Kuldkepp, M; (2018) The People, the Bishop and the Beast: Remediation and Reconciliation in Einarr Gilsson's Selkolluvísur. In: Sävborg, D and Bek-Pedersen, K, (eds.) Supernatural Encounters in Old Norse Literature and Tradition. (pp. 105-122). Brepols Publishers: Turnhout, Belgium.

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Abstract

This article takes a look at how Icelandic folklore was mediated in Old Norse literature through a case study of Einarr Gilsson’s mid-fourteenth-century dróttkvætt poem Selkolluvísur. After sketching out what is known about the poem’s cultural and political background, how the poem attempts to reconcile folk tradition, elevated in poetry, and ‘high’ Christianity is considered, thus providing an example of literary transmission and transformation of folklore in Medieval Iceland. A particular focus is on skaldic diction and imagery (kenningar and heiti) as likely indications of the poem’s intended audience, expected impact, and relationship to hypothetical earlier folk narratives. I argue that Selkolluvísur demonstrates the continuing potential of skaldic imagery as rhetoric in the fourteenth century, while also saying something about the transmission and reinterpretation of Icelandic folklore in Old Norse literary texts.

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