The Northern Path

The official Beowulf movie website has a podcast series up now. Go to the main site and click on ‘Podcasts.’ The podcasts are on the long side, and I can’t decide if I liked the first one or not. As another blogger has pointed out, they really dumb down the poem, snickering at it as though it were something you would never want to actually read. The guys seem to have a lot more expertise in modern moviemaking and other Beowulf treatments, which they cover in loving detail and with great glee. They make fun of all of the other Beowulf movies, but I suppose that’s their job and in fact the other movies have been ridiculous. To this point, attempts to do a dramatic treatment of Beowulf have resulted in a train wreck. The hosts suddenly seem to realize where their logic is taking them, and assure us that this Beowulf movie will be much better.

Meanwhile, MacFarlane Toys has created a set of action figures with young Beowulf, Grendel, the dragon, and Grendel’s mother. (Warning: if you check out Grendel’s mother in hopes of seeing a naked Angelina Jolie, you’re going to be really, really disappointed.)

What I really want is the strange glowing meadhorn that everyone seems to have in the trailer. Maybe there will be a fast food restaurant tie-in and I can get one with a Happy Meal.

The September issue of National Geographic has a story on Iron Age bog bodies. The story highlights the use of new tools such as CT scans, radiocarbon dating, and 3D imaging, and is accompanied by an artistic photo spread. The additional scientific information is shining a new light on the fanciful theories of the past, as well as the damage the bodies have sustained at the hands of peat diggers and overeager curators.

DNA analysis has shown that the Windeby “girl” was probably a boy, while radiocarbon dating reveals that a supposed lover buried nearby lived three centuries earlier. A Danish team using CT scans to reexamine Danish bog bodies has concluded that many of the injuries previously attributed to ritual violence may have been inflicted during excavation (often done accidentally by a backhoe) or by the pressure of the bog itself. However, even after discounting specific injuries, the larger riddle of ritual sacrifice remains.

NOVA’s program website The Perfect Corpse features extensive information and teaching materials, including Seamus Heaney’s poem The Tollund Man — you can read the text and hear audio of Heaney reading the poem. Both sites also have excellent photos, including pictures of the Swabian knot, a hairstyle described by Tacitus.

This is an area where Celtic and Germanic cultures sometimes seem to be considered together as though they were a single monolithic culture making sacrifices to a generic fertility deity, so it was nice to see the National Geographic author take care to draw a distinction at one point: “… even if Kelly is right about the royal status of Irish bog bodies, people on the Continent had a different culture—Germanic rather than Celtic—chiefs instead of kings, and, almost certainly, other rites of sacrifice.“

The second edition of Neil Price’s The Viking Way: Religion and War in the Later Iron Age of Scandinavia is now available on Amazon. This is a groundbreaking study of the archaeological evidence for Heathen religious practices, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting the second edition. Here’s a description from Oxbow books:

The Viking Way: Religion and War in the Later Iron Age of Scandinavia, second edition. by Neil Price

Magic, ritual and sorcery are prevalent themes in medieval Icelandic sagas, but do they reflect reality or are they a literary and poetic construct? Neil Price’s thesis examines the literary and archaeological evidence for Old Norse sorcery and especially the important link between religion and war. He traces evidence for Viking mytholgy and cosmology, for the function, practice and practitioners of sorcery and war rituals. What he reveals is that violence played a crucial role in early medieval power systems in Scandinavia and in particular where there existed `a gender-encoded control of organised violence’. The evidence is placed within the context, and in comparison with, Germanic and circumpolar societies, and the archaeological evidence is accompanied by many excellent illustrations. second edition (Oxbow Books, forthcoming 2007)

Praise for the first edition of The Viking Way
“One of the most important contributions to Viking studies in recent years, quite possibly in recent decades … an exceptional book … essential reading” Dr. Matthew Townend, Antiquity

“This will be the starting point for any discussion of early northern religion from now on … this book is about to become famous … it is the sense of being invited back-stage in history to discover not magic realism, but the reality behind the magic” Professor Martin Carver, Fornvännen

“Takes the reader on an exciting journey … anyone reading Price’s book will never again be able to romanticise the Vikings and their time … here the terror and madness of the Viking Age Odin cult and its war-fixation emerge unvarnished … a book that is going to be debated for a long time to come” Professor Gro Steinsland, Collegium Medievale

“A big, packed, inspirational book … one of those that moves archaeology forwards, gives it nourishment and opens new avenues” Professor Else Roesdahl, Kuml

“This refreshing, thoroughly researched and inspirational book sheds exciting new light on the Viking Age. I am already recommending it to all my students” Dr. Terry Gunnell, University of Iceland

“A fresh and stimulating analysis which unites archaeology and ethnography and makes excellent use of both” Professor Richard Bradley, University of Reading

“A ground-breaking work of research in archaeology and the humanities, with an impact that will be felt for many years … it has turned our view of this period upside down” Professor Helle Vandkilde, University of Aarhus

In Sweden the book has received prizes from the Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities and the Royal Gustav Adolf Academy, and in 2005 the author was awarded the prestigious King Oscar II Prize from Uppsala University.

The Troth’s reference work Our Troth: Vol. 2: Living the Troth is now available at Amazon.com. According to the Amazon blurb, “Volume 2 covers the Heathen holy year, lore and rites for the major holidays, and ways to work Heathenry into every facet of life. It includes an extensive glossary and reading list for further study.”

The trailer for the new Beowulf movie is out, and the producers are leading off with the most titillating scene they could come up with: a sultry CGI-enhanced Angelina Jolie, rising from a shimmering pool and murmuring seductive offers to the hero Beowulf.

Angelina Jolie seems to have developed a tail and a very pleasant mostly-Danish accent that sounds exactly like Mrs. Olsen in the old Folger’s coffee commercials. Alas, in the original poem Grendel’s mother (aka ‘Grendel’s dam’) was not a hot ticket but a repulsive monster whom Beowulf dispatched directly. But it’s always fun to rewrite your sources to draw a new audience. Hot dam!