SSNS Seminar – Eco-emotions and the elements in Old Norse literature

In this paper, I will focus on one of the four main elements, namely air, and its numerous connotations in Old Norse language and literature. More specifically, I will study one of its sub-categories, namely winds and storms, and discuss their significance and meaning in various Old Norse sources. I will compare sources retelling of pagan cosmology, such as skaldic and Eddic poetry and Snorra Edda (a handbook in Old Norse mythology and poetics) and sources that present Christian ideas about the origin and nature of air and winds, such as Elucidarius, an Old Norse King’s Mirror, i.e. Konungs skuggsjá, among others. All of these texts were written down by Christian writers and scribes in the thirteenth century and are preserved in manuscripts from the same or following centuries. The juxtaposition between ‘pre-Christian’ and ‘Christian’ understandings demands thus a strict source-critical discussion about how to interpret the ideologies described in these texts. With these methodological concerns in mind, the analysis reveals that winds and storms are important elements in both pre-Christian and Christian creation myths and that they are central constitutive elements in both cognitive and emotional ecologies. However, there are also significant differences in the way air, winds and storms operate in these two cosmological systems, suggesting that air (as everything else), is highly contingent on the cultural ecology it figurates in. In conclusion, leaning on these results, I will propose a new interpretation of a famous episode from Snorra Edda, which tells about the visit of the Norse god’s Þórr (god of thunder, lightening, and storms) at the court of the giant Útgarða-Loki. Studying this episode from such an ecocritical perspective reveals new aspects of the tension between the pre-Christian and Christian cosmologies and it highlights the integral and constitutive role of the elements when studying Old Norse literature and culture.