Folklore and Old Norse Mythology (ed. Frog &amp; Joonas Ahola)

Mr Frog

The present volume responds to the rising boom of interest in folklore and folklore research in the study of Old Norse mythology. The twenty-two authors of this volume reveal the dynamism of this lively dialogue, which is characterized by a diversity of perspectives linking to different fields and national scholarships. The chapters open with a general overview of how the concepts of “folklore” and “mythology” have been understood and related across the history of Old Norse studies, which is followed by a group of chapters that discuss and present different approaches and types of source materials, with methodological and theoretical concerns. The interest in folklore is bound up with interests in practice and lived religion, which are brought into focus in a series of chapters relating to magic and ritual. Attention then turns to images that link to mythology and different mythic agents in studies that explore a variety of usage in meaning-making in different forms of cultural expression. The next group of studies spotlights motifs, with perspectives on synchronic usage across genres and different media, cross-cultural exchange, and long-term continuities. The volume culminates in discussions of complex stories, variously in oral traditions behind medieval sources and relationships between accounts found in medieval sources and those recorded from more recent traditions. Individually, the chapters variously offer reflexive and historical research criticism, new research frameworks, illustrative studies, and exploratory investigations. Collectively, they illustrate the rapidly evolving multidisciplinary discussion at the intersections of folklore and Old Norse mythology, where the transformative impacts were recently described as a paradigm shift. They open new paths for scholarly discussion with the potential to inspire future research.

Folklore and Old Norse Mythology Edited by THE KALEVALA SOCIETY FFC 323 Folklore and Old Norse Mythology Ed. Frog and Joonas Ahola Folklore Fellows’ Communications 323 Helsinki 2021, 696 pages Available at the Tiedekirja bookstore, 58€ The present volume responds to the rising boom of interest in folklore and folklore research in the study of Old Norse mythology. The twenty-two authors of this volume reveal the dynamism of this lively dialogue, which is characterized by a diversity of perspectives linking to different fields and national scholarships. The chapters open with a general overview of how the concepts of “folklore” and “mythology” have been understood and related across the history of Old Norse studies, which is followed by a group of chapters that discuss and present different approaches and types of source materials, with methodological and theoretical concerns. The interest in folklore is bound up with interests in practice and lived religion, which are brought into focus in a series of chapters relating to magic and ritual. Attention then turns to images that link to mythology and different mythic agents in studies that explore a variety of usage in meaning-making in different forms of cultural expression. The next group of studies spotlights motifs, with perspectives on synchronic usage across genres and different media, cross-cultural exchange, and long-term continuities. The volume culminates in discussions of complex stories, variously in oral traditions behind medieval sources and relationships between accounts found in medieval sources and those recorded from more recent traditions. Individually, the chapters variously offer reflexive and historical research criticism, new research frameworks, illustrative studies, and exploratory investigations. Collectively, they illustrate the rapidly evolving multidisciplinary discussion at the intersections of folklore and Old Norse mythology. Contents Preface III Mythic Images and Agents Joonas Ahola and Frog: From Theme to Book and Back Again Introduction Joonas Ahola: Divine Gear? “Odinic” Disguise and Its Narrative Contexts in Medieval Icelandic Literature Frog with Joonas Ahola: Opening Perspectives on Folklore and Old Norse Mythology Leszek Gardeła: Women and Axes in the North: Diversity and Meaning in Viking Age Mortuary Practices I Approaches Rudolf Simek and Valerie Broustin: Wise Men and Half Trolls John Lindow: Folklore, Folkloristics, and an “Old Norse Mythology Method”? Tommy Kuusela: The Giants and the Critics: A Brief History of Old Norse “Gigantology” Jens Peter Schjødt: Pre-Christian Religions of the North as Folklore, with Special Reference to the Notion of “Pantheon” IV Motifs and Narratives Sophie Bønding: Conceptualising Continuity in the Christianisation: Towards a Discursive Approach Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir: Mythological Motifs and Other Narrative Elements of Volsunga saga in Icelandic Folk- and Fairytales Olof Sundqvist: A “Turn to Interdisciplinary Methods” in the Study of Old Norse Mythology and Religion: With a Case Study on the Distribution of the Cult of Freyr Laila Kitzler Åhfeldt: Gotland Picture Stones and Narration Frog: Mythic Discourse Analysis Karen Bek-Pedersen: Bolli Þorleiksson’s Celtic Horses II Magic and Ritual V Stories Kendra Willson: Seiðr and (Sámi) Shamanism: Definitions, Sources, and Identities Else Mundal: Old Norse Myths, Heroic Legends, and Folklore: Sources for Old Norse Religion on the Move Stephen A. Mitchell: Notes on historiolas, Referentiality, and Time in Nordic Magical Traditions Joseph S. Hopkins: Phantoms of the Edda: Observations Regarding Eddic Items of Unknown Provenance in the Prose Edda Bengt af Klintberg: The Dead Mother: An Exceptional Nordic Binding Charm Clive Tolley: Heimdallr’s Charm: The Lost Heimdallargaldr and Symbolism and Allusion in the Myths of Heimdallr Kirsi Kanerva: Genre Matters? Female Suicide in Mythic, Mytho-Heroic, and Historical Contexts Eldar Heide: Magical Fishing in Historia Norwegie: Incomprehensible without Late Folklore Terry Gunnell (with Tom Muir): George Marwick’s Account of “The Muckle Tree or Igasill”: Folklore or Literature? Folklore Fellows’ Communications 323 Folklore and Old Norse Mythology Edited by Frog and Joonas Ahola The Kalevala Society Helsinki 2021 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology ISBN 978-952-9534-02-9 ISSN-L 0014-5815 ISSN 0014-5815 Cover image Frog 2020 Tallinn Book Printers, Tallinn 2021 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Contents Preface From Theme to Book and Back Again ......................................................13 Joonas Ahola and Frog Acknowledgements .................................................................................27 Introduction Opening Perspectives on Folklore and Old Norse Mythology ..................31 Frog with Joonas Ahola I Approaches Folklore, Folkloristics, and an “Old Norse Mythology Method”? ..............63 John Lindow Pre-Christian Religions of the North as Folklore, with Special Reference to the Notion of “Pantheon” ........................................................................85 Jens Peter Schjødt Conceptualising Continuity in the Christianisation.................................105 Towards a Discursive Approach Sophie Bønding A “Turn to Interdisciplinary Methods” in the Study of Old Norse Mythology and Religion .........................................................................................133 With a Case Study on the Distribution of the Cult of Freyr Olof Sundqvist Mythic Discourse Analysis .....................................................................161 Frog II Magic and Ritual Seiðr and (Sámi) Shamanism ..................................................................215 Definitions, Sources, and Identities Kendra Willson 8 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Contents Notes on historiolas, Referentiality, and Time in Nordic Magical Traditions ..............................................................................................247 Stephen A. Mitchell The Dead Mother .................................................................................269 An Exceptional Nordic Binding Charm Bengt af Klintberg Heimdallr’s Charm Clive Tolley III Mythic Images and Agents Divine Gear? ........................................................................................381 “Odinic” Disguise and Its Narrative Contexts in Medieval Icelandic Literature Joonas Ahola Women and Axes in the North ..............................................................413 Diversity and Meaning in Viking Age Mortuary Practices Leszek Gardeła Wise Men and Half Trolls ......................................................................451 Rudolf Simek and Valerie Broustin The Giants and the Critics......................................................................471 A Brief History of Old Norse “Gigantology” Tommy Kuusela IV Motifs and Narratives Mythological Motifs and Other Narrative Elements of Vǫlsunga saga in Icelandic Folk- and Fairytales.............................................................501 Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir Gotland Picture Stones and Narration....................................................525 Laila Kitzler Åhfeldt Genre Matters? .....................................................................................551 Female Suicide in Mythic, Mytho-Heroic, and Historical Contexts Kirsi Kanerva 9 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Bolli Þorleiksson’s Celtic Horses ............................................................591 Karen Bek-Pedersen V Stories Old Norse Myths, Heroic Legends, and Folklore....................................613 Sources for Old Norse Religion on the Move Else Mundal Phantoms of the Edda ............................................................................633 Observations Regarding Eddic Items of Unknown Provenance in the Prose Edda Joseph S. Hopkins Magical Fishing in Historia Norwegie ....................................................653 Incomprehensible without Late Folklore Eldar Heide George Marwick’s Account of “The Muckle Tree or Igasill” ....................665 Folklore or Literature? Terry Gunnell (with Tom Muir) Indices Index of Persons ....................................................................................691 Index of Sources ....................................................................................693 General Index........................................................................................695 10 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology From Theme to Book and Back Again Joonas Ahola and Frog A cross especially the past decade, research on Old Norse mythology has exhibited a boom of interest in both folklore collected under the aegis of Romanticism and the perspectives and insights of current folklore research. As seen from the chapters introduced here, the theme of Folklore and Old Norse Mythology is broadly conceived in this book. It can be practically viewed in terms of three broad domains that overlap and intersect: • • • Exploring genetic relations Developing analogical insights Approaching Old Norse mythology as folklore Of course, the classic domain of interest is in historical relations between Old Norse mythology and later folklore. Research on Old Norse mythology emerged with a broad inclusion of evidence of more recent traditions. Across especially the second half of the twentieth century, however, changes in paradigms, theories, and source-critical standards made earlier work incorporating relatively recent traditions look more intuitive than analytical and led to reimagining such comparisons as impossibly problematic. Today, comparisons are being cautiously reopened, building on current knowledge and new methodologies, pioneering into a long-neglected area. The exploration for potential long-term continuities can seem like an uncharted wilderness until, abandoned, crumbled, and overgrown, a structure built by Jacob Grimm or Axel Olrik emerges through the trees: others have indeed tread here before. Analogical comparisons, in their turn, can operate as a type of chart that may help to navigate the landscape and make sense of its contours through connections that are no longer readily apparent, perhaps offering insights into their rationale. The most recent domain of interest is rooted in changing understandings of folklore in the field, which transform the landscape formed by static texts and the objects and places unearthed by archaeology into windows onto a living world of performance, praxis, and competing discourses. The present book invites you to explore these landscapes, guided by authors with a wide range of perspectives rooted in different disciplines and research backgrounds. Each chapter leads down a different path, with particular concerns and points of focus. Some follow well-worn trails to shed light on how and 13 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Joonas Ahola and Frog FFC 323 why they formed in the landscape and bring familiar points of reference into a new light; others take on more rugged terrain that is less well known or work through dense growth, cutting a new path to share a scenic overlook. Whereas most of us begin with difficulty seeing the forest for the trees, we hope that the wide-ranging explorations gathered here will leave you with a perspective on the forest, equipped for further investigations. The present volume is a response to a general move in Old Norse mythology research to advance beyond the philology of textual sources and archaeology of material culture to oral traditions, performance practices, and ways of understanding and engaging with the world behind them. This move has by no means been abrupt. Comparative considerations have always been present, if often implicit, but a crucial factor was a paradigm shift in approaches to folklore that reached a watershed in European and North American research especially in the 1970s. This turn involved a fundamental reconceptualization of tradition from emphasis on abstracted and ideal texts or traditions’ formal elements with continuity in inter-generational transmission (analogous to Saussure’s langue) to focus on tradition as lived and interactive practice or situated performance, with concern for variation (analogous to Saussure’s parole). This turn in folklore research belonged to a much broader paradigm shift that also gave rise to “new philology”, which made later manuscripts interesting as things people did with written texts in particular situations rather than only as source evidence for reconstructing the earliest form of a written work. The many changes that took place during this period led to challenging much earlier comparative research while shifts from diachronic to synchronic interests augmented the formation of a gap between Old Norse studies and research on later folklore. Nevertheless, many corpora collected from the nineteenth century onwards are vast, and these were complemented by fieldwork being done in cultures around the world. This research offered perspectives on how traditions operate and vary in societies that were gradually taken up by individual Old Norse scholars as frames of reference to consider, for example, what might be happening behind the one or two variants of an eddic poem. The tendency to view oral and ritual traditions as static and transmitted with a text stability comparable to scribal copies was slow to give way. Today, however, attention has largely moved to orality and performance behind sources for Scandinavian mythology or religion and the processes that led such knowledge and verbal art to be materialized as written texts, and also to practices as traditions that have left material outcomes in the archaeological record. Iron Age and medieval sources are increasingly recognized as not the traditions per se, but as representing and reflecting what people knew and did in society, thus providing fragmented glimpses into the respective traditions. 