1

Approaching Methodology

Edited by Frog and Pauliina Latvala

A Special Issue of RMN Newsletter

№

4

May 2012

RMN Newsletter is edited by

Frog

Helen F. Leslie and Mathias Nordvig

Published by

Folklore Studies / Dept. of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies

University of Helsinki, Helsinki

ISSN/ISSN-L: 1799-4497

www.helsinki.fi/folkloristiikka/English/RMN/

2

C

ONTENTS

A

PPROACHING

M

ETHODOLOGY

Preface and Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... 5

Opening Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue: A Virtual Workshop on Methodology .............................. 7

Frog in collaboration with Pauliina Latvala

Part I: Method in Practice

Method in Practice: An Introduction ............................................................................................. 20

Method and Fieldwork in a Hermeneutical Perspective ................................................................ 23

Espen Suenson

Building a Visual Vocabulary: The Methodology of ‘Reading’ Images in Context ..................... 31

Jill Bradley

The Parallax Approach: Situating Traditions in Long-Term Perspective ...................................... 40

Frog

The Ghost of Methodologies Past: Untangling Methods, Methodologies, and Methodologists
in Black Studies ............................................................................................................................. 59

Sonja Peterson-Lewis

Part II: Constructing Data

Constructing Data: An Introduction ............................................................................................... 72

Qualitative Research and the Study of Language Use and Attitudes ............................................ 75

Francisco Martínez Ibarra

Dialogic Methodology and the Dialogic Space Created after an Interview .................................. 80

Venla Sykäri

Editing Skaldic Verse and the Problem of Prosimetra ................................................................... 88

Erin Michelle Goeres

Ethnographic Questionnaires: After Method, after Questions ....................................................... 97

Dani Schrire

Part III: Culturally Sensitive Reading

Culturally Sensitive Reading: An Introduction ............................................................................ 105

The Anglo-Saxon Charms: Texts in Context ............................................................................... 108

Rebecca M.C. Fisher

The Sensitive Interpretation of Emotions: Methodological Perspectives on Studying
Meanings in Written Life-Historical Narratives .......................................................................... 126

Pauliina Latvala and Kirsi Laurén

Design Poiesis: An Inquiry on Outcomes in the Use of Method and Methodology ................... 136

Thelma Lazo-Flores

Younger Icelandic Manuscripts and Old Norse Studies .............................................................. 148

Helen F. Leslie

Ferocious Beast (óarga dýr) between North and East ................................................................. 162

Fjodor Uspenskij

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Part IV: Function, Structure and Statistics

Function, Structure and Statistics: An Introduction ..................................................................... 169

Categorising Christ within an Age-Njld Paradigm: The ‘Kenning System’ and Shifting
Cultural Referents ........................................................................................................................ 172

Emily Osborne

Poetic Formulas in Late Medieval Icelandic Folk Poetry: The Case of Vambarljóð .................. 181

Haukur Þorgeirsson

A Method for Analyzing World-Models in Scandinavian Mythology ........................................ 196

Mathias Nordvig

A System of Techniques and Stratagems for Outlining a Traditional Ethnic Identity ................ 209

Vladimir Glukhov

†

and Natalia Glukhova

C

OMMENTS AND

C

OMMUNICATIONS

Conferences and Seminars

Conference Report: Old Norse Folklorist Network Meeting ....................................................... 217

Mart Kuldkepp

Conference Announcement: VAF III: Identity and Identification and the Viking Age in
Finland (with Special Emphasis on the Åland Islands) ............................................................... 219

Joonas Ahola and Frog

Meeting of the Retrospective Methods Network’s Old Norse Scholars ...................................... 221

Helen F. Leslie

P

EOPLE

Research Reports

Frog

Shamans, Christians, and Things in Between: Riddles of Cultural Transition in

Medieval Karelia .................................................................................................................. 222

Natalia Glukhova

Systemic Reconstruction of Mari Ethnic Identity ................................................................ 223

Mart Kuldkepp

Travel and Holy Islands in Eireks saga víðförla and Eiríks saga rauða ............................. 223

Ilkka Leskelä

Within and between Languages: Spheres and Functions of Different Languages in

Written and Oral Practical Communication in the Late Medieval Baltic Sea Region ......... 224

Sonja Petrović

The Battle of Kosovo (1389) in Oral Epic Tradition: Story Models, Forms, Ideologies..... 225

Published Articles

Frog

Circum-Baltic Mythology? – The Curious Case of the Theft of the Thunder Instrument

(AT 1148b) ........................................................................................................................... 226

4

Triin Laidoner

The Flying Noaidi of the North: Sámi Tradition Reflected in the Figure Loki

Laufeyjarson in Old Norse Mythology ................................................................................ 227

