Abstract
One of the most highly acclaimed of the thirteenth-century Íslendingasögur, Njáls saga, includes a unique account of somatic emotional display. When Þórhallr Ásgrímsson learns that his foster father has been burnt to death, his whole body swells up and blood spurts out of his ears in a bow until he faints. In this chapter, these expressions are put in context with hydraulic emotive displays in several Old Norse narratives of various genres, where emotions are conveyed in the form of a build-up of pressure in fluid form within the body that can overflow or burst through, possibly with a fatal outcome. This imagery is used to describe powerful and decidedly negative feelings such as anger and grief at high-tension points in the narratives, where they manifest in colour changes (pallor, blushing, and black colour), red patches, swelling, spurting blood, sweating, or crying tears of hail, intermittently using dramatic imagery such as blood-similes, tearing clothes, hair loosening, bursting, or collapsing. In this chapter, these depictions are explored within the framework of cognitive linguistics and previous assumptions that hydraulic expressions in the sagas can be attributed to the influence of the Galenic theory of the four humours are reconsidered.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, ed. Sigurður Nordal, Íslenzk fornrit II (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1933), 244: “þat er sǫgn manna, at hann þrútnaði svá, at kyrtillinn rifnaði af honum ok svá hosurnar.”
All translations in this chapter are my own unless otherwise noted.
- 2.
Brennu-Njáls saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, Íslenzk fornrit XII (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1954), 74.
- 3.
Njáls saga, 344–45: “hann þrútnaði allr ok blóðbogi stóð ór hvárritveggju hlustinni, ok varð eigi stǫðvat, ok fell hann í óvit, ok þá stǫðvaðisk.”
- 4.
Sif Rikhardsdottir, “Medieval Emotionality: The Feeling Subject in Medieval Literature,” Comparative Literature 69, no. 1 (2017): 80; Sif Rikhardsdottir, Emotions in Old Norse Literature: Translations, Voices, Contexts, Studies in Old Norse Literature (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2017), 76, 136–37; Lars Lönnroth, Njáls Saga: A Critical Introduction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 112; Kirsi Kanerva, “Disturbances of the Mind and Body: Effects of the Living Dead in Medieval Iceland,” in Mental DisOrder in Later Medieval Europe, ed. Sari Katajala-Peltomaa and Susanna Niiranen (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 239–40. See also Edel Porter and Teodoro Manrique Antón, “Flushing in Anger, Blushing in Shame: Somatic Markers in Old Norse Emotional Expressions,” Cognitive Linguistic Studies 2, no. 1 (2015): 26–27, 39. They claim that words for swelling (þrútna) mostly appear in “relatively late texts, which could point to the influence of the humoral theory” (39). However, as argued below, swelling emotions can be found in what may be among the very earliest Old Norse poems.
- 5.
Laxdœla saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, Íslenzk fornrit V (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1934), 187, 158, respectively.
- 6.
Njáls saga, 114–15.
- 7.
Völsunga saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson, in Fornaldar sögur Norðurlanda (Reykjavík: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan, 1954), 1: 107–218 at 187. “svá þrútnuðu hans síður, at í sundr gengu brynjuhringar”; see also the accompanying stanza.
- 8.
Vǫlsunga saga ok Ragnars saga loðbrókar, ed. Magnus Olsen (Copenhagen: Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur, 1906–1908), 162: “hann var. sva þrutinn, at hans haurund var. allt blasit af þeim grimleik, er i briosti hans var.”
- 9.
As Kirsten Wolf’s extensive account of facial expressions in over 100 examples from the Íslendingasǫgur and þættr shows, in her “Somatic Semiotics: Emotion and the Human Face in the Sagas and Þættir of Icelanders,” Traditio 69 (2014): 132–8.
- 10.
Njáls saga, 292.
- 11.
See Lars Lönnroth, “Heroine in Grief: The Old Norse Development of a Germanic Theme,” in Inclinate Aurem: Oral Perspectives on Early European Verbal Culture. A Symposium, ed. Jan Helldén, Minna Skafte Jensen, and Thomas Pettitt (Odense: Odense University Press, 2001), 125. For a recent review of scholarship on dating eddic poetry, see Bernt Ø. Thorvaldsen, “The Dating of Eddic Poetry,” in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn, and Brittany Schorn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 56–69.
- 12.
Eddukvæði, ed. Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, Íslenzk fornrit: Eddukvæði (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 2014), 2:329.
- 13.
Eddukvæði, 331: “regns dropi ran niðr um kné.”
- 14.
