Formal Constraints

Mikael Males

In one half stanza, Hofgarða-Refr eulogizes his skaldic teacher, Gizurr, using the metre alhent, with rhyme on four out of six syllables per line. Nearly all of it rhyming, and some 20 metrical constraints beyond that; — can Refr actually convey anything of poetic value under such circumstances? The talk will suggest that he does so more than many, presenting sophisticated allusions both to the mythological sphere and to cultural conventions relating to the production and exchange of poetry. If Refr could achieve this in an almost impossibly complex metre, then scholars need to think long and hard about the common claim that skalds based their choice of words on metrical constraints and on the stereotypical kenning “system”.

Mikael Males is professor of Old Norse philology at the University of Oslo. He specialises in Old Norse poetry but has also published on grammatical literature, exegesis, medieval etymology, textual criticism, and Irish influence on Old Norse.

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Haukur Þorgeirsson

Words for Witchcraft

Haukur Þorgeirsson

Icelandic manuscripts of the 19th century contain many spells, prayers, and incantations. These texts can be of interest to scholars of Old Norse since they incorporate and build on medieval material, sometimes not preserved in older Icelandic sources. In some cases, very late Icelandic texts have parallels in medieval Scandinavian runic inscriptions. This talk will analyse an eclectic selection of short texts preserved in late Icelandic sources. The cast of characters includes Saint Mary and Óðinn.

Haukur Þorgeirsson is research professor at the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic studies. His interests include Old Norse and later Icelandic poetry, historical linguistics, and metrics.

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Málþingið fer fram á ensku og er öllum opið.
The symposium will be conducted in English. All are welcome to attend.

Miðaldastofa Háskóla Íslands — The University of Iceland Center for Medieval Studies

 

 

Málþing — Symposium

Víkingar í austurvegi — Legends of the Eastern Vikings

Málþing á vegum Miðaldastofu Háskóla Íslands — A University of Iceland Centre for Medieval Studies Symposium

Föstudaginn 20. október 2023 kl. 14.00-17.00 — Friday, October 20, 2023, at 14.00-17.00

Fyrirlestrasal Eddu —  Edda auditorium

Dagskrá — Program:

14.00–15.00 Neil Price, University of Uppsala: ‘Vikings’ in the (Far) East: The Conceptual Challenges

15.00-15.30 Kaffihlé — Coffee Break

15.30-16.00 Sverrir Jakobsson, University of Iceland: The First Crusaders: Varangians in Icelandic Cultural Memory

16.00-16.30 Daria Segal, University of Iceland: Western Saints in the Old Church Slavonic Litany of All Saints and 12th-century Rus’

16.30-17.00 Þórir Jónsson Hraundal, University of Iceland: Varangians in Arabic Sources

Sjá ágrip að neðan — Abstracts below.

Málþingið er hluti af rannsóknaverkefninu Víkingar í Austurvegi  — The symposium is part of the research project Legends of the Eastern Vikings.

Málþingið fer fram á ensku og er öllum opið. — The symposium will be conducted in English. All are welcome to attend.

Miðaldastofa Háskóla Íslands — The University of Iceland Center for Medieval Studies

—o—o—o—

Neil Price

‘Vikings’ in the (Far) East: The Conceptual Challenges

Neil Price

Over the past three decades or so, the academic study of the Viking Age has largely shaken off the illusion of a Norse ‘expansion’, and of discrete ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ arenas of Scandinavian activity, in favour of a fluid diaspora of movement and exchange. In the course of this same period, the Rus’ and their complicated ethnicities have been re-evaluated as an integrated part of a wider European world. At the same time, we are questioning our terminologies, labels, and ethnic concepts as never before: not just the ‘Vikings’, but also the Rus’ and the Varangians are all being critically deconstructed. However, these revisionist views have largely focussed on Western Europe, and on Northern interactions with Byzantium; much less attention has been paid to contacts with the Caliphate and the Eurasian steppe beyond. This situation is changing fast in textual scholarship, but archaeologists have been slower to engage with the Rus’ extended eastern range, and also with Scandinavian operations along the southern Mediterranean shore. There have been preliminary surveys of the excavated record and the Rus’ material repertoire, including – amongst many others – Tang silks and objects of nomad origin in Scandinavian burials, a field in which Birka studies have tended to dominate alongside the ubiquitous presence of dirhams. But is it really possible to conduct a genuine archaeology of the ‘Vikings’ in Western and Central Asia, and the roles they played in the wider world of the Silk Roads? While there is much talk of potential and the urgent need for the broadening of our research horizons, there is very much less actual work being done – and seemingly little discussion of who can or should be doing it. This paper explores our options and introduces some practical initiatives now underway.

Neil Price is Distinguished Professor of Archaeology at the University of Uppsala, and Director of the Swedish Research Council Centre of Excellence on The World in the Viking Age at the same institution. Educated at UCL, York and Uppsala, he previously held academic posts at the universities of Oslo, Stockholm, and Aberdeen. A specialist in the late Iron Age, at Uppsala he currently directs the ten-year research project on The Viking Phenomenon. His most recent books are The Viking Way (2nd ed., 2019) and Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings (2020).

