Author’s Preface Late last year, I received an e-mail announcing a symposium celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Folklore and Mythology Program at Harvard University. As a member of the first class to be awarded degrees in the program, and as the only member of that class to have gone on to pursue graduate study and a career in the discipline, I responded to… Read more
I. Introduction The many facets of the Ariadne-figure have long been the subject of classical scholarship. The peculiar cultic customs surrounding the goddess have been assiduously interpreted, in part successfully and in part unsuccessfully. Her relation to the figure of Dionysus has been explored in hopes of proving the Mycenaean origins of the god; as for her own Minoan origins, identification with the early nature goddess of… Read more
II. The Variants of the Myth The variant accounts of the abduction by Theseus of Ariadne, daughter of the Cretan king·Minos, at first appear to be not only numerous but confusing as well. The oral tradition has been in this case most prolific. Indeed, Plutarch was prompted to write: Πολλοὶ δὲ λόγοι καὶ περὶ τούτων ἔτι λέγονται καὶ περὶ τῆς Ἀριάδνης, οὐδὲν ὁμολογούμενον ἔχοντες. There… Read more
5. The Same Event in More Than One Saga The previous chapter looked at how particular characters from the sagas of the east of Iceland are presented in sources that appear unlikely to be directly related to each other on a written level, i.e. through literary relations. It emerged that there is discernable variation in the personal characteristics ascribed to Víga-Bjarni in different sagas, while those of… Read more
6. Conclusions to Part II The sagas of the east of Iceland contain a large number of passages with parallels of subject matter or theme with other sagas within the group or with written works from other parts of the country. Of the examples considered in the previous two chapters, the only cases where it seems, on the grounds of shared diction, that the relationship can be… Read more
7. The Saga Map of Vínland As has become clear in the preceding chapters, the relationship between the written sagas and oral tradition is not simple and uniform. There are no clear-cut answers to the questions facing us. And, as if the part of orality in the composition of the written sagas were not in itself fraught with uncertainties, the position we take on this affects how… Read more
8. Implications for Saga Research The overall conclusion to emerge from this study is that, by assuming the existence of a living oral tradition in Icelandic society in the 12th and 13th centuries, the perspective of our research shifts fundamentally. This change applies equally to how we interpret both the historical facts and the individual texts themselves. For instance, in Part I reasons were given for thinking… Read more
Bibliography Published Editions of Works Referenced by Page Number Wherever possible, all references are to the editions in the Íslenzk fornrit (ÍF) series (Reykjavík, 1933-). (For an English translation of the sagas of Icelanders see: The Complete Sagas of Icelanders. Ed. Viðar Hreinsson. Reykjavík: Leifur Eiríksson Publishing 1997). Other editions used are listed below. In some cases, e.g. where these are diplomatic texts or editions using… Read more
Pronunciation Guide The information given here should help non-Icelandic speakers to make a recognizable attempt at pronouncing the words and names that occur in this book. It does not aim to give comprehensive details of Icelandic pronunciation. It gives only the main rules and ignores the numerous refinements to these rules. In addition, though very good, our knowledge of the pronunciation of Old Icelandic is by no… Read more
Series Foreword This new series is dedicated to the empirical study of oral traditions in their historical contexts. The rigorous methods of investigation developed by Milman Parry and Albert Lord, as documented in Lord’s The Singer of Tales (Harvard University Press 1960; Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 24. Second edition 2000, with Introduction [vii-xxix] by Stephen Mitchell and Gregory Nagy) serve as a model for the books included in the… Read more
