Interdiciplinary Conference
New Focus on Retrospective Methods
Bergen. 13-14 September 2010
Abstracts:
Incomplete collection by 16 April - In alphabetical order of names of speakers
Sirpa Aalto:
University of Eastern Finland
Heroic poems of Kalevala - a source for studying the Finnish Viking Age?
I would like to discuss in my paper the possibility of using heroic poems in Kalevala as a
source for the mental world of the Finnish Viking Age. So far, the general opinion among
Finnish scholars in the 20th and 21st century has been, that Kalevala should be regarded as
literature and creation of Elias Lönnrot, who compiled it in the first half of the 19th century.
Ever since its publication Kalevala has been widely debated. Already in the 19th century
Finnish folklorists and historians had differing opinions about the source value of Kalevala.
Inevitably Kalevala, as we know it, represents the oral tradition of the first half of the 19th
century. Still, it is obvious that some themes in Kalevala go back to much earlier periods,
maybe even to Late Iron Age/Viking Age. I would like to take the heroic poems in Kalevala
(so-called Saarelais-epiikka in Finnish) as an example of a theme that goes back in history.
These heroic poems have been seen to represent the Viking Age world view of the BalticFinnic tradition. The poems have been compared with Russian bylina-tradition and also with
some themes in Old Norse tradition. However, these studies have been confined to folklore
studies. Historians have been reluctant to take them seriously because of the poems’
questionable source value.
My starting point is that the heroic poems of Kalevala should be valued as a
reflection of the Baltic-Finnic world view in the Viking Age. The weakness of this approach is,
of course, that the written poems that we have now are not the original ones. On the other
hand, we lack sources that could shed light on the history of Baltic-Finnic peoples in the
Viking Age. Therefore, in my opinion, the heroic poems of Kalevala cannot be neglected as a
source. I will approach the themes in the heroic poems by comparing them with the
archaeological evidence. Thus, I would like to reconsider whether themes in the heroic
poems derive from the Viking Age, is it possible to distinguish Christian influence in them and
how? In other words, I do not deny that the poems of Kalevala are products of the 19th
century, but I would like to consider that the underlying themes in the poems could tell us
something about the Viking Age mental world in the Baltic-Finnic cultural sphere.
At the moment we are planning an interdisciplinary project on the Finnish Viking Age with
some Finnish colleagues. With help of retrospective methods used on Kalevala and by
combining the latest knowledge in the fields of archaeology, history and folklore studies, we
could achieve further understanding of the Viking Age world in Finland and Karelia.
Postal address: Centre for Medieval Studies (CMS)
University of Bergen, P.O.BOX 7805, N-5020 BERGEN
Visitors/Delivery address: Villaveien 1a, N-5007 Bergen
Tel: (+47) 55 58 80 85 Fax: (+47) 55 58 80 90
E-mail: [email protected] URL: www.uib.no/cms
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Stefan Brink:
Many layers in the medieval laws of Scandinavia? The possibility of using
retrospective methods when analysing early laws.
Before ca. 1960 the Scandinavian provincial laws where uncritically used as sources for en
early Scandinavian society, even a Viking Age – or sometimes even older! – society. With
the settlement of romantic and uncritical approaches to sagas and laws, peaking in the
1950s and 60s, with German scholars to begin with, followed by Scandinavians, a common
stance became that the laws were mirroring the society at the time when they where written
down (hence mainly the 13th and 14th centuries). The new focus in research was to find
common features with Continental laws, to see the Scandinavian laws in a European context.
To analyse the laws retrospectively, to use the laws looking back, and to discuss them within
a Germanic context, became very unfashionable, especially since you then could be accused
of subscribing to, or at least flirting with, the paradigm called the Urgermanische Recht,
hence the idea of a common Urrecht for Germanic people. This 'cleansing' of the research
field has been a necessity and have had great impact. It is now time to go forward, and to
again ask diachronic questions to the laws. I have been working with a couple of
Scandinavian provincial laws for some time, and found interesting aspects in them, which I
assume represent different layers in the laws. And different layers I assume may be the
result of older and newer laws edited together. I will in my paper present some cases where
it may be discussed if we can suppose layers of different age in some medieval
Scandinavian provincial laws, hence using a retrospective method.
