About “THE SONG OF HILDE”

The Evangeline Stage Group bring us a splendid start to the New Year! Written by Roland Lloyd Parry, Performed by Christopher Tully, and Produced and Directed by Sarah Forbey, “The Song Of Hilde” is a bloody, bawdy, tender tale of Vikings invading Yorkshire – perfect for cosy nights of story telling in darkest winter.

Hear how Vikings storm the English town of Whitby and how a young nun, Hilde, charms a Viking warrior to protect her until her lost lover returns……A heroic tale of love and sacrifice amid the slaughter.

Baron’s Court Theatre, London Thursday 15 January – Saturday 17 January only (8 p.m.)

Tickets and further details

Alternatively, if you move down to ‘categories’ on the sidebar, and click ‘events‘, you’ll be taken to a chronological list of forthcoming conferences, courses, meetings, lectures: everything we hear about.

If you know of a relevant event that’s not yet listed, or would like to publicize something you’re organizing yourself, please get in touch.

Between the Islands: Interaction with Vikings in Ireland and Britain in the Early Medieval Period

Location: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge

Friday 13 - Sunday 15 March 2009

Website: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/567/

‘Between the Islands’ seeks to illuminate the nature of interaction between Vikings and the peoples of Ireland and Britain in the early medieval period. The title alludes to the underlying significance of sea currents for these relations, as well as signalling a focus on what has come to be known as the Insular Viking zone. Our primary concern is what Vikings did when they went abroad; how their activities shaped the insular cultures of which they became an integral part and to what extent they were transformed themselves in the process. Our starting point is the ninth century when Vikings began to settle in what were to become their adopted homelands; we follow the progress of their integration down to the twelfth century by which time a considerable blurring of boundaries had occurred. Our focus will be precisely on those boundaries, upon the fertile interstices in which cultural transference most easily occurs. Our canvas is a broad insular landscape at a period during which it was truly transformed.
To enable us to view that transformation in the brightest possible light we aim to provide a wide arc, by bringing scholars of various disciplines together who are engaged in specialised research. We shall concentrate on specific areas of that canvas, rather than surveying it in its entirety. To this end, 45-minute sessions (10-15-minute presentation of a pre-circulated paper, followed by c.30 minutes of discussion) will provide detailed investigations of specific aspects of cultural interaction based on up-to-date, cutting edge research. Our succession of well-chosen topics drawn from different disciplines, and from various regions and time periods, will when taken together form a series of overlapping vignettes which will put our understanding of relations between these peoples on a more solid footing.

Click here for full programme.

http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/

Among the highlights now available in this new open-access repository are:

The full list is a testament to the variety, depth, and quality of the Viking Society’s publications over the past century. And naturally it seems that its decision to go along the open-access route of dissemination can only be good for the field.

Please note: many of the files available from http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/ are still in copyright, and should not be distributed without the consent of the Society and (where applicable) the author.

Filling a gap in the literature for an academically oriented volume on the Viking period, this unique book is a one-stop authoritative introduction to all the latest research in the field.

Bringing together today’s leading scholars, both established seniors and younger, cutting-edge academics, Stefan Brink, in collaboration with Neil Price, have constructed the first single work to gather innovative research from a spectrum of disciplines (including archaeology, history, philology, comparative religion, numismatics and cultural geography) to create the most comprehensive Viking Age book of its kind ever attempted.

Consisting of longer articles providing overviews of important themes, supported by shorter papers focusing on material or sites of particular interest, this comprehensive volume covers such wide-ranging topics as social institutions, spatial issues, the Viking Age economy, warfare, beliefs, language, voyages, and links with medieval and Christian Europe.

Including extensive illustration, maps and references, this book is essential to the collection of any student or specialist in the Viking period or Scandinavian history.

Selected Contents

Part 1: Viking Age Scandinavia People, Society and Social Institutions Living Space Technology and Trade Warfare and Weaponry Pre-Christian Religion and Belief Language, Literature and Art Part 2: The Viking Expansion The British Isles Continental Europe and the Mediterranean The Baltic Russia and the East The North Atlantic Part 3: Scandinavia enters the European stage The coming of Christianity The Development of Nation States

It’s on the expensive side at £135, and I hope that a paperback might be planned, if Routledge really envisages it as a source book that will be accessible to students. In the meantime, I’m sure it would be well worth recommending to your local library.