14 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 From Theme to Book and Back Again The chapters of the present volume reflect the breadth of these changes through the diversity of their approaches and handling of the issues at hand. The contributions gathered here are linked to one another in countless ways, such as by subject matter, approach, or groupings according to the three broad domains mentioned above. They are arranged in five sections, preceded by an introductory chapter, which opens the concepts of folklore and mythology and the many ways these have been understood through the history of Old Norse research. The opening section then presents different Approaches to the relationship between folklore and Old Norse mythology and folklore research in the study of Old Norse mythology. Although it remains common to presume that myths are stories, central interests of current mythology research are in variation, practice, and lived religion, with the result that perhaps the greater part of attention goes to elements of mythology less complex than complete plots. The following four sections present a variety of case studies that are therefore organized on the arc of this trajectory of interests. This begins at the level of practice with Magic and Ritual, followed by Mythic Images and Agents, and then Motifs and Narration, advancing gradually to the level of plots in the concluding section on Stories. Approaches Five chapters introduce and discuss general approaches to the connections between mythology and folklore in Scandinavian Iron Age and medieval sources. They explore research history, source criticism, analytical methodology, and conceptualizations in relevant disciplines. These contributions address questions surrounding the common conception of myths as narrative expressions of religious ideas and as folklore. They explore methodological questions surrounding the transmission and variation of mythology and associated worldviews, as well as hybridization and syncretism. Even though local and individual expressions found in the sources are often discussed within a larger, collective cultural or religious framework, these chapters remind us that each source is also a unique expression no less than is any particular folklore performance. John Lindow opens the section with an exploration of the history of the study of mythology alongside the emergence and development of methodology in folkloristics. In “Folklore, Folkloristics, and an ‘Old Norse Mythology Method’?”, he provides a detailed picture of the “folkloristic method” that took shape in the Nordic countries, also known as the Historical-Geographic or “Finnish” Method. Lindow brings into sharp focus the problems that were later seen as emblematic of such comparative approaches as well as their 15 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Joonas Ahola and Frog FFC 323 evolution in Old Norse mythology research. He advances to consider whether the adaptations of these approaches gave rise to an “Old Norse mythology method” across the beginning of the twentieth century, and discusses how such comparativism was superseded by the rise of structuralism and the turn to performance. In “Pre-Christian Religions of the North as Folklore, with Special Reference to the Notion of ‘Pantheon’”, Jens Peter Schjødt advances an approach that juxtaposes the research of mythology and folklore in concrete terms. Schjødt relates phenomena in folklore and mythology and the scientific concepts associated with them to create a framework for approaching variation. He uses this framework to confront the currently debated topic of whether or not Old Norse religion entailed a “pantheon” or had a fragmented structure in which worshippers would rely on only a single god for more or less all of their needs. Schjødt’s chapter may be seen as representative of a current need for an encompassing methodology that abandons the ostensible separateness of mythology, religion, and folklore. Sophie Bønding leads discussion into the theme of religious change, continuity, and discontinuity in “Conceptualising Continuity in the Christianisation: Towards a Discursive Approach”. Her chapter offers an accessible introduction into a discourse-based approach to religion and how mythology operates in religious encounters. As an illustrative case study, she scrutinizes the Viking Age Christianization process with focus on linguistic discourses, examining its reflection in the source material. The approach and its comparative dimensions offer a firm empirical foundation and reveals that both the Christian and non-Christian religions and religiosity manifest different forms of syncretism in contemporary linguistic expressions. By bringing religious discourse into focus in this way, Bønding reveals that the assimilation of Christianity was not simply something that happened to people as a result of externally propelled conversion; instead, it was an activity of the subjects themselves across a long period. The adaptation of methods, theories, and perspectives from folklore studies for research on Old Norse mythology is contextualized by Olof Sundqvist within a broader interdisciplinary turn in the field. In “A ‘Turn to Interdisciplinary Methods’ in the Study of Old Norse Mythology and Religion: With a Case Study on the Distribution of the Cult of Freyr”, Sundqvist explores indications of a cult of the god Freyr in Viking Age central Sweden that have surfaced in connection with different disciplines. In so doing, he underscores that the study of a religion without written religious texts necessarily requires a multidisciplinary approach. He shows that the development 16 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 From Theme to Book and Back Again of interdisciplinary approaches enables the posing of new questions that lead to new insights and deeper understandings. The final chapter of this section lays out a methodological approach to “Mythic Discourse Analysis”. Frog argues that it is possible to compare and combine different types of sources through the semiotic connections they share in spite of representing diverse forms of expression. This approach involves breaking down sources into the socially recognizable elements of mythology as discreet “mythic signs”, distinguished according to formal types, and that are combined and transposed in “equations” that produce different sorts of meanings. This approach aims to offer solutions to some of the questions and concerns that come forward in several other chapters. Through their range and variety, these five chapters reflect the vitality and dynamism of ways of linking folklore and Old Norse mythology in different disciplines. Individually, some of these chapters are programmatic in their presentation and advocation of a particular approach, yet the approaches themselves remain largely independent and complementary. Reading them as in dialogue with one another rather than as isolated works makes the chapters reciprocally informative. Despite not developing from any single definition of folklore or mythology, they illustrate the current interest in unified approaches to Old Norse mythology or religion that integrate folklore. Magic and Ritual A relationship between mythology and rituals is salient in many instances, and each may help to understand the other within a given cultural environment. Of course, it has long been recognized that not all rituals are connected to mythological narratives, nor are all such narratives connected to rituals. Nevertheless, mythology and ritual were being conceived as representing the theoretical and practical sides of a non-Christian religion (or “superstition”) as early as in the eighteenth century. Although ritual may concern dimensions of cult, its most common manifestations in a society fall under the aegis of what is commonly called magic, as a prescriptive procedure or flexible framework of rite techniques used to affect change in the world, whether for healing, harm, or to achieve some other aim. Such practices very often involve a verbal dimension of performance, such as a static verbal charm or potentially variable, situation-dependent incantation. These verbal components of ritual practices often engage with supernatural agents and forces of the mythology and many refer to mythic events in so-called w – i.e. short narratives of mythic content associated with charms’ magical efficacy. The 17 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Joonas Ahola and Frog FFC 323 four chapters of this section turn to the areas of practice that connect with mythology. Researchers’ interests and ideologies can easily shape their findings and interpretations. Kendra Willson returns discussion to the history of scholarship to consider the discussion and interpretations of the Old Norse practice called seiðr in this light. In “Seiðr and (Sámi) Shamanism: Definitions, Sources, and Identities”, she surveys the views and arguments on the relationship between seiðr and “shamanism”, usually as associated with the Sámi. These discussions have long concerned questions of the practices being borrowed from one culture into another through comparisons of references and descriptions in Old Norse with much later evidence of shamanic traditions. Willson reveals that these discussions have conformed to general scholarly trends concerning the exchange of cultural influences. She argues that the ambiguity of the sources, on the one hand, and of the scholarly concepts of both “seiðr” and “shamanism”, on the other, have enabled the continuous production of alternative interpretations that will probably not reach an enduring consensus in the near future. Stephen A. Mitchell carries discussion from ritual practice to historiolas as a salient intersection between performed magic and mythology. In “Notes on historiolas, Referentiality, and Time in Nordic Magical Traditions”, he scrutinizes Scandinavian texts from the Viking Age to the nineteenth century that have formal connections to this type of narrative constituent. Mitchell raises interesting theoretical issues concerning the role of mythology in a society where it no longer belongs to the dominant religion. He shows that mythology and associated beliefs are able to survive under these circumstances as adaptations to forms of religion-related activity that maintain their relevance, even when people do not necessarily have a clear picture of what the mythic elements refer to. Bengt af Klintberg brings forward a particular case in “The Dead Mother: An Exceptional Nordic Binding Charm”, which presents an image of nine sons who carry their dead mother. The case study leads the reader through the world in which the charm’s variants were documented and its applications at that time. He observes that this image seems to have been no more clear to the people who used the charms than it is to a present-day reader, and he explores its potential associations. af Klintberg argues that the image embedded in the historiola likely has connections to certain elements in Scandinavian mythology. This chapter is a valuable illustration of the challenges presented by verbal charms as source material, as well as their interest for the potential perspectives that they may offer. 18 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 From Theme to Book and Back Again The section is brought to a close by Clive Tolley’s extensive study of “Heimdallr’s Charm: The Lost Heimdallargaldr and Symbolism and Allusion in the Myths of Heimdallr”. This case study situates the two brief references to an otherwise unknown poem called the charm or incantation (galdr) of Heimdallr at the nexus of a wide-ranging study. Little is known of Heimdallr, who is referred to as the son of nine mothers in the preserved lines of the poem. Tolley constructs an image of Heimdallr through the close reading of a number of sources, also connecting back to the historiola addressed in af Klintberg’s chapter. By comparing his observations with later Scandinavian and Finnic oral traditions, he builds up a more nuanced understanding of the scant medieval sources that builds into a general perspective on the Old Norse charm tradition, from its Germanic roots to its manifestations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Together, these chapters highlight that mythology becomes bound up with practices and areas of social life. They illustrate how elements of mythology can maintain relevance and survive in connection with such practices, even when their significance becomes obscure. Although the studies bring out some potential pitfalls of comparativism and how the interests and ideologies of scholars may impact on interpretations, they also elucidate the potential of gaining insights into the practices behind the scattered and limited evidence of particular traditions. Mythic Images and Agents The elucidation of the god Heimdallr at the conclusion of the preceding section anticipates the turn to the images of different types of mythic agents, highlighting that their significance is not limited to their appearance in stories about gods and their adventures in mythic time. Such agents hold a central position in Scandinavian mythology. Those that are subject to veneration become emblematic of religion, yet the variety of such agents extends far beyond these, including those that interact with gods in cosmological time, others encountered by heroes in the ancient past, and also those encountered by the settlers of Iceland, Christian missionaries, and so on. The characteristics and qualities imagined for these agents are constructed through the narratives and motifs with which they are associated, and then may carry over into additional contexts. They may also be metonymically identified through their particular features or objects associated with them. Metonymic identification allows both particular agents or types of agent to be used referentially in a number of ways, such as recognizing someone as a troll or simply as “trollishness” through the character’s description, identifying a character as 19 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Joonas Ahola and Frog FFC 323 “Þórr-like” through motifs linked to the god, or Þórr’s hammer being sufficiently emblematic that it was used as a popular amulet in the Viking Age. Mythic images and their usage are central to mythology and religion, and it is often at this level of images that the dynamics of mythology in both society and discourse can be most vibrant. The four chapters in this section explore images of different types of mythic agents from a number of angles, from their background in the Iron Age through their evolution across subsequent centuries, including consideration of the sort of work they do in medieval literature. Joonas Ahola opens discussion by exploring networks of associations and meanings constructed through the patterns of use of what might seem a rather mundane and commonplace image. In “Divine Gear? ‘Odinic’ Disguise and Its Narrative Contexts in Medieval Icelandic Literature”, he surveys different instances in which a cloak appears as a particularly mentioned accessory in the corpus of medieval Icelandic literature. Ahola’s discussion illustrates how a single attribute may be connected in narration both to a character’s appearance and to their activities, which enables the attribute to carry connotative meanings through the associative connections between different narrative characters and their actions. The cloak is a type of gear associated in the mythology with Óðinn, and Ahola shows how an attribute emblematic of a certain agent or type of situation in the mythology may referentially alter the significance of that attribute in different narrative genres. Leszek Gardeła advances discussion on how mythic images are linked to characterizations, connecting back to the topic of ritual practices in an investigation of certain gear and its contexts in the archaeological record. In “Women and Axes in the North: Diversity and Meaning in Viking Age Mortuary Practices”, he scrutinizes burial finds of females supplied with axes, discussed through comparison with Old Icelandic sources and later folklore. Gardeła’s source material is diverse and spread across centuries, building a compelling, multifaceted argument that the axes as burial finds in female graves refer to their ritual use. This chapter is an excellent illustration of how interdisciplinary study of diverse sources may shed light on ritual practices and underlying religious conceptions, in this case connected to a single type of object. The connection between mythic images and identities are approached from a different perspective