New Focus on Retrospective Methods. Resuming Methodological Discussions: Case Studies from Northern Europe

Description

The articles in this anthology are the result of the conference 'New Focus on Retrospective Methods', held in Bergen by the Retrospective Methods Network and the Centre for Medieval Studies (CMS) at the University of Bergen, 27–28 September 2010. Out of the 15 papers given at the conference, 9 have been developed into articles and are presented here. The articles featured in this volume concern folkloristics, philology, comparative linguistics, cultural geography, iconagraphy, Old Norse studies and the history of religion in Scandinavia, but in particular they concern the questions of whether, how and to what extent late-recorded material can be used to shed light on historically much earlier periods. It is a fact that our sources for the study of pre-Christian times in Northern Europe are few, fragmentary and immensely limited. It is possible to obtain new and relevant information if we broaden our spectrum of sources to include not only contemporary or near-comtemporary material, but also material from subsequent, even much later, periods. Showcasting that and how this may be done is the aim of the present volume. Eldar Heide & Karen Bek-Pedersen / Why a new focus on retrospective methods? 11 Terry Gunnell / Nordic folk legends, folk traditions and grave mounds 17 Jens Peter Schjødt / Folkloristic material and pre-Christian Scandinavian religion 42 Eldar Heide / The semantic side of etymology 59 Daniel Sävborg / Scandinavian folk legends and Icelandic sagas 76 Rudolf Simek / Guldgubber and retrospective methods 89 Yelena Sesselja Helgadóttir / Retrospective methods in dating post-medieval rigmarole-verses from the North Atlantic 98 Frog / Germanic traditions of the theft of the thunder-instrument (ATU 1148B) 120 Hans Antonson / Retrospection of medieval landscape change in mid-Sweden 163 Janne Saarikivi / Reconstruction of culture and ethnicity 186 Authors 217 Index 220