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Women and Magic in the Icelandic Legendary Sagas

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Women and Magic in the Icelandic Legendary Sagas Clemson University TigerPrints All Theses Theses May 2021 Autonomous Power and Profound Agency: Women and Magic in the Icelandic Legendary Sagas Amanda Platz Clemson University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses Recommended Citation Platz, Amanda, "Autonomous Power and Profound Agency: Women and Magic in the Icelandic Legendary Sagas" (2021). All Theses. 3551. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/3551 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AUTONOMOUS POWER AND PROFOUND AGENCY: WOMEN AND MAGIC IN THE ICELANDIC LEGENDARY SAGAS A Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts English by Amanda Rose Platz May 2021 Accepted by: Dr. Andrew Lemons, Committee Chair Dr. William Stockton Dr. Elizabeth Rivlin i ABSTRACT The Icelandic Legendary Sagas contain within them a unique representation of women’s autonomy and agency, seen strongly in the ways women use magic. Scholars such as Jochens and Friðriksdóttir discuss women’s representations most prominently in the Family Sagas, often brushing over the Legendary Sagas due to their fantastical and mythological nature which makes cultural analysis based on the texts difficult. The fantastical nature of the Legendary Sagas, however, presents the opportunity to thoroughly explore unique representations of women’s autonomy. Other female archetypes often analyzed in the sagas are represented influencing male action, such as the inciter or whetter who encourages men to fight to regain family honor. However, I will argue in this thesis that the magical archetypes of seeress and sorceress act not as influences on male action but as mostly independent women. This thesis will describe the representation of female autonomy in the Legendary Sagas not just as an extension of the portrayal of women in the Family Sagas, but as a vision of new possibilities of thinking about women enabled by ancient ideas of magic. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without my family’s constant support and the encouragement of my friends and roommates. My roommates in particular deserve much thanks for the chaotic shenanigans they endured from me during the past year, as I struggled through the bogs of thesis writing and countless revisions. A special thanks to Jenny Washburne for not only reading countless drafts and providing feedback, but also for picking up the slack where I fell short, and for providing consistent support and positivity throughout the past two years. My committee members must also be thanked for their feedback, counsel, and patience especially during the past month, through major revisions. A final thanks to the professors in the English department at Southern Wesleyan University, who encouraged me to pursue a Master’s degree and future career in academia. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page TITLE PAGE .................................................................................................................... i ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................. iii INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1 THE SAGAS .................................................................................................................... 5 TRADITIONAL FEMININE CHARACTERS ............................................................... 8 GENDER AND MAGIC ................................................................................................ 9 THE SEERESS OR PROPHETESS .............................................................................. 12 SORCERESSES AND SORCERY ............................................................................... 28 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................. 41 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................ 43 iv INTRODUCTION Women in Icelandic Legendary Sagas (fornaldarsögur) are represented as achieving a striking level of autonomy and agency despite many cultural inhibitors and literary biases against women in power. Scandinavian law and custom subordinated women to male authority, preventing women’s autonomy and creating strong boundaries between male and female-dominated spheres of influence. Despite the boundaries portrayed in literature and 13th century legal documents, saga scholarship has long considered how, in the historical Icelandic Family Sagas (íslendingasögur), like Njáls Saga and Laxdæla Saga, women demonstrate profound vocal agency in the feuds that provide the structural backbone of the texts. The motif of the “whetting scene,” in which the wife or mother of a dead warrior incites a reluctant male family member to pursue revenge despite possibly dramatic legal repercussions or escalations in feuding, demonstrates the pivotal role women often play in Family Saga narratives. However, the roles of women in the more mythological Legendary Sagas such as The Saga of the Volsungs and The Saga of Hrolf Kraki are less established, and perhaps for precisely this reason have attracted far less attention in saga scholarship. Our understanding of women in the Legendary Sagas is further complicated because, while later in date of composition than the Family Sagas, the Legendary Sagas tell stories that are much older and more difficult to relate to any historical situation. Scholars often value realism in place of the fantastical because they suggest that it provides an ability to analyze Icelandic culture in connection to representations in early literature. However, I argue that the Legendary sagas are vital in our understanding of Medieval Scandinavian literature and culture due 1 to their popularity and even specifically because of the fantastical content that has discouraged scholarship on these sagas. Whereas the powerful women of the Family Sagas are often counsellors and inciters, influencing male action, the autonomous women of these fantastic sagas includeseeresses and sorceresses.1 These representations project women’s real social horizons, such as they were, into a metaphorical otherworldly space where fantasies of female power could be subversively explored through magic. I will argue that the magical archetypes of seeress and sorceress act not as influences on male action but as mostly independent women, in contrast to the traditional Family Saga archetypes of inciter and wise-woman, whose abilities are established in relation to their influence on male activity. This thesis aims to describe the representation of female autonomy in the Legendary Sagas not just as an extension of the portrayal of women in the Family Sagas, but as a vision of new possibilities of thinking about women enabled by ancient ideas of magic. In order to contextualize the argument of this thesis, an explanation of the scholarly conversation surrounding the topic of women in Icelandic Sagas is in order. The scholarship on women and magic in Icelandic Saga literature is centered around women’s magical practices in the Family Sagas. Other scholarship focuses on genre and style without analysis of the character’s influence on the genre. Carol Clover’s book The Medieval Saga is still considered a crucial source for considering Icelandic Saga 1 Muslim author Ibn Fadlan, writing a narrative of his travels to the Scandinavian north, recounts the story of when he witnessed a Scandinavian burial-at-sea. This burial included the ritualistic sacrifice of the dead man’s slave woman and was presided over by a female shaman who was referred to as the “Angel of Death.” The female shaman presides over the burial rituals and performs certain key rites in the ritual sacrifice and burial including the actual sacrifice of the slave woman. (Fadlan 245-253) 2 literature as a genre, while Margaret Clunies Ross’s many texts on Icelandic Saga literature argue about genre and style within the saga subgenres. Clunies Ross’s Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga acts as an outline and exploration of the history and genre of the saga, while her Old Norse Myths, Literature, and Society is an anthology that collects essays arguing about different facets of saga literature, such as mythological influence and historical perspectives. Carol Clover’s work argues primarily about the saga genre, as seen in her book The Medieval Saga, which situates the sagas within the context of the literary medieval. Clover’s scholarship also includes articles such as “Regardless of Sex: Men, Women, and Power in Early Northern Europe,” which argues that scholars wrongly suggest that women had little power in the medieval Norse world, instead proposing that gender roles were not as clearly defined in the time. Friðriksdóttir, Jochens, and Kress each argue about different aspects of women in Icelandic literature. Helga Kress often argues for different aspects of women’s speech, as seen in her articles “What a Woman Speaks,” and “Gender and Gossip in the Sagas,” where she argues that women used speech as
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