17th–18th March 2016, Aarhus, Denmark
Filip Missuno, University of York Held at Aarhus University, the ninth instalment
of the Interdisciplinary Student Symposium on Viking and Medieval Scandinavian Subjects represented the crowning of a remarkable expansion in size, quality, international visibility and attractiveness over the previous years. As it unfolded over two full days packed
with vibrant scholarly communication, it became apparent that this event, now the largest of its kind, had reached full maturity and perhaps an ideal format.
The symposium saw a delightful diversity of presentations by 25 MA and PhD students representing ten different universities across
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Europe. The papers, skilfully distributed thematically across eight sessions, engaged with an impressive spectrum of research areas within the cultural, historical and archaeological contexts of Viking Age and Medieval Scandinavia as well as Old Norse language, literature and myth. (The programme of the symposium and an archive of past events are available online at www.vikingoldnorse.au.dk.)
Chair of the organizing committee Simon Nygaard (Aarhus University) addressed a warm welcome to a large gathering of young researchers keen to learn, exchange results and insights from their ongoing work and acquire the indispensable experience in the academic genre of research presentation. He stressed that the Aarhus Symposium still remained true to its original principle – which has been decisive in its growing success – namely, to be a scholarly event organized “for students, by students, with students as speakers, in a professional yet informal setting”.
The first session, themed “Reception History”, opened with Jay Anthony Hash’s (University of Iceland) presentation on the challenges besetting the early days of runic studies as seen through the letters of a pioneer in the field, the Danish polymath Ole Worm. Offering an original, modern counterpoint, Shirley McPhaul (University of Iceland) spoke enthusiastically on how Norse myth is used (and changed) in video games, mainly in terms of narrative. Hana Spacilova (Aarhus University) rounded up this rousing opening session by comparing the treatment of the character of Brynhild in retellings of Vǫlsunga
saga, focusing on the versions by Morris, Lang
and Tolkien.
Logically moving on to the written sources themselves, the following session’s topic was “Manuscript Studies”. It was started by Anne Ladefoged (University of Copenhagen) who, from a consideration of medieval Danish law manuscripts, analyzed the relationship between a manuscript’s layout to its function(s) and intended audiences. Balduin Landolt (University of Iceland/University of Basel) followed with a study of two variants of
Færeyinga saga interpolated in kings’ sagas,
examining their relation to the framing text and
demonstrating their adherence to a shared structural pattern. The session concluded with Anthony Jay Bunker’s (University of Iceland) inquiry into the treatment of the Huns in Old Norse sources, showing that these ‘others’ were instrumental to the articulation of important cultural and literary themes, such as kinship or inheritance.
This provided a brilliant transition to the session that set off after lunch under the banner “Á austrvega: On the Eastern Way”. Emily Reed (University of York) opened the session by examining the stylized tropes and conventions of medieval letter writing through the correspondence between the Swedish monk Petrus de Dacia and the German mystic Christina von Stommeln, interrogating the possibility for us to hear their original voices. Johan Sandvang Larsen (Aarhus University) followed by arguing that what evidence we have for the island of Bornholm’s Viking Age material culture points to Swedish tradition and influence rather than to the island having been part of Harald Bluetooth’s kingdom. The session closed with two papers that travelled further afield on the ‘eastern way’: Csete Katona (University of Debrecen) reviewed the question of the presence and influence of the Vikings in the Carpathian Basin and their supposed friendship with the Hungarians in early medieval times. Katona struck a sceptical note in view of the sparse and inconclusive nature of the evidence. Klaudia Karpińska (University of Rzeszów) discussed the quality and authenticity of Viking Age re-enactment in Poland (and exhibited a finely-wrought replica of a putative seiðr-staff), stressing the fine line between the valorization of the past and its depreciation.
