Faraday, L. Winifred. Custom and Belief in the Icelandic Sagas

• Author: Faraday, L. Winifred
• Title: Custom and Belief in the Icelandic Sagas
• Published in: Folklore 17/4
• Year: 1906
• Pages: 387-426
• E-text:
• Reference: Faraday, L. Winifred. "Custom and Belief in the Icelandic Sagas." Folklore 17/4 (1906): 387-426.

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• Key words: social reality (samfélagsmynd)

Annotation

In this paper, Faraday lists customs and rituals as they appear in the Icelandic family sagas, including burial customs and rites for the dead, divination and the practice of magic, feasts and sacrifices. He also examines the attitudes of Icelanders towards the Norse gods and religion in these narratives. Frequent reference is made to Egils saga and other family sagas.

Lýsing

Í grein sinni gerir Faraday skipulega grein fyrir venjum og helgisiðum sem lýst er í Íslendingasögum, þar á meðal greftrunarsiðum og helgisiðum tengdum dauðanum, guðadýrkun, göldrum, veislum og fórnum. Hann ræðir einnig um viðhorf Íslendinga til norrænu guðanna og heiðninnar, eins og þau birtast í þessum sögum. Ítrekað er vísað í Eglu og fleiri Íslendingasögur.

References

Chapter 44: dísarblót: "There seems... no doubt that the Dísablót or sacrifice to the Dísir which is mentioned occasionally in the sagas, was a sacrifice to spiritual powers of a vague kind, not yet grown into individual deities; female, and representing in some way the underworld of the dead... The Dísablót has sometimes been described as connected with the worship of Freyja, and taking place at midwinter, but there is no saga-authority for this. There is no recorded case of a Dísablót in Iceland, but there are cases in Norway" (p. 399-400).

Links

• Written by: Katelin Parsons
• Icelandic translation: Jón Karl Helgason