Publication |
2023
Abstract
In this paper, I analyse selected Old Norse narrative sources from a literary and cultural-historical perspective, with a focus on the motif of incantations, curses, and invocations. I focus on the sagas of Icelanders and the kings' sagas, primarily with regard to the narrative technique of distancing, which creates uncertainty about whether or to what extent a magic utterance actually affects the characters or events in the saga.
The objective of this paper is to outline some ideas about what such episodes may reveal about the late medieval Icelanders’ attitudes to their pagan and early Christian past that is depicted in these sagas.