The Viking Way by Price, Neil -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of figures and tables Abbreviations Preface to the first edition, 2002 Preface to the second edition Acknowledgements to the second edition A note on language A note on seid and its analogues 1. Different Vikings? Towards a cognitive archaeology of the later Iron Age

A beginning at Birka Textual archaeology and the Iron Age

The Vikings in (pre)history The materiality of text Annaliste archaeology and a historical anthropology of the Vikings

The Other and the Odd?

Conflict in the archaeology of cognition Others without Othering Indigenous archaeologies and the Vikings

An archaeology of the Viking mind?

2. Problems and paradigms in the study of Old Norse sorcery

Entering the mythology Research perspectives on Scandinavian pre-Christian religion

Philology and comparative theology

Gods and monsters, worship and superstition

Religion and belief The invisible population

The shape of Old Norse religion The double world: seiðr and the problem of Old Norse ‘magic’

The other magics: galdr, gandr and ‘Óðinnic sorcery’

Seiðr in the sources

Skaldic poetry Eddic poetry The sagas of the kings The sagas of Icelanders (the ‘family sagas’) The fornaldarsögur (‘sagas of ancient times’, ‘legendary sagas’) The biskupasögur (‘Bishops’ sagas’) The early medieval Scandinavian law codes Non-Scandinavian sources

Seiðr in research

3. Seiðr

Óðinn

Óðinn the sorcerer Óðinn’s names

Freyja and the magic of the Vanir Seiðr and Old Norse cosmology The performers

Witches, seeresses and wise women Women and the witch-ride Men and magic The assistants Towards a terminology of Nordic sorcerers The performers in death?

The performance

Ritual architecture and space The clothing of sorcery Masks, veils and head-coverings Drums, tub-lids and shields Staffs and wands Staffs from archaeological contexts Narcotics and intoxicants Charms Songs and chants The problem of trance and ecstasy

Engendering seiðr

Ergi, níð and witchcraft Sexual performance and eroticism in seiðr

Seiðr and the concept of the soul

Helping spirits in seiðr

The domestic sphere of seiðr

Divination and revealing the hidden Hunting and weather magic The role of the healer

Seiðr contextualised

4. Noaidevuohta

Seiðr and the Sámi Sámi-Norse relations in the Viking Age Sámi religion and the Drum-Time

The world of the gods Spirits and Rulers in the Sámi cognitive landscape Names, souls and sacrifice Noaidevuohta and the noaidi

Rydving’s terminology of noaidevuohta

Specialist noaidi Diviners, sorcerers and other magic-workers The sights and sounds of trance ‘Invisible power’ and secret sorcery

Women and noaidevuohta

Sources for female sorcery Assistants and jojker-choirs Women, ritual and drum magic Female diviners and healers in Sámi society Animals and the natural world The female noaidi?

The rituals of noaidevuohta

The role of jojk The material culture of noaidevuohta An early medieval noaidi? The man from Vivallen Sexuality and eroticism in noaidevuohta Offence and defence in noaidevuohta The functions of noaidevuohta

The ethnicity of religious context in Viking-Age Scandinavia

5. Circumpolar religion and the question of Old Norse shamanism

The circumpolar cultures and the invention of shamanism

The shamanic encounter The early ethnographies: shamanic research in Russia and beyond Shamanism in anthropological perspective

The shamanic world-view

The World Pillar: shamanism and circumpolar cosmology The ensouled world The shamanic vocation Gender and sexual identity Eroticism and sexual performance Aggressive sorcery for offence and defence

Shamanism in Scandinavia

From the art of the hunters to the age of bronze Seiðr before the Vikings? Landscapes of the mind The eight-legged horse Tricksters and trickery

Seiðr and circumpolar shamanism

Two analogies on the functions of the seiðr-staff The shamanic motivation Towards a shamanic world-view of the Viking Age

6. The supernatural empowerment of aggression

Seiðr and the world of war Valkyrjur, skaldmeyjar and hjálmvitr

Female warriors in reality The valkyrjur in context The names of the valkyrjur The valkyrjur in battle-kennings

Supernatural agency in battle

Beings of destruction Óðinn and the Wild Hunt

The projection of destruction Battle magic

Sorcery for warriors Sorcery for sorcerers Seiðr and battlefield resurrection

Seiðr and the shifting of shape Berserkir and ulfheðnar

The battlefield of animals Ritual disguise and shamanic armies

Ecstasy, psychic dislocation and the dynamics of mass violence

Homeric lyssa and holy rage Predators and prey in the legitimate war

Weaving war, grinding battle: Darraðarljóð and Grottasǫngr in context

The ‘weapon dancers’

7. The Viking way

A reality in stories

The invisible battlefield Material magic

Viking women, Viking men

8. Magic and mind

Receptions and reactions Cracks in the ice of Norse ‘religion’ Walking into the seiðr: contested interpretations of Viking-Age magic

Questioning Norse ‘shamanism’ Staffs and spinning

Queering magic? The social world of war The Viking mind: a conclusion

References

Primary sources, including translations Pre-nineteenth-century sources for the early Sámi and Siberian cultures Secondary works Sources in archive

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