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Challenges the concept that the notorious horse penis is key to understanding the Tale of Vǫlsi, via the concept of the "paganesque".
SHORTLISTED: The Katharine Briggs Award 2025
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 Vǫlsi. 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 Vǫlsi 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.
SHORTLISTED: The Katharine Briggs Award 2025
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 Vǫlsi. 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 Vǫlsi 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.
Price: $95.00
Pages: 232
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Inc.
Imprint: D.S.Brewer
Publication Date:
22 October 2024
Trim Size: 9.21 X 6.14 in
ISBN: 9781843847021
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
LITERARY CRITICISM / Medieval, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval, LITERARY CRITICISM / European / Scandinavian, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Folklore & Mythology, Folklore studies / Study of myth (mythology)
Kaplan offers a convincing interpretation of the Tale in its fourteenth-century Christian context...her argument is detailed and subtle, and makes for a good read.
Long credited as an example of pre-Christian fertility worship, Kaplan's analysis of The Tale of Vǫlsi dismisses this interpretation and instead builds a forceful argument for it being a knowing 'folkloresque' construction for an attuned fourteenth century audience. A combination of erudite scholarship and patient analysis which makes a considerable contribution to both folkloristics and early literature studies alike.
Sophisticated in its use of theory, original in conception, and brilliant in presentation and execution, Kaplan's The Paganesque and The Tale of Vǫlsi represents an important advance in Old Norse and other pre-modern folklore studies.
Long credited as an example of pre-Christian fertility worship, Kaplan's analysis of The Tale of Vǫlsi dismisses this interpretation and instead builds a forceful argument for it being a knowing 'folkloresque' construction for an attuned fourteenth century audience. A combination of erudite scholarship and patient analysis which makes a considerable contribution to both folkloristics and early literature studies alike.
Sophisticated in its use of theory, original in conception, and brilliant in presentation and execution, Kaplan's The Paganesque and The Tale of Vǫlsi represents an important advance in Old Norse and other pre-modern folklore studies.
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1. Introducing The Paganesque
2. Against Fertility
3. The Party Game
4. Folk Belief and Body Parts
5. The Interrupted Divination
6. The Idol and the Fetish
Coda
Appendix I: Vǫlsa þáttr
Appendix II: Ásmundur flagðagæfa
Works Cited
Index
Abbreviations
1. Introducing The Paganesque
2. Against Fertility
3. The Party Game
4. Folk Belief and Body Parts
5. The Interrupted Divination
6. The Idol and the Fetish
Coda
Appendix I: Vǫlsa þáttr
Appendix II: Ásmundur flagðagæfa
Works Cited
Index