SCAN 335 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Prose Edda, Euhemerus, Germanic Mythology

• School: UBC
• Department: Scandinavian
• Course: SCAN 335
• Professor: G E O F F R E Y W I N T H R O P- Y O U N G,

Document Summary

Highest officer of iceland returned home to decide whether iceland should remain as pagan or converted to christian. Decided that iceland should be christian by being under the blanket for 24 hours. Seen as contacting with odin and thor. Highest officer put the statuses of odin and thor down to the waterfall. King gylf wants to know about god and travels and meets three. God-like figures and those figures tell him norse mythology. A horse on the sea -- a ship. Long thing that is bloody -- sword. Because odin hangs himself on the big tree. Need to background knowledge to decipher it. Snorri started writing in eager to explain poetries in honour of somebody. Iceland specialized in writing poetries to praise someone else. One thing snorri wouldn"t do is to say that his stories aren"t real because then. Germanic myth not that popular because church wouldn"t allow it.