Saga Óláfs konungs hins helga, ed. Oscar Albert Johnsen and Jón Helgason (Oslo: Jacob Dybwad, 1941), 2:830: “suo er sagt at Besse þrutnade ok gerde dreyr raudan yferlitz ok gat ecki gratit hann gek aftr j borgina til Petrs kirkiu ok sprak þar af helstride þui er hann hafde efter fall hins hæilaga Olafs konungs.”
- 15.
Robert C. Solomon, “Getting Angry: The Jamesian Theory of Emotion in Anthropology,” in Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self and Emotion, ed. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 81; Robert C. Solomon, The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life (Garden City: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1976), 77–88.
- 16.
Zoltán Kövecses, Metaphor and Emotion: Language, Culture, and Body in Human Feeling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 146. On the container metaphor, see 146–63.
- 17.
On the literary significance of the body in Old Norse and Early Irish texts, see Sarah Künzler, Flesh and Word: Reading Bodies in Old Norse-Icelandic and Early Irish Literature (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016). Kirsten Wolf has produced two essays that categorise gestures and facial expressions in a taxonomic manner in Old Norse literature, “Body Language in Medieval Iceland: A Study of Gesticulation in the Sagas and Tales of Icelanders,” Scripta Islandica 64 (2013): 99–122; “Somatic Semiotics.” Porter and Antón focus on words for blushing, swelling, and other somatic markers in their essay “Flushing in Anger.”
- 18.
The foundational essay on this topic is by Charles J. Fillmore, “Frames and the Semantics of Understanding,” Quaderni di semantica 6 (1985): 222–54. Fillmore’s frame semantics theory is thoroughly summarised and expanded on in William Croft and D. Alan Cruse, Cognitive Linguistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 7–27. See also the milestone work on cognitive metaphor theory, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
- 19.
Ronald W. Langacker, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), 1:63.
- 20.
This account is summarised from Damien Boquet and Piroska Nagy, Medieval Sensibilities: A History of Emotions in the Middle Ages, trans. Robert Shaw (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018), 132–43; Naama Cohen-Hanegbi, “A Moving Soul: Emotions in Late Medieval Medicine,” Osiris 31, no. 1 (2016): 48–66; Simo Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 212–17. Literature on the theory of the four humours and its influence and development in the Middle Ages is ubiquitous. Fine accounts are provided by Danielle Jacquart and Claude Thomasset, Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages, trans. Matthew Adamson (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988); Nancy G. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
- 21.
Hauksbók, ed. Eiríkur Jónsson and Finnur Jónsson (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige nordiske oldskrift-selskab, 1892–96), 181: “þungr ok þỏgull. Sínkr ok svefnvgr. Styggr. ok prettugr. Aúfund siukr ok af kalldri nátturu ok þurri.” See further on this treatise, Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir, “Humoral Theory in the Medieval North: An Old Norse Translation of Epistula Vindiciani in Hauksbók,” Gripla 29 (2018): 35–66.
- 22.
See Knuuttila, Emotions, 212–16; Boquet and Nagy, Medieval Sensibilities, 136–38.
- 23.
See further in Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir, “Humoral Theory in the Medieval North.”
- 24.
See, respectively, on the medical book in AM 655 XXX 4to in Kristian Kålund, ed., Den islandske lægebog Codex Arnamagnæanus 434 a, 12 mo (Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 1907); Grágás. Lagasafn íslenska þjóðveldisins, ed. Gunnar Karlsson, Kristján Sveinsson, and Mörður Árnason (Reykjavík: Mál og menning, 1992), 267; Sturlunga saga, ed. Örnólfur Thorsson, 3 vols. (Reykjavík: Svart Á hvítu, 1988), 551; Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar, ed. Guðrún P. Helgadóttir (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 5–6; Margaret Clunies Ross and Rudolf Simek, “Encyclopedic Literature,” in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. Phillip Pulsiano and Kirsten Wolf (London: Garland, 1993), 164–6.
- 25.
Leslie Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 108. These are among the many sources for medieval Icelandic homilies; see David McDougall, “Homilies (West Norse),” in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, 290.
- 26.
Carl Richard Unger, ed., Mariu saga: Legender om Jomfru Maria og hendes Jertegn (Christiania [Oslo]: s.n., 1871), 666–7.
- 27.
AM 619 4to, c.1200–1225. Alcuin, De virtutibus et vitiis i norsk-islandsk overlevering og Udvidelser til Jonsbogens kapitel om domme, ed. Ole Widding (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1960), 123.
- 28.
