Jürg Glauser, Pernille Hermann, Stephen A. Mitchell (Eds.) HANDBOOK OF PRE-MODERN NORDIC MEMORY STUDIES !!INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES VOLUME 1 f f f Handbook of Pre-Modern Nordic Memory Studies Interdisciplinary Approaches Edited by Jürg Glauser, Pernille Hermann and Stephen A. Mitchell Volume 1 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110431360-001 ISBN 978-3-11-044020-1 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-043136-0 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-043148-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018957732 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de © 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: The Hills of Old Uppsala in Sweden, Erik Dahlberg, Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna Reproduction: National Library of Sweden Typesetting: Satzstudio Borngräber, Dessau-Roßlau Printing and Binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Table of Contents Volume 1 Guðrún Nordal Foreword — XIII Preface and Acknowledgements — XVII List of Illustrations — XXI Abbreviations — XXV Jürg Glauser, Pernille Hermann, Stephen A. Mitchell Pre-Modern Nordic Memory Studies: An Introduction — 1 Part I: Disciplines, Traditions and Perspectives Culture and Communication I: 1 I: 2 I: 3 I: 4 I: 5 I: 6 I: 7 Rhetoric: Jürg Glauser — 37 Philosophy and Theology: Anders Piltz — 52 History of Religion: Simon Nygaard and Jens Peter Schjødt — 70 Mythology: Pernille Hermann — 79 Folklore Studies: Stephen A. Mitchell — 93 Performance Studies: Terry Gunnell — 107 Orality and Oral Theory: Stephen A. Mitchell — 120 Material Culture I: 8 I: 9 I: 10 I: 11 Archaeology: Anders Andrén — 135 Late Iron Age Architecture: Lydia Carstens — 151 Medieval Architecture: Hans Henrik Lohfert Jørgensen and Henning Laugerud — 159 Museology: Silje Opdahl Mathisen — 168 Philology I: 12 I: 13 I: 14 I: 15 Law: Stefan Brink — 185 Linguistics and Philology: Michael Schulte — 198 Material Philology: Lena Rohrbach — 210 Runology: Mats Malm — 217 Aesthetics and Communication I: 16 I: 17 Literary Studies: Jürg Glauser — 231 Trauma Studies: Torfi H. Tulinius — 250 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110431360-002 VI Table of Contents I: 18 I: 19 I: 20 I: 21 Media Studies: Kate Heslop — 256 Spatial Studies: Lukas Rösli — 274 Translation Studies: Massimiliano Bampi — 284 Visual Culture: Henning Laugerud — 290 Constructing the Past I: 22 I: 23 I: 24 History: Bjørn Bandlien — 303 Medieval Latin: Aidan Conti — 318 Environmental Humanities: Reinhard Hennig — 327 Neighbouring Disciplines I: 25 I: 26 I: 27 Anglo-Saxon Studies: Antonina Harbus — 335 Celtic Studies: Sarah Künzler — 341 Sámi Studies: Thomas A. DuBois — 348 In-Dialogue I: 28 I: 29 I: 30 Reception Studies: Margaret Clunies Ross — 361 Popular Culture: Jón Karl Helgason — 370 Contemporary Popular Culture: Laurent Di Filippo — 380 Part II: Case Studies Media: Mediality II: 1 II: 2 II: 3 II: 4 II: 5 II: 6 II: 7 II: 8 Orality: Gísli Sigurðsson — 391 Writing and the Book: Lena Rohrbach — 399 Manuscripts: Lukas Rösli — 406 Skin: Sarah Künzler — 414 Textual Performativity: Sandra Schneeberger — 421 Text Editing: Karl G. Johansson — 427 Miracles: Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir — 433 Hagiography: Ásdís Egilsdóttir — 439 Media: Visual modes II: 9 II: 10 II: 11 II: 12 II: 13 Images: Hans Henrik Lohfert Jørgensen — 447 Óðinn’s Ravens: Stephen A. Mitchell — 454 Ornamentation: Anne-Sofie Gräslund — 463 Animation: Hans Henrik Lohfert Jørgensen — 471 Marian