by Rudolf Simek and Valerie Broustin. In Old Norse research, decent from gods has been discussed extensively for royal genealogies and in contexts of euhemerism. In “Wise Men and Half Trolls”, Simek and Broustin show that Icelandic sagas connect many Icelandic families prominent in the time of saga writing to ancestors that are genealogically 20 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 From Theme to Book and Back Again linked to trolls. They discuss why trolls – quite counter-intuitively from the perspective of modern research – seem to have provided a noble ancestry in a way similar to euhemerized gods. Their chapter introduces the important topic of genealogical lore with a reassessment of common presumptions about medieval attitudes towards trolls and giants as mythic beings. The discussion of counter-intuitive roles of trolls leads to the section’s final chapter, which turns to giants in the history of scholarship, and how scholars have constructed and reconstructed images of giants in relation to their contemporary contexts. In “The Giants and the Critics: A Brief History of Old Norse ‘Gigantology’”, Tommy Kuusela provides an extensive survey on the different scholarly approaches to the central counter-role to the gods in the mythology. He discusses the evolution of discussion surrounding both the agents called jǫtnar in medieval Icelandic sources and giants in later traditions. Linking across these categories leads to highlighting the problems connected to terms for different types of agents and how to translate them, as well as how different types of agents become interpreted through researchers’ categories. Kuusela’s survey returns to the issues raised by Willson regarding how researchers’ views have been shaped by contemporary thought and debates, and then reciprocally impact the images of the mythology that they construct and propagate. These four chapters begin from how objects seen as attributes are socially constructed as emblematic of certain identities, whether of a particular god or of a ritual practitioner. Beginning with meaning-making in the narrative world of sagas and followed by meaning-making in burials of living communities, they advance to the symbolic capital conferred by descent from mythic agents. Challenging researchers’ assumptions about the evaluation of such agents opens into an exploration of how the meaningfulness of these agents is subject to ongoing construction and negotiation by scholars, impacted by the worlds in which they live and work. Together, progression through this series of case studies offers a multifaceted view of how mythic images and agents operated in the mythology, life, literature, and later folklore of Scandinavia up through scholarship in the present day. Motifs and Narration Motif (or motive) is a term that moved into the spotlight in folklore studies in the first half of the twentieth century through the emergence of indexing projects that produced infrastructures for comparative research. The concept goes back to the mid-nineteenth century, when the analysis of folktale plots broke these down into a chain of elements in sequence, which might also be 21 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Joonas Ahola and Frog FFC 323 used across different tales. These elements were eventually indexed in their own right. Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir opens this section with a discussion of various ways the term motif has been defined and used, highlighting that it was initially heuristic rather than analytical. Nevertheless, approaching traditional narratives as constituted of motifs that might vary or be found across different stories is fundamental to current thinking in research. In “Mythological Motifs and Other Narrative Elements of Vǫlsunga saga in Icelandic Folk and Fairytales”, Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir explores how, like images, mythic motifs exhibit dynamic and varied use as well as a longue durée of use. This exploration begins from the medieval forn aldarsögur, the class of sagas that narrate the mytho-heroic milieu, where Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir reveals the interconnections of these sagas with both mythology and folktales. She then traces motifs from an influential saga through their manifestations in later folklore, illustrating the interplay of continuity and evolution of mythic motifs across centuries. Mythological and mytho-heroic narratives are preserved in iconographic representations as well as written works. In her pioneering “Gotland Picture Stones and Narration”, Laila Kitzler Åhlfeldt examined units of narration as they appear on Gotlandic picture stones. She applies Oral-Formulaic Theory to the study of these compositions, which employ a carving technique utilizing templates for both repeating the same pictorial motifs and also for the production of distinct images by, for example, adding attributes to a male or female figure. The article raises intriguing questions concerning the interpretation of different media and makes a new kind of contribution to the study of picture stones as pictorial narration. In “Genre Matters? Female Suicide in Mythic, Mytho-Heroic, and Historical Contexts”, Kirsi Kanerva approaches the depictions of female suicides and death from grief in three different genres and the meaning-producing dialogues between them as well as other material in the corpus. Her central cases are the death of Baldr’s wife Nanna from grief, the suicide of Brynhildr in Vǫlsunga saga and eddic poetry, and the grief of Guðrún Ósvífsdóttir in Laxdœla saga. Kanerva explores how the genre affects the expression of attitudes towards suicide, highlighting the impact of a genre on what is represented. Her analysis situates the different representations in relation to social values in the environment of readers and audiences as well as the contexts in which they are narrated, offering a nuanced perspective on variation across these discourses. Discussion of Laxdœla saga continues in the final chapter of this section. In “Bolli Þorleiksson’s Celtic Horses”, Karen Bek-Pedersen turns to the classic concern of comparative folklore in cross-cultural comparison. She 22 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 From Theme to Book and Back Again examines connections between horses as mythic agents in Icelandic and Irish medieval sources and their roles in narration. In the past, comparative studies often sought to unravel the relationships between traditions and their direction of spread as an end unto itself. Bek-Pedersen uses the identification of historical influence as a tool for gaining a more nuanced understanding of meanings. She shows that the referential connection to Irish tradition reveals a greater depth to character development in the Icelandic saga, which juxtaposes Irish heroes with an Icelandic historical character, further illustrating how the referential engagement of mythology may alter significance. These four chapters highlight the position of motifs in the transmission and variation of mythology. Like images, motifs become instruments of meaning-making, whether they shape the context into which they are drawn, are subordinated to that context and its priorities, or some combination thereof. Within the history of comparative research, the distinction of motifs is particularly important, because problems of many early comparative studies were linked to the presumption that mythology was constituted of plots as wholes that were simply transplanted from cosmological to heroic or fairytale contexts or from one culture into another. The chapters gathered in this section emphasize that stories are constituted of pieces that people can take up, recombine, and use in new ways, adapting and altering them to the needs and interests of the new genre or context of use. Stories Stories are popularly imagined as at the core of a mythology, frequently conceived in terms of static and ideal plots. As the previous section highlights, current research has become deeply aware that the reality of traditions proves far messier. Of course, complex narratives can circulate widely and survive through centuries of oral transmission, not to mention their potential movements between oral discourse, the aural discourse of public reading, and private reading as well. Nevertheless, when narratives are transmitted from one cultural context to another, from one era to another, and from one narrative genre to another, the whole frame of reference is altered and necessarily leads to transformations of the subject matter – if not formally, then minimally by the meanings given to the narrative in reception. The four chapters in this final section explore mythological narratives as discourse in different genres of expression, as well as their transformations and adaptations across time. Else Mundal begins discussion by taking up issues of genre and highlighting the different types of primary evidence for Scandinavian nonChristian religion in “Old Norse Myths, Heroic legends, and Folklore”. She 23 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Joonas Ahola and Frog FFC 323 assesses the value of different categories of sources from the Middle Ages to more recent times, bringing this classic question into connection with the current view that religious conceptions varied not only over time but also areally. As a consequence, a source-critical approach to the dispersed and dissimilar sources is all the more crucial. Mundal’s overview draws together numerous threads from preceding chapters, weaving these together with a view toward future directions of research. Among the most vexing questions in Old Norse mythology concerns the potentially lost stories behind references, quotations, and summaries or allusions, as in the case of lines from a charm about Heimdallr discussed by Tolley. Joseph S. Hopkins takes up this topic in “Phantoms of the Edda: Observations Regarding Eddic Items of Unknown Provenance in the Prose Edda”. He reviews passages of eddic poetry quoted in Snorri Sturluson’s Edda where a poem or other source is possible in the background but no text has survived. Hopkins argues that the quotations have not simply been composed for the sake of Edda’s narration, a view supported by parallels between Snorri’s Edda and Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum, although those parallels lead into the question of whether the common information is rooted in an oral tradition or might reflect an early circulating written source. The search for continuities from stories in medieval sources into folklore recorded in the nineteenth and twentieth century is often seen as emblematic of interest in later folklore, especially where the later folklore can fill gaps in understandings of the early material. Eldar Heide takes on the challenge of such a study in “Magical Fishing in Historia Norwegie: Incomprehensible without Late Folklore”. Such comparative studies have a history of controversy, and Heide is careful to establish his methodological footing. Through comparative evidence provided by later ethnographic descriptions and nineteenth-century folklore of Norway and Iceland, he illuminates an obscure statement in the medieval Historia Norwegie connected to fishing by the Sámi, demonstrating a background of the description in legend traditions that must have a continuity of many centuries. Of course, many cases of possible long-term continuities are much more problematic to assess, resulting in open questions that beg further research. The book is brought to a close by just such a riddlesome case presented by Terry Gunnell with Tom Muir. In “George Marwick’s Account of ‘The Muckle Tree or Igasill’: Folklore or Literature?”, they offer a source-critical examination of a purportedly oral tradition documented in the Orkney Islands at the turn of the twentieth century. The story “The Muckle Tree” bears remarkable similarities to Scandinavian mythology in both plot and the names it includes, yet it also deviates from what is known from medieval sources in striking 24 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 From Theme to Book and Back Again ways. Gunnell and Muir raise the possibility that this account is rooted in the circulation of an early translation Scandinavian mythology that may have been available in the Orkney Islands, in which case the written work would seem to have entered into oral lore. However, many traditions found in the Orkney Islands seem to have roots in the Middle Ages or earlier, supporting the possibility of a locally developed variant of the death of the god Baldr with long-term continuity. The chapters of this final section return to questions that were central to discussions of folklore and Old Norse mythology a century ago, both in their explorations of potential continuities from ancient times into post-medieval folklore and also in opening relationships of accounts in medieval sources to one another and to broader traditions. The present authors, however, approach these questions with current theories and understandings of how traditions operate as well as awareness of the methodological caveats that undermined the sustainability of many interpretations in earlier scholarship. Although the questions were being asked more than a century ago and such investigations were subsequently marginalized in research, these chapters reveal their value, relevance, and interest today, showing that they can be addressed in methodologically sound ways. Full Circle The five sections of this book form a cycle. Although the chapters are independent and focus on different cases, the cycle of the sections loosely follows that of a contemporary monographic study. The introduction outlines the topic, the first section discusses theories and methodology, the second situates the object of research interest in society, simpler units of the tradition are then brought into focus, building up to those that are more complex. This organization in itself reflects significant differences from research in the first half of the twentieth century, when comparative use of post-medieval folklore was popular. First, methods and theory are not only foregrounded, but also plural and dynamic, rather than exclusive, rigid, and mechanically implemented. Second, society and practices are in focus rather than treating mythology as something to be approached as an ideal object independent of them. Third, attention is on forms of variation and meaning production rather than on a unified and reified vision of which all sources are fragmentary and imperfect reflections. Rather than leading to conclusions per se, the progression through this book’s sections invites the reader to reflect on questions of larger scope that were the focus of the opening section on theory and methods – questions that have become central points of concern in the field. 25 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Joonas Ahola and Frog FFC 323 This book is more than the sum of its chapters: it points to a watershed in how scholars engage with folklore research and post-medieval folklore, which itself reflects a breakdown in the tendency in Old Norse Studies to view “folklore” as something exclusive to post-medieval cultures. Using post-medieval folklore and perspectives gained from it in research on Old Norse mythology and religion is, in a sense, a return to what researchers were doing a century ago, yet, it is also done with the benefit of a century of development in theories, methods, and knowledge of methodological caveats. In several respects, this constitutes a reopening of scholarship to possibilities that were an integrated part of research as it took shape across the nineteenth century, returning to it with the insights and understanding that have accumulated while folklore and folklore research were kept at a distance. The diverse contributions brought together in these pages shed new light on questions in each of the three central domains of interest in folklore and Old Norse mythology mentioned above, while the discussions they unfold bridge across these domains and the various disciplines that engage them. Taken individually, each chapter offers new insights, perspectives, and potentially also new tools that will be of value to future research. When considered together, they illuminate a rising trend in research on Old Norse mythology and perhaps also – at least to some extent – its course for the future. Through reading this volume from different perspectives, the dialogues between the chapters gathered here, with the many works that they engage beyond the covers of this book, offer a foundation for advancing these discussions in new and unforeseen directions. 