Email this article Mannakj and Mannakrof: Human Identity in Ketils Saga Hgs and var-Odds Saga
Abstract
This article seeks to examine the presentation of human identity inKetils saga hgsandvar-Odds saga.It does this in two ways, by examining words used to refer to the human as meat (mannakjandmannakrof), through which the human is presented as animal, and by examining the cultural mindset surrounding the cooking practices of monsters and men. I will focus on two key examples which reveal how these two sagas reveal human identity. The first of these is Ketills destruction of a giants hunting pits, in which he has discovered human flesh. The second example is taken from Oddrs visit to Giantland, where he eats boiled meat that has been prepared by a giant. From these analyses, this article will conclude that these sagas acknowledge little distinction between the human and the monstrous, despite attempts to characterise either by the way in which they cook and perceive of meat.Consquently, these sagas reveal a complex understanding of human identity within a certain cultural mindset, in which the human is deconstructed, either to horrific or puzzling effect.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Adams, Carol J., The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 1990)
Arnold, Martin, Hvat er troll nema at?: The Cultural History of the Troll, in The Shadow Walkers: Jacob Grimms Mythology of the Monstrous, ed. by Tom Shippey (Tempe, AZ: Brepols, 2005), pp. 11139
Barraclough, Eleanor Rosamund, Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)
Cleasby, Richard, and Gubrandr Vigfsson, eds, An Icelandic Dictionary, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957)
Clunies Ross, Margaret, Prolonged Echoes: Old Norse Myths in Medieval Society, II: The Reception of Norse Myths in Medieval Iceland (Odense: Odense University Press, 1998)
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, Monster Culture (Seven Theses), in Monster Theory: Reading Culture, ed. by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), pp. 325
DeAngelo, Jeremy, The North and the Depiction of the Finnar in the Icelandic Sagas, Scandinavian Studies, 82 (2010), 25786
Egilsdottir, sdis, Food and Cultural Identity in the fornaldarsgur, in Skemmtiligastar Lygisgur: Studies in Honour of Galina Glazyrina, ed. by Tatiana N. Jackson and Elena A. Melnikova (Moscow: Dmitry Pozharskiy University, 2012), pp. 13847
Finsen, Vilhjlmar, ed., Grgs: Islndernes lovbog i fristatens tid (Copenhagen: Trykt i Brodrene berlings Bogtrykkeri, 1852)
Fornaldar Sgur Norurlanda II: Anna Bindi, ed. by Guni Jnsson (Reykjavik: slendingasagnatgfan, 1976)
Fornaldar Sgur Norurlanda III: Anna Bindi, ed. by Guni Jnsson (Reykjavik: slendingasagnatgfan, 1976)
Fornaldar Sgur Norurlanda IV: Anna Bindi, ed. by Guni Jnsson (Reykjavik: slendingasagnatgfan, 1976)
Jakobsson, rmann, Identifying the Ogre, in Fornaldarsagaerne, myter og virkelighed: studier I de oldislandske fornaldarsgyr Norurlanda, ed. by Annette Lassen, Agneta Ney, and rmann, Jakobsson (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2009), pp. 181200
Laws of Early Iceland: Grgs: The Codex Regius of Grgs with Material from Other Manuscripts, ed. by Andrew Dennis, Peter Foote, and Richard Perkins (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2006)
Leslie, Helen F., Border Crossings: Landscape and the Other World in the Fornaldarsogur, Scripta Islandica, 60 (2009), 11936
Mitchell, Stephen, The Supernatural and Other Elements of the Fantastic in the fornaldarsgur, in The Fantastic in Old Norse/Icelandic Literature: Sagas and the British Isles: The 13th International Saga Conference, II, ed. by John, McKinnel, David Ashurst, and Donata Kick (Durham: Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006), pp. 609706
Orning, Hans Jacob, The Magical Reality of the Late Middle Ages: Exploring the World of the fornaldarsgur, Scandinavian Journal of History, 35 (2010), 320
Steel, Karl, How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2011)
Tulinius, Torfi, The Matter of the North: The Rise of Literary Fiction in Thirteenth-Century Iceland (Odense: Odense University Press, 2002)
Zachrisson, Inger, The Smi and their interaction with the Nordic Peoples, in The Viking World, ed. by Stefan Brink and Neil Price (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 3239
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c)
Postgraduate English is hosted by Durham University, Department of English Studies, UK. Unless otherwise specified, all articles published from 2000-2011 inclusive are copyright Durham University. All articles published from 2012 onwards are copyright of the author(s). All articles from 2012 onwards are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.
Please view the privacy notice for details on how we process your personal data: Privacy Notice.
ISSN: 1756-9761
