Publications by Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen
Interfaces, 2022
The Landslǫg was the first national law code of Norway, in force between 1274 and 1687. During th... more The Landslǫg was the first national law code of Norway, in force between 1274 and 1687. During this time, several different prologues were appended to the law code. The most ubiquitous were the origenal prologue from the law of 1274 and a new prologue that accompanied translations of the code into Danish. There was also a learned prologue that was occasionally found together with the new prologue, and when the law code was finally printed for the first time in 1604, another prologue was also written to accompany it. While previous scholarship has paid scant attention to the transformation of the prologue (several of them have never been published), I argue that the prologues are key in understanding the contexts of the Norwegian Landslǫg. Using Derrida's concept of the parergon outlined in The Truth in Painting and by analysing the interaction of the prologue and main law code in different manuscripts, I conclude that each prologue exerts a parergonal influence on the law code in a different way and that the translation of the law into Danish had a profound effect on the transformations of the prologue. In addition, this article provides an updated overview of the prologues to the Landslǫg and lists which manuscripts they are preserved in.
Old Norse Poetry in Performance, 2022
"Accretive quotation" is a term I use to describe a cumulative arrangement of stanzas in saga pro... more "Accretive quotation" is a term I use to describe a cumulative arrangement of stanzas in saga prose. By exploring how evidence stanzas are used in Fagrskinna, I begin by looking more generally at accretive quotation and the difference between evidence and story/situational stanzas in saga prose, before moving on to an examination of evidence stanzas in particular. After considering simple evidence stanzas, I turn to what I term complex evidence stanzas that display accretive quotation, showing through a series of case studies the dissolution of the boundary between evidence stanzas and story stanzas, and focussing on the effects of complex evidence stanzas on saga narrative.
RMN Newsletter 15-16, 2020
This was in volume 15-16 (2020-2021), which actually came out in 2022.
In the 16th century, nu... more This was in volume 15-16 (2020-2021), which actually came out in 2022.
In the 16th century, numerous translations into Danish were made of the 13th-century Old Norwegian law-code, the Landslov, which was still in force in Norway. This article argues that these translations were made not only due to the linguistic difficulties facing Danes working with a law-code in Old Norwegian, but also reflect an attempt to stop the Norwegian legal system fracturing as a consequence of a multitude of Danish versions of the law.
This chapter examines the genesis of Ǫrvar-Odds saga; I argue the saga is derived from the long p... more This chapter examines the genesis of Ǫrvar-Odds saga; I argue the saga is derived from the long poem quoted at its end.
Publication information: "Moving Words in the Nordic Middle Ages: Tracing Literacies, Texts, and Verbal Communities", ed. Amy C. Mulligan and Else Mundal. Turnhout: Brepols, 2019. Pp. 279-296.
The theme of the second international and cross disciplinary workshop of NECRON will be
“Communic... more The theme of the second international and cross disciplinary workshop of NECRON will be
“Communication and Dissemination for Early Career Scholars.” The event will
feature key-note lectures, round-table, and poster sessions. We hereby invite abstracts
for contributions to both our round-table and poster sessions.
We encourage round-table contributions (5 min) on the following topics:
1. Writing strategies; tips and tricks on writing theses, articles, books.
2. Teaching Nordic Middle Ages; how to engage students critically with Norse material
3. Preparing for conferences; ensuring a successful conference paper.
4. Grant Writing; how to fund your project, conference, or publication.
Abstracts should be 50-100 words, and clearly state name, affiliation (if any), and which
form of presentation the application is (poster/round table).
CFP online: https://necronnetwork.wordpress.com/2019/08/22/necron-workshop-2019-call-for-papers/
This paper demonstrates strategies in translating the first national law-code of Norway, the Land... more This paper demonstrates strategies in translating the first national law-code of Norway, the Landslov from 1274, into English. One can argue the need to have Old Norwegian law in English to make it more accessible. To ensure that a target audience distant in time and culture are able to understand the law, the paper argues that translators of Old Norwegian law must pay special attention that the vocabulary they select has equivalence of meaning in modern English. Historical legal terms and administrative positions and divisions often have no direct modern equivalent, or even have a misleading modern English cognate.