26 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Opening Perspectives on Folklore and Old Norse Mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola T his volume is organized around an intersection of the slippery concepts of folklore and mythology in combination with Old Norse. The term Old Norse properly refers to a group of historical language forms characterizing a phase in the history of North Germanic, although where this is delineated on a chronology varies.1 The term is metonymically applied to the cultures of speakers of the respective language forms. The transposed usage for culture (often simplified to Norse) is well-established and untethered from discussions of how the language phase should be defined and dated. It is instead a heuristic category for addressing Scandinavian-speaking cultures from roughly the cultural changes that are linked with the beginning of the Viking Age (usually dated ca. 800–1050), which has long been a nexus of research interest, through the majority of important medieval vernacular written sources with which researchers are concerned. Thus Old Norse usually covers everything from the eighth or ninth through at least the thirteenth, often the fourteenth, and sometimes the fifteenth century. The terms folklore and mythology are notoriously elusive. The words are so commonplace that they easily get taken for granted as meaning one thing or another, yet the concepts are difficult to pin down. Both as phenomena and in their definition as scientific concepts, folklore and mythology have been approached in different and sometimes incompatible ways throughout the history of scholarship and also in popular discussion. Approaches up through the present day have followed a variety of research interests, yet they normally build on previous scholarship and discussions that have spanned across disciplines. These factors make the possible ways of linking these concepts manifold, varying sometimes considerably by a scholar’s research background, interests, and approach. The chapters of the present book are united by current trajectories of interest in connecting mythology and folklore in the field of Old Norse studies. They also illustrate that these trajectories are not characterized by a 1 Accessibly illustrated in Schalin 2018: 38, Table 1; see also Wiegland 2002. 31 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 programmatic agenda for how either mythology or folklore should be defined in the field. The contributors have backgrounds in diverse disciplines and national scholarships, which shape their respective interests and concerns, how they conceive folklore and mythology, respectively, and how they relate the two. The present introduction is intended to help the reader get to grips with this diversity by generally introducing the concepts of folklore and mythology and ways they have been defined, with emphasis on how they have been related to one another, followed by a brief look at how they have been conceived and related across the history of Old Norse studies. What Is Folklore? The concept of folklore emerged in the era of National Romanticism, with its beginnings in the Enlightenment. In educated discussion, Classical Latin and Greek ideas tyrannized views on poetics and aesthetic standards until they were overthrown by Robert Lowth. Lowth (1753) argued that the Hebrew Bible was poetry – but poetry based on the principles of the Ancient Hebrew language and culture, which could not be recognized and appreciated if analyzed as though it were Greek or Latin. Moreover, since poetry was seen as a product of divine inspiration, Biblical poetry had to be considered the best poetry, because the Hebrews were the only ones who got religion right. Whatever we may think of Lowth’s arguments today, they became a springboard for valorizing traditions of other cultures. Johann Gottfried von Herder was considerably influenced by Lowth, even if he argued hotly against some features of Lowth’s model of the origin of Hebrew poetry (Baildam 1999: 57–58). Herder theorized that language defines the way that we think and perceive the world and thus that there is a fundamental difference between the worldviews of different language groups and their respective cultures. Lowth’s work provided a platform for considering a culture’s traditions on their own terms, focusing on their aesthetics as reflecting the spiritual world and thinking of the respective people. Herder was also influenced by Giambattista Vico’s pioneering developments toward a theory surrounding the history of mentalities (Hutton 1992; 1996: 539– 540). According to Herder, the language and character of an ethnos (= nation) evolved in interaction with the people’s surroundings, and thus their original, defining language and character was altered under external influence. In order to understand the real character of a people (Volk), it was therefore necessary to look back to its ancient history for evidence of its original state. In search of the essence of a German national character, Herder found the German language at its purest in contemporary folk songs, a number of 32 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives which he had published, along with those of other peoples (see Herder 1846). He observed that both the language and the contents of the songs reflected circumstances of bygone eras from which they derived (Wilson 1973: 826–827; see also Liamin 2018). Herder’s ideas and the discussions of which they were a part enabled a new type of cultural capital: traditions were documented and repackaged, reified into consumable texts, and commodified as objects that could be collectively owned as the heritage of a nation. These activities took place alongside and conjoined with more complex and sophisticated philological projects that both reconstructed and validated traditions of the past, exemplified by Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie (1835). Representatives of modern, educated societies were making objects out of culture that was historically or socially “other”, transforming it into something significant for their own contemporary audiences (Anttonen 2005). The term folklore was coined by William Thoms in 1846 (“Folk-Lore”). He conceived folklore not only as an object of research but also as a “branch of Archaeological study” (1850: 223), hoping that some “James Grimm shall arise who shall do [the same as Jacob Grimm] for the Mythology of the British Islands” (1946 [1846]: 361; see also Emrich 1946; Roper 2008). During the nineteenth century, the “lore” of a “folk” referred first and foremost to European oral traditions that could be documented from, ideally, people whose ways of life had not been significantly impacted by literacy, urbanization, and industrialization. Folklore was widely seen as a type of cultural relic, something belonging to the past that could be documented in the present. This approach precipitated into Edward B. Tylor’s “doctrine of survival in culture”. Tylor theorized a “survival” from an anthropological perspective as a sort of anachronism in a society that has become dislocated from a more “primitive” cultural state to which it naturally belonged. The boundaries of what was or was not folklore varied. In the Nordic countries, folklore included ballads and other forms of oral poetry, and it was tightly linked to, or directly included, mythology. Conversely, in British scholarship, song traditions became studied separately from folklore as predominantly comprised of storytelling, customs, and sayings (Dorson 1961). British scholars also distinguished folklore from mythology, which would not qualify as a “survival” until it became divorced from religion (Gomme 1885). The definition of folklore as dislocated “survivals” equally excluded folklore from “primitive” societies, in which traditions would still be in their natural environment (Spence 1921: ch. 8). Some of these scholars were nevertheless driven by comparative methodologies to include traditions found in “primitive” cultures under the aegis of “folklore” even while upholding Thoms’ characterization of 33 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 folklore as an archaeology of cultural artefacts (Lang 1884).2 Defining folklore in terms of “survivals” was incompatible with the direction taken by the study of folklore in North America, where the research of Native American traditions was a priority (Newell 1888; Mason 1891). The exclusion of traditions found in contemporary “primitive” cultures was eventually rejected more widely as “ebenso wenig richtig wie nötig” (‘just as little correct as necessary’) (Krohn 1926: 25n.1; see also Jacobs 1892), yet folklore continued to be conceived as “other” from the perspective of modern societies. As modernization marched forward and the genres customarily identified as folklore disappeared or were “corrupted” through literacy, usage of the word folklore began to change, shifting from European traditions that could be documented to European traditions that had been documented and traditions that could still be documented elsewhere. Significant changes in conceptions of folklore only advanced with the reflexive considerations carried by Postmodernism. The presumption of folklore as “other” was entangled with ideologies of modernity. Literacy, scientific epistemologies, and institutionally administrated knowledge or practices were treated as emblematic of modernity, which made their opposites – orality, non-scientific thinking, and socially-mediated knowledge and practices – emblematic of otherness, characterizing the “folk” and “primitive” societies. Although the contrast may seem natural and intuitive with a basis in empirical reality, ideologies of modernity polarized these differences. Features emblematic of modernity such as literacy or scientific rationale were made invisible among the “folk”, while orality and non-scientific thinking were correspondingly invisible in modern milieux.3 Questioning the assumptions behind these polarized contrasts led to recognizing folklore as something also found in contemporary modern cultures, which demanded a fundamental rethinking of the concept.4 At roughly the same time, changing technologies made audio and then video recording practical. These facilitated the documentation of performances in real time and in wide-ranging situations rather than in often interruptive processes of dictation for manual transcription. They alleviated 2 On the intimate and evolving relationship between the study of folklore and colonialism, see Naithani 2010. 3 On ideologies of difference, see Gal & Irvine 2019. 4 Alan Dundes’ article “Who Are the Folk?” (1980 [1977]) – where the answer to the eponymous question is “We are!” – is sometimes treated as iconic of this change. However, the same view is found already as the concept of folklore was taking shape in North American scholarship most of a century earlier (Mason 1891). The North American perspective enabled theorizing that folklore will commonly spread from more advanced to less advanced societies rather than the reverse, imagining modern societies as the apex of the dissemination of folklore rather than outside of it (Newell 1895). 34 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives researchers’ need to focus on the verbal text to ensure that it was accurately recorded, and the new types of data made it much more feasible to analyze and compare non-linguistic features of performance. The changing technologies were thus instrumental in the advance to consider folklore as more than text to be captured on a page (Katajamäki & Lukin 2013; see also Fine 1984). These developments combined with the shift of interest to what has been called the performance-oriented turn, bringing into focus folklore as practice by individuals as agents in situations and with intentions rather than simply being passive mediators of traditions (e.g. Abrahams 1968; Ben Amos & Goldstein 1975; Bauman 1984 [1975]). The impacts on ideas about folklore as an object of research were transformative (Frog 2013), evolving especially across the last decades of the twentieth century. Conceptions of folklore continue to vary, but they can be viewed in relation to three basic criteria, beginning with: 1. Folklore is a category of knowledge or competence. Earlier approaches to folklore focused on the “lore” as knowledge, both as “beliefs” and as knowledge of repeatable arrangements of signs – “things” made of language (songs, proverbs), mediated through language (stories) or enacted (rituals) – of which different examples could be compared as variations of “the same thing”. More variable traditions were often also acknowledged as folklore, but they tended to remain peripheral because traditions were viewed through the recorded products and such traditions did not yield material conducive to text-centered comparisons. The performance-oriented turn extended knowledge of “things” to incorporate competence in a broader traditional system, such as in a form of oral poetry or a system of rite techniques. Broadening the view was conjoined with a shift in attention from texts as products to competencies and processes, bringing the systems of verbal art or practices into focus. Well into the twentieth century, the “lore” of folklore was defined negatively in relation to modern knowledge, which is at the root of a second criterion: 2. Folklore is transmitted through social networks without institu tional administration. Folklore was initially characterized as uneducated and oral in contrast to modern education and literacy. Today, oral, written, and electronic media are recognized as channels of communication. Folklore is no longer conceived as distinguished by channel but rather by a process of communication that allows for negotiation or contestation rather than being unilaterally imposed 35 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 and regulated either by an external administration or by a textual form conceded as a non-negotiable authority. As a rule of thumb, folklore is characterized by variation, which has been included in many more recent definitions (e.g. Honko 2013 [1991]: 33–37). However, variation per se does not define something as folklore; it is as an outcome of social transmission. The types and degrees of variation are linked to the medium, such as oral, written, or electronic. For instance, variation in skaldic dróttkvætt verse as a mode of communication will be different than in third-person fornyrðislag narrative poetry, dialogic ljóðaháttr poetry, or prose. Any of these may be affected again by whether it is “performed” with its conventional voicing and rhythm, dictated, manually rendered through writing, and so on. However, the human factor is also significant: social conventions customarily lead to avoiding or minimizing variation for some things while remaining indifferent to variation in others, and particular individuals may subscribe to these conventions or engage with them in idiosyncratic ways.5 When defining the concept, the first two criteria are often linked to the etymology of the term as a compound of folk and lore, although such connections should be considered as using etymology as a thinking tool or as a rhetorical instrument, insofar as etymology does not define the concept as it operates today. Alone, the two criteria above encompass a spectrum of culture transmitted outside of institutionalized learning, including everything from our first language to using toilet paper. Any distinct practice or knowledge about the world (“belief”) qualified by these two criteria can be called a tradition, which is sometimes treated as synonymous with folklore. More commonly, however, folklore is qualified by one or two additional criteria: 3. Folklore is distinguished by the role of imagination or aesthetics. Aesthetics and/or imagination distinguish poetry from language, storytelling from a shopping list, and knowledge of how to deal with forest spirits from how to ride a horse. This third criterion narrows the range of things encompassed, but it includes, for example, folk music, traditional cuisine, and costume alongside oral poetry, taboos, and stories of the creation of the world. Such breadth is how folklore is commonly understood in North American 5 Anna-Leena Siikala describes differences in how individual performers engage with a tradition as a tradition orientation (1990: ch. 5, on legend traditions; in oral poetry, see also Harvilahti 1992: 95–96). She also observes that performers may align with social patterns of engagement with tradition that impact on variation as performer habitus or singer habitus (2002b). Linda Dégh describes individual performers who deviate markedly from such conventions as form breakers (1995: 44–45). 