The Viking World (Routledge Worlds)

(Ben Green) #1

strictly speaking, the modern interpreter is recreating an Old Norse myth from the
evidence provided by a Viking Age object, itself understood in the light of a medieval
mythic narrative. Such a process is legitimate if the parallels between the two kinds of
evidence can be securely established, but this has often not been the case.
An example of a legitimate identification with a particular myth is the well-known
standing stone, dated c. 1000 , from Altuna in Sweden, which depicts an anthropo-
morphic figure full-face, in a boat, a hammer raised in its right hand, and a foot shown
in profile below the boat. The details of hammer-wielder, boat and serpentine object
beneath the boat are specific enough to allow the figure to be identified as the god Þórr,
wielding his hammer Mjo ̨llnir on his fishing expedition to catch the World Serpent,
Miðgarðsormr. This myth was very popular during the Viking Age, when it existed in
several versions (Meulengracht Sørensen 2002 ). However, there is one detail on the
Altuna stone that sets its depiction of this myth apart from all others. This is the way
the artist shows Þórr’s foot sticking through the bottom of the boat. We find a parallel
for this motif only in the medieval Icelander Snorri Sturluson’s Edda (c. 1225 ): ‘Then
Thor got angry and summoned up his As-strength, pushed down so hard that he forced
both feet through the boat and braced them against the sea-bed’ (Faulkes 1987 : 47 ;
cf. Faulkes 2005 : 44 – 5 ). If we did not know the Altuna stone, we might be tempted to
consider Snorri’s version his own embroidery of the myth; conversely, the Altuna stone’s
image gains greater mythic density when one is able to compare it with Snorri’s
narrative.
Runic inscriptions from the Viking Age and skaldic (or court) poetry which can
reliably be dated to the period offer a fairly limited perspective on the creation of Old
Norse mythology. Runic inscriptions tend to be short and formulaic, while skaldic
poetry of this period is largely focused on ‘war, sailing and remuneration’ ( Jesch 2001 :
32 ), though its richly nominal style, which employs periphrases known as kennings
(kenningar) and poetic synonyms for everyday nouns known as heiti, makes use of
references to Old Norse mythological beings and sometimes to myths themselves,
though these references tend to be stereotyped and allusive. For example, there is a myth
told only by Snorri Sturluson in his Edda and, in a different version, in Ynglinga saga, the
prefatory section of his Heimskringla, which represents poetry as taking the form of an
inspiring mead, a gift from the god Óðinn. Poets often alluded to this myth when they
drew attention to the divine origin of their own verse making, particularly at the
beginning of formal poems. The tenth-century Icelander Glúmr Geirason begins a
poem, possibly his Gráfeldardrápa in honour of the Norwegian king Haraldr gráfeldr
(‘grey cloak’, d. 970 ), with an allusion to the mead of poetry myth: ‘Listen! I begin the
feast [the mead, a poem] of the gods’ ruler [Odin] for princes. We crave silence, for we
have heard of the loss of men’ (Faulkes 1987 : 70 ; cf. Faulkes 1998 , vol. 1 : 12 , verse 32 ).
There are many similar examples, but none of them actually narrates the mead myth. If
we did not know Snorri’s two versions, our understanding of this complex myth would
be reduced to guesswork.
Viking Age skaldic poetry names many mythological figures, often within kennings,
and alludes to a number of myths, but its audience was expected to supply the full
mythological context from its general cultural knowledge. Thus skaldic verse of the
Viking Age reveals the existence of Old Norse mythology as a system in its listeners’
minds through its allusive referential habit, but it does not reveal Old Norse mythology
itself. We are like Ariadne without her clue to the labyrinth; the only way we can


–– Margaret Clunies Ross––
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