When the Dead No Longer Rest: The Religious Significance of Revenants in Sagas set in Viking Age Settlements Around the Time of Conversion

Katharina Baier; Werner Schäfke

doi:10.1515/9783110436976-005

When the Dead No Longer Rest: The Religious Significance of Revenants in Sagas set in Viking Age Settlements Around the Time of Conversion

Katharina Baier, Werner Schäfke

WELMA - Centre for Legal Studies in Welfare and Market

Abstract

This paper applies Hans-Peter Hasenfratz's model of two cultural concepts of death-the severe (e.g., untimely, sudden) death and the social (non-biological) death1-to revenant episodes in a number of quite similar genres of Old Norse saga literature. The corpus consists of Sagas of the Icelanders,2 Færeyinga saga about the settlers of the Faroese Islands, and Eiriks saga rauda, one of the two Vinland sagas that narrate the lives of the settlers on Greenland. The revenant episodes in these sagas are set during the Time of Conversion of Iceland and the neighboring islands settled by Vikings. Based on our analysis, we argue that revenant episodes are narrative devices fulfilling one out of three functions (and in a few cases a combination of them): Revenant episodes demonstrate the necessity of Christianization, as pagan burial rituals do no longer suffice to usher the dead from the world of the living; they foreshadow the death of another character; they are a heroic test for the saga's protagonist. In the last case, they function like the revenant episodes found in the saga genre of the Fornaldars-gur, that conveys pagan-heroic matter in narrative patterns similar to those of Arthurian romance.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times : The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death
Editors	Albrecht Classen
Number of pages	24
Publisher	De Gruyter
Publication date	11 Apr 2016
Pages	131-154
Chapter	5
ISBN (Print)	9783110442304
ISBN (Electronic)	9783110436976
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110436976-005
Publication status	Published - 11 Apr 2016

Series	Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture
Volume	16
ISSN	1864-3396

Access to Document

10.1515/9783110436976-005

The Multifarious Undead in Icelandic sagas: Literary Strategies of Dealing with Sudden Death, Suicide—and Evil Pagan Sorcerers
Werner Schäfke (Speaker)
2 May 2014
Activity: Talk or presentation types › Lecture and oral contribution

Cite this

Baier, K., & Schäfke, W. (2016). When the Dead No Longer Rest: The Religious Significance of Revenants in Sagas set in Viking Age Settlements Around the Time of Conversion. In A. Classen (Ed.), Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death (pp. 131-154). De Gruyter. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture Vol. 16 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110436976-005

When the Dead No Longer Rest : The Religious Significance of Revenants in Sagas set in Viking Age Settlements Around the Time of Conversion. / Baier, Katharina; Schäfke, Werner.

Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death. ed. / Albrecht Classen. De Gruyter, 2016. p. 131-154 (Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, Vol. 16).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review

Baier, K & Schäfke, W 2016, When the Dead No Longer Rest: The Religious Significance of Revenants in Sagas set in Viking Age Settlements Around the Time of Conversion. in A Classen (ed.), Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death. De Gruyter, Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, vol. 16, pp. 131-154. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110436976-005

Baier K, Schäfke W. When the Dead No Longer Rest: The Religious Significance of Revenants in Sagas set in Viking Age Settlements Around the Time of Conversion. In Classen A, editor, Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death. De Gruyter. 2016. p. 131-154. (Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, Vol. 16). doi: 10.1515/9783110436976-005

Baier, Katharina ; Schäfke, Werner. / When the Dead No Longer Rest : The Religious Significance of Revenants in Sagas set in Viking Age Settlements Around the Time of Conversion. Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death. editor / Albrecht Classen. De Gruyter, 2016. pp. 131-154 (Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, Vol. 16).