Terry Gunnell:
Folk Legends, Folk Traditions and Grave Mounds
As is well known, the Grimm brothers and others directly inspired by them, such as Wilhelm
Mannhardt, saw folklore as something that often contained "survivals" of pagan mythology
and pagan rituals. With the growth of understanding of field of folkloristics over the two
centuries that followed, scholars have come to be more wary of blindly accepting such
approaches. This especially applies to literary scholars and historians who have questioned
the possibility that pagan material could survive so long in a Christian world. The latter
approach nonetheless also has its drawbacks. not least because it contains a comparatively
superficial understanding of the time it takes for Christian attitudes to take root, and of how
commonly Christianity has tended to blend with existing mindsets, rather than replace them.
Furthermore, it is clear that some deeply-rooted folklore - both traditions and legends - can
survive for a very long time indeed. One of the questions is how we decide the age and origin
of such traditions that have only been recorded in potentially recent times. In the following
paper, I mean to follow up on earlier work carried out by Håkon Schetelig and examine those
legends and traditions concerning grave mounds from later times, and especially traditions
concerning offerings of ale and bread made to gravemounds on holy days (something that
continued until comparatively recently), and legends which deal with the sacrality of
gravemounds and bad luck that can befall anyone who does not respect them. If nothing
else, this material provides us with a useful insight into the way the construction of grave
mounds changed the local landscape and the way it was understood by people.
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Margareta Regebro:
Ph.D. Student, Dept. of History of Religions, Stockholm University, Sweden.
Out of context, into reach
I would like to try and break the sources out of their time and place in order to reach the
basic and more long lasting motifs. To do so would certainly rid us of a series of known
problems due to contextualization, although some difficulties would still be left to deal with,
such as the available selections of materials.
A short tale from Southern Scandinavia in the 17th century (Prästrelationerna från
Skåne av år 1667 och 1690) reveals some “folk religious” beliefs, similar to those from the
Old Norse literature. The local chaplain is reporting a local tale about a young woman who
had gone to an old mound that was known to be inhabited by trolls, situated just beside the
churchyard. The girl had sung a song called Ellewijsan, and had then been left lying next to
the mound since the trolls had taken her (i.e. her soul) into the mound. The following
morning, a chaplain had found her unconscious body at the site.
Such an active search for contact with this kind of ktonic beings that live
underground, through shamanic techniques known from older sources, is not very common
in later folklore. It is more often young girls who are “taken under the earth”, as is the
common expression which suggests that the girl takes a more passive role. If she returns
from the journey, she sometimes has gained the knowledge to heal illnesses. This kind of
knowledge transferral between the ktonic and the human world is also well known from the
Old Norse sources.
Although the time and place for these stories vary greatly, the similarities and connections
are too many and too obvious to be completely dismissed. The earliest researchers of
folklore have rightly been criticized for using legends from more recent times to try and
demonstrate a static and archetypal "folk religion", but it might perhaps be ill-conceived to
altogether disregard the connecting dots between motifs from different times and places.
In recent decades, contextualization has been increasingly used on older texts to bring
various phenomena into a clearer picture. Modern folklore research has worked extensively
with the terms use and meaning, in which different parts of the context have been studied in
detail. This can be very useful in certain situations, as can literary genre analysis or linguistic
studies of the textual sources. It could, however, under other conditions, turn into a bit of an
obstacle that prevents us to see the interrelationships of beliefs and practises from different
times and places. To contextualize different kinds of source materials is to lock them heavily
into a certain time and place. Accordingly, folklorists have revealed a series of problems with
their source materials. I propose that we perhaps should rather try to temporarily break the
sources out of their immediate context, in order to access the basic motifs and beliefs. Such
an approach would actually solve most of the common problems with the folklore sources,
although some difficulties will still have to be addressed.
