The Retrospective Methods Network Newsletter May 2014 № 8 Edited by Frog Helen F. Leslie and Joseph S. Hopkins Published by Folklore Studies / Dept. of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies University of Helsinki, Helsinki 1 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 and Joseph S. Hopkins, published by Folklore Studies / Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies University of Helsinki PO Box 59 (Unioninkatu 38 A) 00014 University of Helsinki Finland The open-access electronic edition of this publication is available on-line at: http://www.helsinki.fi/folkloristiikka/English/RMN/ © 2014, the authors ISSN 2324-0636 (print) ISSN 1799-4497 (electronic) All scientific articles in this journal have been subject to peer review. 2 Contents Editor’s Note ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Abstracts of Articles and Author Information .................................................................................... 55 COMMENTS AND COMMUNICATIONS The ‘Viking Apocalypse’ of 22nd February 2014: An Analysis of the Jorvik Viking Centre’s Ragnarǫk and Its Media Reception ...................................................................................................... 7 Joseph S. Hopkins Motifs and Folktales: A New Statistical Approach ........................................................................... 13 Julien d’Huy The U Version of Snorra Edda .......................................................................................................... 29 Daniel Sävborg Goddesses Unknown II: On the Apparent Old Norse Goddess Ilmr ................................................. 32 Joseph S. Hopkins The (De)Construction of Mythic Ethnography II: Hrímþurs and Cosmogony (A Contribution to the Vanir Debate) ........................................................................................................................... 38 Frog Events Alliterativa Causa .............................................................................................................................. 56 Jonathan Roper The Yale Conference on Baltic and Scandinavian Studies ................................................................ 58 Maths Bertell Julius ja Kaarle Krohn juhlasymposium – Julius and Kaarle Krohn Anniversary Symposium ........ 58 Karina Lukin & Kendra Willson Discourses of Belief and Genre: A Nordic–Baltic Workshop at the Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society .......................................................................................................... 61 Irina Sadovina & Heidi Haapoja Projects, Networks and Resources Translating the Medieval Icelandic Romance-Sagas ......................................................................... 65 Alaric Hall PEOPLE Research Reports Davide Ermacora Hippocrates, Epid. 5: 86, an Ancient ‘Simple’ Story from Antiquity? – A Comparative and Contextual Folkloric Approach ....................................................................................... 68 Frog Degrees of Well-Formedness: The Formula Principle in the Analysis of Oral-Poetic Meters ... 68 ‘Parallelism’ versus ‘Not Parallelism’ ................................................................................... 70 3 Terry Gunnell On the Dating and Nature of “Eddic Poetry” with Some Considerations of the Performance and Preservation of Grímnismál ....................................................................... 73 Eila Stepanova The Soundscape of Karelian Laments ................................................................................... 73 Lectures Terry Gunnell The Creation of Sacred Place out of Empty Space During the Settlement of Iceland ........... 75 The Uses of Performance Studies for the Study of Old Norse Religion: The Performance of Eiríksmál and Hákonarmál ................................................................................................ 75 Published Articles Terry Gunnell From One High One to Another: The Acceptance of Óðinn as Preparation for the Acceptance of God ................................................................................................................. 76 The Relationship Between Icelandic Knattleikur and Early Irish Hurling ............................ 76 Skotrarar, Skudlers, Colloughs and Strawboys: Wedding Guising Traditions in Norway, Shetland and Ireland, Past and Present .................................................................................. 76 Vǫluspá in Performance ......................................................................................................... 77 Clive Tolley The Peripheral at the Centre: The Subversive Intent of Norse Myth and Magic ................... 77 The Kalevala as a Model for Our Understanding of the Composition of the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda .................................................................................................................. 78 Essay Collections Frog, Pauliina Latvala & Helen F. Leslie Approaching Methodology, 2nd revised edition with an introduction by Ulrika Wolf-Knuts .... 78 PhD Projects Mathias Nordvig Of Fire and Water: The Old Norse Mythical Worldview in an Eco-Mythological Perspective ............................................................................................................................. 79 Catalin Taranu The Construction of Anglo-Saxon Legendary History .......................................................... 84 Post-Doctoral Projects Helen F. Leslie Narrative Transformations of Heroic, Autobiographical Poetry in the Medieval North ....... 89 4 CALLS FOR PAPERS Austmarr IV – The Plurality of Religions and Religious Change around the Baltic Sea, 500–1300: Methodological Challenges of Multidisciplinary Data ............................................... 93 Mytologia ja runous – Mythology and Poetry ................................................................................... 94 Would You Like to Submit to RMN Newsletter? .............................................................................. 96 5 Editor’s Note The activities within and related to the distant future. A volume based on the first Retrospective Methods Network (RMN) have three Austmarr symposia (2011–2013) is also continued to increase and there has been a in preparation. In addition, the recent special growing awareness of and interest in RMN issue of RMN Newsletter (№ 7, December Newsletter internationally. This multidisci- 2013), Limited Sources, Boundless Possibilities, plinary platform for discussion has become a has drawn particular attention while the earlier vital site for current information relevant to special issue Approaching Methodology (№ 4, members of the RMN and it has become a May 2012) has recently appeared in a second valued venue for opening dialogues through edition. On top of these centralized outcomes, the presentation and negotiation of research, a great variety of work is being done by the methods and theoretical perspectives. many members of the RMN on an individual The daughter networks of the RMN have basis, announcements and examples of which been particularly vital centers of academic can be found in the pages of the present issue. activity. The Austmarr Network, which is The current issue of RMN Newsletter concentrated on cultural contact and appears situated at an intersection of diverse interaction in the Baltic Sea region before ca. discussions connecting especially with the 1500, organized a fruitful stream at the Yale roots of the RMN in Old Norse scholarship Conference on Baltic and Scandinavian Studies and philology. These link with and continue (13th–15th March 2014, New Haven, Connect- discussions from earlier volumes and also icut): the ten sessions gave the impression of anticipate discussions to come. They connect a symposium within the conference. This with diverse aspects of diachronic study, from branch is now organizing the fourth Austmarr reception to historical reconstruction, and they Symposium in Sundsvall, Sweden (see p. 93). highlight the dynamism of cultures and The Old Norse Folklorists Network, which is cultural change on the one hand while concentrated on the relevance and relationship exploring method-logical questions and of later folklore for Old Norse research, challenges on the other. At the same time, the advanced from the workshops of past years to plethora of topics and perspectives of other their first major international conference, contributions underscore the diversity of “Sagas, Legends and Trolls: The Supernatural research