Imagining the Supernatural North

Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a lecturer in medieval history and literature at Durham University in the UK. Danielle Marie Cudmore is a lecturer at Halmstad University in Sweden. Stefan Donecker is a research fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

"[T]his book is not only diverse and engaging, it also sheds light on the normative role of ‘the north’ in time and space as well as within different cultural contexts.... I therefore applaud the editors for having compiled a captivating volume of northern research which I wholeheartedly recommend for scholars of Scandinavian and Arctic studies, literary studies or cultural studies in general." [Full review at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247417000341]

• Introduction // Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, Danielle Marie Cudmore, and Stefan DoneckerPART I | ANCIENT ROOTS / The Menace and the Divine1 In Jewish Lore, Not Only Evil Descends From the North // Ya’acov Sarig2 The Realm of the North in Ancient Greek Proverbs // Maria Kasyanova3 The Ancient Greek Myth of Hyperborea Its Supernatural Aspects and Frameworks of Meaning // Athanasios VotsisPART II | FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD / The Monstrous and the Demonic4 Monstra septentrionalia Supernatural Monsters of the Far North in Medieval Lore // Rudolf Simek5 From Eiríkr the Red to Trolls in the Wilderness 77The Development of Supernatural Greenland in the Old Norse Sagas // Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough6 Winter’s Flesh Septentrio and the Monstrous Female Body in Late MedievalMedicine and Theology // Brenda S. Gardenour Walter7 The Supernatural Image of Iceland in Johannes Kepler’s Somnium (1634) // Stefan DoneckerPART III | THE NINETEENTH CENTURY / The Scientific and the Spiritual8 Imagining the Celtic North Science and Romanticism on the Fringes of Britain // Angel Byrne9 Mesmerism and Victorian Arctic Exploration // Shane McCorristine10 Myths of Iceland and Mount Hekla and their Deconstruction Ida Pfeiffer’s Journey to Iceland // Jennifer E. MichaelS11 Moon Men and Inland DwellersThe Dissemination of Greenlandic Legends and Myths in the Writings ofHinrich Rink and Knud Rasmussen // Silvije HabulinecPART IV | CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES / The Desire for a Supernatural North12 A Distant Northern Land Nabokov’s Zembla and Aesthetic Bliss // Brian Walter13 The Idea of North Intertextuality and Environmentalism in Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass // Danielle Marie Cudmore14 The Elf in Self The Influence of Northern Mythology and Fauna on Contemporary Spiritual Subcultures // Jay Johnston15 A Blaze in the Northern Sky Semiotic Strategies of Constructing the Supernatural North in Music Subcultures // Jan Leichsenring16 Men, Women, and Shamans Daily Ritual Practice in the Supernatural North // Erica HillContributors 293Index 299