Eighth on my list [of factors explaining this success] is the heritage of discovery and exploration, fostered by the medieval Viking sagas that have been told and retold to every Icelandic child. This is a tradition that gives honour to those who venture into unknown lands, who dare to journey to foreign fields, interpreting modern business ventures as an extension of the Viking spirit, applauding the successful entrepreneurs as heirs of this proud tradition.

Ninth is the importance of personal reputation. This is partly rooted in the medieval Edda poems which emphasise that our wealth might wither away but our reputation will stay with us forever. Every Icelandic entrepreneur knows that success or failure will reflect not only on his or her own reputation but also on the reputation of the nation. They therefore see themselves as representatives of a proud people and know that their performance will determine their reputation for decades or centuries to come.

It’s easy to be wise after the fact, but in the light of recent events one wishes that somebody in Iceland had had the prescience of Njáll in these matters: when Ólafur Ragnar concluded by saying ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’, he clearly hadn’t. Perhaps Hávamál 75 is the verse we should remember in the current climate:

Even a man who knows nothing
Knows that many are fooled by money;
One man is rich, another is not rich,
He should not be blamed for that.

Or, even better, the second half of stanza 78:

Wealth is like the twinkling of an eye,
It is the most unreliable of friends.

(Translations: Larrington)

The new edition of the Viking Society’s Saga-Book has just been sent out to members. (If you’re not a member, might I urge you to consider joining?) Volume 32 contains three articles and no fewer than 17 reviews:

• Theodore M. Andersson, ‘The Oral Sources of Óláfs saga helga in Heimskringla‘
• Ármann Jakobsson, ‘The Trollish Acts of Þorgrímr the Witch: the Meanings of troll and ergi in Medieval Iceland’
• Conrad van Dijk, ‘Amused by Death? Humour in Tristrams saga ok Ísoddar‘
• The reviews are of the following books:
  Jón Hilmar Magnússon, Íslenzk-færeysk orðabók
  Sara M. Ponz-Sans, Norse-derived Vocabulary in Late Old English Texts. Wulfstan’s Works: a Case Study
  Mindy MacLeod and Bernard Mees, Runic Amulets and Magic Objects
  Pernille Hermann et al., ed., Reflections on Old Norse Myths
  Ingunn Ásdísardóttir, Frigg og Freyja - kvenleg goðmögn í heiðnum sið
  Tom Shippey, ed., The Shadow-Walkers. Jacob Grimm’s Mythology of the Monstrous
  Haki Antonsson, St Magnús of Orkney. A Scandinavian Martyr-Cult in Context
  Ólafur Halldórsson, ed., Færeyinga saga. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar eptir Odd munk Snorrason
  Janet Bately and Anton Englert, ed., Ohthere’s Voyages. A Late 9^th-Century Account of Voyages along the Coasts of Norway and Denmark and its Cultural Context
  Alex Woolf, From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070
  Clare Downham, Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland. The Dynasty of Ívarr to A. D. 1014
  R. Andrew McDonald, Manx Kingship in its Irish Sea Setting, 1187-1229. Rögnvaldr and the Crovan Dynasty
  Beverly Ballin Smith et al., ed., West Over Sea. Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement before 1300. A Festschrift in Honour of Dr Barbara Crawford
  Judy Quinn et al., ed., Learning and Understanding in the Old Norse World. Essays in Honour of Margaret Clunies Ross
  M. J. Driscoll, ed., Fjórar sögur frá hendi Jóns Oddssonar Hjaltalín. Sagan af Marroni sterka, Ágrip af Heiðarvíga sögu, sagan af Zadig, Fimmbræðra saga
  Jóna E. Hammer, Memoirs of an Icelandic Bookworm
  Robert E. Bjork, trans., A Viking Slave’s Saga. Jan Fridegård’s Trilogy of Novels about the Viking Age: Land of Wooden Gods, People of the Dawn and Sacrificial Smoke
• Northern Studies is the journal of Scotland’s equivalent to the Viking Society, the Scottish Society for Northern Studies, although its chronological scope is somewhat broader than Saga-Book’s and centres particularly on Scottish matters. In the current issue (vol. 40) there is but one medieval article: Ian Beuermann’s account of ‘King John’s Attack on Man in 1210′, and a review by David Sellar of Patricia Pires Boulhosa’s book Icelanders and the Kings of Norway.
• JEGP 107/4 has two Norse-related articles: Sara M. Pons-Sanz discusses ‘Norse-derived Terms and Structures in The Battle of Maldon‘ and Merrill Kaplan has a piece entitled ‘Out-Thoring Thor in the Longest Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason: Akkerisfrakki, Rauðr inn rammi and Hir Rauða Skegg’. I think this is an expanded version of the paper Merrill gave to the Saga Conference in 2006, and I’m particularly looking forward to reading it.
  This volume also contains reviews of:
  Odd Einar Haugen, Altnordische Philologie: Norwegen und Island
  Martin Arnold, The Vikings: Wolves of War
  Theodore M. Andersson, The Growth of the Medieval Icelandic Sagas (1180-1280)
  Michael Chesnutt, ed., Egils saga Skallagrímssonar III: C-Redaktionen
  John Kennedy, Translating the Sagas: Two Hundred Years of Challenge and Response

