Sagas and Space: the 16th International Saga Conference, Universities of Zürich and Basel

Every three years the Old Norse community descends upon a city (or two) for the International Saga Conference. This summer brought us to the universities of Zürich and Basel for a week’s worth of papers and discussion on a variety of subjects across the field, from 9–15 August. The title given to this year’s conference was ‘Sagas and Space’, inviting submissions to thematic strands ‘Constructing Space’, ‘Mediality’, ‘Textuality and Manuscript Transmission’, ‘Reception of Old Norse-Icelandic Literature’, ‘Continental Europe and Medieval Scandinavia’, ‘Literatures of Eastern Scandinavia’, ‘Bodies and Senses in the Scandinavian Middle Ages’ and a wide range of other topics. Between Cambridge scholars present and past, representatives of the ASNaC department could be found in every one of these thematic strands.

Monday saw doctoral student Maria Theresa Ramandi present on the Legend of St Agnes in Old Icelandic translation as well as a roundtable discussion on eddic poetry led by Dr Judy Quinn and featuring Dr Brittany Schorn. In Basel on Tuesday both presented additional papers on eddic material (on the artifice of intimacy in eddic dialogues and modes of poetry in prosimetric sagas) and doctoral students Rebecca Merkelbach and Joanne Shortt Butler represented the Íslendingasögur with papers on mediality and monstrosity, and on characterisation in Eyrbyggja saga respectively. On Wednesday Dr Elizabeth Ashman Rowe presented her current research on the Icelandic annals, offering a tantalising glimpse of forthcoming publications on these neglected texts. After a day off for trekking in the Alps, exploring the manuscript collection of Saint Gallen abbey, cruising on Lake Lucerne or just getting better acquainted with Zürich, the conference wrapped up on Friday. Doctoral student Caitlin Ellis mapped out the political geographies of eleventh-century kings Knútr Sveinsson (Cnut the Great) and Óláfr Haraldsson, whilst Dr Paul Gazzoli explained the manuscript tradition and re-interpretations of the Latin Life of St Anskar, a missionary saint associated with the conversion of Scandinavia. 

ASNaC alumni from around Europe added to the representation of the department, with papers and contributions by Drs Rosalind Bonté (Brepols publishers), Eleanor Heans-Glogowska, Emily Lethbridge (Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, Reykjavík) and Jeffrey Love (Stockholm University). Doctoral students Katherine Olley, Jonathan Hui and Victoria Cribb also swelled the ranks of Cambridge delegates, partaking of discussions, developments and opportunities to meet colleagues old and new. The week was a fantastic opportunity to catch up with friends and peers from all around the globe, as well as those from collaborative projects such as the Languages, Myths and Finds network, Árni Magnússon Institute Manuscript Master Classes, Skaldic Poetry Project — and even to form brand new research networks! Rebecca Merkelbach led the formation of an Old Norse Network of Otherness (ONNO), comprised largely of early-career scholars from around the world whose work focusses on the marginal and medial aspects of Old Norse literature. The interests of the network include “the breaking-down of binaries, the development of spectrums and continuities [and] the de-marginalisation of otherness”. This is but one example of how the conference successfully fostered enthusiasm, creativity and new ideas amongst everyone who attended. 

Saga Conference 2015

At this, the 16th International Saga Conference, we also received reminders of conferences past and of the important legacy of these academic gatherings that were begun by Professor Hermann Pálsson at Edinburgh in 1971. Under the enthusiastic guidance of Judy Quinn, the first coffee-break in Basel was taken up by delegates participating in a series of sixteen photographs recording the history of the saga conference since its inception. From the cheers of support, it was worth forgoing coffee to see how important this meeting has been to the field, ensuring contact and discussion between members of the community (both senior and junior) throughout the years. Appropriately, this year’s photoshoot coincided with the launch of a website archiving all available saga conference papers and abstracts. It will doubtless prove an invaluable asset to the ongoing research of many of us.

Finally, Friday afternoon confirmed the location and date of the next meeting in 2018: Reykjavík, Iceland, 12–18 August. Previous conferences have focussed on many genres of saga, but never yet on the genre that has perhaps contributed most to bringing people to the field: the Íslendingasögur. How appropriate that we should return to Reykjavík for this theme. Roll on 2018 and the 17th International Saga Conference!

 

Joanne Shortt Butler

With thanks to Judy Quinn for additional information.

'Vikings: Life and Legend' exhibition at the British Museum

Many thanks to ASNC graduate student Jo Shortt Bulter for this review

I was lucky enough to attend this exhibition as part of the project Languages, Myths and Finds. We arrived an hour before it opened to the public on Friday 28^th March, so perhaps had a clearer view of the exhibits than most of the public.

In January, the curator of Vikings: Life and Legend, Gareth Williams, gave the Languages, Myths and Finds participants a lecture on the intentions of the exhibition. Preaching to the converted, he told us of the importance and relevance of a new Viking exhibition, observing that the popular stereotype of the marauding Viking has barely changed over the past three decades (since the British Museum’s previous Viking exhibition). One needs only to read any review of the exhibition in a national newspaper to see that this is true.

We learnt of the intention to focus on the eastern expansion of the Norse, taking full advantage of the raising of the iron curtain that allowed the exchange of research on the Rus to pass in and out of eastern Europe and Russia once more. The exhibition was to focus on the magnificent Roskilde 6 ship as a symbol for various aspects of Norse and Viking culture: transport, warfare, power and diplomacy, and ritual.