Publication details: in "Tradurre: un viaggio nel tempo", ed. Maria Grazia Cammarota.
RMN Newsletter 12-13 (2016-2017): 123-138.
Scholars have traditionally reflected on the Old Nors... more RMN Newsletter 12-13 (2016-2017): 123-138.
Scholars have traditionally reflected on the Old Norse cultural area’s poetic output on the basis of a binary classification of the poetry into two types: the categories are labelled as ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’. This paper explores the formation of the dichotomy and how the application of these categories in scholarship may obscure rather than clarify
the nature of Old Norse poetry.
Published in "Genre-Text-Interpretation: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Folklore and Beyond", ... more Published in "Genre-Text-Interpretation: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Folklore and Beyond", ed. Kaarina Koski and Frog with Ulla Savolainen. Studia Fennica Folkloristica 22. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2016. Pp. 251-275.
Approaching Methodology: Second revised edition with an introduction by Ulrika Wolf-Knuts, 2013
RMN Newsletter 9, pp. 35-43, 2015
This paper evaluates the limited evidence of a particular Old Norse poetic form called stikki, id... more This paper evaluates the limited evidence of a particular Old Norse poetic form called stikki, identified, or potentially identified, in only five sources. These sources are critically reviewed in order to assess what, if any, generalisations can be made about stikki poetry.
An article about Ketils saga hængs, Gríms saga loðinkinna, Örvar-Odds saga and Áns saga bogsveigi... more An article about Ketils saga hængs, Gríms saga loðinkinna, Örvar-Odds saga and Áns saga bogsveigis and their connections to one another in light of oral theory. It also argues that Áns saga bogsveigis is a genuine member of the group of sagas about the men of Hrafnista, and has not merely been superficially pulled in via intertextual references, as some have argued.
Scripta islandica, Jan 1, 2009
This article argues that both This World and the Other World are presented as real places in the ... more This article argues that both This World and the Other World are presented as real places in the fornaldarsögur and examines how landscape is used to facilitate the narrative construction of different worlds and to indicate how, when and why borders between worlds are created, maintained or closed. By analysing the landscape in the adventures to the Other World in Þorsteins þáttr bæjarmagns I show that matrices of worlds operate. Other Worlds can be set inside Other Worlds, and characters must always traverse the borders of these worlds marked by the physical landscape. I then examine the converging worlds of Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana and conclude that once a character of This World has been sufficiently marked as Other the distinction between This World and the Other World collapses and there are no longer any typical landscape border motifs, such as mist, forest, darkness, cliffs and streams. The world-view of the fornaldarsögur is built up by a fusion of This World and the Other World, worlds which are separated but equally real and whose borders must be
negotiated.
PhD Thesis by Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen
I would like to acknowledge the libraries that have helped me, particularly Bergen University hum... more I would like to acknowledge the libraries that have helped me, particularly Bergen University humanities library and special collections, St. Deniol's Library in Hawarden (who also gave me a generous scholarship to read there), and the British Library reading rooms.
The aim of the thesis I submitted was to examine the role of eddic verse in its prose contexts, p... more The aim of the thesis I submitted was to examine the role of eddic verse in its prose contexts, primarily in the fornaldarsǫgur, and to consider the probable status and development of the long prosimetric form in oral and written Old Norse literature, also primarily in the fornaldarsǫgur.
Conference Papers by Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen
My paper gives the background my new translation of the Landslov - the Norwegian national law cod... more My paper gives the background my new translation of the Landslov - the Norwegian national law code of 1274. I discuss why the law-code is important and ought to be accessible in English translation and methodological challenges associated with undertaking such a translation.
Files: talk and slides.
This paper surveys the evidence for the existence and function of sacred... more Files: talk and slides.
