May be of interest to some.


Sabina Magliocco
Professor
Department of Anthropology
California State University - Northridge
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Subject: [JFRR] Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic (2 vols.) (Tolley, Clive)

Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic (2 vols.). By Clive Tolley. 2009.
Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica/Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. 893
pages. ISBN: 978-951-41-1028-3 (hard cover).

Reviewed by Timothy R. Tangherlini, University of California, Los
Angeles ([log in to unmask]).

[Word count: 1360 words]

Clive Tolley's substantial two-volume work stands as both an
accessible and thorough compendium of materials related to shamanism
and the shamanistic in early Nordic mythology, folk belief, and
practice. The work, in its encyclopedic consideration of the source
materials, updates considerably the important study of Dag
Strömbäck, whose Sejd: Textstudier i nordisk religionshistoria
(1935) was the first comprehensive consideration of magical practices
in pre-Christian Nordic religion. Although students of Nordic
religion still frequently consult Strömbäck's work, Tolley's
compendium makes many of the underlying source materials accessible
to an English-speaking audience for the first time.

Tolley's work is broken into two essentially self-sufficient volumes.
The first volume focuses on the analysis of the materials in a
philological, text-historical, and, to a lesser extent, ethnographic
context. Tolley also explores in considerable depth the potential
connections between pre-Christian Nordic magical practices and other
traditions. He downplays to a surprising degree the role that
cultural contact with nearby groups such as the Sámi played in the
development of and the particular form(s) assumed by magical
practices reminiscent of shamanism in the Nordic region. The second
volume is a collection of all of the source materials Tolley used for
his study, along with a thorough bibliography and index, and an
appendix of maps and illustrations.

Tolley mentions early on that the goal of his study is to, "answer
the question of whether Norse literature indicates that ancient
Scandinavians had the notion of a practice which might reasonably be
termed 'shamanism,' whether as an actual phenomenon of ordinary life,
or as a motif appearing in fictional settings" (xv). The premise of
the study, then, is one that sets the focus predominantly on texts.
This philological orientation sets Tolley's study apart from other
studies that emphasize archaeological approaches or
ethno-historiographical approaches.

The first volume is broken into seven main sections: a "Prolegomena,"
in which Tolley sets out his methodology and describes the main
working concepts of his study; "The Place of Shamanism in Society,"
in which he explores the concept of seiðr in the context of
female-centered shamanism as a feature of agricultural societies;
"Metaphysical Entities," in which he explores the concepts of "soul"
and "spirit"; "Cosmic Structures," that includes a discussion of some
of the most well-known features of the Nordic mythological world,
such as the Ash Yggdrasill and the ideas of horizontal and vertical
cosmological axes; "The Workings of Shamanism," perhaps the most
ethnographically inclined of the chapters, but one that focuses
largely on distant shamanistic traditions rather than anything rooted
in the Nordic region and the cultures of the Nordic region's closest
geographic neighbors; and "Kindred Concerns," a chapter that explores
literary and mythological motifs that can be used to expand on
representations of magical figures in the Nordic materials considered
in the other chapters, most notably the figure of the smith; the book
concludes with a concise "Epilegomena."

