Birds of Battle? Myths and Materialities of Eagles and Ravens in the Old Norse World
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-06-12

It is often accepted among scholars that eagles and ravens were viewed as being in some way sacred by the Old Norse peoples of Scandinavia. This is largely based on the prominence of these birds in the Prose Edda and in eddic poetry, particularly their connections with the god Óðinn. This interdisciplinary paper will draw upon the field of Human-Animal Studies to investigate the nature of this apparent sacred nature by inspecting sources beyond eddic materials to model how humans interacted with eagles and ravens. This will include sources such as laws against eating them in the law codes such as Grágás, and a search for marks indicative of human interference, such as hunting, butchery, or captivity on skeletal remains of these birds from Viking Age finds. This will aim to model a more complex and holistic image of how Old Norse peoples perceived and interacted with eagles and ravens.

Kathryn A. Haley-Halinski (University of Cambridge)

TAG Deva 2018
Session: Beasts, Birds and Other Fauna: Animals and Their Meaning in the Early Middle Ages