"Many a man goes astray around those dark letters": rune magic between historical evidence and modern fabrications (original) (raw)
Related papers
Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse Poetry
Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse Poetry, 2017
Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse Poetry By Thomas Birkett Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse Poetry is the first book-length study to compare responses to runic heritage in the literature of Anglo-Saxon England and medieval Iceland. The Anglo-Saxon runic script had already become the preserve of antiquarians at the time the majority of Old English poetry was written down, and the Icelanders recording the mythology associated with the script were at some remove from the centres of runic practice in medieval Scandinavia. Both literary cultures thus inherited knowledge of the runic system and the traditions associated with it, but viewed this literate past from the vantage point of a developed manuscript culture. There has, as yet, been no comprehensive study of poetic responses to this scriptural heritage, which include episodes in such canonical texts as Beowulf, the Old English riddles and the poems of the Poetic Edda. By analysing the inflection of the script through shared literary traditions, this study enhances our understanding of the burgeoning of literary self-awareness in early medieval vernacular poetry and the construction of cultural memory, and furthers our understanding of the relationship between Anglo-Saxon and Norse textual cultures. The introduction sets out in detail the rationale for examining runes in poetry as a literary motif and surveys the relevant critical debates. The body of the volume is comprised of five linked case studies of runes in poetry, viewing these representations through the paradigm of scriptural reconstruction and the validation of contemporary literary, historical and religious sensibilities. Download Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse Poe ...pdf Read Online Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse P ...pdf
Runes and Roman: Germanic Literacy and the Significance of Runic Writing
Textual Cultures, 2011
This article examines the ideologies and motivations that made runes appear on Scandinavian and English presses until the end of eighteenth century, as well as the difficulties involved in printing a non-roman script. I will consider especially the contributions of the Danish scholar Ole Worm, whose works on runes have been little discussed in English-language criticism despite their widespread and long-lasting influence throughout Europe, and the English antiquarian Thomas Percy, whose ideas were deeply inspired by Worm's theories. Percy's studies of runes have not been generally noted despite the fact that they define an important moment in the rediscovery of Britain's vernacular past.
Ráð Rétt Rúnar: reading the runes in Old English and Old Norse poetry
University of Oxford, 2011
Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse Poetry By Thomas Birkett Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse Poetry is the first book-length study to compare responses to runic heritage in the literature of Anglo-Saxon England and medieval Iceland. The Anglo-Saxon runic script had already become the preserve of antiquarians at the time the majority of Old English poetry was written down, and the Icelanders recording the mythology associated with the script were at some remove from the centres of runic practice in medieval Scandinavia. Both literary cultures thus inherited knowledge of the runic system and the traditions associated with it, but viewed this literate past from the vantage point of a developed manuscript culture. There has, as yet, been no comprehensive study of poetic responses to this scriptural heritage, which include episodes in such canonical texts as Beowulf, the Old English riddles and the poems of the Poetic Edda. By analysing the inflection of the script through shared literary traditions, this study enhances our understanding of the burgeoning of literary self-awareness in early medieval vernacular poetry and the construction of cultural memory, and furthers our understanding of the relationship between Anglo-Saxon and Norse textual cultures. The introduction sets out in detail the rationale for examining runes in poetry as a literary motif and surveys the relevant critical debates. The body of the volume is comprised of five linked case studies of runes in poetry, viewing these representations through the paradigm of scriptural reconstruction and the validation of contemporary literary, historical and religious sensibilities. Download Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse Poe ...pdf Read Online Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse P ...pdf
Interpreting Old Norse Magic: A Thematic Analysis of Seiðr, According to Runic Inscriptions.
Interpreting Old Norse Magic: A Thematic Analysis of Seiðr, According to Runic Inscriptions., 2024
This dissertation investigates themes of runic inscriptions pertaining to magic on objects throughout Scandinavia, dated within the parameters of the extended Viking Age, including Proto-Norse, Viking and Medieval periods (c. AD 500 to c. AD 1500). While engaging with transliterations and current scholarly interpretations, along with wider debates with regard to magic, this dissertation identifies perceptions and roles of magic in Old Norse society, with the intention of contributing to the current field of study. For the past century, scholars across various historical disciplines have endeavoured to understand and interpret magic in Old Norse society. Scholarly focus in recent years has centred on the written texts of the Eddas and Icelandic Sagas, with far less consideration of runic inscriptions. Yet, runic inscriptions offer unique evidence of lived mentalities and experiences that are otherwise inaccessible and are therefore a valuable resource worthy of research. A consistent caveat when addressing Old Norse belief and custom is the lack of reliable, available evidence, and speculation and debate surrounding the available evidence, ultimately resulting in inconclusive outcomes. Further, controversy and hostility towards magic is at times a reflection of modern social attitudes and personal, cultural and religious beliefs. This can, and undoubtedly has impeded progress in understanding perceptions of magic in the Viking-Age. Such biases must be addressed, as must the terminology of magic itself and the extent to which modern perceptions of magic are applicable to Old Norse society. Subsequently, this dissertation argues that the thematic evidence from runic inscriptions indicates that magic was a paradox within Old Norse society. A necessary paradox at that: a reflection of the good and the evil; of curse and prophecy; of happiness and sorrow; of health and suffering; of protection and destruction; of war and of peace. Seiðr was unequivocally a fundamental element of Old Norse belief and ritual, weaved extensively throughout societal spheres of wealth, politics, law and warfare. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that the perception of seiðr was real in Old Norse society. Intended to be feared and revered, runic inscriptions exemplify the complicated paradox that was seiðr.
