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Werewolves in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: Between the Monster and the Man

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

10.5325/preternature.12.2.0193

2161-2196

Marie Novotná,

Linguistics and language evolution

Minjie Su's Werewolves in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature explores many aspects of the popular, multifaceted werewolf phenomenon at both the individual and societal level. Her task is not easy: the definition of werewolf cannot be adduced from the corpus in question, since no lexical equivalent for the term exists in Old Norse—except for the hapax legomenon vargúlf, literally "wolf-wolf," used only in the Old Norse translation of Bisclavret, and then only in Icelandic from the seventeenth century onward. Nevertheless, the association between human and wolf has a long tradition in Scandinavian contexts, as demonstrated by the phenomenon of fierce animal warriors known as berserkir and úlfheðnar, and even if these differ from werewolves in many essential characteristics, vernacular connotations of "wolfish" qualities must be considered. Drawing upon the work of Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir, Su conducts a detailed analysis of ten werewolf texts that display a "strong wolf-human dynamic" (23). It is no coincidence that these texts belong to genres where the influence of continental literature is undeniable, such as legendary or chivalric sagas. In the case of these genres, it is especially appropriate to take into account medieval works of continental provenance, which is why Su also examines thematic relationships between Old Norse-Icelandic and Franco-Latin werewolves.In addition to its thorough introduction and thought-provoking conclusion, the book is organized into five chapters. The first four address what Su calls the "constituents of humanity" (197), beginning with skin and moving further away from the body through clothing, food, and landscape while also delving progressively deeper into the mental sphere with each chapter. The fifth chapter addresses the purpose of werewolf transformations. The framing of the main questions across the volume is structuralist, based on the binary opposite of man and wolf. Overall, in stories about werewolves, Su seeks to answer the question, "What is man?" She analyses the phenomenon of werewolves in Old Norse literature using various approaches, such as Susan Small's overlay and fusion models, Algirdas Greimas's semiotic square, Arnold van Gennep's rites of passage, and Karl Mannheim's generation theory. Nevertheless, Su constantly comes across werewolf stories that, for whatever reason, do not fit a given model; as a solution, she either creates a new category or employs a different theory that allows the reader to see previous models from a different perspective.Searching for werewolf and human nature starts in the first chapter with the skin, a topic highly relevant to shapeshifting and concepts of the body. To describe how skin both reflects and affects the mental state of the protagonist, Su uses Small's analysis of medieval werewolves, drawing on Anzieu's Skin-ego (though she leaves aside Sara Künzler's comparison of the role of skin in Old Norse and Irish shapeshifting episodes). She interprets the skin of the werewolf as a layer that makes "legible the internal upon the external" and "remains faithful to the essence" (40). Using the Old Norse-Icelandic Romance Ála flekks saga as the chapter's case study, along with the motif of skin diseases as manifestations of a defective ego, Su draws a parallel between the werewolf and leprosy.Chapter 2 discusses clothing as an interchangeable skin. Here, Su analyzes differences between Marie de France's Bisclavret and its Old Norse translation, Bisclaretz ljóð; the chivalric Tiodielis saga also provides material for examining the role of clothes in werewolf narratives. The first two chapters might have benefited from employing Andrea Whitacre's nonessentialist approach to identity in Old Norse werewolf stories, which considers the idea that, in some Old Norse-Icelandic texts, appearance does not merely reflect and influence the person's essence: ultimately, they cannot be separated. Nevertheless, Su approaches the topic of clothing in an original way that enables her to discover gendered aspects of the werewolf stories and to introduce a new type of monster, a "metaphorical she-wolf" (68).Chapter 3, moving further away from the body but at the same time deeper inward toward the self, provides an innovative analysis of the role of food in werewolf stories. What information might we glean from what the authors tell us (and what they withhold) about the werewolf's diet? This chapter opens our eyes to what food is acceptable and what is taboo, and how food relates to the identity of the protagonist. Su concludes that cannibalism (as well as hippophagy) results in the werewolf's complete and irreversible exclusion from the human domain. Like the book itself, this chapter revolves around the question about human food in the imagination of the werewolf stories' authors, and how it informs their depiction of humanity.In chapter 4, Su uses a structuralist analysis and the theory of psycho-geography, which studies how the geographical environment effects emotional behavior, to uncover relationships between landscape and mindscape. The chapter primarily discusses Úfhams rímur, a sixteenth-century poem based on a lost saga where the werewolf transformation is directly linked to transformations of the landscape. Su employs classical semiotic squares, describing contrary, contradictory, and complementary relations to reveal deep structures within any given narrative, and she shows the connections between internal, emotional experiences and the story's external landscape. While describing the connection of "the physical darkness of the land, the figurative darkness of the mind and of the wolfish form" (151), she interprets the werewolf as a metaphor for mental disease.In chapter 5, Su translates van Gennep's three phases of the rites of passage—separation, transition, reincorporation—into the werewolf context: she equates separation with the pretransformation phase where the werewolf is deprived of his identity and status; the liminal phase, transition, corresponds to the time when the hero is in the wolfish form and becomes a tabula rasa; and finally, in the postliminal phase, reincorporation, the hero becomes stronger and more grounded in the human world. The werewolf's narrative role can take two forms: either the protagonists themselves transform into werewolves, or the werewolves interfere with their rituals. Werewolf stories should thus be understood as stories about growing into adulthood: in transitioning from being a werewolf to telling others about that experience, one begins as a learner and becomes a teacher. Su illustrates the use of werewolf episodes for educational purposes in the thirteenth-century Old Norse-Icelandic didactic text Konungs skuggsjá (King's mirror), where, in contrast to other narratives that Su analyzes, the rite's ultimate success is questioned. The transformation's possible failure reveals a new direction for understanding both the werewolf and human nature.Su thus creates categories different than those usual in previous scholarship on Old-Norse–Icelandic werewolf stories. The classic division between those who shapeshift by choice and those who are victims of a curse does not seem so crucial when werewolves are understood as a way of strengthening one's own human identity, since that happens regardless of whether or not the protagonist in question transforms voluntarily. The lower down on the human-wolf axis the hero is able to go and still return, the more powerful he becomes; the possibility of a complete loss of humanity adds tension to the story. Showing the werewolf phenomenon as a process, along with its connection to the natural and social environment might be seen as Su's most original contribution to Old Norse scholarship.The book will be thus read with great attention by researchers interested in shapeshifting, Otherness, or the role of preternatural phenomena in Old Norse-Icelandic literature. Readers may find a variety of insights that will inspire them to think differently about this corpus, as stories of metamorphosis are generally concerned with the relationship between the external and the internal as well as identity itself. Su also opens further possibilities for a wider scientific readership to pose new questions to this material, as she reveals different aspects of "monstrousness" (118). Therefore, the book's various methodological approaches are sure to provide inspiration for anyone who seeks to use stories of preternatural beings to approach what people at a given time have considered to be the core characteristics of humanity.