• The Danish Historisk Tidsskrift, vol. 108, part 1.
  Only one article on a medieval topic in this issue, and that a rather late one: in ‘En ukendt diplomatisk udveksling mellem Sten Sture og Ivan III’, Carsten Pape re-examines the ‘Swedish connection’ in diplomacy between the Habsburg and Muscovite dynasties in the period 1488-93 (English summary). Historisk Tidskrift also publishes several short notes per issue, and readers of ONN may find one by Thomaas Høvsgaard (on the question of whether the Black Death reached Greenland) particularly interesting. Niels Lund also provides a combined review of two recent archaeological publications: Knud J. Krogh’s Gåden om Kong Gorms grav and Hedensk ok kristent: Fundene fra den kongelige gravhøj i Jelling, also by Krogh together with Bodil Leth-Larsen.
• The Norwegian Historisk Tidsskrift, vol. 87, no. 2.
  A medieval-focused issue begins with Sverre Bagge’s article ‘«Salvo semper regio iure» Kampen om sættargjerden 1277-1290′. Bagge revisits J. A. Seip’s discussion of the nature of the conflict between the Norwegian regency and the Church in the 1280s, arguing that the concordat of 1277 between the two sides was more of a compromise than Seip would allow. He shows how the regency’s ideas of church rights relate to Roman Law, Aristotle, and contemporary medieval philosophy.

  In ‘Munkeliv klosters jordegods frem til 1463: Kilder og realiteter’, Audun Dybdahl traces the changing fortunes of Munkeliv in Bergen, drawing on property lists drawn up in ca. 1175 and 1427. Although these registers imply a good deal about the monastery’s aquisitions and sales of land in this period, Dybdahl suggests that a retrospective approach to this subject — starting with a Reformation-era land register and working backwards — throws up several important methodological problems for the monastic historian.

  Finally, Tor Weidling offers a reassessment of the manor of Tomb in the parish of Råde across the Reformation. Although the earliest documentary source for this manor is from no earlier than 1624, Weidling has been able to identify traces of a medieval estate in this location, which was dissolved in about 1400.

  The articles all have English summaries, and there is a review (by Kristian Hunskaar) of Knut Johannessen’s book Den glemte skriften. Gotisk håndskrift i Norge.

