Year: 2011
Type: dissertation
Abstract: In medieval literature monstrous bodies form an integral part of the supernatural. Some are simply used as foils for the hero, some may trigger fear, others trigger a feeling of the uncanny. The latter ones most often appear in the shape of metamorphosing bodies, transformers, displaying the horror and wonder of unstable corporeal boundaries. Old Icelandic saga literature, with its high density of supernatural elements, provides numerous accounts of bodily transformation. This thesis discusses three somatically unstable figures, Fáfnir from Völsunga saga, Ögmundr from Örvar-Odds saga, and Glámr from Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar. They all are prone to change and to exceed common limits of the monstrous. Those transformers are no mere narrative tools, but they carry immense relevance for the course of action because they function as individuals deeply inter-woven with the heroes' destinies. By the interplay of corporeal transformation and the utterance of a curse or prophecy the sagas portray the medieval Icelandic preoccupation with the inevitability of change.
Source: Skemman
Author: Astrid Jungmann
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1564885024