36 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives research today, and it is a view that has spread quite widely. This type of definition will often treat folklore and tradition as synonymous. The conception of folklore that developed in the Nordic and Baltic countries and more broadly through the Folklore Fellows’ international network is more narrowly concerned with traditions linked to verbal art, narrative, rituals, and beliefs, a view that remains no less widespread.6 Pinning this down as a clear and concise criterion has challenged scholars for a century (cf. Krohn 1926: 16–25), but may be described as: 4. Folklore is constituted of signs that communicate meaning or model the world. This criterion is straightforward for traditions of oral poetry, which is made up of linguistic signs. In stories and so-called belief traditions, images and motifs are signs communicated through language or through discourse more generally, whether they are imagined as belonging exclusively to a narrated world or to the past, or the image or motif is a model for imagining something in the contemporary world, like what lightning is and why it strikes. Understood in this way, taboos, for instance, are based on avoiding the actualization of a motif as experience, such as being struck by lightning, while rituals are based on actualizing corresponding signs with predicted outcomes. This criterion distinguishes folklore from traditions of music, costume, cuisine, and so on, which was a significant concern in the early twentieth century, when disciplines were being defined in relation to one another. This is not to deny that different categories of tradition may have complex networks of relations or, for example, that some forms of oral poetry are fully integrated with music by singing and/or accompaniment. The fourth criterion simply offers a means of categorically distinguishing folklore from folk music, handicrafts, and so on. What is Mythology? Although the words myth and mythology are commonly traced back to Classical Greek muthos (‘(untrue) story’) and muthologia (‘storytelling, a telling of a story, legendary lore; (untrue) story’), the concepts they refer to are modern. The Latinized form and usage of Greek mythos were taken up during 6 How folklore is defined today is further complicated in national scholarships by the fact that it was common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to take up the concept of folklore that was circulating internationally but identify it with a vernacular term that might mean something quite different with interpreted literally, like Swedish folkliv (literally ‘folk life’) or Finnish kansanrunous (literally ‘folk poetry’). The concept could later be redefined through the literal meaning of the term or become instead identified with a vernacular word with a broader meaning translating as ‘tradition’. 37 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 the Enlightenment and employed as tools for talking about stories linked to non-Christian religions. Lowth’s success in shaking Biblical Hebrew free from Classical models was facilitated by the religious authority of the biblical texts. Greek and Roman mythology had been assimilated into learned Christian discussion more or less from the outset, leaving their connotations of paganism in the shadow of valorized literature, while Christian exegesis drew heavily on the tools of interpretation that Classical authors provided (Harran 2018). “Paganism” remained a stigma on the pre-Christian past of other European languages. By the Enlightenment, however, that past had already become remote. Lowth paved the way to reconceptualize poetic language, stories, and symbolic worlds of different traditions on their own aesthetic and ideological terms, divorcing them from controversial religious beliefs. Much as Snorri Sturluson had proposed over five centuries earlier, if modern readers did not believe in pagan gods or fantastic accounts of the origin of the world, the threat of these traditions to Christian faith was diffused and they could be appreciated as beautiful and compelling – providing a reservoir of symbols and stories on which modern nations could reflect as manifestations of the voice of a people. As Herder put it: Ueberhaupt kann man nicht zu viel thun, um das blos Fabelhafte in der Mythologie zu zerstören; unter solchem Schein, als Aberglaube, Lüge, Vorurtheil hergebetet, ist sie unerträglich. Aber als Poesie, als Kunst, als Nationaldenkart, als Phänomenon des Menschlichen Geistes, in ihren Gründen und Folgen studirt: da ist sie groß, göttlich, lehrend! Herder 1878 [1769]: 380 Altogether one cannot do too much to destroy what is merely fabulous in mythology; in such light, prattled as superstition, lies, prejudice, it is intolerable. But as poetry, as art, as a nation’s mode of thought, as a phenomenon of the human spirit: there it is great, divine, instructive! From the outset, the terms myth and mythology were encoded with an epistemological evaluation as “false knowledge”, contrasted variously with Christian and scientific knowledge. Myth remained strongly linked to stories through the nineteenth century. By the eighteenth century, mythologia was predominantly used in Latin for “a collection of mythoi” as a written work. With the new usage of myth, mythology became a collective term for the respective stories of a particular ethnos (= nation). In the nineteenth century, mythology was extended from including stories proper to encompass all supernatural agents and forces, the cosmology, cosmogony, and eschatology 38 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives that were linked to an ethnic religion (e.g. Grimm J. 1835; Castrén 1853).7 Mythology was tightly bound up with other concepts with which it linked, overlapped, or contrasted, such as: ritual, usually describing any recurrent procedure that people do with particular aims in connection with a religion; superstition, referring to a false belief often not connected with religion or only seen as a “survival” of mythology that had become divorced from religion; magic, viewed as something people do to affect the world and evaluated as religiously other from the perspective of the Church and/or epistemologically other from the perspective of modern science. The term myth remained linked to stories, gradually developing a discussion around the distinctions and relations of myths, legends, and Märchen or fairytales. In the twentieth century, discussions of myth rapidly diversified, as did the ways it was conceived and defined. Alongside use of myth to refer to stories in non-Christian religions, it became widely used for any socially circulating false belief about the world or things in it. The term often remained loosely defined and interpreted through whichever way it was used in a particular discussion. Some interpretive frameworks were nevertheless directly bound up to theories of what mythology is and how it emerges. Discussions developed across a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, modern literature studies, and so on, in addition to discussions in philology, religious studies, anthropology, and folklore studies. The diversification in ways of conceiving and defining myth and mythology was nurtured by two key factors. First, the overlap of interests in many of the disciplinary discussions was limited, reducing the dialogue between them. Second, research on mythology was never sufficiently distinguished to receive institutionally recognized status as a discipline. Rather than taking shape as a unified field, mythology was something considered to exist in the world that was addressed in a variety of different research. Although Friedrich Max Müller’s approach is early in the development of these discussions, it is illustrative of how theories penetrate into definitions. The eras of the Enlightenment and Romanticism were distinguished by theories of cultural development. Recognizing that cultures of the past might differ considerably in their thinking from cultures of the present required 7 This broader concept is closer to how authors like Snorri Sturluson link stories about gods to beliefs, rituals, and religion, but tend to do so within a wider general category of information about gods, cosmology, cosmogony, and eschatology. The differences are that the modern concept identifies mythology as an abstract category that can be found in any ethnic culture and that religious tensions are absent. Consequently, modern discussions developed approaches to mythology on principles of analogy of what was discussed as mythology in different cultures, whereas medieval authors presumably began from discourses on paganism linked to the particular culture. 39 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 postulating some type of framework for interpreting the thinking of cultures which were being reconstructed behind puzzling written sources and ambiguous archaeological finds. Philosophers such as David Hume (1757: 10) had argued that religion’s ultimate origins are rooted in the combination of fear and curiosity as early human beings sought to understand the world and their situation in it. Müller synthesized ideas of primitive thinking with comparative linguistics, producing a theory about the origin of mythology through what he famously described as a “disease of language” (Müller 1873: 56n).8 There are numerous examples of theonyms being identical to common nouns, making a relationship between the god and the phenomenon transparent, while others start off as identical and become distinguished over time, like Þórr, which etymologically means ‘thunder’, although the common noun used for the phenomenon changed in Scandinavian languages. Müller extended this model to descriptions of events and plots in a mythology, postulating that primitive people used language to describe phenomena in the world, but that these connections became obscured by inevitable processes of change affecting language. His approach led, for example, to interpreting Greek descriptions of the relationship between Apollo and Daphne as originally accounting for how the day overcomes twilight every morning (Müller 1856: 92–93; Konaris 2016: 119–123). In Müller’s theory, the identification of something as a myth implicitly presumed the process of its origin, which needed only to be reconstructed through the aid of etymology. Theories about mythology and the definitions of myth and mythology are never independent, even if certain central features remain fairly stable, interpreted in relation to different points of focus. In spite of differences in emphasis, two key criteria around which myth is conceived have generally remained central up through the present. One, grounded in the etymology of the term, is that a myth is a type of story, while the other characterizes myth as a model of knowing for understanding the world, interpreting experience, or as a model of behaviour and action. Definition as a type of story was long dominant, yet what qualifies a story as a myth has varied considerably. It could be a current relationship to “belief”, the story’s explanation of something in nature (Tylor 1871) or reflection of “primitive science” (e.g. Gomme 1906), a historical relationship to religion or ritual (Smith 1889; see also Segal 2017), its relationship to human psychology (Jung 1998 [1945]; see also Segal 2013), the aesthetic principles on which it operates (Frye 1957), and so on and so forth. The criterion of story has often 8 On Müller’s theory, see also Musolff 2016; for criticism of the theory, see e.g. Yelle 2013: 33–70. 40 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives been combined with the criterion of myth providing some sort of model for knowing and understanding. However, emphasis on the relationship between mythology and a “reality lived” (Malinowski 1948 [1926]: 100) could also de-emphasize or discard the criterion of story, stretching it to include any of the broader range of things that might be included in a mythology. With Postmodernism’s reflexive turn and exploration of multiple perspectives, the idea that myths are only found in non-modern cultures was challenged, which also led to further diversification in definitions. The influential work of Roland Barthes (1972 [1957]) in particular both offered new ways of looking at myths as abstract signs like images, motifs, and story-patterns corresponding to units of folklore, but he also used mythology for a whole abstract system of ideas more commonly called an ideology (see e.g. Coupe 1997: 156–158). Nevertheless, this turn has doubled the view of mythology in modern Western cultures. On the one hand, myth is commonly used for both stories about gods like Þórr and Óðinn identified with religions that are culturally or historically “other”. On the other hand, it is used for contemporary models of “reality lived” within modern Western cultures, although the epistemological stance has endured that something called a myth is somehow a “false understanding” (although see e.g. Lotman & Uspenskii 1976). This double vision of mythology entails a tension that things called myths as stories in other cultures are most often events that only happen once, like Þórr fishing up Miðgarðsormr or Óðinn seducing Rindr with seiðr, whereas the majority of secular things called myths as “reality lived” in modern Western cultures have countless manifestations, like a battle between good and evil or an event type like a superfood healing a life-threatening illness. This apparent incongruity has had the consequence that discussions of the two have normally remained disconnected, although reflexive consideration of mythologies in contemporary culture have nevertheless gradually affected discussions of mythology more generally. The incongruity between the mythologies of cultures of each type is more apparent than real, owing to a difference in the things most prominently labelled “myths” in each context and the scope of what is included in “mythology”. In discussions of Old Norse mythology, for example, myth has predominantly been used for particular stories. Recurrent paradigms like Þórr affecting the weather and Óðinn shaping heroes’ fates are considered part of the mythology without being called “myths”, as are land spirits and narrative patterns associated with them. Where the models of the world are centrally linked to human agents, other terms like belief or magic get used rather than discussing berserkir and vǫlur as parts of “the mythology”. In modern secular mythologies, particular stories more commonly receive labels like theory, 41 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 whether it is the creation story of the Big Bang or a conspiracy surrounding the re-election of Donald Trump, while discussions of mythology more often focus on event paradigms as models for understanding how the world works. However, approaches to mythology at this broader scope can encompass the full spectrum as mythology in spite of differences in how terms are conventionally used in the multitude of discussions. In recent decades, changes have been occurring in the criterion of myths as false from the perspective of a particular epistemology. Conceiving myth as necessarily false knowledge is built on the premise that the user possesses true knowledge, yet even scientific truth may be revealed as myth in the light of new knowledge, while something called a myth might be revealed as scientifically true through empirical testing. This question might seem tangential for research on Old Norse mythology, yet approaching source materials through the assumption that Þórr’s battle with Hrungnir is comparable to a fairytale or fantasy novel disparages its potential for mythic significance in the ninth-century milieu where Þjóðólfr ór Hvini composed the skaldic poem Haustlǫng, as well as the potential that the thirteenth-century rendering in Snorra Edda may be responding to such significance. Rather than defining myth as opposed to one epistemology’s truth, it can be approached in terms of emotional investment by one or more groups in society (Doty 2000: 55‒58). Viewing it in terms of emotional investment has the advantage of avoiding questions of subjective “belief” or inconsistencies between claims of belief that may appear alongside religious backsliding in a time of stress or crisis. The long-enduring criterion of myth as a “story” has also been challenged as problematic. This development was anticipated by discussions of legends, where scholars struggled with the tension between the inherited definition of legend as a genre of narrative and the paradox that “[a] legend is a story or narrative that may not be a story or narrative at all” (Georges 1971: 18; see also Laudun 2021). William G. Doty observes that defining myth as narrative seems to be a polarized point of differentiation from images of modernity (cf. Gal & Irvine 2019): myth becomes imagined through contrast with scientific thinking’s objective, non-linear, arithmetical equations, foregrounding its characterization through humanistic storytelling, creative imagination, and aesthetic or emotional dimensions (Doty 2000: 49). The presumption that a myth is a story has shaped thinking about evidence of Old Norse mythology. For example, insults in Lokasenna or Hárbarðsljóð and references such as Kormákr Ǫgmundarson’s phrase seið Yggr til Rindar (‘Óðinn performed seiðr to (get to) Rindr’) (KormǪ Sigdr 3III.4)9 or Bragi 9 Skaldic poems are cited according to sigla in the Skaldic Database. 