Representations: Karoline Kjesrud — 477 Media: Narrating the past II: 14 II: 15 Dialogues with the Past: Vésteinn Ólason — 489 Trauma: Torfi H. Tulinius — 495 Table of Contents II: 16 II: 17 II: 18 II: 19 II: 20 Icelanders Abroad: Yoav Tirosh — 502 Folk Belief: John Lindow — 508 Emotions: Carolyne Larrington — 514 Remembering Gendered Vengeance: Bjørn Bandlien — 519 Remembering the Future: Slavica Ranković — 526 Space: Nature II: 21 II: 22 II: 23 Nature and Mythology: Mathias Nordvig — 539 Climate and Weather: Bernadine McCreesh — 549 Skyscape: Gísli Sigurðsson — 555 Space: Landscape II: 24 II: 25 II: 26 II: 27 II: 28 II: 29 II: 30 II: 31 II: 32 Onomastics: Stefan Brink — 565 Cartography: Rudolf Simek — 575 Diaspora: Judith Jesch — 583 Pilgrimage: Christian Krötzl — 594 Pilgrimage – Gotland: Tracey Sands — 601 Landscape and Mounds: Ann-Mari Hållans Stenholm — 607 Saga Burial Mounds: Lisa Bennett — 613 Sites: Torun Zachrisson — 620 Memorial Landscapes: Pernille Hermann — 627 Action: Using specialist knowledge II: 33 II: 34 II: 35 II: 36 II: 37 Skalds: Russell Poole — 641 Kennings: Bergsveinn Birgisson — 646 Charm Workers: Stephen A. Mitchell — 655 Mental Maps: Gísli Sigurðsson — 660 Mnemonic Methods: Pernille Hermann — 666 Action: Performing commemoration II: 38 II: 39 II: 40 II: 41 II: 42 II: 43 II: 44 Ritual: Terry Gunnell — 677 Ritual Lament: Joseph Harris — 687 Memorial Toasts: Lars Lönnroth — 695 Women and Remembrance Practices: Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir — 699 Donation Culture: Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir — 709 Chain Dancing: Tóta Árnadóttir — 716 Neo-Paganism: Mathias Nordvig — 727 Power: Designing beginnnings II: 45 II: 46 II: 47 Origins: Else Mundal — 737 Genealogies: Úlfar Bragason — 744 Religion and Gender: Sofie Vanherpen — 750 VII VIII II: 48 II: 49 Table of Contents Strategies of Remembering: Laura Sonja Wamhoff — 756 Remembering Origins: Verena Höfig — 762 Power: National memories II: 50 II: 51 II: 52 II: 53 II: 54 II: 55 II: 56 II: 57 II: 58 II: 59 Danish Perspectives: Pernille Hermann — 771 Danish Perspectives – N.F.S. Grundtvig: Sophie Bønding — 782 Faroese Perspectives: Malan Marnersdóttir — 788 Greenlandic Perspectives: Kirsten Thisted — 798 Icelandic Perspectives: Simon Halink — 805 Norwegian Perspectives: Terje Gansum — 811 Norwegian Perspectives – Heimskringla: Jon Gunnar Jørgensen — 818 Swedish Perspectives: Stephen A. Mitchell — 824 Swedish Perspectives – Rudbeck: Anna Wallette — 834 Balto-Finnic Perspectives: Thomas A. DuBois — 841 Power: Envisioning the northern past II: 60 II: 61 II: 62 II: 63 II: 64 II: 65 II: 66 II: 67 II: 68 II: 69 II: 70 Canadian Perspectives: Birgitta Wallace — 855 U.S. Perspectives: Stephen A. Mitchell — 866 North American Perspectives – Suggested Runic Monuments: Henrik Williams — 876 Irish Perspectives: Joseph Falaky Nagy — 885 British Perspectives: Richard Cole — 891 The Northern Isles: Stephen A. Mitchell — 899 French Perspectives: Pierre-Brice Stahl — 908 German Perspectives: Roland Scheel — 913 Polish Perspectives: Jakub Morawiec — 921 Russian Perspectives: Ulrich Schmid — 927 Russian Perspectives – Viking: Barbora Davidková — 933 Table of Contents IX Volume 2 Part III: Texts and Images Remembering the Past and Foreseeing the Future: Mnemonic genres and classical Old Norse memory texts III: 1 III: 2 III: 3 III: 4 The Seeress’s Prophecy – an iconic Old Norse-Icelandic memory poem — 947 Memory and poetry in Egil’s Saga — 951 Dómaldi’s death – a memorable sacrifice in The Saga of the Ynglings — 