The Retrospective Methods Network Newsletter Between Text and Practice Mythology, Religion and Research A special issue of RMN Newsletter Edited by Frog and Karina Lukin № 10 Summer 2015 RMN Newsletter is edited by Frog Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen 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-Jacobsen 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/ Between Text and Practice: Mythology, Religion and Research is a special thematic issue of the journal edited by Frog and Karina Lukin. © 2015 RMN Newsletter; authors retain rights to reproduce their own works and to grant permissions for the reproductions of those works. 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 ........................................................................................................................................ 5 BETWEEN TEXT AND PRACTICE: MYTHOLOGY, RELIGION AND RESEARCH Reflections on Texts and Practices in Mythology, Religion, and Research: An Introduction ............. 6 Frog & Karina Lukin Picturing the Otherworld: Imagination in the Study of Oral Poetry .................................................. 17 Lotte Tarkka Mythology in Cultural Practice: A Methodological Framework for Historical Analysis .................. 33 Frog Folklore and Mythology Catalogue: Its Lay-Out and Potential for Research ................................... 58 Yuri E. Berezkin Females as Cult Functionaries or Ritual Specialists in the Germanic Iron Age? .............................. 71 Rudolf Simek A Retrospective Methodology for Using Landnámabók as a Source for the Religious History of Iceland? – Some Questions ............................................................................................................ 78 Matthias Egeler Baptizing Soviet Children in Contemporary Rural Narratives .......................................................... 92 Nadezhda Rychkova REVIEW ARTICLES AND RESEARCH REPORTS Meta-Mythology and Academic Discourse Heritage ....................................................................... 100 Frog The Blurry Lines among Humans, Gods, and Animals: The Snake in the Garden of Eden ............ 109 Robert A. Segal Social Movement and a Structural Distribution of Karelian Ritual Genres .................................... 112 Eila Stepanova & Frog Lonely Riders of Nenets Mythology and Shamanism ..................................................................... 118 Karina Lukin CONFERENCES AND EVENTS Austmarr IV: The Plurality of Religions and Religious Change Around the Baltic Sea, 500–1300: Methodological Challenges for Multidisciplinary Data ................................................ 128 Kimberly La Palm Interdisciplinary Student Symposium on Viking and Medieval Scandinavian Subjects ................. 130 Seán D. Vrieland 3 Public Engagement with Research: A Viking TeaBreak ................................................................. 131 Lisa Turberfield, Claire Organ & Blake Middleton DISSERTATIONS AND THESES PhD Projects Myth in Translation: The Ludic Imagination in Contemporary Video Games (working title) ....... 133 Robert Guyker, Jr. Pre-Christian Sources on Odin: The Significance of Text and Iconographic Evidence as well as Archaeological Finds (4th–11th Centuries AD) (working title) ........................................ 135 Tom Hellers Porous Bodies, Porous Minds: Emotions and the Supernatural in the Íslendingasögur (ca. 1200–1400) ............................................................................................................................... 140 Kirsi Kanerva Master’s Projects On the dyēus-Semantic Group and the Case of Týr ......................................................................... 145 Petra Mikolić Appropriation and Originality: Hending and Alliterative Word Constellations as Tools for Skaldic Composition ..................................................................................................................................... 148 Cole Erik Nyquist CALLS FOR PAPERS Versification: Metrics in Practice .................................................................................................... 149 The Ontology of Supernatural Encounters in Old Norse Literature and Scandinavian Folklore: 4th Symposium of the Old Norse Folklorists Network ..................................................................... 150 Would You Like to Submit to RMN Newsletter? ............................................................................ 150 4 Editor’s Note The volume of RMN Newsletter that you hold Realities”, as well as some connection with in your hands, or which shimmers on a screen the international, multilingual conference before you, is a thematic special issue Between “Laulu ja runo – Song and Emergent Poetics Text and Practice: Mythology, Religion and – Песня и видоизменяющаяся поэтика” Research. This collection of articles and held at the end of 2013 (Kuhmo, Finland). reports addresses a number of themes that Contributions developed from these events have proven of great interest to our readership are complemented by works by voices and presents a variety of discussions and familiar from RMN Newsletter’s discourse insights. Some contributions illustrate new space as well as additional articles that have methodological frameworks for research on been invited through our networks. The mythology and religion in earlier periods. outcome is a rich and stimulating volume. Others elucidate new types of resources and Between Text and Practice: Mythology, theoretical tools, and there are discussions of Religion and Research is organized as a main inclinations, prejudices and problems that body of scientific articles that are comple- have haunted earlier research, and which may mented by additional relevant review articles still impact us today. Together, the works and research reports. Several reports on the presented here offer a variety of perspectives research projects of junior scholars also from several disciplines and backgrounds of connect directly with the overarching theme. scholarship. Their diversity is complementary, As a whole, these various contributions form encouraging these works to converse with one an ensemble that is both diverse and opulent, another, to dialogic engagements that will with something of interest for all of our reach their fullest richness and potential in the readers. reflections of the reader. We have the hope Of course, this special issue is the product that they may also inspire, and that the reader of only one of many activities current in the may then carry these discussions further, RMN and its daughter networks. A report on along with the insights that they enable. the most recent Austmarr Network can be The special issue is the product of a found in these pages, and its next meeting will cooperation between RMN Newsletter and the be held already in October. The Old Norse Academy of Finland project, “Oral Poetry, Folklorists Network has been no less active: a Mythic Knowledge and Vernacular Imagination call for papers for its up-coming symposium (OMV): Interfaces of Individual Expression “The Ontology of Supernatural Encounters in and Collective Traditions in Pre-Modern Old Norse Literature and Scandinavian Northeast Europe” of Folklore Studies, Folklore”, to be held in December 2015, can University of Helsinki, led by Professor Lotte be found at the back of this volume. RMN Tarkka. This cooperation has involved Newsletter is also already organizing another bringing together researchers linked to the special issue that centers on metrics and will Retrospective Methods Network (RMN) and appear already this winter. There is no doubt researchers involved in the events and that the RMN is vibrantly active and we at activities of OMV. More specifically, this RMN Newsletter are proud to be able to special issue has in its background the OMV’s participate, and to help by providing a panel of two sessions organized at the channel of communication and platform for American Folklore Society’s annual meeting discussion in order to promote and support in 2014 (Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.A.),