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Magie und Liminalität: seiðr in der altnordischen Überlieferung

2023; Penn State University Press; Volume: 12; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/preternature.12.2.0186

2161-2196

Anna Katharina Heiniger,

Medieval Literature and History

In Magie und Liminalität: seiðr in der altnordischen Überlieferung (Magic and liminality: seiðr in Old Norse tradition), Christina Kunstmann explores the extent to which the practice of seiðr, an Old Norse-Icelandic form of magic, involves transgressing various kinds of boundaries and how seiðr itself is linked to liminal phases such as birth, adolescence, and death. Seiðr was used both to foretell the fate of individuals and to harm others, but despite its relative prominence, not much is known about seiðr rituals. Kunstmann discusses the phenomenon of seiðr in Old Norse-Icelandic literature and thus includes a wide variety of sources; while her primary focus lies on Eddic poetry, the Íslendingasögur (sagas of the Icelanders), and the konungasögur (kings' sagas), Kunstmann also includes skaldic stanzas, Snorra Edda, and Saxo's Gesta Danorum. The clearly structured monograph features eight main chapters: the reader is led from introductory considerations regarding seiðr and the Old Norse worldview to practitioners of seiðr. From there, the study zooms in on the intersection of seiðr and gender identity. Kunstmann writes in an accessible style, and the short summaries that often appear at the end of sections and chapters are particularly reader friendly.The introductory chapter states the importance of magic and liminality as concepts for exploring the phenomenon of seiðr. Like all other practices of magic—which Kunstmann uses as an umbrella term—seiðr both relies on the belief of a preternatural force and instrumentalizes formulations, gestures, and actions to achieve the desired result. The concept of liminality is crucial because Kunstmann conceives of seiðr as a transgressive act; that is, seiðr practitioners tend to transgress boundaries of both semantic and physical spaces. Furthermore, Kunstmann claims that magic practitioners repeatedly employ seiðr against individuals who experience a liminal phase in life. Because Old Norse-Icelandic literature does not offer a definition of seiðr, Kunstmann delineates some of its main features. Chapter 2 explores how seiðr is instrumentalized for influencing or manipulating living beings, elements of nature, and inanimate objects, for divinatory as well as maleficent purposes. When and how seiðr is employed depends on the intention of its practitioners. While both humans and divine beings, male as well as female, practice seiðr, among human practitioners it tends to be associated with women.When analyzing mythological as well as saga spaces in chapter 3, Kunstmann bases her considerations on the dichotomy of útgarðr (outside the enclosed farmyard) and miðgarðr (inside the enclosed farmyard). These two terms refer to a topographic world model based on concentric spheres. Despite Kunstmann's detailed discussion, it is not always clear whether she is speaking in historical or literary terms. This is the case, for instance, when she refers to the alte Skandinavier (old Scandinavians) and their awareness of spatial divisions such as útgarðr and miðgarðr (37). Furthermore, the author does not problematize the terms útgarðr and miðgarðr or the system of values implied in their usage in scholarship of the early twentieth century.In chapter 4, Kunstmann outlines the main features of liminality as described by the Dutch ethnographer and folklorist Arnold van Gennep (1909) and the Scottish anthropologist Victor Turner (1960s and 1970s). She highlights aspects of transgression within physical and semantic spaces, loss of identity, and the minimization of gender differences. In chapter 5, the focus shifts to practitioners of seiðr, and Kunstmann explores the ways in which they may be understood as liminal. Many seiðr practitioners are associated with geographic peripheries, have a purportedly non-Scandinavian ethnic background and move between the human sphere and the Otherworld (Anderwelt). In chapter 6 Kunstmann discusses text passages that revolve around liminal phases such as birth, adolescence, and death, concluding that Óðinn and Freyja very often interfere during liminal phases of human life. Individuals passing through a liminal phase are rather vulnerable and thus often fall victim to maleficent seiðr. In chapters 7 and 8, Kunstmann shows that seiðr practitioners are very often itinerant and that due to its association with ergi—which was long interpreted as connotating lewdness or sexual passivity but has recently been reinterpreted as more generally abnormal and antisocial—seiðr may be connected with fertility cults in Old Norse literature and culture.Kunstmann concludes that seiðr is a complex phenomenon closely linked to liminality due to the repeated transgressions of various boundaries, particularly regarding its practitioners. Moving between different spheres makes them liminal characters who mediate between worlds. Because of this influential position in society, seiðr