Terje Planke:
PhD, Senior Curator, Norwegian Maritime Museum, Oslo - [email protected]
Reconstructing the pattern of a vernacular tradition
My main approach to the reconstruction of boats and sailing techniques from the Iron Age
has been through the studying of handcraft traditions of the 20th century. I have done this in
two ways. First of all, I am studying traits from younger traditions to understand the traditions
from Iron Age. My preconception has been that there is a continuous thread over this long
period of time, but this has not always proven to be the case. This approach must therefore
be conducted with care. My other method has been to investigate the broader pattern of new
traditions to understand how different elements or traits within a tradition are connected to
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each other. Using younger traditions as a methodological inspiration, I have reconstructed
the patterns from Iron Age traditions. In this paper, I will compare these two methods
through empirical examples taken from traditional boatbuilding from the 8th and the 20th
century
Background
In the field of interpreting Viking ships, different categories of sources have been used
interchangeably since the last half of the 19th century during which the ships of Nydam, Tune
and Gokstad were excavated (1863, 1867 and 1880). When Magnus Andersen sailed from
Norway to Chicago in 1893, his copy of the Gokstad ship named “Viking” was based on a
living and strong Norwegian vernacular (folkelig) tradition of boatbuilding and square sailing.
The Viking ships have ever since been understood as seaworthy. The reconstructions of the
rig and sails have either been based on, or been made in opposition to the Norwegian
square sail tradition.
Interpreting archaeological finds is indeed a high risk sport. There are many dangers
because the terrain looks familiar, but is at the same time principally unknown. In
understanding the Scandinavian Iron Age, we lean on several categories of sources:
artefacts, rock art or texts from different periods of time. In addition, there are the vernacular
traditions of recent times. However, is there a factual Wirkungsgeschichte, or a history of
effect (Gadamer 2000), which connects us with them? Is it possible for us to reconstruct their
knowledge, as long as it is in conflict with our own preconceptions?
In the present paper, I will discuss the possibility and extent of a connection
between excavated boats from the Iron Age and the late vernacular traditions of boat
building. The discussion is empirically based on both my doctoral and my post doctoral
project where I studied traditional boatbuilding and reconstructed the third small boat from
the Gokstad Viking ship find. The aim of the latter study was not only to reconstruct the
structure and shape of the hull, but also the perspectives and procedures of the boat builder
who made the boat in the late 800s AD.
Theoretical approach
By studying different vernacular 19th and 20th century traditions of boat building I have
discovered that the traits within each tradition together makes out a distinct pattern. The
different traits, such as the use of raw material, tool technology, and the shape and physical
structure of the boats, are strongly interwoven. These traits are also connected with the
intentions of the boat builder and his work procedures. When one trait within the pattern
changes, I have documented how other traits change as well. But it is possible to reconstruct
such patterns for Iron Age ships as well? The theory is under development. It might be seen
as a form for introspective functionalism, or maybe as a form of hermeneutics focused on
objects where the pattern defines the whole to be something more than just the sum of its
parts.
I believe that the vernacular traditions and the application of these indeed is a good
starting point for interpreting archaeological evidence, but that it must be conducted with
care. When I introduce the concept of pattern, it is as a means to help understanding past
cultures on their own terms, reducing the weight of my own preconceptions. The concept of
pattern helps me reconstruct the shape, the material technology and physical structure as
well as the procedures of work that all together make up the boat. The aim is to understand
each material or functional trait in relationship to the other traits, rather than judging them
from my own tradition. To understand what’s behind the horizon of living, vernacular
traditions today, I am investigating relationship between different traits that make up the
pattern. In this way of reasoning, the answer to Iron Age technology is not to be found within
the different vernacular traditions today. The vernacular traditions may rather help us ask
good questions than provide the answers themselves.
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In the paper, I will use a number of short empirical examples from my research projects
(Planke 1994, 2001 and 2005) and use them interchangeably in theoretical discussions in
connection to Gadamer (2001), Rolf (1992) and my own contribution with respect to establish
the concept of pattern.
Literature
Planke, Terje 1994: Sognebåten. Bygging, formforståelse og kunnskap. Hovedfagsoppgave
i Etnologi, UiO, Oslo (upublisert).
Planke, Terje 2001: Tradisjonsanalyse. En studie av kunnskap og båter.
Doktorgradsavhandling, UiO, Oslo
Planke, Terje 2007: Historisk rekonstruksjon av mønstre. In: Festskrift 2007. Årbok.
Maihaugen.