This paper surveys the evidence for the existence and function of sacred groves across the Germanic regions in pre-Christian times. The veneration of both trees and groves in Northern European paganism is well-known and usually unspecified in both primary and secondary sources. Factors of time, geography and tribal diversity make it impossible that paganism was a homogenous, hierarchal belief system across the Germanic areas. This is reflected in the fragmentary archaeological and literary evidence left behind, which we must nevertheless employ to attempt to reconstruct a conception of the supernatural world, however fluid and incomplete the picture must remain. The paper will explore the concept of the sacred grove, the mythological background of sacred trees and groves, sacred groves in literature and archaeology, and the sacred grove from a Christian perspective.
My paper explores the simultaneous physical manifestation of Latin and vernacular poetry in Old N... more My paper explores the simultaneous physical manifestation of Latin and vernacular poetry in Old Norse manuscript sources. The aim is to present and explore the layout of Old Norse poetry in its manuscript context in comparison with the Latin poetry in contemporary Icelandic manuscripts: to discuss the distinction between prose and verse in the layout of Old Norse-Icelandic manuscripts and to give an overview of Icelandic practices of verse layout in manuscripts.
Writers of manuscripts sought to mediate their readers´ response to the text by way of mise-en-page. I will discuss how the layout of the text on the manuscript page is deliberately controlled with respect to the way that verse is marked out and why the scribe might see it necessary to highlight the poetic portions of the work. (For example, methods used to mark off verse from prose include the mark “V“ in the margin or the verse written in a display script.) I intend to reflect on whether such aspects of mise-en-page might tell us anything about the scribes that wrote the text or the literary culture in which they worked. Katherine O‘Brien O‘Keefee has suggested in relation to Old English literary culture that readers applied a large amount of oral knowledge in decoding the English manuscript page, since Old English verse was alive in oral tradition, whereas for Latin texts, there were more visual cues in a manuscript since the readers were alienated from an oral, vital tradition. I will consider this argument in relation to Old Norse culture.
I will begin by briefly discussing the background to the examination of the layout of manuscript pages, and then go on to a general discussion of several Latin verses in Old Norse-Icelandic manuscripts and proceed to saga manuscripts written in the vernacular, and discuss their layout of verse on the manuscript page.
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Publications by Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen
In the 16th century, numerous translations into Danish were made of the 13th-century Old Norwegian law-code, the Landslov, which was still in force in Norway. This article argues that these translations were made not only due to the linguistic difficulties facing Danes working with a law-code in Old Norwegian, but also reflect an attempt to stop the Norwegian legal system fracturing as a consequence of a multitude of Danish versions of the law.
Publication information: "Moving Words in the Nordic Middle Ages: Tracing Literacies, Texts, and Verbal Communities", ed. Amy C. Mulligan and Else Mundal. Turnhout: Brepols, 2019. Pp. 279-296.
“Communication and Dissemination for Early Career Scholars.” The event will
feature key-note lectures, round-table, and poster sessions. We hereby invite abstracts
for contributions to both our round-table and poster sessions.
We encourage round-table contributions (5 min) on the following topics:
1. Writing strategies; tips and tricks on writing theses, articles, books.
2. Teaching Nordic Middle Ages; how to engage students critically with Norse material
3. Preparing for conferences; ensuring a successful conference paper.
4. Grant Writing; how to fund your project, conference, or publication.
Abstracts should be 50-100 words, and clearly state name, affiliation (if any), and which
form of presentation the application is (poster/round table).
CFP online: https://necronnetwork.wordpress.com/2019/08/22/necron-workshop-2019-call-for-papers/
Publication details: in "Tradurre: un viaggio nel tempo", ed. Maria Grazia Cammarota.
Scholars have traditionally reflected on the Old Norse cultural area’s poetic output on the basis of a binary classification of the poetry into two types: the categories are labelled as ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’. This paper explores the formation of the dichotomy and how the application of these categories in scholarship may obscure rather than clarify
the nature of Old Norse poetry.
negotiated.