practitioners (ab)use their skills to both protect and harm individuals who are vulnerable due to passing through a liminal phase. Moreover, seiðr practitioners are often considered ergi. Therefore, Kunstmann claims that seiðr is closely linked to the Vanir and was possibly part of fertility cults that included ritual subversions and transgressions of gender boundaries.By including numerous examples from various Old Norse literary sources, Kunstmann demonstrates the effectiveness of examining complex concepts such as seiðr across genres. Despite the idiosyncrasies within individual seiðr depictions, Kunstmann has nonetheless identified shared features and made cautious assumptions about seiðr's potential significance, characteristics, and cultural roles. Even though Kunstmann does not aim to reconstruct pre-Christian cultic life in any way, her analysis shows that literary portrayals may well point to long-standing traditions and shared cultural elements. At the same time, her study demonstrates that the field of Old Norse-Icelandic literary studies still has not reached a minimal consensus regarding the definition and usage of terms such as seiðr and liminality.Liminality is one term that scholars often use according to a rather individual understanding. Although van Gennep and Turner crucially influenced our perception of liminality, their anthropological works are hardly ever revisited or studied in detail. Admittedly, Kunstmann dedicates a chapter to liminality, but her discussion of the concept remains fairly superficial. Both in Kunstmann's study as well as in literary scholarship in general, the understanding and application of the concept of liminality has proven challenging, with the term often used interchangeably with "marginal," "hybrid," "Other," and related concepts that are not truly synonymous with liminal. Kunstmann's analysis does not resolve the issue of the extent to which liminality is applicable to contexts other than rituals and anthropological data, especially given that Old Norse-Icelandic literature is not known for its depiction of rituals and therefore of liminal phases in the Gennepian and Turnerian sense. Inspired by these two founding fathers, Kunstmann selects three biologically determined liminal phases in (human) life and discusses a selection of examples for each phase. By including depictions of conceptions and births in lieu of pregnancies, however, she does not exclusively focus on phases that have been considered liminal from an anthropological point of view. In contrast to pregnancy, where the pregnant are liminal because they both are and are not a parent until the pregnancy is "resolved," neither conception nor birth is liminal because they are single events and do not, ideally, involve ambiguities. Moreover, Kunstmann does not consider that characters of neither saga nor myth experience or undergo profound development because of their relative stability throughout a narrative. Male saga characters, for instance, often make their first prominent appearance when they are twelve years old and already considered adults by saga society. Thus, Kunstmann's argument that individuals passing through a liminal phase are especially likely to be targeted for seiðr activities due to their vulnerable developmental state that is rather difficult to maintain.Equally challenging is her correlation of liminality and seiðr. Kunstmann attributes "permanent liminality" to seiðr practitioners irrespective of their stage in life (e.g., 55). Liminality, however, is a temporal phase whose length is culturally or biologically defined. It cannot become a lasting state, because liminal phases are deeply disturbing both for those who pass through it and for society: such phases must be resolved to restabilize both parties. Furthermore, Kunstmann describes Óðinn as a liminal agent, especially when he practices seiðr. Transgressing boundaries, changing identity, and traveling at the margins of society, however, do not themselves make him liminal: he does not become a different person after having practiced seiðr. Evasiveness and ambiguity are key aspects of his identity. To identify liminal aspects, Kunstmann would have had to consider the core features of a character's identity and what kind of developments and potentially liminal phases they experience.In sum, in Magie und Liminalität Kunstmann discusses an impressive number of seiðr instances in Old Norse-Icelandic literature. After exploring how the instances of seiðr often feature a transgression of physical and semantic spaces, she gradually extracts the intersection of seiðr and ergi and how this could hint at seiðr being a relic of an Old Norse fertility cult. Her rather liberal application of the term "liminality" in this context has proven problematic, however. Within Old Norse-Icelandic literary studies it remains a desideratum to explore the caveats and premises for applying the concept of liminality in a literary context. Regardless, this monograph certainly will appeal to scholars who wish to gain a better overview of how seiðr is depicted in various sources and to people particularly interested in how literary and cultural studies intersect.