Helen F. Leslie

‘The Matter of Hrafnista’ ..................................................................................................... 227

Eila Stepanova

Reflections of Belief Systems in Karelian and Lithuanian Laments: Shared Systems of

Traditional Referentiality? ................................................................................................... 228

PhD Projects

Leszek Gardeła

Entangled Worlds: Archaeologies of Ambivalence in the Viking Age ............................... 229

Svetlana Tsonkova

Charms, Prayers, Amulets: Verbal Magic and Daily Life in Medieval and Early Modern

Bulgaria ................................................................................................................................ 234

C

ALLS FOR

P

APERS

Would You Like to Submit to RMN Newsletter? ........................................................................ 236

229

on the level of metaphoric or formulaic
language and expressions; and 3) on the level
of motifs employed in funeral laments. The
traditions of Karelian and Lithuanian laments,
as well as Lithuanian and Latvian folk songs,
share numerous similar features. These
features occur on all levels, from the
elementary aspects of poetic language (their
stylistic and grammatical features, poetic
images and metaphors), to larger motifs and
more

comprehensive

aspects

of

ritual

activities. This shows that although the
language of the tradition was different in each
culture, they were utilizing remarkably

similar systems of traditional referentiality.
These systems of traditional referentiality are
necessarily rooted in the history of each
tradition, drawing on its past in applications
of “word power” in the present. Moreover,
these traditions reflect common conceptions
of death and the otherworld, where the
ancestors of the community meet the newly
deceased. If the sources accessible to me
prove to be generally representative of the
tradition, then the Karelian and Lithuanian
laments appear to share certain significant
features of mythology, worldview and beliefs,
which are unlikely to be accidental.

Entangled Worlds: Archaeologies of Ambivalence in the Viking Age

Leszek Gardeła, University of Aberdeen

Dissertation defended for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology,
University of Aberdeen on the 21

st

May 2012.

Supervisors: Professor Neil S. Price (University of Aberdeen) and Dr Peter Jordan (University of Aberdeen).
Opponents: Professor Andrew Reynolds (University College London), Professor Stefan Brink (University of Aberdeen).

During the last decade, the research
paradigms in Viking-Age scholarship have
undergone a significant change. Textual
scholars and archaeologists have begun to
collaborate

more

closely

than

before,

engaging in an open yet critical dialogue,
which among other things has opened new
possibilities in examining the notions of belief
and ritual practices and their practitioners in
the past.

Today, it is frequently argued that the

Scandinavian societies of the late Iron Age, in
a perceptual sense, lived in what could be
regarded as an ‘ensouled world’ where the
‘sacred’ could manifest itself in a wide range
of forms – in places, beings and objects. With
the assistance of textual sources (mostly in the
form of Old Norse written accounts, but also
other comparative evidence from other areas
of the early medieval world), archaeologists

are

trying

to

get

a

more

detailed

understanding

of

those

archaeological

remains from the Viking Age that seem to be
material reflections of the multivariate beliefs
people held at that time.

In recent years, there has been an

increasing

interest,

especially

from

Scandinavian scholars, in the archaeology and
anthropology

of

early

medieval

ritual

specialists.

1

This thesis is intended to be a

new contribution to the debate on the social
role and especially to the social perception of
such individuals. On the basis of the available
textual

accounts,

as

well

as

broad

archaeological evidence, it is argued that the
approaches to and the multiple understandings
of these individuals, as well as the different
forms of tools of their trades were, and are
bound to be today, suffused with the notion of
‘ambivalence’.

PhD Projects

230

The concept of ‘ambivalence’ is a common

theme in the studies of past beliefs and it was
originally introduced in the history of
religions by Rudolf Otto in his famous work
The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry Into the
Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine
and its Relation to the Rational (1958
[1923]). In later years it was taken up by other
scholars, most notably Mircea Eliade (e.g.
1987, 1996, 2000 [1937]; see also Allen
2002). ‘Ambivalence’, in the understanding of
Otto, could be seen in the way humans think
and experience the ‘sacred’. The ‘sacred’ may
arouse both profound fascination, but also
fear or even terror. In relation to the concept
of ‘ambivalence’, Otto also introduced the
notion of mysterium fascinans and mysterium
tremendum, the latter of which he defined in
the following way:

The feeling of it may at times come
sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the
mind with a tranquil mood of deepest
worship. It may pass over into a more set
and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing as
it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until
at last it dies away and the soul resumes its
‘profane’, non-religious mood of everyday
experience. It may burst in sudden eruption
up from the depths of the soul with spasms
and convulsions, or lead to the strangest
excitements of intoxicated frenzy, to
transport and to ecstasy. It has its wild and
demonic forms and can sink to an almost
grizzly horror and shuddering. It has crud,
barbaric

antecedents

and

early

manifestations, and again it may be
developed into something beautiful and pure
and glorious. (Otto 1958 [1923]: 12–13.)