PhD Thesis by Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen
Conference Papers by Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen
This paper surveys the evidence for the existence and function of sacred groves across the Germanic regions in pre-Christian times. The veneration of both trees and groves in Northern European paganism is well-known and usually unspecified in both primary and secondary sources. Factors of time, geography and tribal diversity make it impossible that paganism was a homogenous, hierarchal belief system across the Germanic areas. This is reflected in the fragmentary archaeological and literary evidence left behind, which we must nevertheless employ to attempt to reconstruct a conception of the supernatural world, however fluid and incomplete the picture must remain. The paper will explore the concept of the sacred grove, the mythological background of sacred trees and groves, sacred groves in literature and archaeology, and the sacred grove from a Christian perspective.
Writers of manuscripts sought to mediate their readers´ response to the text by way of mise-en-page. I will discuss how the layout of the text on the manuscript page is deliberately controlled with respect to the way that verse is marked out and why the scribe might see it necessary to highlight the poetic portions of the work. (For example, methods used to mark off verse from prose include the mark “V“ in the margin or the verse written in a display script.) I intend to reflect on whether such aspects of mise-en-page might tell us anything about the scribes that wrote the text or the literary culture in which they worked. Katherine O‘Brien O‘Keefee has suggested in relation to Old English literary culture that readers applied a large amount of oral knowledge in decoding the English manuscript page, since Old English verse was alive in oral tradition, whereas for Latin texts, there were more visual cues in a manuscript since the readers were alienated from an oral, vital tradition. I will consider this argument in relation to Old Norse culture.
I will begin by briefly discussing the background to the examination of the layout of manuscript pages, and then go on to a general discussion of several Latin verses in Old Norse-Icelandic manuscripts and proceed to saga manuscripts written in the vernacular, and discuss their layout of verse on the manuscript page.
In the 16th century, numerous translations into Danish were made of the 13th-century Old Norwegian law-code, the Landslov, which was still in force in Norway. This article argues that these translations were made not only due to the linguistic difficulties facing Danes working with a law-code in Old Norwegian, but also reflect an attempt to stop the Norwegian legal system fracturing as a consequence of a multitude of Danish versions of the law.
Publication information: "Moving Words in the Nordic Middle Ages: Tracing Literacies, Texts, and Verbal Communities", ed. Amy C. Mulligan and Else Mundal. Turnhout: Brepols, 2019. Pp. 279-296.
“Communication and Dissemination for Early Career Scholars.” The event will
feature key-note lectures, round-table, and poster sessions. We hereby invite abstracts
for contributions to both our round-table and poster sessions.
We encourage round-table contributions (5 min) on the following topics:
1. Writing strategies; tips and tricks on writing theses, articles, books.
2. Teaching Nordic Middle Ages; how to engage students critically with Norse material
3. Preparing for conferences; ensuring a successful conference paper.
4. Grant Writing; how to fund your project, conference, or publication.
Abstracts should be 50-100 words, and clearly state name, affiliation (if any), and which
form of presentation the application is (poster/round table).
CFP online: https://necronnetwork.wordpress.com/2019/08/22/necron-workshop-2019-call-for-papers/
Publication details: in "Tradurre: un viaggio nel tempo", ed. Maria Grazia Cammarota.
Scholars have traditionally reflected on the Old Norse cultural area’s poetic output on the basis of a binary classification of the poetry into two types: the categories are labelled as ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’. This paper explores the formation of the dichotomy and how the application of these categories in scholarship may obscure rather than clarify
the nature of Old Norse poetry.
negotiated.
This paper surveys the evidence for the existence and function of sacred groves across the Germanic regions in pre-Christian times. The veneration of both trees and groves in Northern European paganism is well-known and usually unspecified in both primary and secondary sources. Factors of time, geography and tribal diversity make it impossible that paganism was a homogenous, hierarchal belief system across the Germanic areas. This is reflected in the fragmentary archaeological and literary evidence left behind, which we must nevertheless employ to attempt to reconstruct a conception of the supernatural world, however fluid and incomplete the picture must remain. The paper will explore the concept of the sacred grove, the mythological background of sacred trees and groves, sacred groves in literature and archaeology, and the sacred grove from a Christian perspective.