@inbook{8ec03859f92141e9955de160ed071f42,

title = "When the Dead No Longer Rest: The Religious Significance of Revenants in Sagas set in Viking Age Settlements Around the Time of Conversion",

abstract = "This paper applies Hans-Peter Hasenfratz's model of two cultural concepts of death-the severe (e.g., untimely, sudden) death and the social (non-biological) death1-to revenant episodes in a number of quite similar genres of Old Norse saga literature. The corpus consists of Sagas of the Icelanders,2 F{\ae}reyinga saga about the settlers of the Faroese Islands, and Eiriks saga rauda, one of the two Vinland sagas that narrate the lives of the settlers on Greenland. The revenant episodes in these sagas are set during the Time of Conversion of Iceland and the neighboring islands settled by Vikings. Based on our analysis, we argue that revenant episodes are narrative devices fulfilling one out of three functions (and in a few cases a combination of them): Revenant episodes demonstrate the necessity of Christianization, as pagan burial rituals do no longer suffice to usher the dead from the world of the living; they foreshadow the death of another character; they are a heroic test for the saga's protagonist. In the last case, they function like the revenant episodes found in the saga genre of the Fornaldars-gur, that conveys pagan-heroic matter in narrative patterns similar to those of Arthurian romance.",

author = "Katharina Baier and Werner Sch{\"a}fke",

year = "2016",

month = apr,

day = "11",

doi = "10.1515/9783110436976-005",

language = "English",

isbn = "9783110442304",

series = "Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture",

publisher = "De Gruyter",

pages = "131--154",

editor = "Albrecht Classen",

booktitle = "Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times",

address = "Germany",

}

TY - CHAP

T1 - When the Dead No Longer Rest

T2 - The Religious Significance of Revenants in Sagas set in Viking Age Settlements Around the Time of Conversion

AU - Baier, Katharina

AU - Schäfke, Werner

PY - 2016/4/11

Y1 - 2016/4/11

N2 - This paper applies Hans-Peter Hasenfratz's model of two cultural concepts of death-the severe (e.g., untimely, sudden) death and the social (non-biological) death1-to revenant episodes in a number of quite similar genres of Old Norse saga literature. The corpus consists of Sagas of the Icelanders,2 Færeyinga saga about the settlers of the Faroese Islands, and Eiriks saga rauda, one of the two Vinland sagas that narrate the lives of the settlers on Greenland. The revenant episodes in these sagas are set during the Time of Conversion of Iceland and the neighboring islands settled by Vikings. Based on our analysis, we argue that revenant episodes are narrative devices fulfilling one out of three functions (and in a few cases a combination of them): Revenant episodes demonstrate the necessity of Christianization, as pagan burial rituals do no longer suffice to usher the dead from the world of the living; they foreshadow the death of another character; they are a heroic test for the saga's protagonist. In the last case, they function like the revenant episodes found in the saga genre of the Fornaldars-gur, that conveys pagan-heroic matter in narrative patterns similar to those of Arthurian romance.

AB - This paper applies Hans-Peter Hasenfratz's model of two cultural concepts of death-the severe (e.g., untimely, sudden) death and the social (non-biological) death1-to revenant episodes in a number of quite similar genres of Old Norse saga literature. The corpus consists of Sagas of the Icelanders,2 Færeyinga saga about the settlers of the Faroese Islands, and Eiriks saga rauda, one of the two Vinland sagas that narrate the lives of the settlers on Greenland. The revenant episodes in these sagas are set during the Time of Conversion of Iceland and the neighboring islands settled by Vikings. Based on our analysis, we argue that revenant episodes are narrative devices fulfilling one out of three functions (and in a few cases a combination of them): Revenant episodes demonstrate the necessity of Christianization, as pagan burial rituals do no longer suffice to usher the dead from the world of the living; they foreshadow the death of another character; they are a heroic test for the saga's protagonist. In the last case, they function like the revenant episodes found in the saga genre of the Fornaldars-gur, that conveys pagan-heroic matter in narrative patterns similar to those of Arthurian romance.

U2 - 10.1515/9783110436976-005

DO - 10.1515/9783110436976-005

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 9783110442304

T3 - Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture

SP - 131

EP - 154

BT - Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

A2 - Classen, Albrecht

PB - De Gruyter

ER -

When the Dead No Longer Rest: The Religious Significance of Revenants in Sagas set in Viking Age Settlements Around the Time of Conversion

Abstract

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Activities

The Multifarious Undead in Icelandic sagas: Literary Strategies of Dealing with Sudden Death, Suicide—and Evil Pagan Sorcerers

Cite this