In this thesis, the concept of ‘ambivalence’ is
discussed with regards to three themes: the
treatment and the perception of the dead, the
perception of ritual specialists and the
perception of their ritual objects. These are
briefly summarized below.

Ambivalence with Regard to the Treatment
and Perception of the Dead
Chapter 1 (“Prolegomena”) and Chapter 2
(“Funerary Diversity and Deviance in the
Viking Age”) serve as theoretical and
empirical introductions to the further debates
on ritual specialists. Therein arguments are

given for the immense diversity with regards
to the Old Norse beliefs and especially
mortuary practices in the Viking diaspora. I
argue that extreme caution is needed when
one tries to evaluate and interpret the
intentions of mourners responsible for
composing particular kinds of burials, and
that there is a necessity to acknowledge their
multivalence.

In

Central-European

and

Anglo-Saxon

archaeology,

the

terms

‘atypical’ and ‘deviant burials/graves’ have
frequently been employed in studies of what
is today regarded as unusual funerary
behaviour (i.e. prone burial, decapitation,
stoning

the

corpse,

mutilation

etc.).

Occasionally, the terms ‘deviant grave’ or
‘atypical grave’ have also been used in the
Viking context in relation to graves that, to
their interpreters, demonstrate some signs of
‘oddity’. In my discussion, I argue that,
contrary to the assumptions of many modern
scholars, the so-called ‘deviant graves’ do not
always have to indicate that the deceased
individual was treated with contempt in life or
upon death. On the basis of textual evidence
and comparative archaeological evidence, it
may be inferred that what we would today
regard as ‘violence’ or ‘oddity’, may have in
the past in fact signaled the utmost respect. In
Viking-Age Scandinavia, the peculiar or (to
our minds) odd treatment of the body may not
always suggest that the particular person was
regarded as malevolent, but rather signal fear
of what might become of them (or what they
might ‘transform’ into) after the moment of
death. I therefore suggest that some unusual
burial practices may be a form of
‘communicating’ certain social insecurities or
superstitions and be a form of ‘negotiating’
the multivalent and fluid identities of the
deceased.

Chapter 3 (“The Archaeology of Late Iron-

Age Ritual Specialists”) is devoted to the
examination of different factors that are taken
into

account

when

contemporary

archaeologists try to interpret some of the so-
called ‘deviant graves’ as belonging to
Viking-Age

ritual

specialists.

In

my

discussion, I adopt a rather critical approach
to such interpretations and argue that a
significant proportion of them are either
completely ad hoc and ungrounded (for

231

example they have no actual reflection in the
available archaeological material or they are
based on archaeological data that is highly
problematic and published nearly over a
century ago in a rudimentary manner) or are
based purely on modern-day preconceptions
of what ritual specialists and their graves
‘should look like’ – as implied by popular
culture, novels, films etc. Despite my
criticisms, however, I maintain the opinion
that it may nonetheless be plausible to
interpret some graves as those of ritual
specialists, but in such endeavors extreme
caution is always needed. It is vital that
studies of this kind are conducted on material
that is both well preserved and professionally
published. Additionally, it may also be
valuable to take into account the wider
context of the particular burial evidence and
compare or contrast it with other sources
(both archaeological and textual) from not
only Viking-Age Scandinavia, but also from
other areas of early medieval Europe.

Ambivalence in the Perception of Viking-
Age Ritual Specialists
After reevaluating the different problems
associated with the archaeology of early
medieval ritual specialists, in Chapter 4
(“Ambivalent Beings: Death by Stoning and
Burial under Stones”) I examine various
social responses to such individuals as
recorded in the Old Norse written accounts.
Special attention was given to the motif of
‘stoning’ seiðr-working individuals and other
beings related to magic practices or endowed
with magic qualities. I argue that this
particular motif of stoning may have some
concrete parallels in the archaeological
material. On the basis of an extensive
comparative

study

that

employs

archaeological, historical and (occasionally)
folkloristic sources, I suggest that it is not
unlikely that some of the deceased individuals
whose bodies were purposefully covered with
stones were indeed regarded as people dealing
with magic. However, I also explicitly stress
that this interpretation is only one of several
possibilities.

My detailed analysis of the archaeological

material

from

Viking-Age

Scandinavia,

supplemented by comparative evidence from

early medieval England and Poland, shows
that in fact every ‘stoned’ grave demonstrates
different features with regards to the buried
individuals themselves (in an anthropological
sense – e.g. age, gender and other physical
characteristics), and also to the objects placed
alongside them and the overall, widely
understood external and internal composition.