Planke, Terje 2008: Bygningens mønster – om sammenhenger i et kutlurminne. In: By og
Bygd XLI. Årbok for Norsk Folkemuseum
Gadamer, Hans-Georg 2000: Sandhed og metode. Gruntræk af en filosofisk hermeneutik.
Systime Academic, Århus.
Rolf, Bertil 1991: Profession, tradition och tyst kunskap. Nya doxa.
Jens Peter Schjødt:
Criteria for evaluating sources for Old Norse religion
All scholars concerned with Old Norse religion know that by far the largest part of the written
sources used for reconstructing pre-Christian religion is composed two or three centuries
after the official Christianisation. A prerequisite for using these sources is then that we can
assume some sort of continuity from pagan to Christian times. And such a claim seems to be
uncontroversial since there is general agreement that a change of religion does not happen
overnight. On the other hand, it has been objected against the medieval sources that
Christian ideas and notions have ‘polluted’ the pagan myths and the descriptions of pagan
rituals. And this seems to be true as there is no doubt that Christianity influenced at least the
higher social strata of the Nordic societies long before the official conversion.
If it thus seems to be certain that both continuity and ‘break’ were at stake, it will be
an important issue of the historian to decide what is what and what are the means available
to us to make qualified decisions. In my paper I will discuss, from the point of view of a
historian of religion, some of the possibilities which we need to consider: In order to do this,
however, it will be relevant first to discuss the notion of religion in the two cultural settings
involved. Having done that, it will be possible to get a clearer understanding of the reason
why some pagan elements, apparently in a relatively easy way, could continue to exist, not
only far into the high Middle Ages but right up to modern times. In order to decide what is due
to pagan tradition and Christian influence, we cannot, as I have argued in earlier articles,
avoid the notion of comparativism. But we also have to consider the ‘context’: to which extent
is it meaningful to interpret rituals, proverbs, legends etc. as part of the pre-Christian
context?
My conference paper will address these and other questions, and even if no definite
answers can be given, it seems to be necessary to approach the whole problem of folkloristic
material in connection with pre-Christian Scandinavian religion from a new perspective, using
some of the more recent theoretical achievements.
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Yelena Sesselja Helgadóttir:
University of Iceland
Retrospective methods in dating postmedieval rigmaroles
from the North Atlantic
A number of postmedieval Icelandic and Faroese rigmaroles (and occasional Shetland
verses), which were mainly written down in the 19th–20th centuries, have Old Icelandic
parallels, found chiefly in the þulur of Snorra-Edda, but also in verses in some sagas. It is
tempting to use these Old Icelandic texts to anchor the rigmaroles in question in Old
Icelandic literature and thus postulate their old roots, as suggested by Jón Samsonarson
(1979, 1991) and Terry Gunnell (2001, 2007).1 Questions concerning application of
retrospective methods in this context include:
- How close should these Old Icelandic parallels stand to the postmedieval rigmaroles to be
used as anchors?
- How far back is it possible – and sensible – to bring other rigmaroles, which belong to the
same tradition that the rigmaroles mentioned above, but do not have Old Icelandic parallels
preserved into our days to be used as anchors?
- Some rigmaroles mainly contain lists of heiti, other have narrative elements. To which
extent is it possible to reconstruct narratives?
Enumeration of heiti and/or short narrative elements, organized by semantic and phonic
similarity, is an identifying feature of the rigmaroles under consideration. This same
compositional principle is distinctive for Old Icelandic þulur; the postmedieval Icelandic
rigmaroles, also named þulur, have supposedly developed out of them.2 However, the heiti in
the postmedieval þulur (and closely related Faroese skjaldur) are different from those in Old
Icelandic þulur, and textual parallels between the old and postmedieval þulur are only
occasional. My claim is that similarity of genre and compositional principle, together with
occasional – though not numerous – textual parallels, provides a clear analogy, which is
sufficient for using Old Icelandic þulur as anchors.
