Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend
ISBN: 9781846154140
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Boydell & Brewer
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Mythology Norse; Other (Philosophy);

Close examination of the significant theme of other-worldly encounters in Norse myth and legend, including giantesses, monsters and the Dead.

A particular, recurring feature of Old Norse myths and legends is an encounter between creatures of This World [gods and human beings] and those of the Other [giants, giantesses, dwarves, prophetesses, monsters and the dead]. Concentrating on cross-gendered encounters, this book analyses these meetings, and the different motifs and situations they encompass, from the consultation of a prophetess by a king or god, to sexual liaisons and return from the dead. It considers the evidence for their pre-Christian origins, discusses how far individual poets and prose writers were free to modify them, and suggests that they survived in medieval Christian society because [like folk-tale] they provide a non-dogmatic way of resolving social and psychological problems connected with growing up, succession from one generation to the next, sexual relationships and bereavement.


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