For the closing session of the day, with the theme of “Daily Life”, the audience was treated to two presentations revolving around food and drink: Beth Rogers (University of Iceland) explored the significance of milk and dairy products in medieval Scandinavia and showed their centrality in the culture and mentality of the North. Benjamin Sibley (University of Iceland) analyzed the references to brewing and drinking alcohol in the prose of
Íslendingasögur and Sturlungasögur with a
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archaeological and cultural contexts. After this apposite and appetizing conclusion of the day, the participants were invited to the conference dinner.
The second day of the symposium was essentially devoted to language, literature and mythology. The opening session, on “Literary Structures”, started with Brian MacMahon (University of Oxford) discussing the framing devices used in the sagas, notably the epilogues, in relation to scribal intention and the audience’s interpretation of the act of storytelling. Moving on to poetical structure, Nicholas Hoffmann (University of Iceland) showed how verses in a saga can embody and transmit its strange and supernatural aspects, taking the example of the understudied Harðar saga Grímkelssonar. Claudia Hoßbach (University of Greifswald) followed by shifting the focus onto the literary device of laughter and seeking its function in the Íslendingasögur. Madita Knöpfle (University of Basel) ended the session with a consideration of how music interacts with meaning in various Scandinavian variants of the famous ballad Den talende Strengeleg [‘The Talking Harp’].
From there the following session proceeded to “Language and Linguistics”, beginning with Katherine Thorn’s (University of Iceland) examination of the mentions of multilingualism in the sagas and the cultural or narrative importance for saga protagonists to be able to communicate across linguistic borders. Zooming in further on lexis, Johan Bollaert (Uppsala University) presented the results of his research on Romance loanwords in the riddarasögur and their subsequent fate in Icelandic and Norwegian in the light of theories about language contact and semantic change. The session concluded with Denis Sukhino-Khomenko (University of Copenhagen, Visiting PhD from Lomonosov Moscow State University) who raised the question of Scandinavian impact on the category of thegn (Old English þegn meaning originally ‘servant’) in the Danelaw, stressing the complex evolution of the social group that this word denoted.
Everybody was kept alert and entertained after lunch by a lively session venturing into the field of “Liminal Beings and Borders”.
Barbora Davidková (University of Iceland) began by tracking down the trolls in Barðar
saga Snæfellsáss in order to interpret their
feasting habits through a cultural and religious lens. Jonas Sandager Brammen Møller (Aarhus University) followed with a presentation on
dísir, suggesting that these female figures are
best understood as agents of fate. Barðar saga then made a comeback as Daria Segal (University of Iceland) used the abundance of toponyms in the text to argue that naming was a means of asserting control over the undefinable otherness of liminal space. Blake Middleton (University of Aberdeen) wound up the discussion by addressing the problem of the destination of supernatural beings (or of their ‘souls’) after death in Norse myth.
The symposium went full circle with its last session, which bore the topic of “Reconstruction”. Grayson Del Faro (University of Iceland) gave an entertaining lecture on textual discrepancies and methods of reconstruction in the notorious case of
Sigurðarkviða in meiri, and Roderick McDonald (University of Iceland), in an interesting and intriguing finale, offered paths for reconstructing the largely missing ‘Norse Arthurian cycle’ through a comparison of the figure of Kæi in Norse romance sagas to his antecedent Cai in Welsh tradition.
It remained for the organizers to thank all participants and the audience for yet another a successful and enthralling symposium in Aarhus. A wealth of ideas were shared and probed, many fresh angles and perspectives were opened onto research areas old and new, and there was food for thought to take home for everyone. The quality, variety, originality and colourfulness of the presentations and the abundance of interesting questions and discussions – which merrily rolled on into the final reception – bore witness to the vitality of Old Norse and Scandinavian studies among junior researchers. This bodes well for scholarship in the field in future years; and in the meantime, one now certainly awaits with impatience yet another Interdisciplinary Student Symposium on Viking and Medieval Scandinavian Subjects, with new exchanges and new excitement, next year.
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