Textual connections between most Icelandic postmedieval rigmaroles (along with
many Faroese and some Shetland ones) form a dense net, which is another distinctive
feature of the postmedieval rigmarole tradition in the North Atlantic.3 On the basis of this net,
1
Jón Samsonarson, 1979, “Jólasveinar komnir í leikinn” (Íslenskt mál 1:150-174) and 1991,
“Marghala Grýla í görðum vesturnorrænna eyþjóða” (Lygisögur. [Ed. Gísli Sigurðsson, Örnólfur
Thorsson]. Reykjavík. Pp. 48-54). Terry Gunnell, 2001, “Grýla, Grýlur, “Grøleks” and skeklers:
medieval disguise traditions in the North Atlantic?” (Arv 57:33-54) and 2007, “Masks and mumming
traditions in the North Atlantic” (Masks and mumming in the nordic area. Ed. Terry Gunnell. Uppsala.
Pp. 275-326).
2
As I showed in: Yelena Yershova, 2003, “Postmedieval Icelandic þulur: Evolution of the Genre” [in
Russian] (Atlantica 5:158-178).
3
Yelena Sesselja Helgadóttir, 2008, “Íslenskar þulur og færeysk skjaldur: er allt sama tóbakið?”
(Frændafundur 6. Ed. Turið Sigurðardóttir, Magnús Snædal. Tórshavn. Pp. 175-199) and forthcoming,
“Shetland Rhymes from the Collection of Dr Jakob Jakobsen” (in the papers of the Faroese-Shetlandic
Conference on Dr Jakob Jakobsen, Scalloway, May 12–13, 2006).
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and combining comparative and retrospective methods, it should be possible to postulate old
roots even for the rigmaroles that do not have direct Old Icelandic parallels. I would discuss
the pro and contra of dating these rigmaroles back to the pre-Reformation period or all the
way back to the Icelandic Commonwealth – or even earlier times.
“One should only try to reconstruct notions not narratives”, claims Eldar Heide
(2009).4 Each folk singer and his audience has, however, a notion of the narrative performed,
which is passed from generation to generation. This notion could be used to reconstruct
essential characteristics of the narrative in question. I would discuss my experience of
reconstructing a short narrative on the basis of the Fair Isle / Orcadian Grýla-verse and
kindred verses from old and modern Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Shetland and Swedish
Lapland. I suggest existence of a narrative with a male counterpart of Grýla, at least as early
as prior to Reformation – and likely at the times of Old Icelandic literature.
Rudolf Simek:
Guldgubber, ritual and law
Guldgubber are mostly interpretated as of religious significance because it is assumed that
the male and female figures on them are showing gods and goddesses. But is this the only
possible interpretation? What do the figures actually show? What are really the elements
which are stressed in the iconographic set of each one?
When dealing with retrospective methods, it is important to establish those sets of norms and
texts (not only in written form) which are most likely NOT to change. As both studies of
comparative religion and folkloristics can show, religious texts and law texts are among those
least likely to undergo severe change in transmission of any kind, as the exact wording of
those texts is important to the people who use them. Folktales, adventure stories and
anecdotes, on the other hand, may undergo serious changes in wording, onomastic material
and also structural arrangement because of the importance ascribed to what makes a good
story – and the conception of that varies with each individual.
The present paper thus tries to establish a link between the preliterate set of information
gleaned from the guldgubber and contemporary sources with religious and law texts from
later periods to see if any plausible explanation can be found for the symbols and gestures
stressed on the guldgubber.
Daniel Sävborg:
Scandinavian folk legends and post-classical Íslendingasögur
My paper argues that Scandinavian legends (sägner) recorded in the 20th and 19th centuries
often explain supernatural episodes in Íslendingasögur better than comparison with other
medieval sagas. Saga scholars have in many cases come to the wrong conclusions from the
narrow focus on literature contemporary with the Íslendingasögur.
The interest in supernatural motifs is a characteristic feature of the “postclassical” Íslendingasögur. This is an important reason why they are usually seen as very
different from the "classical" Íslendingasögur, whose realism is linked to an origin in an oral
4
Eldar Heide, 2009, “More inroads to pre-Christian notions, after all? The potential of late evidence”
(Á austrvega. Ed. Agneta Ney, Henrik Williams, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist. Gävle. Pp. 361-368,
here 366).
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tradition that was perceived as essentially historical. The post-classical sagas with their many
fantastic motifs are in contrast seen as unhistorical, pure fiction, influenced primarily by
written literature like fornaldarsögur and riddarasögur. Sometimes this is certainly correct.