On the production of Icelandic sagas, see Carol J. Clover, “Icelandic Family Sagas (Íslendingasögur),” in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide, ed. Carol J. Clover and John Lindow (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 268–71; Lars Lönnroth, “Sponsors, Writers, and Readers of Early Norse Literature,” in Social Approaches to Viking Studies, ed. Ross Samson (Glasgow: Cruithne, 1991), 3–10.
- 29.
Scholarly literature on Latin influences on Old Norse texts is vast. A good research overview is provided in Annette Lassen, “Indigenous and Latin Literature,” in The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas, ed. Ármann Jakobsson and Sverrir Jakobsson (London: Routledge, 2018), 74–87; and Jonas Wellendorf, “Lærdomslitteratur,” in Handbok i norrøn filologi, ed. Odd Einar Haugen (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2013), 302–55.
- 30.
Lassen, “Indigenous and Latin Literature,” 82.
- 31.
On skaldic poetry and its history, see Margaret Clunies Ross, A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005).
- 32.
See examples under “þrútinn,” “þrútna,” and “svella” in Finnur Jónsson and Sveinbjörn Egilsson, Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, 2nd ed. (Copenhagen: Det kongelige nordiske oldskriftselskab 1931), 648, 551–52.
- 33.
Snorri Sturluson, Edda. Skáldskaparmál, ed. Anthony Faulkes (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 1998), 1:73.
- 34.
Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál, 1:23.
- 35.
Russel Pool, ed., “Eyvindr skáldaspillir Finnsson, Lausavísur 6,” in Diana Whaley, ed., Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 223. Translation informed by Pool, ibid.
- 36.
On the dating of Ragnarsdrápa and Haustlǫng see Margaret Clunies Ross’s introductions in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold, eds., Poetry from Treatises on Poetics (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 27, 431. See also, on dating, Kari Ellen Gade, “Dating of Poetry and Principles of Normalisation,” in Whaley, ed., Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1, xliv–xlvi.
- 37.
Knuuttila, Emotions, 94–98, quote at 95; see also Julius Rocca, Galen on the Brain: Anatomical Knowledge and Physiological Speculations in the Second Century AD (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 17–47; Corinne Saunders, “Mind, Body and Affect in Medieval English Arthurian Romance,” in Emotions in Medieval Arthurian Literature: Body, Mind, Voice, ed. Frank Brandsma, Carolyne Larrington, and Corinne J. Saunders (Cambridge: Brewer, 2015), 32–33.
- 38.
For this particular survey in full, on all the kennings for breast, heart, and head in the corpus, see Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir, “The Head, the Heart, and the Breast: Bodily Conceptions of Emotion and Cognition in Old Norse Skaldic Poetry,” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 15 (2019): 29–64.
- 39.
Sonatorrek 19 in Egils saga 245. While this kenning presumably refers to a body part depicted as the carrier of thought or knowledge, it is uncertain whether the referent is the breast, tongue, or head. See, for example, Sigurður Nordal in Egils saga, 254n; Bergljót S. Kristjánsdóttir in Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, eds. Aðalsteinn Ingólfsson et al., in Íslendingasögur. Íslendingaþættir. Heildarútgáfa (Reykjavík: Saga forlag, 2018), 1:3–153 at 128. See also discussion and citations in Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir, “The Head, the Heart,” 34–6.
- 40.
Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir, “The Head, the Heart,” 43–8.
- 41.
This versatile meaning of hugr is attested in countless examples in Old Norse texts; see long lists of examples and citations under the entry “hugr” in Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfússon, eds., An Icelandic-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1874); ONP: Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Den Arnamagnæanske Kommission, accessed October 5, 2021 <http://onp.ku.dk/>.
- 42.
Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál, 1:108. Translation modified from Faulkes, in Snorri Sturluson, Edda, ed. and trans. Anthony Faulkes (London: Everyman, 1987), 154: “Hugr heitir sefi ok sjafni, Ást, elskugi, vili, munr … Hugr heitir ok geð, þokki, eljun, þrekr, nenning, minni, vit, skap, lund, trygð….”
- 43.
Fabrizio D. Raschellà, ed., The So-Called Second Grammatical Treatise: An Orthographic Pattern of Late Thirteenth-Century Icelandic. Edition, Translation and Commentary (Florence: Felice Le Monnier, 1982), 27.
- 44.