Figure 1. An artistic reconstruction of grave A505 from
Trekroner-Grydehøj, Sjælland, Denmark. Illustration
by Mirosław Kuźma. © Leszek Gardeła and Mirosław
Kuźma.

Ideally, as I argue, each grave of this kind
should be approached individually, since it
seems that each offers a different story (or
stories) that could be ‘read’ from it. In my
final conclusions, I postulate that all such
considerations and attempts at providing
deeper interpretations are only substantiated
in the instances when the graves are both well
preserved and documented. In my analyses of
the

burial

evidence

from

Viking-Age

Scandinavia, only graves that were excavated
relatively

recently

and/or

which

were

described in detail in the archaeological
literature were taken into consideration. In
selected cases it was possible to actually
consult the evidence and new interpretations

232

of it with the original excavators (with special
thanks to Dr Tom Christensen and Dr Jens
Ulriksen from Roskilde Museum and to Dr
Dan Carlsson from Gotland University). The
new studies of the ‘stoned’ graves conducted
as part of this doctoral research project also
allowed the creation of nine artistic
reconstructions aimed at demonstrating how
the graves may have appeared before they
were back-filled. The reconstructions were
exclusively prepared for my thesis by the
Polish artist-illustrator Mirosław Kuźma.

Ambivalence in the Perception of Viking-
Age Ritual Objects
As argued, the notion of ambivalence may
also be related to objects. Therefore, Chapter
5 (“Ambivalent Objects: A Biography of
Magic Staffs”) is devoted to the idea of a
‘magic staff’ in the Viking Age and, as
before,

the

discussion

involves

an

interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach.
At its core is the examination of textual
evidence for the existence of such objects and
also their alleged archaeological analogues
from prehistory to modern times. The
concluding interpretations, supplemented by a
detailed empirical and experimental study
(included in Appendices 4 and 5), show that
some of the iron rods considered may have
indeed been perceived by Viking-Age
individuals as ritual tools. However, given the
possibilities of using these objects for
multiple purposes and also the fact that their
physical forms have so many associations
(practical or symbolic) with other items, it is
difficult to determine which items specifically
may have served as magic staffs. The
conclusion reached is that they should be seen
as ambivalent or even multivalent objects –
both in the past and today. What they
represented in the past may have been
intended as a matter of interpretation and it
the same holds true today.

The last Chapter 6 (Entangled Worlds:

Archaeologies of Ambivalence in the Viking
Age) concludes the thesis and offers some
new research avenues.

Exclusive Illustrations and Appendices
The thesis is lavishly illustrated and in
addition to the chapters summarized above it

includes over 160 pages of appendices.
Appendix

1

contains

nine

artistic

reconstructions of early medieval ‘deviant
graves’ from Sweden (grave Bj. 959 from
Birka; grave 19/89 from Fröjel in Gotland),
Denmark (the Gerdrup grave; grave A505
from Trekroner-Grydehøj; graves P and T
from Bogøvei), Iceland (Grave Kt-145: 2
from Vað, Suður Múlasýsla), Poland (Grave
146 from Cedynia, Pomorze Zachodnie) and
England (Grave 5056 from Raunds Furnells,
Northamptonshire). Appendices 2 and 3
contain handlists of all early medieval
‘stoned’ graves from Scandinavia, Iceland and
Poland known to the author. Appendix 4 is a
detailed catalogue of 33 alleged magic staffs
from the Viking-Age supplemented by new,
high-quality photographs that were taken by
the author during the period between 2008–
2011 in archaeological museums in Sweden,
Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Ireland.
Appendix 5 discusses a modern replica of one
of the alleged magic staffs (the staff from
Gnesta in Sweden) which was commissioned
for this doctoral research project and created
by two professional re-enactors Grzegorz
‘Greg’

Pilarczyk

and

Łukasz

‘Einar’

Szczepański. In addition, Appendix 5 also
seeks to examine the possible uses of similar
objects through a discussion of a range of
experiments conducted, where the alleged
staff was employed as a roasting spit and a
distaff.

Figure 2. A reconstruction of an alleged magic staff
from Gnesta, Sweden. The reconstruction was made by
Grzegorz ‘Greg’ Pilarczyk (the bronze fittings) and
Łukasz ‘Einar’ Szczepański (the iron shaft). Photo by
Kamil Stachowiak.

233

Notes

1. Cf. Adolfson & Lundström 1993, 1995; Price 2002;

Solli 2002; Raudvere 2003; Artelius 2005; Back
Danielsson 2007; Graner 2007; Sundqvist 2007;
Gardeła 2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2011; Pentz, Panum
Baastrup, Karg & Mannering 2009; but see also
important studies of Dillmann 2006; Heide 2006;
Tolley 2009.

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