1
2016–2017
Double Issue
№ 12–13
RMN Newsletter is edited by
Frog
Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen, Joseph S. Hopkins and Robert W. Guyker Jr.
Published by
Folklore Studies / Dept. of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies
University of Helsinki, Helsinki
The Retrospective Methods Network
Newsletter
2
RMN Newsletter is a medium of contact and communication for members of the Retrospective
Methods Network (RMN). The RMN is an open network which can include anyone who wishes to
share in its focus. It is united by an interest in the problems, approaches, strategies and limitations
related to considering some aspect of culture in one period through evidence from another, later
period. Such comparisons range from investigating historical relationships to the utility of analogical
parallels, and from comparisons across centuries to developing working models for the more
immediate traditions behind limited sources. RMN Newsletter sets out to provide a venue and
emergent discourse space in which individual scholars can discuss and engage in vital cross-
disciplinary dialogue, present reports and announcements of their own current activities, and where
information about events, projects and institutions is made available.
RMN Newsletter is edited by Frog, Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen, Joseph S. Hopkins and Robert W.
Guyker Jr., published by
Folklore Studies / Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies
University of Helsinki
PO Box 59 (Unioninkatu 38 D 230)
00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
The open-access electronic edition of this publication is available on-line at:
http://www.helsinki.fi/en/beta/retrospective-methods-network
© 2017 RMN Newsletter; authors retain rights to reproduce their own works and to grant permissions
for the reproductions of those works.
Cover image reproduced from Knud Leems, Professor i det Lappiske Sprog, Beskrivelse over
Finmarkens Lapper, deres Tungemaal, Levemaade og forrige Afgudsdyrkelse, oplyst ved mange
Kaabberstykker: med J.E. Gunneri, Anmærkninger; og E.J. Jessen-s, Afhandling om de Norske
Finners og Lappers Hedenske Religion: Canuti Leemii, professoris Lingvæ Lapponiccæ, de
Lapponibus Finmarchiæ, eorumqve lingva, vita et religione pristina commentatio, multis tabulis
æneis illustrata: uma cum J.E. Gunneri, Notis; & E.J. Jessen-s, Tractaru singulari de Finnorum
Lapponumqve Norvegic. religione pagana, Kongl. Wäysenhuses Bogtrykkerie of G.G. Salikath, 1767.
ISSN 2324-0636 (print)
ISSN 1799-4497 (electronic)
All articles in the Communicatoins section of this journal have been subject to peer review.
3
CONTENTS
Editor’s Column ................................................................................................................................... 6
C
OMMUNICATIONS
Icelandic Folklore, Landscape Theory, and Levity:
The Seyðisfjörður Dwarf-Stone ........................ 8
Matthias Egeler
This paper discusses the relationship between a folk tale about the Dvergasteinn [‘Dwarf-Stone’] on the fjord of
Seyðisfjörður in eastern Iceland and the details of the tale’s landscape setting. It argues that storytelling for
storytelling’s sake might have been neglected in current theorising on the conceptualisation and narrative use of
landscape. This, as well as the intensity with which landscape is used in Iceland for the construction of narratives,
might also affect the use of place-lore for retrospective approaches.
The Lithuanian Apidėmė: A Goddess, a Toponym, and Remembrance ............................................ 18
Vykintas Vaitkevičius
This paper is devoted to the Lithuanian apidėmė , attested since the 16
th
century as the name of a goddess in the
Baltic religion, as a term for the site of a former farmstead relocated to a new settlement during the land reform
launched in 1547–1557, and later as a widespread toponym. Apidėmė has been researched by linguists, historians,
and mythologists. An archaeological perspective is applied here for the first time.
Freyja’s Bedstraw, Mary’s Bedstraw or a Folkloristic Black Hole? ................................................. 26
Karen Bek-Pedersen
This article reviews the sources behind the alleged tradition that the plant galium verum , commonly known as
‘bedstraw’, was associated with Freyja in pre-Christian times. All references to this link ultimately go back to the
same Latin document from ca. 800. Unfortunately, the relevant section of this document is unintelligible without
textual emendation and, of the three commonly suggested emendations, ‘bedstraw’ is the least likely.
Goddesses Unknown III: On the Identity of the Old Norse Goddess Hlín ........................................ 30
Joseph S. Hopkins
Like previous entries in the Goddesses Unknown series, the present article focuses on heretofore little-studied
goddesses in the Germanic corpus, in this case the obscure Old Norse goddess Hlín and her association with the
widely attested Germanic goddess Frigg.
Sámi Religion Formations and Proto-Sámi Language Spread:
Reassessing a Fundamental
Assumption ........................................................................................................................................ 36
Frog
Any historical study of Sámi religions links religion to the history of the language. Here, Proto-Sámi language
spread is reviewed and the fundamental (and often implicit) assumption that religion spread with Proto-Sámi
language is challenged. An alternative model that language spread as a medium of communication adopted by
different cultures is proposed and tested against the Common Proto-Sámi lexicon.
Forgotten Laxdæla Poetry: A Study and an Edition of Tyrfingur Finnsson’s Vísur uppá
Laxdæla sǫgu ..................................................................................................................................... 70
Ilya V. Sverdlov and Sofie Vanherpen
The paper discusses the metre and the diction of a previously unpublished short poem composed in the 18
th
century
about characters of Laxdæla saga . The stanzas are ostensibly in skaldic dróttkvætt . Analysis shows them to be a
remarkably successful imitation of the classical metre, implying an extraordinarily good grasp of dróttkvætt
poetics on the part of a poet who was composing several centuries after the end of the classical dróttkvætt period.
How Did the First Humans Perceive the Starry Night? – On the Pleiades ...................................... 100
Julien d’Huy and Yuri E. Berezkin
This study applies phylogenetic software to motifs connected with the Pleiades as identified in Yuri Berezkin’s
database, The Analytical Catalogue of World Mythology and Folklore. The aim of analysis is to determine which,
if any, of the analysed motifs are likely to have spread in conjunction with the earliest migrations out of Africa
and to the Americas. The Pleiades analysis is compared to an analysis of Orion motifs.
The Ecology of ‘Eddic’ and ‘Skaldic’ Poetry .................................................................................. 123
Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen
Scholars have traditionally reflected on the Old Norse cultural area’s poetic output on the basis of a binary
classification of the poetry into two types: the categories are labelled as ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’. This paper explores
the formation of the dichotomy and how the application of these categories in scholarship may obscure rather
than clarify the nature of Old Norse poetry
Dostları ilə paylaş: |