In Fóstbrœðra saga, courage (128, 133, 190, 210–11), cowardice (33–44), fear (144), stinginess (33), hatred (128), and joy (16) are described as situated in the heart and wisdom in the chest area (vizkunnar hverfi, 233–44). In Njáls saga, the heart is mentioned in the emotional contexts of grief and courage (273, 289–90, 193). In Finnboga saga (274) and Fljótsdæla saga (246), the heart is mentioned in the context of courage; Hávarðar saga Ísfirðings (336), depicts grief as situated in the heart; and Víglundar saga (82), the heart is mentioned twice, denoting feelings of love in both cases. For the breast, see harmr (grief) residing in the breast in Harðar saga (32), vitrleikr (wisdom) in Króka-Refs saga (145), and elska (love) in Víglundar saga (82, 103). References are per relevant Íslenzk fornrit volumes; see the bibliography in this book for full publication details.
- 45.
Fóstbrœðra saga, 210–11: “ok hǫfðu sumir menn þat fyrir satt, at minni sé hugprúðra manna hjǫrtu en huglaussa, því at menn kalla minna blóð í litlu hjarta en miklu, en kalla hjartablóði hræzlu fylgja.” Fóstbrœðra saga is more occupied with the heart and the breast than other Íslendingasögur and mentions these consistently as the seat of various emotions, more often than any other saga. The saga furthermore places wisdom in the chest area (Fóstbrœðra saga, 233–44). However, in a learned passage in the Flateyjarbók version of the saga (GKS 1005 fol., late fourteenth century), we nevertheless find one clause that places memory in the brain (Fóstbrœðra saga, 226n1). This clause has Latin origins, as Jónas KristjÁnsson has demonstrated; see his Um Fóstbræðrasögu (Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1972), 240–47.
- 46.
Völsunga saga, 208–09; Atlakviða 21–24, in Eddukvæði, 377.
- 47.
Sonatorrek 1 in Egils saga, 246; Sonatorrek 2 in Egils saga, 247; Lausavísur 15 in Egils saga, 149; Hǫfuðlausn 1 in Egils saga, 185; Hǫfuðlausn 19 in Egils saga, 192; Hǫfuðlausn 20 in Egils saga, 193, respectively.
- 48.
Egils saga, 246–47.
- 49.
Egils saga, 226: “þeysti Egill upp ór sér spýju mikla.”
- 50.
Laurence De Looze, “Poet, Poem and Poetic Process in Egils Saga Skalla-Grímssonar,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 104 (1989): 134.
- 51.
Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál, 1:5. This imagery conforms to the theme of Egill’s relationship to Óðinn reverberating through the whole poem. See, for example, De Looze, “Poet, Poem and Poetic Process,” pp. 134–35. Clunies Ross argues that Old Norse poets “are represented as mimicking Óðinn’s pseudo-procreative powers” by receiving the mead and by vomiting. See Clunies Ross, History of Old Norse Poetry, 93.
- 52.
Egils saga, 256: “Egill tók að hressask, svá sem fram leið at yrkja kvæðit.”
- 53.
On poetry as liquid, see Carol J. Clover, “Skaldic Sensibility,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 93 (1978): 63–81; Peter Orton, “Spouting Poetry: Cognitive Metaphor and Conceptual Blending in the Old Norse Myth of the Poetic Mead,” in Construction Nations, Reconstructing Myths: Essays in Honour of T. A. Shippey, ed. Andrew Wawn, Graham Johnson, and John Walter (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 277–300. Judy Quinn explores the metaphorical expression of knowledge as a liquid in eddic poetry and Old Norse myths; see her “Liquid Knowledge: Traditional Conceptualisations of Learning in Eddic Poetry,” in Along the Oral-Written Continuum: Types of Texts, Relations and their Implications, ed. Slavica Rankovic, Leidulf Melve, and Else Mundal (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 175–217. See also Stefka G. Eriksen, “‘Liquid Knowledge’ in Old Norse Literature and Culture,” Viator 49, no. 2 (2018): 169–98.
- 54.
Hǫfuðlausn 1, Egils saga 185. See also Hǫfuðlausn 20, Egils saga 192. Additionally, the corpus of skaldic poetry includes a few breast kennings that have poetry as the direct determinant, such as óðrann (poetry house) and óðborg (fortress of poetry), in, respectively: George S. Tate, ed., “Anonymous Poems, Líknarbraut 1” in Margaret Clunies Ross, ed., Poetry on Christian Subjects, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 230; Katrina Attwood, ed., “Gamli kanóki, Harmsól 1” in Clunies Ross, Poetry on Christian Subjects, 73–4. See also Rudolf Meissner’s taxonomic study of kennings, Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur Skaldischen Poetic (Leipzig: Kurt Schroeder, 1921).
- 55.