42 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives Boddason’s kenning þjófr Þrúðar (‘thief of [Þórr’s daughter] Þrúðr’) for Hrungnir (Bragi Rdr 1III.3–4) tend to get identified as “myths”, yet this identification requires either postulating some sort of immanent story behind the references or stretching the criterion of story to include such references. Conceiving myth to be a type of story reduces it to a linear plot, with an implicit presumption that it is false knowledge. Referring to, for example, Baldr’s death as a “story” carries evaluative connotations that it was not a real event. Such connotations are why some people might get offended if told that Jesus’s death is a story, whereas actual events are considered to have had objective reality. History is constituted of multitudes of events that transpired both simultaneously and on a chronology. Narration of history selects and organizes events according to an interpretation that may equally inform how they are presented, but any one narration does not exclude the possibility of others that may link some of the same events to others and interpret them in different or even conflicting ways. When mythology is reconceived in terms of knowledge and understandings of the world, its past and future, discussing its events as “stories” becomes reductive, collapsing potentially complex networks of relations. Baldr’s death, for example, is at the intersection of one cycle of events concerning Frigg and Loki and another concerning Óðinn, Hǫðr, and Rindr, as well as being a mooring point for diverse events elsewhere in the mythology (Frog, this volume). These events do not reduce to a linear plot nor do all accounts seem to link them in the same linear plot. Issues of this type have led to shifting emphasis in conceptualizing mythology from narrative to knowledge. The Concepts of Folklore and Mythology in Old Norse Studies Research on Viking-Age and medieval Scandinavia did not initially make clear distinctions between mythology and folklore. Across the nineteenth century, research became dominated by the philological approach exemplified by Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie (1835, second edition 1844). Grimm conceived of mythology exclusively in terms of ethnolinguistic heritage and later folklore as the remnants of that heritage that had become disconnected from the earlier belief traditions. The idea was similar to Tylor’s doctrine of survivals (1871), which became a foundation for British folklore research (e.g. Lang 1884; Gomme 1885). Both approaches viewed folklore as leftovers of mythology and religious ritual that remained following cultural changes. Both also conceived it as ethnolinguistic heritage, excluding the possibility of exchange between groups. The central difference was that philology-centered 43 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 approaches like that of Grimm presumed that the commensurate folklore was genetically related; Tylor’s theory of survivals was built on a comparative anthropological view of cultures as universally subject to development in successive stages (e.g. Comte 2009 [1830–1842]). Approaches to folklore based on the latter considered independent genesis of the same folklore (i.e. multigenesis) as equally probable to genetically-related heritage.10 Across the middle of the nineteenth century, mythology and folklore became seen as separate categories: medieval sources provided authentic representations of mythology, of which later sources were derivative. The categories changed at the end of the nineteenth century. Borrowings of folklore across linguistic groups had been acknowledged earlier (e.g. Grundtvig 1853–1976; Grimm W. 1856 [1850]: 411), but diffusion was only brought into focus as a phenomenon by Theodor Benfey (1859), who argued that most European folktales originated from the literature of India. This diffusion theory gradually evolved a heated debate in research on folktales in Europe,11 yet mythology’s status as inseparable from ethnolinguistic heritage remained largely unchallenged.12 This debate was thus not engaged in research on Old Norse mythology, where the question of diffusion was introduced from elsewhere. Edwin Jessen (1871) argued that the eddic poems were literary creations produced in Iceland, and this was followed by Sophus Bugge’s (1879: 45–46) argument that poems in the ljóðaháttr meter are composed after syncope, which at the time meant they could not be older than the Viking Age (see also Harris 1985: 93; Fidjestøl 1999: 96–96). These arguments did not focus on mythology per se, but they challenged the long-standing assumptions that the eddic poems represent an ancient collective heritage – poems that include the most revered sources for Scandinavian mythology. Anton 10 See e.g. Lang’s heated response to Newell’s diffusion argument in Newell 1892. 11 Diffusion was contrary to both the philology-based approaches of the Grimms and Tylorian approaches to folklore as “survivals” (see e.g. von Hahn 1863: 2–4; Jacobs 1892). The approach to folklore in North America did not emerge from NationalRomantic ethnolinguistic heritage-construction projects or as viewing traditions through a lens of a cultural development theory; the intensive work with Native American as well as Black American cultures rather than only traditions carried by European immigrants made cross-cultural exchange a salient phenomenon of interest (e.g. Newell 1895; Boas 1896). 12 In his magnum opus on kalevalaic epic and mythology, Julius Krohn (1883) explored cases of potential cross-cultural exchange of mythology, but this aspect of his work had little international impact. A factor here may be that his comparative methodology moved into the background in the Swedish translation (1891). Whereas the Finnish work is organized through the comparative studies and the chapter structure foregrounds his methodology, he decided to integrate the material from these parts into the chapters on epic subjects (Krohn K. 1891c: [ii]). As a result, it simply looks like a book about the Kalevala from the table of contents, rather than having, for example, a nearly 70-page chapter devoted to comparisons with Germanic traditions (1883: 230–298). 44 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives Christian Bang (1879) then published his explosive argument that Vǫluspá is a Norse poet’s imitation of Greek sibylline (i.e. Christian) texts. The questions being raised about the origin and historical spread of the poems led Bugge to aggressively challenge their ancientness and that of the mythology, which had long been taken for granted. Finding parallels in Christian, Classical, or Celtic traditions, he argued that the Scandinavian oral traditions or learned authors had borrowed these much nearer the time of the sources (1881–1889; 1899). His work resonated with the trends of modernism and was well received, pioneering a source-critical turn in scholarship (Fidjestøl 1999: 101). These new views restructured the situation surrounding sources in a way that somewhat levelled the difference between medieval sources and later folklore: each presented different issues as evidence for mythology at a time when the temporal distance was not considered as a significant factor in the way it tends to be today (e.g. Olrik 1892–1894; see also Lindow, this volume). This new comparativism subsequently extended to identifying impacts of Old Norse traditions on Finnic and Sámi. Finnic and Sámi traditions thus became viewed as potential sources for Old Norse mythology, supporting interpretations or filling in gaps in the earlier evidence (e.g. Olrik 1906). Connecting Old Norse research to discussions of these later materials had reciprocal impacts on the concept of folklore, which was considered to include post-medieval traditions of mythology and religion (i.e. of Finnic and Sámi cultures). Viewing folklore as inclusive of mythology was bolstered by the rise of comparative research in Finland, which developed around living traditions of kalevalaic poetry and contemporary traditions of kindred peoples in the Russian Empire (e.g. Castrén 1853; Borenius 1873; Krohn J. 1883; see also Ahola & Lukin 2019). In 1907, Kaarle Krohn and Axel Olrik, along with a young Carl von Sydow, established the Folklore Fellows as an international network, which would include members such as Eugen Mogk, Jan de Vries, and Kurt Ranke. The Folklore Fellows emerged with an interest in reverseengineering the cross-cultural spread of folklore, which included theorizing the properties of folklore and its variation (i.e. “laws” of folklore). Through the Folklore Fellows, a comparative methodological paradigm became established that could be uniformly applied to both medieval and later evidence and became foundational in research across the first half of the twentieth century (Krohn K. 1926; see also Frog 2013). This approach fused with Old Norse philological research. The impact was sufficiently formative that John Lindow (this volume) considers whether it evolved an “Old Norse Mythology Method”. The paradigm built on the massive comparative work of Julius Krohn (1883). His approach was set apart from contemporary folklore research by 45 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 working from an evolutionary model, which conferred value on the documented forms of a tradition.13 This perspective on folklore was a foundation of Kaarle Krohn’s, who, from an early stage, developed an agenda of establishing folklore studies as an independent discipline – i.e. as a science. At the time, this meant having distinct methods for objectively analyzing its particular research object and, as a science, uncovering “laws” that governed that research object. Early in his career, Kaarle Krohn criticized other scholars’ treatment of later folklore as derivative of something else, like mythology, as characteristic of the Grimms’ approach, or as Tylorian “survivals”. Whereas his contemporaries proposed theories (“laws”) bound up with such models of the origin of folklore or its diffusion, he proposed theories (“laws”) for how the recorded traditions were internally structured and varied (1891: 64). As was customary for the era, a central parameter of folklore was that it was “echt volkstümlich” (‘truly of the folk’) (Krohn K. 1926: 23–25), an assessment of authenticity as unadulterated by modernity or knowledge based on literacy. His orientation to establishing folklore studies as a scientific discipline not only steered him to develop and explicate a folklore-specific methodology, but also to build it with a procedural emphasis, with a focus exclusively on formal units of tradition, reconstructing the history of motifs, episodes, and plots, rather than their meanings or significance, which could be seen as more interpretive than “scientific” in its systematicity. The formal emphasis aligned with the changing trends in Scandinavian philology, but also contrasted with speculations about “nature-myths” in approaches like Müller’s, or in British researchers’ use of analogical comparisons to reconstruct the significance of folklore “survivals”. The formal emphasis collapsed the distinction between mythology and derivative forms of tradition, and the approach established a view of orally-transmitted mythology as folklore. In Old Norse studies, treating medieval and later evidence within a common methodological framework was an integrated part of methodological development in mythology research (Lindow, this volume). However, it did not break down the longstanding tendency to keep Old Norse culture or its sources distinct from what was called folklore. In combination with the 13 This difference is rooted in Julius Krohn’s focus on kalevalaic epic and its relation to Elias Lönnrot’s epic Kalevala. His research brought into focus Friedrich August Wolf’s (1795) theory that Homeric epics developed through the combination of simpler poems from different regions into increasingly complex forms, of which the resulting epics of Homer were the apex of development. Rather than transmission being seen as a process of degradation and corruption from an earlier ideal form or a tradition simply being preserved as culture changed around it, transmission was viewed as a process of evolution. The Kalevala could be viewed as a climax of development that required the unifying vision of a single poet – Lönnrot – rather than something artificial or secondary to the “authentic” traditions. 46 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives source-critical concerns surrounding medieval texts, the term folklore developed a heuristic value in Old Norse research for referring to evidence from non-learned culture in post-medieval environments. Across the nineteenth century, mythology also took shape as a category in Old Norse research. The process centered on texts and their categorization, to which the Codex Regius manuscript collection of eddic poems (GKS 2365 4to) and Snorri Sturluson’s Edda were central. The result was the establishment of fairly stable conventions for what mythology did and did not include, and these conventions were maintained through the twentieth century with almost no critical discussion. The category of mythology took shape centrally through philological approaches and tied to medieval texts. Later evidence of both written sources and folklore remained supplementary, with the exception of written texts believed to be copies of medieval exemplars. Mythology was constituted centrally of cosmogony, cosmology, and eschatology, along with gods and the stories about them that are removed from worlds of human beings; poems and sagas concerning events and locations of the human sphere were differentiated as heroic even if they involved gods. Nevertheless, Grímnismál is consistently classed as mythological because of its place in that collection, although the events concern gods involving themselves in the lives of human heroes.14 If Grímnismál had only been preserved in a hypothetical *Geirrøðar saga ok Agnars, like Óðinn’s riddling contest with Heiðrekr (Heiðreks saga R9/H10–11/U14–15), it would more likely be considered a heroic poem, regardless of the content of Óðinn’s speech.15 Similarly, the events surrounding Loki’s killing of Otr concern gods and begins with the motif of three gods wandering in the world, which associates it with cosmogonic time, and it seems that they encounter giants (Reginsmál; Vǫlsunga saga, ch. 14; Skáldskaparmál, ch. 39). If the capture and liberation of the gods had been all that was preserved, the narrative would no doubt be classed as mythological, but it is treated as belonging to the heroic sphere because the events are presented as establishing conditions for the slaying of Fáfnir by Sigurðr – i.e. concerned with the fate of a hero rather than of cosmological scope. 