These chapters are extremely detailed and almost exhaustive in
nature. The topics of the sub-chapters are well chosen, and Tolley
provides thorough readings of each of the topics argued largely from
the perspective of the textual record. The identification and
subsequent close-readings of these texts, and the identification of
motifs in these texts that have a supernatural, magical, or
shamanistic component are read not only in the context of the
emerging fabric of the Nordic magical world, but also in the context
of other shamanistic traditions from around the world. His
conclusion, to which he slowly builds over the course of these many
chapters, would be startling if one had not followed his careful
argumentation. In his Epilegomena, Tolley writes: "My investigation
has. . .found little grounds for proposing the presence of
shamanism in pre-Christian or later Scandinavia, if by that is meant
the classic form of shamanism typical of much of Siberia. The
evidence does, however, support the likelihood of some ritual and
belief of a broadly (but not classically) shamanic nature as existing
and being remembered in tradition" (581). Although it may seem that
Tolley is trying to have it both ways, the conclusion is intriguingly
reminiscent of discussions of shamanism and the shamanistic in Korea,
another peninsular region marked by agricultural practice that exists
on the far edges of areas that include Tolley's "classical" shamanism
and one where the preponderance of shamans are female. Unfortunately,
despite Tolley's considerable research into many other shamanistic
traditions across the world, his brief mentions of Korean shamanism
are largely misinformed and based on second- or third-hand
references. That is a minor quibble when one considers the work as a
whole. Ultimately, Tolley has produced a substantial and far-reaching
discussion of the shamanistic in the Nordic region from a comparative
philological and text-critical standpoint.

The most consistent and vexing problem with Tolley's book is his
constant search for confirmation of his analyses far outside of
Scandinavia, when more local traditions of shamanism and magical
practice might lead to a more sustainable argument. This theoretical
decision is informed by Tolley's at times slavish adherence to the
concept that societies in similar circumstances -- historical,
political, and economic -- will independently create similar cultural
practices, as opposed to the more likely explanation that societies
in those circumstances will often look to their immediate neighbors
for possible solutions to difficult cultural problems. Of course
neither process is exclusive of each other. Accordingly, it would
have been helpful to encounter more ethno-historiographical
explorations coupled to considerations of culture-contact theories
where exchange between close neighbors are fruitfully explored. While
an undertaking such as Tolley's could easily devolve into armchair
anthropology or nineteenth-century Romanticism, he is careful to
avoid these pitfalls. Fortunately, there is a great deal of material
here for discussion, and students and researchers of early Nordic
magical practice will find many of the ideas provocative. If a book
makes you think, it has succeeded and Tolley's close readings of
texts, and the embedding of those texts in a broader, Indo-European
philological and textual framework certainly make you think.

Ultimately, Tolley's work is an excellent compendium of source
materials for the study of magical practices as documented in early
Nordic materials accompanied by a provocative and far-reaching series
of analyses. The interpretation of these materials in the context of
shamanistic practices is a rich area for investigation, and Tolley
presents a great deal of evidence for consideration. One may quibble
with Tolley's interpretations, particularly those that aver the
consideration of cultural contact between the pre-Christian
Scandinavians and the Sámi as a productive realm of cross-cultural
fertilization, but that in no way decreases the value of the
considerable work and research acumen that undergirds this
substantial collection. If one reads Tolley's first volume as a foil
to Thomas Dubois' Nordic Religions in the Viking Age (1999), with his
exploration of culture contact between early Scandinavians and the
Sámi, one develops a clearer grasp not only of the likely importance
of local cultural contact, but also an understanding of current
theoretical arguments that animate this field. One could then
complement that reading with works such as Anna-Leena Siikala's The
Rite Technique of the Siberian Shaman (1978) and Mythic Images and
Shamanism: A Perspective on Kalevala Poetry (2002), and Juha
Pentikäinen's Shamanism and Northern Ecology (1996) as a means to
flesh out the discussion of shamanism and the shamanistic among the
Sámi and in Siberia. Other recent works such as Xavier Dillman's
highly speculative Les Magiciens dans l'Islande Ancienne (2006) and
Neil Price's largely archaeologically slanted work, The Viking Way:
Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (2002), would allow one
to develop a broad understanding of the complexities of shamanism and
the shamanistic in the Nordic region.

Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic will appeal to a broad range of
readers, from those interested in the historical aspects of
shamanistic practice to those interested in early Nordic religions.
Students will find the work well-written and remarkably
well-researched, while scholars will find volume two to be one of the
most useful compendia of texts and other records of shamanistic
practices from the early Nordic region currently available. As with
all FF Communications publications, the book is very well-produced
and it includes not only a remarkably thorough index but also a
wonderfully complete bibliography.

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