• Although for reasons of inclusivity and comprehensiveness I certainly meant to mention the Swedish Historisk Tidskrift as well, looking at vol. 128, no. 2 I discover no substantial medieval content!¹ Oh well… on to …
• Collegium Medievale, vol. 21.
  I’ve no idea how widely distributed Collegium Medievale is outside Norway, but I think it’s an excellent journal that deserves a broad readership. It has a general remit on the whole of Medieval Scandinavia, but tends towards historical rather than literary subjects. In the present issue, we find:

  Frederik Charpentier Ljungqvist, ‘Bannlyst kung av Guds nåde. Maktlegitimering och kungaideologi i Sverris saga’: a long and detailed investigation of attitudes towards power in Sverris saga that explores the ways in which the saga presents King Sverrir of Norway (1177-1202) as a rex justus, as part of a strategy to legitimize his rulership and to refute suggestions that the Church was beyond the king’s jurisdiction.

  In ‘Stilanalytisk metode og norsk middelaldermaleri’, Erla Bergendahl Hohler draws on her earlier work in cataloguing medieval Norwegian altar-fronts to offer new perspectives on the concepts of ’style’ and ’stylistic analysis’ as applied to medieval painting. Lots of excellently-reproduced illustrations provide examples in support of her theoretical discussion.

  Church history and relations between Scandinavia and the papacy are studied in Eldbjørgn Haug’s article ‘Minor Papal Penitentiaries of Dacia, their Lives and Careers in Context’. At the heart of this study are nine penetentiaries for the province of Dacia between 1263 and 1391 who went on to become bishops in the Baltic Sea region. Haug hypothesises that ‘the Scandinavian papal penitentiaries were intermediates between a geographic periphery of Christendom and the papacy, and contributed to a further centralisation of the universal church’.

  Finally, Olav Tveito takes us back to the early eleventh century, and the youth of Óláfr Haraldsson. In ‘Olav Haraldssons unge år og relasjonen til engelsk kongemakt. Momenter til et crux interpretum‘, Tveito suggests that Óláfr may have formed an alliance with the English king Aethelred in 1014/15, and that his alliance would have prevented his forming ties to Aethelred’s successor, Cnut. As for the other articles, an English summary is provided.

  I don’t know much about runology, but I know what I like: I always find Terje Spurkland’s work on the subject persuasive, provocative, and engaging. Here he provides a review article entitled ‘Den eldre fusþark — produkt av germansk kleptokrasi?’ The volume concludes with four book reviews.

• Skírnir (Spring 2008) has an article by Gísli Sigurðsson entitled ‘*Hin almælta saga af Guðmundi ríka’, in which Gísli revisits the question of the Sagas of Icelanders’ potential oral forms. By means of an ingenious survey of all the appearances of Guðmundr ríkr Eyjólfsson from Eyjafjörður in saga-narratives, he postulates the existence of an oral *Guðmundar saga, of which the extant written texts all still bear traces.

Iceland has been in the news plenty recently, but only for rather gloomy reasons. You can revisit the old clichés (perpetuated by the new Icelanders themselves, it has to be said) about Icelandic entrepreneurs being the embodiment of the ‘Viking spirit’ in this BBC article from 2006: The Vikings are coming. Or you can wonder, as you read an article like The party’s over for Iceland, the island that tried to buy the world (Guardian), whether the methods of the original Vikings (unsubtle though they seemed to some) weren’t preferable to the activities of some of their descendants. The hedge-fund has turned out to be a less effective weapon than fire and the sword for subjugating the rest of Europe.

That digression into macro-economics put swiftly aside, it was rather nice to see, also on the Guardian’s site, an article asking whether the Sagas of Icelanders are not Europe’s most important book. The use of the singular in the title seems odd, but the author, Ben Myers, seems to think that we may view the whole corpus as a single unified literary entity. It’s a position I think I’d have trouble defending, but it’s good to see the sagas even being discussed in such a forum.

If you’ve been frustrated by the meagre results that you get when you type “Egill Skallagrímsson” + “Eminem” into Google, help is at hand. The March 2008 issue of The Journal of Popular Culture (not something that I’d normally include in our Journal Round-Ups, necessarily) has an article by Brian Anse Patrick of the University of Michigan, which rejoices in the title ‘Vikings and Rappers: The Icelandic Sagas Hip-Hop across 8 Mile’ (subscription possibly needed to read the whole thing). I just thought you might like to know.