Reading Runes in Late Medieval Manuscripts.
Reading Runes. Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions, Nyköping, Sweden, 2–6 September 2014. Ed. by MacLeod, Mindy, Marco Bianchi and Henrik Williams. Uppsala. (Runrön 24.) Pp. 225–232., 2021
Whilst the runica manuscripta of English tradition, the Scandinavian rune poems, and the occasional use of runes as writers’ signatures and in the Old High German glosses have been comparatively well-researched, this does not apply to the same extent to the use of runes in late medieval (German) manuscripts. Runes and runic alphabets are found far less frequently in these, for example in the foreign alphabets in the Voyages by Sir John Mandeville or in a manuscript with medical remedies and an invocation of the devil; finally also in a magical treatise relating to the hermetic tradition. However, the use of runes in late medieval manuscripts cannot properly be explained by the functions usually attributed to the runica manuscripta. On the understanding that discussion of runica manuscripta is not just a runic problem in the narrow sense, but can also contribute to an understanding of medieval culture, the specific implications of the use and pragmatics of the late medieval runica manuscripta will be explored. The function of runes in late medieval manuscripts should be determined at the same time with reference to secret written forms, readability and illegibility.
Runes and Verse: The Medialities of Early Scandinavian Poetry
European Journal of Scandinavian Studies
The paper discusses a number of versified runic inscriptions, mainly from Scandinavia, and from ca. 400 to 1400 AD, to explore what they reveal about the forms and functions of early Scandinavian poetry outside the manuscript tradition. With a particular focus on ‘authors’ and ‘audiences’, as defined by Bredehoft in his work on Anglo-Saxon inscriptions, the paper elucidates the potential oral contexts of Scandinavian runic verse and concludes that, although runic writing is a form of literacy, the examples show that for most of its history it is associated with various kinds of oral context. Runic verse shows that inscriptions provide one of the best ways into understanding the Scandinavian oral tradition, not only before the arrival of manuscript literacy, but also during its infancy.
Literacy in Scandinavia: A passage from orality influenced by runes
After reading the recent studies about the traces of orality and the beginning of literacy in the oldest Scandinavian texts we preserve, the first conclusion to be drawn is that the problem is far from being solved. Even though some medievalists believe that orality can not be proven by reading the primary sources we have, most general linguists accept that oral texts should preserve certain features indicating their pre-literate origins. However, the first texts we find written in the Latin alphabet do not show most of those generally accepted oral features. Then, maybe we must accept that the texts we preserve were not composed in an oral society. Runes were used centuries before the arrival of the Latin alphabet and they were used for noting down poems and memorial messages. Those inscriptions show an evolution not only in the type of messages written, but also in the complexity of the poems carved. Thus, a study on the Scandinavian texts, taking into account the runic inscriptions, could help us understand better the history of the passage from orality to literacy in this region and the role that runes would have played in this process.
Many people have contributed to this book. Simon Keynes from your former Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in the University of Cambridge first approached the publishers with a suggestion for reprinting your Opuscula Runologica. Carl Berkhout has been meticulous in producing a comprehensive bibliography of your works including frivolities which you forgot you had ever written, reviews which spoke the truth in love, articles which demonstrate the depth and breadth of your scholarship, books which show your willingness to bring that scholarship to the wider world of the general reader. David Parsons has re-typed your work with scholarly precision, taking an editor's role in reshaping conventions originally dictated by variety of requirement in different journals, and imposing as far as possible consistency of presentation throughout. But the work remains your own. We are grateful to you not only for the original articles but for all the time and thought you have given this last year to updating them, bringing new finds to bear on earlier discussion and conclusion. We know that you would not accept a festschrift. We approve both the decision and its rationale. But we hope that you will gain pleasure from this volume, not merely because of the quality and quantity of its scholarship, but also because it represents an international recognition of you as scholar, in one specific and significant field. We know your range has been wider than this, and we could equally have produced a collection of your work on glosses or on manuscripts. We know that you have had other roles, and that the help you have given to hundreds of scholars in your capacity as Librarian of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, has been given unstintingly in spite of the time taken from your own work. We simply single out here what seems to us one of your major contributions to Anglo-Saxon and Norse studies in the twentieth century and as we offer it to you we also thank you with warm appreciation for having, in the first place, given it to us. I sign this as a representative of those friends, colleagues and Persons whose wish it was to give you this seventieth birthday present, no small token of their affection and esteem.