14 Eddic poems are cited according to the edition of Neckel & Kuhn 1963. 15 Similarly, Hynduljóð gets classed as mythological because it both concerns the goddess Freyja in an altercation with a giantess and also because it contains an extended passage of poetry identified as Voluspá in skamma through a quotation in Snorri’s Edda. However, Freyja is aiding a human Ottarr, also present in the action; if the poem were preserved in a saga about Ottarr, it would most likely be considered heroic, with an interpolation from a mythological poem. 47 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 The distinction between mythological and heroic is centrally an extension from the organization of poems in the Codex Regius, where the division seems simply to reflect two earlier collections of poems that were brought together in a single manuscript (Vésteinn Ólason 2019: 235–242). The concentration of stories about gods but not human heroes in Gylfaginning of Snorri’s Edda might seem to resonate with the division, yet this is likely only a consequence of the narrative frame and its emphasis on events of cosmological scope as the “Æsir” seek to convince Gylfi that they are gods rather than humans. Evidence outside of the central medieval source texts have been treated as supplementary or complementary, such as the contents of Ynglinga saga, Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum, Sǫrla þáttr, or Þorsteins saga bœjarmagins. Later folklore seems to have remained marginal to these discussions because it either appeared directly linked to mythology found in the medieval sources, and therefore derivative and irrelevant if a more original version was available (cf. Bugge & Moe 1897), or its relation to the earlier mythology was unclear and its fairytale-like quality made its authenticity dubious (e.g. Lokka táttur). The concept of folklore and its relevance for Old Norse mythology research changed radically in the decades following World War II. These decades saw a general disenchantment with folklore attributable to several factors, including its connection to nationalist ideologies, a growing, critical reflexivity in research, and a shift of attention from reconstructing ideal pasts to agency and complexity in synchronic situations and the sources as products of those situations. Although the comparative methodology propagated by the Folklore Fellows had developed richly around understanding and analyzing variation, Kaarle Krohn asserted it as having a prescriptive aim of reconstructing the Urform (‘original form’) of traditions. This aim became iconic of the whole methodology, which collapsed as synchronic variation became a topic of interest and concern. In Old Norse research, rising source-critical standards and the temporal distance between the living non-Christian religion and later sources became viewed as an issue. Grógaldr and Fjölsvinnsmál were omitted from editions of eddic poetry because they might derive from after the fourteenth or fifteenth century (Kuhn 1961: 268). Earlier uses of more recent folklore became sharply criticized, and its value for reconstructing the remote past was discredited. Within this frame of reasoning, the pragmatic temporal distinction between medieval sources and folklore as later evidence reified the contrast between mythology and folklore, but, rather than seeing the latter as derivative of the former, folklore was simply devalued and dismissed, pushing it to the peripheries of Old Norse studies. 48 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives Around 1990, a cross-disciplinary turn to meaning-making in situated contexts began, along with moves toward interdisciplinarity. This turn produced a new approach to mythology through mythic discourse – or mythology as it is used, communicated and manipulated by people in society (e.g. Urban 1991; Siikala 1992; see also Schjødt 2013; Frog 2015). Old Norse research underwent a “social turn” around 1970, situating mythology and religion in relation to societies (Clunies Ross 2018: 584–589). In the 1990s, the rise of interest in meanings explored how mythology works and is used in society (e.g. Clunies Ross 1994–1998; McKinnell 1994; Lindow 1995), and there was a corresponding rise in interest in cultural exchange with Finnic and Sámi mythology and ritual (e.g. Tolley 1993; Zachrisson et al. 1997; DuBois 1999). People and practices come into the spotlight, adapting Oral-Formulaic Theory as a tool for examining meanings behind variation in eddic poetry as oral poetry (e.g. Quinn 1990; Gísli Sigurðsson 1990; 1998), and performance is brought into focus (esp. Gunnell 1995). With the new millennium, the trend of considering medieval “folklore” begins to penetrate into Old Norse research (e.g. Lindahl et al. 2000) and tradition-based variation behind Old Norse sources becomes a topic of interest (e.g. Gísli Sigurðsson 2004 [2002]; Mitchell 2003). New ways of thinking about cult and ritual take shape (e.g. Gunnell 2001; Nordberg 2004; Schjødt 2008), along with increasingly synthetic interdisciplinary approaches (e.g. Sundqvist 2002 [2000]; Price 2002; see also Schjødt 2007; Sundqvist, this volume). The boom of interest in seiðr (e.g. Heide 2006; Dillmann 2006) and ritual specialists (e.g. McKinnell 2003; 2005; Price 2010) seems connected to the shift of attention to performance and practice, and it connects to a rise of cross-cultural comparative studies (e.g. Bertell 2003; Tolley 2009; Frog 2010; see also Willson, this volume). The different trends gradually converged and coalesced, leading to a rapid rise in interest both in later folklore and in the applicability of folklore research to Old Norse materials, especially with the establishment of the Retrospective Methods Network in 2009 and associated networks beginning from 2011 (e.g. Heide 2009; RMN Newsletter 2010– present; Mitchell 2011; Sävborg & Bek-Pedersen 2014; 2018; Bertell et al. 2019; Frog et al. 2019; Sävborg 2021). The developments across this period have been driving toward a broad reconceptualization that distinguishes the mythology and practices of Old Norse cultures from their individual sources and that views these as forms of folklore, a process that can be observed unfolding in the present. Indeed, as John Lindow (2017) recently observed, we seem to be in the midst of a paradigm shift. 49 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 A Four-Stage Model Both folklore and mythology are etic categories constructed by researchers and/or the discourses in which they – and we – participate. The ways of thinking about mythology and folklore in Old Norse studies and how these may be related have changed considerably over time, but they can be loosely classed according to four stages, even if in practice these overlap and blur because the changing trends manifest through the work of individual scholars. In each stage, the understandings of the categories and their relationships reflect implicit or explicit theories about them. In the first stage, folklore and mythology gradually became distinguished according to the Grimms’ paradigm of folklore as derivative of mythology and ritual. The Grimms presumed that folklore was bound, like mythology, to ethnolinguistic heritage. Folklore was not theorized further as a phenomenon itself, which limited its significance in mythology research to its genetic relation to a mythology of the past. The view that the medieval sources represented authentic mythology ultimately marginalized folklore in discussions of Old Norse mythology because folklore remained secondary to, and derivative of, mythology, for which there was better evidence. The assumption that mythology is an ethnolinguistic heritage was later contested with an alternative model of diffusion. The diffusion model generated sourcecritical concerns about the medieval sources and challenged their value as authentic representations of an ancient heritage of mythology. Folklore, however, continued to be viewed as derivative. The second stage was set in motion by the Folklore Fellows. They propagated a methodology concerned with the formal elements of tradition, for which a distinction between mythology as authentic and folklore as derivative was considered invalid and misleading. Oral traditions of mythology were also viewed as folklore, which meant that theoretical models (“laws”) for the features and variation of folklore also governed the respective mythologies. The emphasis of the methodology remained on identifying and explicating genetic relations between examples of traditions, yet theories developed on the basis of different traditions could also be applied by analogy to Old Norse mythology. The evolving perspectives on folklore recognized forms of variation, but focused on continuities with a text-centered emphasis analogous to manuscript studies. Nevertheless, the discourse in Old Norse studies ultimately maintained prior use of the term folklore as a convenient way to refer only to later traditions and any evidence that they provided. The third stage took shape during the post-War decades, linked to changing views of source-criticism and new perspectives on variation and 50 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives historical change. The comparative methodology that had been propagated and evolved in connection with the Folklore Fellows was abandoned and much of the associated research became considered problematic. Genetic relations remained the type of comparison in focus, but became considered unviable. The practical use of the word folklore for later evidence became contrasted with earlier evidence for the mythology, and bound up with evaluative assessments of earlier studies that were seen as problematic. These changes also dissolved the Folklore Fellows’ lens for viewing the earlier oral traditions also as folklore. Thus, in this stage, folklore was neither considered viable as source material nor even as an analogical frame of reference for considering the mythology, to which approaches remained extremely text-centered, easily conflating particular texts with tradition. The fourth stage carries through the present. The developments since the 1990s have brought practices into focus, a rise in comparativism, and increased interdisciplinarity, linking Old Norse research to different disciplines and approaches. Ultimately, these developments have led to understanding the mythology and practices with which it is linked as traditions in predominantly oral milieux. There has been a reopening of questions about how later traditions may be related to Old Norse mythology and associated practices. Today, these are viewed mainly in terms of continuities on their own terms rather than as derivative fragments of what had been before. More generally, theoretical understandings of folklore and how it works and varies in society are applied to Old Norse traditions, recognized as distinct from individual sources in which they are reflected. Analogical comparisons with later, more richly-documented traditions are increasingly used in order to develop perspectives on the Old Norse traditions. Terminology in the field has maintained momentum, so that many scholars continue to use the term folk lore as referring to post-medieval traditions, in which case relating folklore and Old Norse mythology is understood as involving a diachronic comparison between genetically or analogically related materials or traditions. Other scholars have advanced more fully to addressing the Old Norse traditions as folklore. It is yet to be seen which of these uses of the term will become dominant with the shifting trends in research. Contributions to the present volume are representative of the current trends of this fourth stage, whether they focus on genetic relations between traditions past and present, make analogical comparisons between present and past traditions, or approach Old Norse traditions as folklore, allowing it to be considered through theoretical and methodological frameworks developed for the study of folklore. 51 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 Sources Heiðreks saga: Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks konungs, ed. Jón Helgason (København, J. Jørgensen & Co., 1924). Neckel, Gustav, & Hans Kuhn, eds. 1963. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst vewandten Denkmälern I: Texte, 4th edn. (Heidelberg, Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung). Saxo Grammaticus 1931. Saxonis Gesta Danorum, ed. J. Olrik & H. Ræder (Hauniæ, Levin & Munksgaard). Skaldic Project, https://skaldic.org/skaldic/m.php?p=skaldic. Skáldskaparmál, see Snorri Sturluson, Edda. Snorri Sturluson 1998–2005. Edda, 4 vols., ed. Anthony Faulkes (London, Viking Society for Northern Research). Sǫrla þáttr, in Flateyjarbok: En samling af Norske Kongesaegar, I, ed. Guðbrandur Vigfússon & C. R. Unger (Christiania, P. T. Mallings, 1860), pp. 275–283. Vǫlsunga saga, in Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda, I, ed. Guðni Jónsson & Bjarni Vilhjálmsson (Reykjavík, Forni, 1943), pp. 3–91. Ynglinga saga, in Heimskringla, I, ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, Íslenzka Fornrit 26 (Reykjavík, Hið Íslenzka Fornritafélag, 1941), pp. 9–83. Þorsteins þáttr bœjarmagns, in Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda, III, ed. Guðni Jónsson & Bjarni Vilhjálmsson (Reykjavík, Forni, 1944), pp. 397–417. Literature Abrahams, Roger D. 1968. “Introductory Remarks to a Rhetorical Theory of Folklore”, Journal of American Folklore 81(320), pp. 143–158. Ahola, Joonas, & Karina Lukin 2019. “Castrén Lectures on Finnish Mythology Revisited”, RMN Neswsletter 14, pp. 51–71. Anttonen, Pertti 2005. Tradition through Modernity: Postmodernism and the Nation State in Folklore Scholarship (Helsinki, Finnish Literature Society). Bang, Anton Christian 1879. Vøluspaa og de Sibyllinske Orakler, VidenskabsSelskabet i Christiania, Forhandlinger Aar 1879:9 (Christiania, Jac. Dybwad). Baildam, John D. 1999. Paradisal Love: Johann Gottfried Herder and the Song of Songs, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 298 (Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press). Barthes, Roland 1972 [1957]. Mythologies (New York, Hill & Wang). Bauman, Richard 1984 [1975]. Verbal Art as Performance (Prospect Heights, Waveland Press). Ben Amos, Dan, & Kenneth Goldstein, eds. 1975. Folklore: Performance and Communication, Approaching Semiotics 40 (The Hague, Mouton). Benfey, Theodor 1859. Pantschatantra: Fünf Bücher indischer Fabeln, Märchen und Erzählungen (Leipzig, F. A. Brockhaus). Bertell, Maths 2003. Tor och den nordiska åskan: Föreställningar kring världsaxeln (Stockholm, Stockholms Universitet). 52 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives Bertell, Maths, Frog, & Kendra Willson, eds. 2019. Contacts and Networks in the Baltic Sea Region: Austmarr as a Northern Mare nostrum, ca. 500–1500 AD, Turku Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam Press). Boas, Franz 1896. “The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology”, Science, New Series 4, pp. 901–908. Borenius, A. A. 1873. “Missä Kalevala on syntynyt?”, Suomen kuvalehti 1873(1), pp. 269–274. Bugge, Sophus 1879. “Nogle bidrag til det norröne sprogs og den norröne digtnings historie, hentede fra verlære”, in Beretning om forhandlingerne på det første nordiske filologmøde I København den 18.