[Gandur] Mathias Nordvig: "What is Óðinn actually doing in Ynglinga saga?"

[Gerður Halldóra Sigurðardóttir]

Mathias Nordvig, PhD candidate at Aarhus University, will present a paper about Óðinn in Ynglinga saga on Thursday, December 8th, in Árnagarður, room 101, at 5 p.m.

 

In this presentation Mathias will discuss the relationship between Óðinn and Freyr in Ynglinga saga. The legendary genealogy of the Swedish kings, the Ynglingar, does not involve Óðinn in the skaldic poem Ynglinga tal. Nor is Óðinn included in Ari inn fróði’s genealogy in Íslendingabók, presumably from 1130. Ari’s genealogy starts with Yngvi Tyrkjakonungr followed by Njǫrðr and then Freyr. Approximately 100 years later, in the work of Heimskringla, the composer of Ynglinga saga seemingly chose to supplant Yngvi Tyrkjakonungr with Óðinn as the first of the Æsir. With some amendments this version of the story superficially agrees with that of the prologue to Edda, and thus the two versions have generally been understood as individual examples of virtually the same mythology. But the Snorronic link between the prehistory in the prologue to Edda and the story in Ynglinga saga does not explain the roles of Njǫrðr, Freyr and Freyja in the latter, and the fact that they do not appear in the prologue. Neither does it really explain what Óðinn is doing in Ynglinga saga.
Mathias will argue that Ynglinga saga establishes a fundamental discrepancy between the euhemerized gods of Óðinn and Freyr based on their ethnic origins in the saga. This difference between the two figures is eventually used to explain paganism as a foreign invention in Scandinavia brought there by Óðinn. Conversely, kingship and the royal house of the Ynglingar is explained as a Scandinavian phenomenon connected with Freyr, but disassociated from paganism. The composer of the saga makes use of literary explanatory models and motifs based on spatial location and ethno-cultural association in a medieval worldview. He is pairing indigenous Icelandic and Nordic cultural phenomena, pertaining to the pre-Christian era, with contemporary learned Christian commonplaces of the 13th century to create a remarkable piece of literature that represents the Scandinavian prehistory in the best way possible from the standpoint of a medieval historian. This is of course to represent the Ynglingar as a royal family, and the ancestors of prominent Icelanders, in the best way possible.

Mathias Nordvig, MA, PhD-candidate, Aarhus University (AU).
He has a BA from AU in Scandinavian Languages and Literature with supplement courses in Old Norse Mythology. His MA is also from AU and this is in Scandinavian Languages and Literature with courses in Viking Age archaeology and Old Norse literature, history and culture. Mathias is currently writing his PhD-dissertation on Narrative and Worldview in Scandinavian Mythology – an investigation of the otherworld in gods’ journeys from the perspective of genre and structure.

The lecture is in english.