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Sverrir Jakobsson

The First Crusaders: Varangians in Icelandic Cultural Memory

Sverrir Jakobsson

Medieval identities have been the subject of much scrutiny as a precursor to modern, national identities. Medieval peoples are usually seen as the ancestors, however imperfectly, of modern peoples and the search for their views on themselves have been a part of the debate of the origin of moderns. But what about medieval peoples that did not leave behind any well-defined modern entities? The Varangians are such a group. For a period of three or four centuries, the Varangians existed and then they were gone, seemingly without a trace. They became a part of the memory of people in various European countries and cultures, a memory that progressively was shaped by the rules and requirements of its own metanarrative. The Varangians did not leave behind any modern institutions and very little material remains that can be traced back to them. Their survival was due to their place in a narrative, which can be called the Varangian legend. The grand narratives about the Varangians had different versions within different cultures. One of them is the Russian/Ukrainian concerning the foundation of the earliest Rus state. Another one, which will be the focus of this paper, is the development of the Old Norse tradition of the Varangian warriors in the service of the Roman emperor. The Varangians were incorporated into the cultural memory of Medieval Icelanders in many types of thirteenth and fourteenth century works belonging to the genres of the king’s sagas, the family sagas, and the romance literature. Such works are situated on the border between history and fiction and serve as a guide to a legendary and semi-legendary past. In the cultural memory of thirteenth and fourteenth century Iceland, the formative period of the Varangians was also regarded as a precursor to the era of the crusades. Prominent families from the west of Iceland played a leading role in the commemoration of that past, as people from those families emphasized the connection of their kinfolk to King Haraldr of Norway, the archetypical Varangian in Scandinavian cultural memory. But the Varangian past served its purpose for narrators of history from all of Iceland, as a few common archetypes came to dominate the debate on the Varangians. The Varangian became an exemplary character as to honour and noble behaviour, but also disconnected from Icelandic society and its mundane quarrels.

Sverrir Jakobsson is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Iceland (Háskóli Íslands) and head of the Faculty of Philosophy, History and Archaeology. He has written several books on history, such as Auðnaróðal: Baráttan um Ísland 1096–1281 (2016), Kristur: Saga hugmyndar (2018), and The Varangians: In God’s Holy Fire (2020).

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Daria Segal

Western Saints in the Old Church Slavonic Litany of All Saints and 12th-century Rus’

Daria Segal

While the Christianisation process on the periphery of Eastern and Northern Europe started almost simultaneously, the confrontation between Orthodox and Latin traditions, though present in official church writing from the mid-eleventh century, was not explicitly articulated in secular society until the beginning of the thirteenth century. This study examines the Old Church-Slavonic Litany of All Saints incorporated into the Trinity prayer, a translated compilation of Latin and Greek prayers, produced during a period of close connection between royal courts of Western and Eastern Europe. The Litany includes a peculiar list of saints, including royal Scandinavian and Eastern European ones, as well as regal terminology, which makes it especially relevant for the twelfth-century Rus’, a period of unrest when additional assistance from royal saints would have been beneficial in the processes of legitimising royal power. The Litany has been previously widely discussed in the light of Scandinavian saints’ veneration in Rus’. However, it was rarely contextualized in terms of its relevance to the audience, both earthly and heavenly. Analysing and transcribing the newly discovered text witness, Sin. Slav.13/o, the aim of this talk is to emphasize the significance and impact of the Litany for the royal dynasties of the medieval Rus’, its relevance for legitimization of power, and, on these grounds, proposes a probable dating of the reading preserved in Sin. Slav. 13/o manuscript.

Daria Segal is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Iceland, currently teaching course on Medieval Travelling. She specialises in Medieval Scandinavian and Rus’ian history with an emphasis on written texts along with their transmission and reception by medieval society. In addition, her research interests include Cult of Saints in the Middle Ages. Daria is a co-editor of the upcoming volume “The Making of the Eastern Vikings”, in which she also presents her research on terminology regarding Scandinavians in Medieval Rus’ian chronicles.

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Þórir Jónsson Hraundal

Varangians in Arabic Sources

Þórir Jónsson Hraundal

Numerous medieval Arabic sources contain passages and references on the movements of Northmen in the Viking age. Among the Arabo-Islamic writers they are identified with several different names: in Muslim Iberia they were known by names such as majus (pagan, fire-worshipper) or al-urduman (reflection of Nordman) while in the Middle Eastern corpus they are almost exclusively referred to as Rus or Rusiyyah. An exception to this is a handful of sources which employ the term warank, which is the Arabic version of the Greek varangoi, and the Old Norse væringjar. Even though the instances of this name in the Arabic corpus are few in number they are not without interest, not least since the works in which they appear belong to important and influential scholars of the medieval Islamic world.

In this talk, I will focus on two aspects of the Varangian question in relation to the Arabo-Islamic world. One is the explicit mention of Varangians in Arabic sources, first appearing in the eleventh century in the works of Al-Biruni and Al-Kashgari. I will also look at possible ways of the transmission of the word, and how it may have entered the writings of scholars in Central Asia and Baghdad at such an early stage. Secondly, it addresses descriptions of Rus/vikings in the east that may be connected to their well known role as a special military or guards unit as it comes across in Byzantine sources, and with which the term ‘varangian’ is tightly associated.

