The 15th International Saga Conference Sagas and the Use of the Past 5th –11th August 2012, Aarhus University Preprint of Abstracts Edited by A. Mathias Valentin Nordvig and Lisbeth H. Torfing with Pernille Hermann, Jens Peter Schjødt and Ulla Loumand Sponsored by: A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formaal; 15. juni Fonden; Forskningsrådet for Kultur og Kommuni- kation (FKK); Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien för svensk folkkultur; Letterstedtska Föreningen; Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University; The De- partment of Aesthetics and Communication, Aarhus University; The Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University; Salling; Bryg- geriet Sct. Clemens. MB Published by Department of Aesthetics and Communication Department of Culture and Society Faculty of Arts SUN-Tryk Fællestrykkeriet for Sundhedsvidenskab og Humaniora, Aarhus Universitet All rights reserved. Copyright © 2012, the Contributors. ISBN: 978-87-995444-0-0 http://sagaconference.au.dk/fileadmin/sagaconference/Pre-print.pdf The cover image is the so-called “Aarhus Mask”, a depiction on a ru- nestone found in the district of Hasle in Aarhus. It has been dated to the period 970-1020. Design by Nichlas Tougaard, Det Nye Sort. Preface The theme of the 15th International Saga Conference, the 5th to the 11th of August, 2012, Aarhus University, is Sagas and the Use of the Past. Papers at the conference will be presented in one of the following categories: Memory and Fiction, Myth and Reality, Textuality and Manuscript Transmission, Genre and Concepts of History, Oral Tradi- tion, The Christianisation of Denmark and Eastern Scandinavia, The Use of Sagas and Eddas in the 21st Century and Open Session Apart from the keynote lectures, orally-presented papers are organized in up to 6 parallel sessions on each day of the conference, in addition to which there are poster presentations, which are presented on Thursday afternoon. The Preprint Publication is principally meant to be a tool to assist participants in deciding which papers/posters to attend. Altogether the Preprint Publication includes abstracts of 4 keynote lectures, 3 individually themed sessions, 16 poster presentations and 201 papers. The word-limit on abstracts for papers is 800 words, and for poster abstracts it is 2000. In the process of editing, it has been the editors’ express purpose to retain the original formatting and text of each contribution as it was intended by its author. The editors have only stan- dardized titles, data on the contributors and the lay-out of the contributions, so that the paper abstracts of 800 words will fit on max. 2 pages and poster abstracts of 2000 words fit on max. 5 pages. The abstracts have not been proofread, nor has the language been checked. The responsibility for each abstract rests solely with its author. Aarhus University, June 2012 The editors Contents Keynotes Driscoll, Matthew James (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) Why Should We Care about rímur ?.................................................................................................................14 Mitchell, Stephen (Harvard University, USA) Representing the Past in the Sagas: Relique or Blank Slate?............................................................................16 Ney, Agneta (University of Gävle, Sweden) The Margins of the Bayeux Tapestry as a Source of the Past...........................................................................18 Steinsland, Gro (University of Oslo, Norway) Myth, Memory and Rulership...........................................................................................................................20 Posters Baer, Trish (University of Victoria, Australia) Historical, Mythological, Pedagogical: MyNDIR and Illustrations of Norse Gods.........................................22 Battista, Simonetta (Københavns Universitet, Denmark) Making New Texts from Old: The Use of Sources in the Old Norse Jóns saga postola ..................................23 Ciesielski, Łukasz (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland) Memory at the Cemeteries of Przeworsk Culture.............................................................................................27 Crouwers, Iris (University of Bergen, Norway) Cross Monuments and the Christianization of Norway....................................................................................31 Ellert Þór Jóhansson (Københavns Universitet, Denmark) Fixed Expressions, Variation and Change in Old Icelandic Diplomas............................................................36 Ferreira, Annemari (University of Oxford, England) Power, Praise and Posterity – Oral Narratives of Naming in Viking Age Scandinavia.................................37 Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir (University of Iceland, Iceland) and The Master Class of the Arnamagnean Summer School in Manuscript Studies 2008 (Iceland) Editing Þorsteins saga bæjarmagns..................................................................................................................38 Leslie, Helen F. (University of Bergen, Norway) Prose Contexts of Eddic Poetry: Snorra Edda and the fornaldarsögur ...........................................................39 Narikawa, Takahiro (Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan) Dreams in Old Norse-Icelandic Royal Biographies as Representations of the Dynastic Identity: The Case of the Fairhair Dynasty......................................................................................................................44 Salvucci, Giovanna (Università di Macerata, Italy); Maria Cristina Lombardi (Università L’Orientale Napoli) and Simonetta Battista (Københavns Universitet, Denmark) Heimskringla in Italian.....................................................................................................................................49 Soffía Guðný Guðmundsdóttir and Laufey Guðnadóttir (Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum and Námsgagnastofnun, Iceland) Islandske middelalderhåndskrifter og norrøn kulturhistorie.............................................................................50 Spejlborg, Marie Bønløkke (Aarhus University, Denmark) Anglo-Danish Contacts c. 950-1100.................................................................................................................51 Torfing, Lisbeth Heidemann (Aarhus University, Denmark) Named Artefacts in the Sagas – a Remnant of the Past?..................................................................................54 Watson, Matilda (King’s College London, England) Using Norwegian Medieval Manuscript Fragments from the Period c. 1000-1300 to Study Ecclesiastical Connections between England and Norway...............................................................................55 Zeller, Peter (University of Tübingen, Germany) Social Change in the Archaic Greece and the Icelandic ’Free State’: Perspectives of a Diachronic Comparison......................................................................................................................................................57 4 Zilmer, Kristel (University of Bergen, Norway) Parallel and Hybrid Uses of Runic and Roman Scripts.....................................................................................58 Thematic Sessions Battista, Simonetta, Alex Speed Kjeldsen and Þorbjörg Helgadóttir (Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog/A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Denmark) Latest News from the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose......................................................................................59 Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir (The Árni Magnússon Institute, Iceland); Kristen Mills (University of Toronto, Canada); Elizabeth Walgenbach (Yale University, USA); Giselle Gos (Harvard University, USA) Gender in Medieval Scandinavian Texts: A Reevaluation................................................................................60 Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, Haraldur Bernharðsson, Ludger Zeevaert, Emily Lethbridge, Susanne M. Arthur, Margrét Eggertsdóttir, Þorsteinn Árnason Surmeli and Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson (Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, Iceland) The Variance of Njáls saga................................................................................................................................62 Papers Aalto, Sirpa (University of Oulu, Finland) The Jómsvikinga saga - Part of Old Norse Historiography?............................................................................64 Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir (University of Iceland, Iceland) Of Wolves and Cranes in the Land of Geats.....................................................................................................65 Ahola, Joonas (University of Helsinki, Finland) The Saga Outlaw and Conceptions of the Past.................................................................................................66 Anderson, Joel (Cornell University, USA) Dispensation “By the Book:” Instrumentality and AM 671 4to.......................................................................67 Andersson, Ted (Indiana University, USA) Sea Traffic in the Sagas......................................................................................................................................69 Arkomani, Aliki-Anastasia (University College London, England) The Humidum Radicale and its Lexical Implications in Old Icelandic Texts..................................................70 Arngrímur Vídalín (Aarhus University/Háskóli Íslands, Denmark/Iceland) The Supernatural Geography of the Middle Ages............................................................................................71