But in most post-classical Íslendingasögur such parallels are very few and superficial.
A concrete example is Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss. It is full of trolls and giants, and the
standard explanation has been an influence from the fornaldarsögur. But an episode like the
one where a female troll recites a stanza with a list of the landmarks which shall show the
fisherman Ingjaldr the best fishing-ground, cannot be explained by such literary influences.
But there are Norwegian legends, recorded in the 20th century, where a fisherman meets a
supernatural being, who in a stanza lists the landmarks which shall show him the best
fishing-ground. There are many other supernatural saga episodes which have close parallels
in later Scandinavian legends. In my paper I’ll give examples of such cases and show how
my perspective leads to an interpretation that differs from the traditional one.
Such an interpretation of the parallels may also have an impact on the perception of
Íslendingasögur in general. The view of the post-classical saga as bookish fiction which
emerged under the influence of the written fornaldarsaga and riddarasaga is hardly
sustainable. Nor is the contrast between the supernatural orientation and the realism of the
classical saga evident. The stories in the later legends about encounters with the
supernatural were also seen as basically true, and these stories were a part of the image
people had of a real past. There is reason to believe that this also applied to many of the
motifs of the post-classical sagas as well.
At the same time the records of the folk tradition from the 19th and 20th centuries
show that purely fictitious stories were popular at the same time with the legends. In the folk
tales (folksagor) we also have stories of encounters with the supernatural, but here there was
no claim of credibility and reality. The distinction between folk legend and folk tale could be
important also for the analysis of the stories about encounters with the supernatural in Norse
literature. It should be possible to use recently recorded folklore and find criteria to interpret
how various saga episodes were perceived by the contemporary audience: which
supernatural motifs were perceived as basically realistic, and which ones were never seen as
anything but fiction?
Torun Zachrisson:
Mora Assembly Site in Uppland - linking time and space through oral traditions
I will argue that the assembly site at Mora was established in the Merovingian period (ca 550
AD). This argumentation could not be constructed without using the folk legends and later
traditions surrounding the site. I use the spatial connections revealed in the oral traditions as
part of the context of Mora assembly site. These connections create a network in the
landscape. By using these secondary sites and their traits I end up in a certain time period
that I argue has been vital for the creation of the assembly site at Mora.
The inauguration ceremony at Mora is considered to be archaic and may have its
roots in pre-Christian times. Originally, it involved a limited geographical area, probably the
folklands Tiundaland and Attundaland, whose borders met at the low lying grass lands at
Mora. In Rannsakningar from 1673 a folk legend mentions an underground passageway
going from a hill at the Meadowguardian’s cottage at Mora towards Lagga Hill. The entrance
to the passageway stood always open, situated at the foot of the mound Juthögen a
dominant feature in the plain at Mora. The folk belief was that the underground passageway
went from one mound, Juthögen, ending up in what was probably once the largest mound
ever constructed in Sweden, Kashögen in Lagga parish on the other side of the river. In
Lagga hill halfway through the passageway there were caves by which you could reach the
passageway and go in both directions. Later traditions add details on the matter.
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The veracity of the oral traditions as well as the information about when something
occurred has rightly been regarded with skepticism, and the motives of the legends have
travelled far. But the spatial dimension that the legends convey is generally underestimated;
it is usually very detailed and precise. The connection between Juthögen, at the meadow of
Mora, Lagga hill and the large mound Kashögen can be of old age and the question is to
what time period can it be linked. The enormous dimensions of Kashögen tells us that it
almost certainly was erected in the period 550-600 AD, contemporaneous with the large
mounds at Old Uppsala. Where did the initiative to create the assembly place at Mora come
from? In retrospect, it is easy to imagine that Tiundaland and the royal seat at Uppsala was
the dominant party in such a constellation. But the enormous dimensions of Kashögen, and
the royally furnished mound of Brunnshögen in Husby-Långhundra further east in
Attundaland suggests that this might have been a delicate matter. The oldest traditions does
connect Mora assembly site with sites in Attundaland, and the thing site is located on the
border between the folklands, but more precisely it is placed on the Attundaland side of it.