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The Paganesque and The Tale of V¿lsi
0 - Default Title
Description
A family of Norwegian pagans, stubbornly resisting the new Christian religion, worship a diabolically animated preserved horse penis, intoning verses as they pass it from hand to hand until King Olaf the Saint intervenes. This is the matter of the medieval Tale of V¿lsi. Traditionally, it has been read as evidence of a pre-Christian fertility cult - or simply dismissed as an obscene trifle. This book takes a new approach by developing the concept of the "paganesque" - the air of a religious culture older than and inimical to Christianity. It shows how the Tale of V¿lsi deploys a range of vernacular genres, from verbal dueling and mythological poetry to folk belief about milk-stealing witches and the reanimated dead, to create the flavor of paganism for a fourteenth-century Icelandic audience: an imagined paganism that has theological stakes as well as satirical bite. Throughout, the study challenges the notion that the horse penis is the key to understanding the narrative. Once the object is removed from the center of interpretation, the artistry and wit of the tale's "Paganesque" come fully into view.
Product details
Number of Pages:
232
Release Date:
2024-10-22
Publication Date:
2024-10-22
Publisher:
D.S.Brewer
Languages:
Original:
English
ISBN10:
1843847027
ISBN13:
9781843847021
Weight:
517 g
Height:
161 cm
Width:
240 cm
Thickness:
17 cm
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