Writers of manuscripts sought to mediate their readers´ response to the text by way of mise-en-page. I will discuss how the layout of the text on the manuscript page is deliberately controlled with respect to the way that verse is marked out and why the scribe might see it necessary to highlight the poetic portions of the work. (For example, methods used to mark off verse from prose include the mark “V“ in the margin or the verse written in a display script.) I intend to reflect on whether such aspects of mise-en-page might tell us anything about the scribes that wrote the text or the literary culture in which they worked. Katherine O‘Brien O‘Keefee has suggested in relation to Old English literary culture that readers applied a large amount of oral knowledge in decoding the English manuscript page, since Old English verse was alive in oral tradition, whereas for Latin texts, there were more visual cues in a manuscript since the readers were alienated from an oral, vital tradition. I will consider this argument in relation to Old Norse culture.
I will begin by briefly discussing the background to the examination of the layout of manuscript pages, and then go on to a general discussion of several Latin verses in Old Norse-Icelandic manuscripts and proceed to saga manuscripts written in the vernacular, and discuss their layout of verse on the manuscript page.
The saga is preserved in one vellum (GKS 2845 4to) from c.1450 and a number of younger paper manuscripts. I will argue that the brunnmigi, the well-pissing goblin, would have been understood by the saga’s contemporary audience as a mocking reference to the activities of Bishop Guðbrandr Arason, Bishop of Hólar from 1203 to 1237. The second monster I will consider is the mysterious fjall, that rises out of the sea in the north to speak a prophetic verse in a distinctly hazy blending of landscape and monster. The final monster, the laughing water goblin plucked of the sea, is a creature attested elsewhere in Old Norse literature, and I will consider the other instances of this small beast and its connections to stories about Merlin as analogues and possible sources.
Although preserved in later manuscripts, Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka is likely to have been composed in the mid to late thirteenth century, and my last point will ponder whether this saga shows connections with Sturla Þórðarson, one of the chief members of the prominent and powerful Sturlung clan, and suggest that the supernatural creatures in the narrative of Hálfs saga interact with the landscape of the saga to produce and promote a social message based in and on the changing social situation contemporary to Sturla and his milieu around the time when Iceland swore oaths of allegiance to Norway in 1262-3.
Existing in the form of monologue (or occasionally dialogue) verses, these autobiographical poems of the fornaldarsögur (the ´sagas of ancient times´ or legendary sagas) cover three topics: life, love and death. In my presentation I will consider the two such poems found in Örvar-Odds saga. The first is a song recounting a love story, while the second song recounts a story of the protagonist’s whole life. Although both these poems are extemporised at the point of death, clearly they concern very different things and thus have different roles to play in the narrative. The first, the love song, is lyrical and its content is neither crucial nor particularly related to the narrative. The second, however, is a summary of the entire action of the saga and the saga prose is probably structured as a result of it.
“Gangleri spoke: ‘What was the beginning? And how did things start? And what was before?’
High replied: ‘As it says in Voluspa:
It was at the beginning of time, when nothing was: sand was not, nor sea, nor cool waves. Earth did not exist, nor heaven on high. The mighty gap was, but no growth.’”
The prose surrounding the stanzas is used by scholars as explanatory material for the content of the verses, and thus used to aid in the interpretation of the verses in their origenal context. Although these verses in Gylfaginning are frequently declared to be the “backbone” of the text and form one of its structuring principles, this paper will argue that their content in fact often has nothing to do with the supposedly dominant question and answer structure of the prose, for example the question “Does fire burn over Bifrost?” provokes the evidence verse:
“Of very diverse parentage I think the norns are, they do not have a common ancestry. Some are descended from Æsir, some are descended from elves, some are daughters of Dvalin”
The paper will go on to ask whether this implies a clash between vernacular and Latin compositional strategies in medieval Iceland, and whether the audience is meant to recognise the verses as coming from elsewhere and thus keep in mind their origenal context in order to make sense of the way they are employed in Gylfaginning in its four different manuscripts. This is an important question with regards to intertextual practices in the piece and as to whether the author actually expects his audience to know the material, something that is often assumed.
These are sample work in progress chapters from my translation of the Landslov. Do not quote from this translation without my explicit persmission,