Abstract This article presents an analysis of four contemporary comics from the Faroe Islands, Norway, and Sweden, in which the mental health of children, adolescents and young adults is a central theme. Collectively, these works offer diverse approaches to mental health across different life phases – childhood, young adulthood, and adulthood. Our analysis examines how the comics relate mental health to life phases, social contexts, and community, and how they employ the formal features of the comics medium to explore the complexity of mental health during transitional periods. A key finding is that comics provide an engaging and socially grounded medium for portraying mental health as it relates to the experiences of children, adolescents, and young adults. These portrayals challenge conventional understandings of mental health as primarily illness and offer nuanced perspectives on how mental health issues can be experienced and addressed.
Abstract This article examines Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss , reading it as a story about the Christianisation of Iceland. At the core of this reading lies an understanding of the epithet “Snæfellsáss”, borne by the saga’s protagonist, not as an element of folk memory but as a device used deliberately to blur the boundaries between different categories of beings. Tracing how the text utilises and repurposes structures and motifs already existing in saga literature, the present study aims to provide a better understanding of Bárðar saga ’s plot and intended message. The article concludes by pointing out some historical circumstances in fourteenth-century Iceland which might provide a fitting background for the message thus identified.
Abstract The death-defiance which is frequently displayed by heroic figures in Old Norse literature has usually been addressed as an inheritance from the pre-Christian past. While a number of sources seem at first glance to support this view, this article shows that death-defying heroism, despite its disruptive side effects, remained a virtue in Christian surroundings, especially in martyr stories. Furthermore, the notion of fate as it develops in the pagan storyworlds shows clear parallels to the Christian concept of predestination. By comparing the circumstances of heroic deaths in Eddic poems, Fornaldarsögur , and sagas on more recent history, the article argues that medieval Scandinavian conceptualizations of the heroic age are informed by a conceptual alignment between the pagan hero and the martyr saint.
Abstract This paper critically examines the historiography of Iceland’s Christianization, focusing on the philosophical and theoretical frameworks that have shaped scholarly interpretations. It argues that the dominant Hegelian perspective, emphasizing teleological progress and institutional narratives, has constrained understanding of this complex historical process. By contrasting Hegelianism with Schopenhauer’s philosophy of representation and integrating social constructivism and Vorstellungsgeschichte , the paper proposes alternative approaches to analyzing Iceland’s conversion to Christianity. Through a re-evaluation of key texts like Ari Þorgilsson’s Íslendingabók , Hungrvaka , and Kristni saga , the study highlights the constructed nature of historical narratives and the role of subjective and cultural dimensions in shaping religious transformation. The paper ultimately advocates for a more nuanced, interdisciplinary understanding of Iceland’s Christianization, moving beyond traditional paradigms to explore the symbolic, imaginative, and social dynamics of this pivotal historical event.
Abstract This article investigates the depiction of Norse pagan beliefs in Greenland through the lens of Icelandic sagas, focusing on how medieval Icelanders constructed cultural memory. Rather than offering historical accounts, these sagas – such as Gr œ nlendinga saga , Eiríks saga rauða , Fóstbr œ ðra saga , and Flóamanna saga – present imaginative narratives shaped by Christian perspectives and ideological concerns of the saga authors. Greenland, depicted as a geographical and religious periphery, becomes a space where residual paganism lingers and Christianity struggles to take hold. The sagas portray pagan figures and practices – such as vǫlur (prophetesses), Þórr worship, and magical rituals – not necessarily to reflect Greenlandic reality, but to define Icelandic Christian identity by contrast. Archaeological and runic evidence suggest Norse Greenlanders were devout Christians, contrasting with the sagas’ persistent emphasis on paganism. The study adopts methodologies from memory studies and literary analysis to argue that saga narratives served to reshape and sometimes distort the past to reinforce contemporary Christian ideology. In doing so, Icelanders projected paganism outward – onto Greenland – as a means of distancing themselves from their own ancestral religious past.
Abstract This article examines the political and religious role of the Icelandic goðar from the late ninth to the mid-thirteenth century. As local leaders, the goðar held political power in Medieval Iceland, but their title – derived from “god” – suggests deeper religious significance. The study explores how their authority evolved from the settlement period through Christianization and Iceland’s transition from an independent commonwealth to a Norwegian colony. Methodologically, the article reviews existing strands of the research history on the goðar before exploring to what extent theories of transmarine migration and the foundation of new societies may shed light on this and other social institutions of pre-modern Iceland.
Abstract This article assesses the impact of Christianisation in the Norse ideas about labour, as an aspect of the understudied ideas about work in the Medieval North. It focuses on contrasting sources possessing a strong secular perspective (mainly Hávamál , Hugsvinnsmá l and Þórðar saga hreðu ) with others holding noticeable ecclesiastical interest ( Sólarljóð and Hungrvaka ). It is here argued that the overall positive view on both manual and intellectual work evidenced in secular sources (and epitomised by the emphasis on good farm management) was largely kept in Christian contexts. However, the sources analysed reveal a shift in the ideas about the desirable end-goal of working: rather than personal prestige and wealth, labour was reoriented to be part of an effort to institutionalise the Christian faith. Such views seem to extend across the whole social order, with little trace of attitudes upholding aristocratic leisure.
Zusammenfassung In contrast to her Moomin books, Tove Jansson’s novel Solstaden is situated in a specific place and time – St. Petersburg, Florida, in the 1970s – and addresses a widely debated social issue of the day: the treatment of the elderly. As I will demonstrate in this paper, however, this socially realistic framework is consistently disrupted by a range of personal and irrational narrative voices. I argue that this aesthetic ambiguity is not accidental but should instead be understood as a deliberate poetics of aging and old age, intricately woven into the text itself.
Zusammenfassung This thematic section brings together contributions by six scholars who took part in an international workshop which was held at the University of Münster. They are united by a common analytical approach: the medieval discourse on the pagan past of the North and its traces in the social fabric are addressed as ‘politics of religion’ in the sense that Christian societies memorialise, construct, and narrate the religious Other in public utterances which relate to the social organisation of a community, its history, and its identity. The articles offer insights into the socio-political factors which contributed to the remarkable diversity of medieval perspectives on the pre-Christian past.
In the ruin of the Cistercian monastery in Eldena near Greifswald, there is a runic inscription on a brick in a wall: þiri X . The present article offers interpretation proposals for a number of questions: When, in which social and contact linguistic context, in which tradition was the inscription carved? With what kind of writing system in which language was it carved? Who carved it with which tools, and with what intention? What does the inscription say, and who might have read it and with what effect?