–20. juli 1876, ed. Ludv. F. A. Wimmer (København, Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag (F. Hegel & Son)), pp. 140–149. Bugge, Sophus 1881–1889. Studier over de nordiske Gude og Heltesagns Oprindelse (Christiania, Alb. Cammermeyer). Bugge, Sophus 1899. The Home of the Eddic Poems, with Especial Reference to the HelgiLays, ed. Tr. W. H. Schofield (London, David Nutt). Bugge, Sophus, & Molkte Moe 1897. Torsvisen i sin norske Form: Udgivet med en Afhandling om dens Oprindelse og Forhold til de andre nordiske Former (Christiania, Aschehoug & Co.). Castrén, M. A. 1853. Föreläsningar i finsk Mytologi (Helsinki, Finska Litteratur-Sällskapet). Clunies Ross, Margaret 1994–1998. Prolonged Echoes: Old Norse Myths in Medieval Northern Society, I–II, The Viking Collection: Studies in Northern Civilization 7, 10 (Viborg, Odense University Press). Clunies Ross, Margaret 2018. “The Social Turn: The Pre-Christian Religions of the North in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries”, in The PreChristian Religions of the North: Research and Reception, II: From c. 1830 to the Present, ed. Margaret Clunies Ross (Turnhout: Brepols), pp. 577–592. Comte, Auguste 2009 [1830–1842]. Cours de Philosophie Positive, I–III (Paris, L’Harmattan). Coupe, Laurence 1997. Myth, The New Critical Idiom (London, Routledge). Dégh, Linda 1995. Narratives in Society: A PerformerCentered Study of Narration, FF Communications 255 (Helsinki, Academia Scientiarum Fennica). Dillmann, François-Xavier 2006. Les magiciens dans l’Islande ancienne: Etudes sur la representation de la magie islandaise et de ses agents dans les sources litte raires norroises, Acta Academiae Regiae Gustavi Adolphi 92 (Uppsala: Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien för Svensk Folkkultur). Dorson, Richard M. 1961. “Folklore Studies in England”, Journal of American Folklore 74(294), pp. 302–312. Doty, William G. 2000. Mythography (Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Press). DuBois, Thomas A. 1999. Nordic Religions in the Viking Age (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press). 53 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 Dundes, Alan 1980 [1977]. “Who Are the Folk?”, in Interpreting Folklore, ed. Alan Dundes (Bloomington, University of Indiana Press), pp. 1–19. Emrich, Duncan. 1946. “‘Folk-Lore’: William John Thoms”, California Folklore Quarterly 5(4), pp. 355–374. Fidjestøl, Bjarne 1999. The Dating of Eddic Poetry: A Historical Survey and Methodological Investigation, ed. Odd Einar Haugen, Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, 41 (Copenhagen, C. A. Reitzels). Fine, Elizabeth Calvert 1984. The Folklore Text: From Performance to Print (Bloomington, Indiana University Press). Frog 2010. Baldr and Lemminkäinen: Approaching the Evolution of Mythological Narrative through the Activating Power of Expression, UCL Eprints (London, University College London). Frog 2013. “Revisiting the Historical-Geographic Method(s)”, RMN Newsletter 7, pp. 18–34. Frog, Joonas Ahola, & Kendra Willson, eds. 2019. Interdisciplinary and Comparative Methodologies: Exploring CircumBaltic Cultures and Beyond, special issue of RMN Newsletter, № 14. Frye, Northrop 1957. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, Princeton University Press). Gal, Susan, & Judith T. Irvine 2019. Signs of Difference: Language and Ideology in Social Life (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Georges, Robert A. 1971. “The General Concept of Legend: Some Assumptions to be Reexamined and Reassessed”, in American Folk Legend: A Symposium, ed. Wayland D. Hand (Berkeley, University of California Press), pp. 1–19. Gísli Sigurðsson 1990. “On the Classification of Eddic Heroic Poetry in View of the Oral Theory”, in Poetry in the Scandinavian Middle Ages: The Seventh International Saga Conference, Spoleto, 4–10 September 1988 – Atti del 12° Congresso Internazionale di Studi Sull’Alto Medioevo Spoleto 4–10 Septembre 1988 (Spoleto, La Sede del Centro Studi), pp. 245–255. Gísli Sigurðsson 2004 [2002]. The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition: A Discourse on Method, trans. Nicholas Jones, Publications of the Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature 2 (Harvard, Harvard University Press). Gomme, G. L. 1885. “The Science of Folk-Lore”, The FolkLore Journal 3(1), pp. 1–16. Gomme, G. L. 1908. Folklore as an Historical Science (London, Methuen & Co). Grimm, Jacob 1835. Deutsche Mythologie (Göttingen, Dieterichsche Buchhandlung). Grimm, Jacob 1844. Deutsche Mythologie, 2nd edn. (Göttingen, Dieterichsche Buchhandlung). Grimm, Wilhelm 1856 [1850]. “Literatur”, in Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm, Kinder und Hausmärchen, III, 3rd edn. (Göttingenm, Dietrichsche Buchhandlung), pp. 283–414. 54 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives Grundtvig, Svend, Axel Olrik & Hakon Grüner-Nielsen, eds. 1853–1976. Danmarks gamle folkeviser, I–XII (Kjøbenhavn, Forlaget af samfundet til den danske litteraturs fremme). Gunnell, Terry 2001. “Grýla, Grýlur, Gøleks and Skeklers”, Arv: Nordic Yearbook in Folklore 57, pp. 33–54. von Hahn, J. G., ed. & trans. 1864. Greichische und albanesische Märchen (Leipzig, Wilhelm Engelmann). Herran, Michael 2017. The Anatomy of Myth: The Art of Interpretation from the Presocratics to the Church Fathers (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Harris, Joseph 1985. “Eddic Poetry”, in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide, ed. Carol J. Clover & John Lindow, Islandica, 45 (London, Cornell University Press), pp. 68–156. Harvilahti, Lauri 1992. “The Production of Finnish Epic Poetry: Fixed Wholes or Creative Compositions?”, Oral Tradition 7(1), pp. 87–101. Heide, Eldar 2006. Gand, seid og åndevind (Bergen, University of Bergen). Heide, Eldar 2009. “More Inroads to Pre-Christian Notions, after All? The Potential of Late Evidence”, in Á austrvega: Saga and East Scandinavia: Preprint Papers of the 14th International Saga Conference, Uppsala, 9th–15th August 2009, ed. Agneta Ney, Henrik Williams, & Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist (Gävle, University of Gävle), pp. 361–368. Herder, Johann Gottfried, ed. 1846. Stimmen der Völker in Liedern (Stuttgart / Tübingen, J. O. Gottascher Verlag). Herder, Johann Gottfried 1878. “Journal meiner Reise im Jahr 1769”, in Herders sämmtliche Werke, IV, ed. Bernhard Suphan (Berlin, Wiedmannische Buchhandlung), pp. 343–461. Honko, Lauri. 2013 [1991]. “The Folklore Process”, in Theoretical Milestones: Selected Writings of Lauri Honko, ed. Pekka Hakamies & Anneli Honko, FF Communications, 304 (Helsinki, Academia Scientiarum Fennica), pp. 29–54. Hutton, Patrick 1992. “The Problem of Oral Tradition in Vico’s Historical Scholarship”, Journal of the History of Ideas 53, pp. 3–23. Hutton, Patrick 1996. “Vico and the End of History”, Historical Reflections / Reflexions Historiques 22(3), pp. 537–558. Jacobs, Joseph 1892. “The Science of Folk-Tales and the Problem of Diffusion”, in The International Folk-Lore Congress 1891: Papers and Transactions, ed. Joseph Jacobs & Alfred Nutt (London, David Nutt), pp. 76–102. Jessen, Edwin 1871. “Über die Eddalieder: Heimat, Alter, Character”, Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 3, pp. 1–84. Jung, Carl G. 1998 [1945]. Psychological Reflections: A New Anthology of Jung’s Writings 1905–1961, ed. Jolande Jacobi (London, Routledge). Konaris, Michael 2016. The Greek Gods in Modern Scholarship: Interpretation and Belief in Nineteenth Century and Early Twentieth Century Germany and Britain (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Krohn, Kaarle 1908/1910 [1907]. Erste mitteilung des folkloristischen Forscherbundes “FF” (Helsinki, Finnische Literatur-gesellschaft). 55 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 Krohn, Julius 1883. Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden historia, ensimmäinen osa: Kalevala (Helsinki, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura). Krohn Julius 1891. Finska litteraturens historia: Första delen, Kalevala (Helsingfors, Weilin & Göös). Krohn, Kaarle 1891b. “La méthode de M. Jules Krohn”, in Congrés internationale des traditions populaires, Paris 1889 (Paris, Société d’éditions scientifiques), pp. 64–68. Krohn, Kaarle 1891c. “Tillägg”, in Krohn J. 1891: [ii]. Krohn, Kaarle 1908. “Erste Mitteilung des folkloristischen Forscherbundes ‘FF’”, Mitteilungen des Verbandes deutscher Vereine für Volkskunde 1908(7), pp. 6-8. Krohn, Kaarle 1926. Die folkloristische Arbeitsmethode: Begründet von Julius Krohn und weitergeführt von nordischen Forschern (Oslo, Aschehoug). Kuhn, Hans 1961. “Zur Grammatik und Textgestaltung der älteren Edda”, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 90(4), pp. 241–268. Lang, Andrew 1884. Custom and Myth (London, Longmans, Green, & Co). Laudun, John 2021. “Narrative as a Mode of Vernacular/Folk Discourse”, Western Folklore 80(3–4), pp. 401–435. Liamin, Sergej 2018. “Images and Imageries of Norse Mythology in German Sentimentalism and Romanticism from Herder to Heine”, in The PreChristian Religions of the North: Research and Reception, I: From the Middle Ages to c. 1830, ed. Margaret Clunies Ross (Turnhout, Brepols), pp. 317–330. Lindahl, Carl, John McNamara, & John Lindow, eds. 2000. Medieval Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs (Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO). Lindow, John 1995. “Supernatural Others and Ethnic Others: A Millennium of World View”, Scandinavian Studies 67(1), pp. 8–31. Lindow, John 2017. “Old Norse Mythology and Legend Tradition”, unpublished paper presented at the conference Folklore and Old Norse Mythology, 27th– 28th November 2017, Helsinki, Finland. Lotman, Ju. M. & B. A. Uspenskij 1976. “Myth – Name – Culture”, in Semiotics and Structuralism: Readings from the Soviet Union, ed. Henryk Baran (White Planes, International Arts and Sciences Press), pp. 3–32. Katajamäki, Sakari, & Karina Lukin 2013. “Textual Trails from Oral to Written Sources: An Introduction”, RMN Newsletter 7, pp. 8–17. Malinowski, Bronislaw 1948 [1926]. “Myth in Primitive Psychology”, in Magic, Science and Religion (Garden City, Doubleday Anchor), pp. 93–148. Mason, Otis T. 1891. “The Natural History of Folk-Lore”, Journal of American Folklore 4(13), pp. 97–105. McKinnell, John 1994. Both One and Many: Essays on Change and Variety in Late Norse Heathenism, with an appendix by Maria Elena Ruggerini, Philologia 1 (Roma, Il Calamo). McKinnell, John 2003. “Encounters with Völur”, in Old Norse Myths, Literature and Society, ed. Margaret Clunies Ross, Viking Collection 14 (Viborg, University Press of Southern Denmark), pp. 110–131. 56 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology FFC 323 Opening Perspectives McKinnell, John 2005. Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer). Mitchell, Stephen 2011. Witchcraft and Magic in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press). Mitchell, Stephen 2003. “Reconstructing Old Norse Oral Tradition”, Oral Tradition 18(2), pp. 203–206. Müller, Max 1909 [1856]. Comparative Mythology: An Essay, ed A. Smythe Palmer (London, George Routledge & Sons). Müller, F. Max 1873. “On the Philosophy of Mythology”, in Introduction to the Science of Religion: Four Lextures Delivered at the Royal Institution, with Two Essays on False Analogies, and the Philosophy of Mythology (London, Longmans, Green, & Co), pp. 335–403. Musolff, Andreas 2016. “Friedrich Max Müller’s Cultural Concept of Metaphor”, Publications of the English Goethe Society 85(2–3), pp. 125–134. Naithani, Sadhana 2010. The StoryTime of the British Empire: Colonial and Postcolonial Folkloristics (Jackson, University Press of Mississippi). Newell, William Wells 1888. “On the Field and Work of a Journal of American FolkLore”, The Journal of American Folklore 1(1), pp. 3–7. Newell, William Wells 1892. “Lady Featherlight: An Inedited Folk-Tale: With Remarks”, in The International Folk-Lore Congress 1891: Papers and Transactions, ed. Joseph Jacobs & Alfred Nutt (London, David Nutt), pp. 40–66. Newell, W. W. 1895. “Theories of Diffusion of Folk-Tales”, Journal of American FolkLore 8, pp. 7–18. Nordberg, Andreas 2003. Krigarna i Odins sal: Dödsförställningar och krigarkult i fornnordisk religion (Stockholm, Stockholm Universitet). Olrik, Axel 1906. “Tordenguden og hans Dreng i Lappernen Myteverden”, Danske Studier 1906, pp. 65–69. Olrik, Axel 1892–1894. Kilderne til Sakses Oldhistorie: En Literaturhistorisk Undersøgelse, I–II (København, Otto B. Wroblewski’s Boghandel). Price, Neil S. 2002. The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (Uppsala, University of Uppsala). Price, Neil 2010. “Passing into Poetry: Viking Age Mortuary Drama and the Origins of Norse Mythology”, Medieval Archaeology 54, pp. 123–156. Quinn, Judy 1990. “Vǫluspá and the Composition of Eddic Verse”, in Poetry in the Scandinavian Middle Ages (Spoleto, La Sede del Centro Studi), pp. 303–320. RMN Newsletter. 2010–present. (Helsinki, Folklore Studies, Department of Cultures, University of Helsinki), https://www.helsinki.fi/en/networks/ retrospective-methods-network. Roper, Jonathan 2008. “‘Our National Folk-Lore’: William Thoms as Cultural Nationalist”, in Narrating the (Trans) Nation: The Dialectics of Culture and Identity, ed. Krishna Sen & Sudeshna Chakravarti (Kulkata, Gas Gupta & Co.), pp. 60–74. 57 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology Frog with Joonas Ahola FFC 323 Sävborg, Daniel, & Karen Bek-Pedersen, eds. 2014. Folklore in Old Norse – Old Norse in Folklore, Nordistica Tartuensia 20 (Tartu, Tartu University Press). Sävborg, Daniel, & Karen Bek-Pedersen, eds. 2018. Supernatural Encounters in Old Norse Literature and Tradition (Turnhout, Brepols). Sävborg, Daniel, ed. 2021. Interdisciplinarity in Viking Age Research (Turnhout, Brepols). Schalin, Johan 2018. “Scandinavian–Finnic Language Contact and Problems of Periodisation”, RMN Newsletter 14, pp. 112–122. Schjødt, Jens Peter 2007. “Contemporary Research into Old Norse Mythology”, in Reflections on Old Norse Myths, ed. Pernille Hermann, Jens Peter Schjødt, & Rasmus Tranum Kristensen (Turnhout, Brepols), pp. 1–16. Schjødt, Jens Peter 2008. Initiation between Two Worlds: Structure and Symbolism in PreChristian Scandinavian Religion, trans. Victor Hansen, Viking Collection 17 (Odense, Odense University Press). Segal, Robert A. 2013. “Freudian and Jungian Approaches to Myth: The Similarities”, in Myth, Literature and the Unconscious, ed. Leon Burnett, Sanja Bahun, & Roderick Main (London, Karnac Books Ltd.), pp. 101–119. Segal, Robert A. 2017. “Theorizing Myth and Ritual”, in Theorizing Old Norse Myth, ed. Stefan Brink & Lisa Collinson (Turnhout, Brepols), pp. 9–31. Siikala, Anna-Leena 1990 [1986]. Interpreting Oral Narrative, FF Communications 245 (Helsinki, Academia Scientiarum Fennica). Siikala, Anna-Leena 1992. Suomalainen šamanismi: Mielikuvien historiaa (Helsinki, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura), in English: 2002. Mythic Images and Shamanism: A Perspective on Kalevala Poetry, FF Communications 280 (Helsinki, Academia Scientiarum Fennica). Siikala, Anna-Leena 2002. “The Singer Ideal and the Enrichment of Poetic Culture: Why Did the Ingredients for the Kalevala Come from Viena Karelia?”, in The Kalevala and the World’s Traditional Epics, ed. Lauri Honko, Studia Fennica Folkloristica 12 (Helsinki, Finnish Literature Society), pp. 26–43. Smith, William Robertson 1889. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (Edinburgh, Black). Spence, Lewis 1921. An Introduction to Mythology (London, Harrap & Co.). Sundqvist, Olof 2002 [2000]. Freyr’s Offspring: Rulers and Religion in Ancient Svea Society, 2nd rev. edn., Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis: Historia Religionum 21 (Uppsala, Uppsala Universitet). 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Vésteinn Ólason 2019. “The Codex Regius: A Book and Its History”, in The Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda – Konungsbók Eddkvæða GKS 2365 4to (Reykjavík, Bókabúð forlagið), pp. 217–256. Wilson, William 1973. “Herder, Folklore and Romantic Nationalism”, Journal of Popular Culture 6, pp. 819–835. Wilson, William A. 1976. Folklore and Nationalism in Modern Finland (Bloomington, Indiana University Press). Yelle, Robert 2013. The Language of Disenchantment: Protestant Literalism and Colonial Discourse in British India (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Zachrisson, Inger et al. 1997. Möten i gränsland: Samer och germaner i Mellanskandinavien, Statens Historiska Museum Stockholm Monographs 4 (Stockholm, Statens historiska museum). 59 Buy book at https://tiedekirja.fi/en/folklore-and-old-norse-mythology

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