I: 3 History of Religion

Exploring Religious Ritual Frameworks in the Oral Performance of the Old Norse, Eddic-Style Praise Poems <em>Hákonar­mál</em>, <em>Eiríksmál</em>, and <em>Hrafnsmál</em>

“…The function of such ritual frameworks may be discerned through a close reading and analysis of these eddic-style praise poems as pieces of performed, oral-derived poetry as well as the contextual information provided with them (cf. Gunnell 2016: 96; see also Nygaard 2018). As I have noted above and will elaborate on below, the initial performers of these eddic-praise poems may also be viewed as ritual specialists performing often transformative, religious rituals in the ritual space of a Viking Age hall.…”

“…It also has strong oral per formance conno tations and is almost exclusively used for first-person dia logue (Finnur Jónsson 1920-1924Gunnell 1995: 187-194;Quinn 1992). Additionally, the performance of poems in the ljóða háttr metre can be argued to have made the past and present appear at the same time in the performance, making the poems' characters seem real to the partici pants in the performance blending both time, space, and iden ti ties in the liminal moment of performance (Gunnell 2011(Gunnell , 2012Nygaard 2018Nygaard , 2019b.…”

“…In both Hákonarmáland Eiríksmálthere is, then, a confluence between the human hall which was the probable site of the 'original' oral perfor mance and Óðinn's hall, Valhǫll, something which also occurs in, for instance, Grímnis mál (Gunnell 2016;Nygaard 2018Nygaard , 2019b). As noted above, such a mention of a specific, Otherworldly hall being present hér (here) and now would most likely have aided the transformation of the hall-space of the performance into a ritual, liminal space by temporarily trans porting the ritual participants into Valhǫll.…”

“…T he performance of oral poetry in the Viking Age, as in many other preliterate cultures, seems to follow certain, culturally specific, structural pat terns. Upon closer analysis, some of the medieval, oral-derived eddic poems like Grímnismál (Gunnell 2016;Nygaard 2018;2019b), Skírnis mál (Gun nell 2006(Gun nell , 2011, and Vaf rúðnis mál (Gunnell 2011), seem to pre serve traits of orality and drama that in these poems' perfor mance capac ity can be viewed as a form of ritual -even one that has religious sig nifi cance. In this article, 1 this potential initial ritual performance will be ex plored for the poems Hákonarmál, Eiríksmál, and Hrafnsmál.…”

“…Furthermore, ExploringReligiousRitualFrameworks the utterances that Roy A. Rappaport terms per for matives (1999: 114-15;following Austin 1962) have a special relation ship to such ritual performances involving flow and transformation. These per for ma tives 'transform ourselves or the conditions surrounding us' (Rappaport 1999: 114) -if the rituals are properly performed by authorised specialists, then the performatives in the rituals come into being (Rappaport 1999: 114-19): When a poetic performer claims to be Óðinn by naming himself as such, as it for instance would be the case in a performance of the eddic poem Grímnis mál, he is transformed into the god during this performance by using the act of naming as a performative (Nygaard 2018(Nygaard , 2019bNygaard and Schjødt 2018). This capacity of transformation and exaction of conformity inherent in a religious ritual act is what I understand as ritualperformativity (Bell 1992(Bell , 1997Rappaport 1999).…”