medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Lars,
this business of bones and knives from folklore (of what date?)
is very interesting, but not, as far as I know, attested in any
medieval source. Id appreciate any bibliography you can provide.
for those interested in following up on the OLD scandinavian material
a convenient approach is the Complete Sagas of the Icelanders (leifur eiriksson
publishing, 1977) vol. 5 has in index with an entry ghosts/spirits
which lists the most famous examples (though it is not exhaustive,
and omits for example Hallbjorn slickstone eye in Laxdaela saga on
p. 56 of the same volume.
and as a note to an earlier discussion, one of the Helgis in the
Eddic poetry appears to his beloved to complain that her tears
are drenching him and he cant sleep. the hot tears of a repentant
christian have a correspondingly unpleasant effect on the ghost of
a heathen volva towards the end of laxdaela saga.
for those interested in pursuing these subject, one place
to start is Inger M Boberg, Motif-Index of Early Icelandic Literature,
Munksgaard, Copenhagen, 1966 Bibliotheca Arnamagnaeana xxvii.
meg
>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>Margaret Cormack wrote:
>>... in Scandinavian medieval literature
>>"ghosts" (draugar) are the quite physical and active dead.
>>cf. Grettis saga, and the volume by schmidt mentioned in
>>an earlier post discusses them, i believe.
>It is not quite this simple. The draugr (nom.sing.) is a physical
>manifestation of a dead person, but this does not include that the deceased
>has not decayed. The draugr is usually thought to manifest itself around a
>bone from the skeleton; if you can hit this bone, the draugr is destroyed.
>This is not quite the case in Grettir, but here, the dead body of Glaumr
>(the ghost) is destroyed in order to stop him. There are tales of how a
>clever person hits a draugr with a knife or other weapon; the ghost yells
>and disappears, and, come daylight, a bone is found sitting on the tip of
>the knife. One may also inadvertently bring home a draugr: a man finds
>himself haunted; he inspects his walking stick and finds a small bone
>sitting on the spike at its end; he brings the bone back to the cemetary,
>the draugr goes away. The belief persisted into modern times.
>Which makes me think of the question of reincarnation in Nordic pagan
>beliefs, and the surprise of my correspondent on this list (sorry, I forgot
>the name) that the wicked apparently could not be reborn. Ghosts in O.N.
>beliefs were predominantly wicked people, or else those who had not been
>properly buried (murder victims, but also drowned sailors and others; this
>is connected with the pagan duty of "náhjelpr", corpse help, i.e., if one
>finds a dead body, one must wash it, dress it and bury it properly). There
>are indications that the souls of the wicked were believed to have
>difficulties in leaving the body, not only at the moment of death, but also
>later -- also a belief which survived into modern times. The idea that the
>wicked could not be reborn may be connected with the idea that their souls
>were forever bound to their bodies.
>Best
>Lars
>--------------------------
>Lars Hemmingsen, Ph.D. of Folklore
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