Njáls saga, 378: “var andlit hans at sjá sem á blóð sæi, en stórt hagl hraut ór augum honum; hann bað fœra sér spjót sitt.”
- 56.
Víga-Glúms saga, 26: “setti at honum hlátr … hann gerði fǫlvan í andliti, ok hrutu ór augum honum tár þau, er því váru lík sem hagl, þat er stórt er.”
- 57.
Sturlunga saga, 642.
- 58.
Ragnars saga loðbrókar in Vǫlsunga saga ok Ragnars saga loðbrókar, 142: “sem blod veri aliz, enn hart sem haglkornn.” Tears of hail upon receiving grave news are also mentioned in at least three medieval Icelandic romances: in the early fourteenth-century Mágus saga jarls (Gustaf Cederschiöld, ed., Fornsögur Suðrlanda: Magus saga jarls, Konraðs saga, Bærings saga, Flovents saga, Bevers saga (Lund: Berlings, 1884), 19); in the fifteenth-century Sigrgarðs saga frœkna (Agnete Loth, ed., Late Medieval Icelandic Romances (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1962–1965), 4:75); and in Vilhjálms saga sjóðs in the manuscript AM 577 4to, 41r (c.1450–1499) where, in both the latter cases, it is noted that the hail is red as blood.
- 59.
An excellent account of the symbolism of crying in the Medieval West is found in Elina Gertsman, ed., Crying in the Middle Ages: Tears of History (London: Routledge, 2012).
- 60.
On snow tears, see ibid., xii. Furthermore, the tears of the sinners in inferno were frozen in “Canto xxxiii” in Dante’s La Divina Commedia; see Piero Boitani, “Inferno XXXIII,” in Cambridge Readings in Dante’s Comedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
- 61.
Numerous studies have been conducted on the Christian narrative elements in Njáls saga. See, for example, Siân Grønlie, The Saint and the Saga Hero: Hagiography and Early Icelandic Literature (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2017); Daniel Sävborg, “Konsten att läsa sagor: Om tolkningen av. trosskiftets betydelse i Njáls saga,” Gripla 22 (2011): 181–210. Older key works include Lönnroth, Njáls Saga: A Critical Introduction.
- 62.
Snorri Sturluson, Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Codex Wormianus AM 242, fol, ed. Finnur Jónsson (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1924), 112: “Graat eða tár má kalla hagl eða él regn eða dropa skurer eða forsar augna eða kinna.” This text is not found in other manuscripts of Snorra-Edda, but a similar passage is found in the main manuscript on kennings for gold where tears of hail is mentioned. See Guðrún Nordal, Tools of Literacy, 246–47 and 294–96 on kennings for tears and crying.
- 63.
Many such examples can be found, such as in Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld’s Hákonardrápa. Kate Heslop, ed., “Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld Óttarsson, Hákonardrápa 3” in Gade and Marold, Poetry from Treatises on Poetics, 218.
- 64.
Njáls saga, 402–03.
- 65.
See examples from non-Indo-European cultures in Zoltán Kövecses, “Anger: Its Language, Conceptualization, and Physiology in the Light of Cross-Cultural Evidence,” in Language and the Cognitive Construal of the World, ed. John R. Taylor and Robert E. MacLaury (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995), 184–86.
- 66.
Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 19, 61–68.
- 67.
See Kövecses, Metaphor and Emotion. Kövecses is a pioneer in the study of emotions and cognitive metaphors. Important cognitive studies on metaphors in literature include George Lakoff and Mark Turner, More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); Raymond W. Gibbs, The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). The latter provides a survey of Lakoff and Johnson’s work on metaphors and subsequent works.
- 68.
Kövecses, Metaphor and Emotion, 154–81; Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 17–19.
- 69.
Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, 5. Lockett further argues that the model is a manifestation of a pre-Latin folk psychology; ibid., 109, 280.
- 70.
Ibid., 68, 146–47.
- 71.
Such overflow can also be seen in some medieval Irish narratives; see ibid., 146–47.
- 72.
On such interaction, see for example, the excellent study by Grønlie, The Saint and the Saga Hero; and the rich collection of essays in Stefka G. Eriksen, ed., Intellectual Culture in Medieval Scandinavia, c. 1100–1350 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016).
Bibliography
Manuscripts
Copenhagen, Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, AM 242 fol. (Codex Wormianus).
Copenhagen, Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, AM 468 4to (Reykjabók).
Copenhagen, Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, AM 655 XXX 4to.
Copenhagen, Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, AM 619 4to.
Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, AM 132 fol. (Möðruvallabók).
Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, AM 133 fol. (Kálfalækjarbók).
Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, AM 577 4to.
Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, GKS 1105 fol. (Flateyjarbók).
Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, GKS 2870 4to (Gráskinna).
Primary Sources
Alcuin. De virtutibus et vitiis i norsk-islandsk overlevering og Udvidelser til Jonsbogens kapitel om domme. Editiones Arnamagnæanæ A, vol. 4. Edited by Ole Widding. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1960.
Brennu-Njáls saga. Edited by Einar Ólafur Sveinsson. Íslenzk fornrit, XII. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1954.
Cederschiöld, Gustaf, ed. Fornsögur Suðrlanda: Magus saga jarls, Konraðs saga, Bærings saga, Flovents saga, Bevers saga. Lund: Berlings, 1884.
Clunies Ross, Margaret, ed. Poetry on Christian Subjects, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007.
Eddukvæði. Edited by Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason. Íslenzk fornrit: Eddukvæði. 2 vols. Vol. II. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 2014.
Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar. Edited by Aðalsteinn Ingólfsson, Bragi Halldórsson, Jón Torfason, Sverrir Tómasson and Örnólfur Thorsson. In Íslendingasögur. Íslendingaþættir. Heildarútgáfa. 5 vols. Vol. I, 3–153. Reykjavík: Saga forlag, 2018.
Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar. Edited by Sigurður Nordal. Íslenzk fornrit, II. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1933.
Finnboga saga. Edited by Jóhannes Halldórsson. In Kjalnesinga saga. Íslenzk fornrit, XIV, 251–340. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1959.
Fljótsdæla saga. Edited by Jón Jóhannsson. In Austfirðinga sǫgur. Íslenzk fornrit, XI, 213–96. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1950.
Fóstbrœðra saga. Edited by Guðni Jónsson. In Vestfirðinga sǫgur. Íslenzk fornrit VI, 121–276. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1943.
Gade, Kari Ellen, and Edith Marold, eds. Poetry from Treatises on Poetics, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017.
Grágás. Lagasafn íslenska þjóðveldisins. Edited by Gunnar Karlsson, Kristján Sveinsson and Mörður Árnason. Reykjavík: Mál og menning, 1992.
Harðar saga Grímkelssonar eða Hólmverja saga. Edited by Þórhallur Vilmundarson. In Harðar saga. Íslenzk fornrit, XIII, 1–97. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1991.
Hauksbók. Udgiven efter de Arnamagnæanske håndskrifter no. 371, 544 og 675, 4 ̊ samt forskellige papirshåndskrifter. Edited by Eiríkur Jónsson and Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Det Kongelige nordiske oldskrift-selskab, 1892–1896.
Hávarðar saga Ísfirðings. Edited by Björn K. Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson. In Vestfirðinga sǫgur. Íslenzk fornrit, VI, 289–358. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1943.
Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar. Edited by Guðrún P. Helgadóttir. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.
Króka-Refs saga. Edited by Jóhannes Halldórsson. In Kjalnesinga saga. Íslenzk fornrit, XIV, 117–60. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1959.
Laxdœla saga. Edited by Einar Ólafur Sveinsson. In Laxdœla saga, Halldórs þættir Snorrasonar, Stúfs þáttr. Íslenzk fornrit, V, 1–248. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1934.
Loth, Agnete, ed. Late Medieval Icelandic Romances. 5 vols., Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, Series B, vols. 20–24. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1962–1965.
Raschellà, Fabrizio D., ed. The So-Called Second Grammatical Treatise: An Orthographic Pattern of Late Thirteenth-Century Icelandic. Edition, Translation and Commentary, Filologia Germanica, Testi e Studi 2. Florence: Felice Le Monnier, 1982.
Saga Óláfs konungs hins helga. Den store saga om Olav den hellige efter pergamenthåndskrift in Kungliga biblioteket i Stockholm nr. 2 4to, med varianter fra andre håndskrifter. Edited by Oscar Albert Johnsen and Jón Helgason. 2 vols. Oslo: Jacob Dybwad, 1941.
Snorri Sturluson. Edda. Edited and Translated by Anthony Faulkes. London: Everyman, 1987.
Snorri Sturluson. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Codex Wormianus AM 242, fol. Edited by Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1924, 1924.
Snorri Sturluson. Edda. Skáldskaparmál. Edited by Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. Vol. I, London: Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London, 1998.
Sturlunga saga. Edited by Örnólfur Thorsson. 3 vols. Reykjavík: Svart á hvítu 1988.
Unger, Carl Richard, ed. Mariu saga: Legender om Jomfru Maria og hendes Jertegn. Christiania [Oslo]: s.n., 1871.