Whilst I can confirm that the exhibition succeeded partially in doing this, its success was largely confined to the vast new room that houses Rosdkile 6 itself. Before reaching the star attraction, we were led back and forth through a series of cases displaying smaller finds. Anticipating the exhibition’s climax, the first cases contained small toy boats and a scratched image of a Viking ship on stone. Even at this point of the exhibition, the use of space was puzzling: sometimes the back of a case was not utilised, leaving an empty grey space; the fabulous Hunterston Brooch showed its glittering Celtic interlace off to anyone who wanted to peer up close through its case, but its rune-carved reverse – the Viking part of it! – was frustratingly difficult to view, requiring one to lean over the deep block on which it stood (something that I have no doubt would not be possible were the exhibition at its busiest).

These displays were also sadly hampered by inadequate labelling. There were no numbers to link the objects to their description or provenance, and without an audio guide I was glad of the insider knowledge that allowed me to identify familiar objects, or match them to their descriptions quickly. The narrative seemed to me to be as follows: introduce Norse artefacts; introduce artefacts from the parts of the world with which the Norse interacted (Anglo-Saxon England, Celtic Ireland, Frankia, the Slavic lands, Byzantium etc); having briefly shown examples of ‘Norse’ and ‘non-Norse’ art-forms, show examples that demonstrate the mingling of Norse styles with local styles; show similar objects of Norse manufacture that were found everywhere from Dublin to Novgorod. What should have been very visually easy to follow, I worry was made confusing when labelling did not immediately make clear the origin of the finds on display.

Of course, this does not detract from the artefacts themselves – incredible, chunky chains of Slavic jewellery hung boldly alongside delicately carved Byzantine ivory drinking vessels. Bright glass beads and a golden comb nestled below intimidatingly large oval brooches. The hoards of silver were spread out in piles showing how far-flung the original homes of their contents were, and this display of wealth led us out of the winding first room and, suitably, onto a section on trade.

There is a tendency to roll one’s eyes at the appearance of ‘raiders and traders’ in a Norse or Viking context, but seeing a weighty iron chain and collar set opposite delicate weights and balances brought the clichéd phrase used by the exhibition to life. After that, it was out of the grey and into a red room lined with truly dazzling Viking bling. Ginormous, hilariously impractical brooches bristled, and the background sounds of Old Norse (read by the department’s very own Icelandic teacher, Orri Tómasson) began to mingle with the sound of the sea. Roskilde 6 was getting close, and the excitement mounted.

Trying very hard to be interested in various dining implements and the ghost of a drinking horn, what I really wanted to do at this point was run around the corner and into the main thing.

Rumours of a cavernous, airport-like space were indeed true, but the ship filled it well enough. Standing between the sweeping metal skeleton of Roskilde 6 and the high, wall-mounted bones of other ships – a set of oars, a solid prow, a long, bleached rudder – I felt as though I were in a natural history museum, between displays of long extinct giant animals. Video screens around the ship brought its vital statistics to life, although I don’t recall much being made of the fact that Roskilde 6 is bigger than Óláfr Tryggvason’s awesome Ormr inn langi.

The displays here had more breathing space than those in the first room, and the layout could be appreciated more clearly – peering through the glass case containing a decorated brass weathervane, one could see how it lined up with the prow of the ship structure behind it. The labelling did not improve, however – confronted by cases filled with weapons of corroded iron and twisted metal it became difficult to identify which spear-head was found where. And I am afraid that I am just the sort of nerd who wants to do that in an exhibition.

The Lewis chessmen (photograph by Margo Griffin-Wilson)

To overcome that small disappointment: on to the new ‘Valkyrie’ figurine from Denmark, alongside some of the Lewis chessmen. Again, though, like the Hunterston brooch, the delicate carving on the back of the chessmen was mentioned but remained impossible to see. Surely, as my colleague Jane Harrison observed, an angled mirror behind the objects would have solved this problem? And a magnifying panel, or enlarged picture, by the tiny silver figurine would have been most welcome.

By this point I was having to rush in order to make it to a meeting, but I enjoyed musing on the fact that the warriors from the mass grave in Dorset were crammed into a ‘dead-end’ in the layout of the exhibition, and wish I had had more time to dwell on the cases full of swords. There was one final disappointment, before I dashed past the odd charms and staffs and token crosses in the ‘ritual’ part of the room. The Ardnamurchan boat burial is one of the most exciting recent finds displayed for the first time in Vikings: Life and Legend, but it was little more than a collection of corroded rivets arranged in the shape of a boat. Here, and elsewhere in the exhibition, I found the minimalist aesthetic to be most unhelpful – printing the lines of the boat underneath the objects, a simple outline of shapes to help the viewer visualise the find more clearly, would have been immeasurably helpful. In the case of the stone carving depicting slaves and slave traders earlier in the exhibition a line-drawing or side-light would have also made things much easier to see.

The exhibition is still a mighty achievement, and to have brought so many items from all over the vast ‘Viking world’ together is wonderful. Roskilde 6 and its specially designed frame are a thing of beauty as much as the sparkling jewellery is, and in the peace of our early morning slot I relished a slow walk around each case. Unfortunately, I cannot imagine going during opening hours – there are a lot of bottle-necks in the exhibition, and the labels (which I seem to recall being a source of chagrin for Gareth Williams, who mentioned their brevity in January) would likely be invisible to many visitors as they squeeze through the first room. An appreciation of the objects themselves should still be possible, however, even if the larger narrative may only be possible to spot intermittently.