Trish Baer

MyNDIR Insights: Visual Literacy and Retellings of Norse Mythology (1857–1919)

Þriðjudaginn 26. september 2023 kl. 16.30 / Tuesday, September 26, 2023, at 16.30
Fyrirlestrasal Eddu / Edda auditorium 

MyNDIR (My Norse Digital Image Repository) was launched in June 2013 at the University of Victoria, B.C., Canada. In May 2020, MyNDIR received an Insight Development Grant to add images from the Victorian/Edwardian retellings of Norse mythology and sagas. This presentation will begin with MyNDIR and then focus on images concerning 1) the Victorian makeover of the role of Óðinn and 2) the unstable iconography of Þórr’s hammer. The presentation will conclude with illustrations from Victorian poetry periodicals.

In the hands of Victorian/Edwardian storytellers and illustrators, the Old Norse myths were bowdlerized, moralized, Christianized, and merged with folk and fairy tales. This observation concerning the texts is not new, though the illustrations within the books remain largely unexamined. The sociocultural details of the iconography within the illustrations contain evidence regarding the reception of—and the resulting transmission of—the primary sources.

The role of Óðinn was repurposed when Annie and Liza Keary published The Heroes of Asgard, or Tales From Scandinavian Mythology in 1857. The Keary sisters’ retelling of the Old Norse myths inspired further retellings with Victorian sensibilities. The Kearys present Óðinn as a type of father figure, a kind of colonial ruler whose character remains acceptable today to disparate groups such as Christian homeschoolers and New Age practitioners. The many editions ranging from 1857–2012 and enduring popularity of The Heroes of Asgard raises questions of its cultural value for current readers, and homeschoolers as well, a hundred and sixty-five years after its first publication.

In the primary sources, Mjöllnir is a sacred and ceremonial artifact used to hallow or consecrate births, deaths, weddings, and oaths. However, Þórr’s iconic short-handled hammer also figures prominently as an extraordinary weapon that he uses to defend the gods from the giants. Depictions of Mjöllnir vary a great deal in the Victorian/Edwardian illustrations. Sometimes it resembles a croquet mallet—or it’s only depicted in part or is completely absent. Distorted or diminished, Mjöllnir loses aspects of its fundamental cultural, iconographical, and mythological significance in the “retellings.”

The next version of MyNDIR will feature images and links to illustrations of Vikings from the Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry site. These images, and the poems that inspired them, provide further documentation concerning the Victorian reception of Norse primary sources that were preserved in Iceland and came to the attention of antiquarian scholars in the early 18th-century.

Trish Baer is Medieval Studies Adjunct Professor; ETCL Digital Scholarship Fellow; MyNDIR Editor; and SSHRC Insight Development Grant Project Lead at the University of Victoria, B.C., Canada. Baer’s research interests focus on visual literacy and the transmission and reception of illustrations of Norse mythology in manuscripts and early print books.

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