Víglundar saga. Edited by Jóhannes Halldórsson. In Kjalnesinga saga. Íslenzk fornrit, XIV, 61–116. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1959.
Völsunga saga. Edited by Guðni Jónsson. In Fornaldar sögur Norðurlanda. 4 vols. Vol. I, 107–218. Reykjavík: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan, 1954.
Vǫlsunga saga ok Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Edited by Magnus Olsen. Copenhagen: Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur, 1906–1908.
Whaley, Diana, ed. Poetry from the Kings' Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012.
Secondary Sources
Boitani, Piero. “Inferno XXXIII.” In Cambridge Readings in Dante’s Comedy, 70–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Boquet, Damien, and Piroska Nagy. “Medieval Sciences of Emotions During the Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries: An Intellectual History.” Osiris 31, no. 1 (2016): 21–45.
Boquet, Damien, and Piroska Nagy. Medieval Sensibilities: A History of Emotions in the Middle Ages. Translated by Robert Shaw. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018.
Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir. “The Head, the Heart, and the Breast: Bodily Conceptions of Emotion and Cognition in Old Norse Skaldic Poetry.” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 15 (2019): 29–64.
Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir. “Humoral Theory in the Medieval North: An Old Norse Translation of Epistula Vindiciani in Hauksbók.” Gripla 29 (2018): 35–66.
Cleasby, Richard, and Gudbrand Vigfússon, eds. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. Based on the MS. Collections of the Late Richard Cleasby, Enlarged and Completed by Gudbrand Vigfusson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1874.
Clover, Carol J. “Skaldic Sensibility.” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 93 (1978): 63–81.
Clover, Carol J. “Icelandic Family Sagas (Íslendingasögur).” In Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide, edited by Carol J. Clover and John Lindow. Islandica, 239–315. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.
Clunies Ross, Margaret. A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005.
Clunies Ross, Margaret, and Rudolf Simek. “Encyclopedic Literature.” In Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, edited by Phillip Pulsiano and Kirsten Wolf, 164–6. London: Garland, 1993.
Cohen-Hanegbi, Naama. “A Moving Soul: Emotions in Late Medieval Medicine.” Osiris 31, no. 1 (2016): 46–66.
Croft, William, and D. Alan Cruse. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
De Looze, Laurence. “Poet, Poem and Poetic Process in Egils Saga Skalla-Grímssonar.” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 104 (1989): 123–42.
Eriksen, Stefka G., ed. Intellectual Culture in Medieval Scandinavia, c. 1100–1350, Disputatio, vol. 28. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016.
Eriksen, Stefka G. “‘Liquid Knowledge’ in Old Norse Literature and Culture.” Viator 49, no. 2 (2018): 169–98.
Fillmore, Charles J. “Frames and the Semantics of Understanding.” Quaderni di semantica 6 (1985): 222–54.
Finnur, Jónsson, and Sveinbjörn Egilsson. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis. Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog. 2nd ed. Copenhagen: Det kongelige nordiske oldskriftselskab 1931.
Gade, Kari Ellen. “Dating of Poetry and Principles of Normalisation.” In Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035, edited by Diana Whaley. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1, xliv-xlvi. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012.
Gertsman, Elina, ed. Crying in the Middle Ages: Tears of History. London: Routledge, 2012.
Gibbs, Raymond W. The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Grønlie, Siân. The Saint and the Saga Hero: Hagiography and Early Icelandic Literature. Studies in Old Norse Literature. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2017.
Jacquart, Danielle, and Claude Thomasset. Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages. Translated by Matthew Adamson. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988.
Jónas Kristjánsson. Um Fóstbræðrasögu. Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi. Rit 1. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1972.
Kålund, Kristian, ed. Den islandske lægebog Codex Arnamagnæanus 434 a, 12 mo, Den Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Skrifter, vol. 6. Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 1907.
Kanerva, Kirsi. “Disturbances of the Mind and Body: Effects of the Living Dead in Medieval Iceland.” In Mental DisOrder in Later Medieval Europe, edited by Sari Katajala-Peltomaa and Susanna Niiranen, 219–42. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Knuuttila, Simo. “Emotion.” In The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, 428–40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Knuuttila, Simo. Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Kövecses, Zoltán. “Anger: Its Language, Conceptualization, and Physiology in the Light of Cross-Cultural Evidence.” In Language and the Cognitive Construal of the World, edited by John R. Taylor and Robert E. MacLaury. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, 181–96. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995.
