The Medialization of the Supernatural in the Toponymy of the Book of Settlements
Next to extended narratives as they are presented by Eddic literature, the Sagas of Icelanders, or lives of saints, one of the most important media reflecting medieval Icelandic conceptualizations of and attitudes to the supernatural is the Icelandic landscape, and here especially the toponymy, whic...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
De Gruyter
2018
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| In: |
Hvanndalir – Beiträge zur europäischen Altertumskunde und mediävistischen Literaturwissenschaft
Year: 2018, Pages: 47-66 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | Next to extended narratives as they are presented by Eddic literature, the Sagas of Icelanders, or lives of saints, one of the most important media reflecting medieval Icelandic conceptualizations of and attitudes to the supernatural is the Icelandic landscape, and here especially the toponymy, which forms a core element of the ascription of meaning to this landscape. Drawing on the corpus of placenames brought together in the Hauksbók-recension of the Book of Settlements, the article explores an approach to the supernatural in medieval Icelandic culture that differs from previous scholarship by choosing a perspective covering a wider spectrum of the religious cosmos of early Iceland than it had traditionally stood in the centre of research on sacred placenames: it looks beyond questions of pagan cult and the great gods of the North to include the mythological cosmos as a whole, inclusive of beings like giants and trolls and, furthermore, it places its focus not specifically on Old Norse paganism, but rather on the interweaving of pagan and Christian elements in Icelandic sacral toponymy. Thus, in short, it attempts to explore not pre-Christian paganism, but the supernatural in Icelandic toponymy, approaching a holistic picture of the supernatural cosmos of medieval Iceland as it is presented to us in the Book of Settlements. |
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| Item Description: | Literaturverzeichnis: S. 63-66 |
| ISBN: | 3110569485 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Hvanndalir – Beiträge zur europäischen Altertumskunde und mediävistischen Literaturwissenschaft
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.15496/publikation-57173 HDL: 10900/115798 |