Representing Beasts in Early Medieval England and Scandinavia

Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78327-369-0
Verlag: Early English Text Society

Buch, Englisch, Band 29, 312 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 158 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 457 g

Reihe: Anglo-Saxon Studies

Essays on the depiction of animals, birds and insects in early medieval material culture, from texts to carvings to the landscape itself.

For people in the early Middle Ages, the earth, air, water and ether teemed with other beings. Some of these were sentient creatures that swam, flew, slithered or stalked through the same environments inhabited by their human contemporaries. Others were objects that a modern beholder would be unlikely to think of as living things, but could yet be considered to possess a vitality that rendered them potent. Still others were things half glimpsed on a dark night or seen only in the mind's eye; strange beasts that haunted dreams and visions or inhabited exotic lands beyond the compass of everyday knowledge.
This book discusses the various ways in which the early English and Scandinavians thought about and represented these other inhabitants of their world, and considers the multi-faceted nature of the relationship between people and beasts. Drawing on the evidence of material culture, art, language, literature, place-names and landscapes, the studies presented here reveal a world where the boundaries between humans, animals, monsters and objects were blurred and often permeable, and where to represent the bestial could be to holda mirror to the self.

MICHAEL D.J. BINTLEY is Lecturer in Early Medieval Literature and Culture at Birkbeck, University of London; THOMAS WILLIAMS is a former curator of Early Medieval Coins at the British Museum.

Contributors: Noël Adams, John Baker, Michael D. J. Bintley, Sue Brunning, László Sándor Chardonnens, Della Hooke, Eric Lacey, Richard North, Marijane Osborn, Victoria Symons, Thomas J. Williams

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bintley, Michael

Williams, Thomas J T

Weitere Mitwirkende

Hooke, Della

Lacey, Eric

Baker, John

Chardonnens, László Sándor

Osborn, Marijane

Bintley, Michael

Adams, Noël

North, Richard

Brunning, Sue

Williams, Thomas J.T.

Symons, Victoria

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Between Myth and Reality: Hunter and Prey in Early Anglo-Saxon Art - Noël Adams
'(Swinger of) the Serpent of Wounds': Swords and Snakes in the Viking Mind - Sue Brunning
Wreoþenhilt ond wyrmfah: Confronting Serpents in Beowulf and Beyond - Victoria Symons
The Ravens on the Lejre Throne: Avian Identifiers, Odin at Home, Farm Ravens - Marijane Osborn
Beowulf's Blithe-Hearted Raven - Eric Lacey
Do Anglo-Saxons Dream of Exotic Sheep? - László Sándor Chardonnens
You Sexy Beast: The Pig in a Villa in Vandalic North Africa and Boar-Cults in Old Germanic Heathendom - Richard North
'For the Sake of Bravado in the Wilderness': Confronting the Bestial in Anglo-Saxon Warfare - Thomas J.T. Williams
Where the Wild Things Are in Old English Poetry - Michael D.J. Bintley
Entomological Etymologies: Creepy-Crawlies in English Place-Names - John Baker
Beasts, Birds and Other Creatures in Pre-Conquest Charters and Place-Names in England - Della Hooke

Über Autor(innen)

Bintley, Michael
MICHAEL BINTLEY is Associate Professor in Medieval English Literature at the University of Southampton. He is author of Trees in the Religions of Early Medieval England (2015), and Settlements and Strongholds in Early Medieval England: Texts, Landscapes, and Material Culture (2020), and co-author of Landscapes and Environments of the Middle Ages (2023).

Bintley, Michael
MICHAEL BINTLEY is Associate Professor in Medieval English Literature at the University of Southampton. He is author of Trees in the Religions of Early Medieval England (2015), and Settlements and Strongholds in Early Medieval England: Texts, Landscapes, and Material Culture (2020), and co-author of Landscapes and Environments of the Middle Ages (2023).