Kövecses, Zoltán. Metaphor and Emotion: Language, Culture, and Body in Human Feeling. Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Künzler, Sarah. Flesh and Word: Reading Bodies in Old Norse-Icelandic and Early Irish Literature. Trends in Medieval Philology. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chigaco: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Turner. More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Langacker, Ronald W. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. 2 vols. Vol. I, Theoretical Prerequisites, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987.
Lassen, Annette. “Indigenous and Latin Literature.” In The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas, edited by Ármann Jakobsson and Sverrir Jakobsson, 74–87. London: Routledge, 2018.
Lockett, Leslie. Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions. Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.
Lönnroth, Lars. “Heroine in Grief: The Old Norse Development of a Germanic Theme.” In Inclinate Aurem: Oral Perspectives on Early European Verbal Culture. A Symposium, edited by Jan Helldén, Minna Skafte Jensen and Thomas Pettitt. Odense: Odense University Press, 2001.
Lönnroth, Lars. Njáls Saga: A Critical Introduction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.
Lönnroth, Lars. “Sponsors, Writers, and Readers of Early Norse Literature.” In Social Approaches to Viking Studies, edited by Ross Samson, 3–10. Glasgow: Cruithne, 1991.
McDougall, David. “Homilies (West Norse).” In Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, edited by Kirsten Wolf Phillip Pulsiano, 290-92. London: Garland, 1993.
Meissner, Rudolf. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur Skaldischen Poetic. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde. Leipzig: Kurt Schroeder, 1921.
ONP: Dictionary of Old Norse Prose. Den Arnamagnæanske Kommission, <http://onp.ku.dk/>.
Orton, Peter. “Spouting Poetry: Cognitive Metaphor and Conceptual Blending in the Old Norse Myth of the Poetic Mead.” In Construction Nations, Reconstructing Myths: Essays in Honour of T. A. Shippey, edited by Andrew Wawn, Graham Johnson and John Walter. Making the Middle Ages, 277–300. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007.
Porter, Edel, and Teodoro Manrique Antón. “Flushing in Anger, Blushing in Shame: Somatic Markers in Old Norse Emotional Expressions.” Cognitive Linguistic Studies 2, no. 1 (2015): 24–49.
Quinn, Judy. “Liquid Knowledge: Traditional Conceptualisations of Learning in Eddic Poetry.” In Along the Oral-Written Continuum: Types of Texts, Relations and their Implications, edited by Slavica Rankovic, Leidulf Melve and Else Mundal. Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, 175–217. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012.
Rocca, Julius. Galen on the Brain: Anatomical Knowledge and Physiological Speculations in the Second Century AD. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
Saunders, Corinne. “Mind, Body and Affect in Medieval English Arthurian Romance.” In Emotions in Medieval Arthurian Literature: Body, Mind, Voice, edited by Frank Brandsma, Carolyne Larrington and Corinne J. Saunders, 31–46. Cambridge: Brewer, 2015.
Sävborg, Daniel. “Konsten att läsa sagor: Om tolkningen av trosskiftets betydelse i Njáls saga.” Gripla 22 (2011): 181–210.
Sif Rikhardsdottir. Emotions in Old Norse Literature: Translations, Voices, Contexts. Studies in Old Norse Literature. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2017a.
Sif Rikhardsdottir. “Medieval Emotionality: The Feeling Subject in Medieval Literature.” Comparative Literature 69, no. 1 (2017b): 74–90.
Siraisi, Nancy G. Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Solomon, Robert C. “Getting Angry: The Jamesian Theory of Emotion in Anthropology.” In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self and Emotion, edited by Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine, 238–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Solomon, Robert C. The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life. Garden City: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1976.
Thorvaldsen, Bernt Ø. “The Dating of Eddic Poetry.” In A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, edited by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn, 56–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Wellendorf, Jonas. “Lærdomslitteratur.” In Handbok i norrøn filologi, edited by Odd Einar Haugen, 302–55. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2013.
Wolf, Kirsten. “Body Language in Medieval Iceland: A Study of Gesticulation in the Sagas and Tales of Icelanders.” Scripta Islandica 64 (2013): 99–122.
Wolf, Kirsten. “Somatic Semiotics: Emotion and the Human Face in the Sagas and Þættir of Icelanders.” Traditio 69 (2014): 125–45.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Þorgeirsdóttir, B. (2023). Grotesque Emotions in Old Norse Literature: Swelling Bodies, Spurting Fluids, Tears of Hail. In: Sebo, E., Firth, M., Anlezark, D. (eds) Emotional Alterity in the Medieval North Sea World. Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33965-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33965-3_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-33964-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-33965-3
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)