Þórir Jónsson Hraundal earned his doctoral degree in medieval studies at the Centre of Medieval Studies of the University of Bergen in 2013, M.Litt. degree at the University of Cambridge in 2005 and BA degree at the University of Iceland in 1998. His research is mainly focused on Arabic medieval geographies and texts describing Rus/Vikings in the east, and their contacts with the Turkic and Islamic worlds.

Málþingið fer fram á ensku og er öllum opið. — The symposium will be conducted in English. All are welcome to attend.

Miðaldastofa Háskóla Íslands — The University of Iceland Center for Medieval Studies

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Fyrirlestrar Miðaldastofu

Simon Halink

The Paradoxical Afterlives of a Heathen Chieftain and a Catholic Martyr

On the Role of Þrándur í Götu and Bishop Jón Arason in Modern National Discourses

Fimmtudaginn 12. október 2023 kl. 16.30 / Thursday, October 12, 2023, at 16.30
Fyrirlestrasal Eddu / Edda auditorium 

Simon Halink

What do a pagan chieftain from the Faroe Islands and a sixteenth-century Catholic bishop from Iceland have in common? Maybe not all that much, at first glance. However, upon closer inspection, the two historical figures have played rather similar roles in the collective memory of their respective peoples. In this lecture, I will examine, from a comparative perspective, the link between the cultural memory of conversion events (such as Christianization and the Protestant Reformation) and modern national identity discourses of Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

With the rise of secular ideologies (notably nationalism) in the course of the nineteenth century, political values such as national self-determination and authenticity oftentimes trumped the traditional values and religious ideals of previous generations. In this presentation, I will explore the multiple (and often paradoxical) ways in which the ideological rewriting of the past, in the new genre of ‘national history,’ radically transformed the normative value attributed to these national narratives’ protagonists and antagonists. Especially the ideological inversion of medieval and early modern conversion narratives (Christianization and the Protestant Reformation, respectively) has led to the refashioning of heathen villains and heretics into national heroes and freedom fighters, with the traditional heroes of these stories (saintly missionaries and reformers) now serving as the destroyers of national authenticity, usually in the name of a foreign and power-hungry monarch. Especially in the modern cultural memory of smaller cultural communities such as Iceland and the Faroe Islands, the ‘traumatic’ loss of independence in the Middle Ages, as well as the strengthening of foreign controle in the wake of the Reformation, are intimately intertwined with the memory of the religious transitions of those periods.

To illustrate this historiographical transformation of ‘good guys’ into ‘bad guys’ and vice versa, I will offer a comparative analysis of two case studies, namely the pagan chieftain Tróndur í Gøtu (Þrándur í Götu in modern Icelandic), who (according to Færeyinga saga) forcefully resisted the Christianization of the Faroe Islands from Norway (c. 1000 AD), and the Icelandic bishop Jón Arason, who defended Catholicism against the Lutheran Reformation imposed by the Danish authorities and was consequently beheaded in 1550 AD. Paradoxically, this Catholic martyr would later be hailed by Icelandic nationalists as a hero of their Lutheran nation, and a defender of Iceland’s autonomy and authenticity.

Simon Halink is a cultural historian at the Fryske Akademy in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. He has previously worked as an Assistant Professor in modern European history at Leiden University, with a main research interest in the development of national identities and national movements in the course of the ‘long nineteenth century’.

Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn á ensku og er öllum opinn. / The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.

Fyrirlestrar Miðaldastofu

Pierre-Brice Stahl

Vafþrúðnismál: A Fair and Just Riddle Contest

Fimmtudaginn 28. september 2023 kl. 16.30 / Thursday, September 28, 2023, at 16.30
Fyrirlestrasal Eddu / Edda auditorium 

Pierre-Brice Stahl

The poem Vafþrúðnismál features the meeting between two mythological figures, the giant Vafþrúðnir and the god Óðinn, who engage in a verbal duel. A close analysis of the text and the genre of questions reveals that Óðinn is not seeking to acquire knowledge through his questions to the giant. The analysis of the nature of the interaction provides a new understanding of the poem and provides insights into various aspects of the poem that have previously been considered problematic. The presentation will demonstrate that the distribution of questions between the two protagonists adheres to a specific logic inherent in the text. Similarly, the analysis of the final riddle reveals that it is not ‘unfair,’ as traditionally interpreted, but serves a specific function: demonstrating Óðinn’s almighty knowledge.

Pierre-Brice Stahl is an Associate Professor of the History of Religion in Nordic Studies at Sorbonne University. He currently serves as the President of the French-speaking Association of Nordic Studies and as the Director of the Bachelor’s Degree program in Nordic Studies at Sorbonne University. His research focuses on pre-Christian religions of the North, as well as riddles and riddling. In 2022, he received his Habilitation for his research on the modern and contemporary reception of Old Norse Mythology.

Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn á ensku og er öllum opinn. / The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.