Lyfing
07-31-2009, 01:22 AM
The Archaeology of Seiğr: Circumpolar Traditions in Viking Pre-Christian Religion.. (http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=circumpolar+traditions+in+viking+pre-christian+religion&fr=moz35&u=www.brathair.com/revista/numeros/04.02.2004/archaeology_seidr.pdf&w=circumpolar+traditions+viking+pre+christian+reli gion&d=RzWX0xlMS3j0&icp=1&.intl=us)
Introduction
For more than 120 years historians of religion, together with philologists and
occasionally anthropologists, have been studying the possibility that some aspects of pre-Christian Scandinavian religion may have contained elements of shamanism. Much of this work has focused on the cult of Óğinn (Odin) - the highest god, most often associated with war, poetry and the mind - but within this field research has especially concentrated on a specific complex of rituals collectively termed seiğr in the Old Norse textual sources. Altogether more than 300 published works have appeared on this subject, representing the work of some 150 scholars from the disciplines mentioned above (this corpus of scholarship is fully discussed in Price 2002, but key contributions may be found in the work of Strömbäck 1935, 1970, 1975; Ohlmarks 1939a & b; Buchholz 1968, 1971; Grambo 1984, 1989, 1991; Dillmann 1986, 1993, 1994).
The long time-frame of these studies is important for two reasons. Firstly, such a focus serves to dispell the idea that the study of a possible Viking shamanism results from, or is in any way connected with, the increasing popular interest in alternative religions. Medieval descriptions of Viking Age rituals have provided inspiration for modern, neo-shamanic groups who also use the word seiğr to describe what they do (cf. Blain 2002), but I want to emphasise that my own research, and this paper, is exclusively concerned with the beliefs and practices of the Viking Age, with seiğr in its original sense. Secondly, I refer to the long history of research in this field because it is also important to stress that I am here very much following in the footsteps of others.
Interestingly, archaeologists have come relatively late to the discussion. Karl Hauck's shamanic interpretations of the Migration Period gold bracteates - a type of circular pendant perhaps worn as a mark of rank or status - first appeared in the early 1970s (e.g. 1972, 1976, 1983, 1985-89 amongst many others). However, for the Viking Age proper it is not until Bente Magnus' ground-breaking publications (1988, 1992) that we begin to see the idea of shamanism in Old Norse religion take root in archaeological circles. The present paper will primarily be concerned with these archaeological responses, but we may begin by quickly reviewing our sources for seiğr, and the way they have been interpreted.
Later,
-Lyfing
Introduction
For more than 120 years historians of religion, together with philologists and
occasionally anthropologists, have been studying the possibility that some aspects of pre-Christian Scandinavian religion may have contained elements of shamanism. Much of this work has focused on the cult of Óğinn (Odin) - the highest god, most often associated with war, poetry and the mind - but within this field research has especially concentrated on a specific complex of rituals collectively termed seiğr in the Old Norse textual sources. Altogether more than 300 published works have appeared on this subject, representing the work of some 150 scholars from the disciplines mentioned above (this corpus of scholarship is fully discussed in Price 2002, but key contributions may be found in the work of Strömbäck 1935, 1970, 1975; Ohlmarks 1939a & b; Buchholz 1968, 1971; Grambo 1984, 1989, 1991; Dillmann 1986, 1993, 1994).
The long time-frame of these studies is important for two reasons. Firstly, such a focus serves to dispell the idea that the study of a possible Viking shamanism results from, or is in any way connected with, the increasing popular interest in alternative religions. Medieval descriptions of Viking Age rituals have provided inspiration for modern, neo-shamanic groups who also use the word seiğr to describe what they do (cf. Blain 2002), but I want to emphasise that my own research, and this paper, is exclusively concerned with the beliefs and practices of the Viking Age, with seiğr in its original sense. Secondly, I refer to the long history of research in this field because it is also important to stress that I am here very much following in the footsteps of others.
Interestingly, archaeologists have come relatively late to the discussion. Karl Hauck's shamanic interpretations of the Migration Period gold bracteates - a type of circular pendant perhaps worn as a mark of rank or status - first appeared in the early 1970s (e.g. 1972, 1976, 1983, 1985-89 amongst many others). However, for the Viking Age proper it is not until Bente Magnus' ground-breaking publications (1988, 1992) that we begin to see the idea of shamanism in Old Norse religion take root in archaeological circles. The present paper will primarily be concerned with these archaeological responses, but we may begin by quickly reviewing our sources for seiğr, and the way they have been interpreted.
Later,
-Lyfing