960 Ekphrasis and pictorial memory in the House-poem — 962 Media of Memory and Forgetting: Oral and written transmission of memories in prologues and colophones III: 5 III: 6 III: 7 III: 8 III: 9 III: 10 III: 11 III: 12 III: 13 III: 14 III: 15 III: 16 III: 17 III: 18 Personal memories and founding myths in The Book of the Icelanders — 967 Writing as a means against oblivion in Hunger-stirrer — 970 Male and female voices in oral transmission and memory in The Saga of Óláf Tryggvason — 974 Medieval mnemonic theory and national history in Saxo Grammaticus’s preface to The History of the Danes — 975 Commemorating the achievements of the ancient kings in Sven Aggesen’s A Short History of the Kings of Denmark — 979 Remembering and transmitting for future generations in the prologue to A History of Norway — 981 Theodoricus Monachus filling up memory gaps in An Account of the Ancient History of the Norwegian Kings — 983 Writing and memory in The King’s Mirror — 986 The prologue to Heimskringla: Snorri Sturluson comments on his sources — 988 Stories fixed in memory in The Saga of King Sverrir — 992 The prologue to The Saga of the Sturlungs and the transmission of contemporary sagawriting — 994 Remembering old tales from foreign countries in Strengleikar — 996 Memorising between storytelling and writing in the prologue to The Saga of Thidrek of Bern — 1002 Remembering and the creation of The Saga of Yngvar the Far-traveler — 1004 X Table of Contents Media of Memory and Forgetting: Figures of remembering and forgetting III: 19 III: 20 III: 21 III: 22 III: 23 Eddic mythological poetry: Birds of memory and birds of oblivion — 1009 Desire, love, and forgetting in eddic heroic poetry — 1011 Memory’s bodily location in The Prose Edda — 1017 Embodied and disembodied memory in The Saga of Saint Jón — 1018 The mind’s eye in The Old Norwegian Book of Homilies — 1019 Memory in Action: Memory strategies and memory scenes in sagas, poetry, laws, and theological and historical texts III: 24 III: 25 III: 26 III: 27 III: 28 III: 29 III: 30 III: 31 III: 32 III: 33 III: 34 III: 35 III: 36 III: 37 III: 38 III: 39 III: 40 III: 41 III: 42 Memorial toasts in The Saga of Hákon the Good — 1023 Old poems and memorial stones in The Separate Saga of Óláfr the Saint — 1025 The remembered glory of Lejre in A Short History of the Kings of Denmark — 1027 Remembering and rhetoric in the Saga of Saint Óláfr — 1028 Poets as eye witnesses and memory bearers in The Saga of Saint Óláfr — 1034 Reciting and remembering disastrous poetry: Gísli Súrsson’s fatal stanza — 1035 Archaeology and oral tradition: The hero’s skull and bones in Egil’s Saga — 1037 Memory, death and spatial anchoring in Njal’s Saga — 1039 Scenes of competitive memory in Morkinskinna — 1042 The curse of forgetting in Gautrek’s Saga — 1047 How to remember the outcome of a law-suit in The Saga of the Confederates — 1049 Men with good memory in the Laws of Hälsingland — 1051 Re-membering a lost deed in the Stockholm Land Registry — 1052 Establishing the remembrance of a king across the sea in The Greatest Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason — 1053 Remembering and venerating – the death and funeral of Saint Þorlákr as staged memory scenes — 1055 Memorialising a king in The Saga of Hákon Hákonarson — 1059 The knight and the lily-petal in An Old Swedish Legendary — 1060 The soul and memory in The Cloister of the Soul — 1061 Memory and revenge in The Chronicle of Duke Erik — 1062 Table of Contents XI Runic Inscriptions III: 43 III: 44 III: 45 Commemorating the reign of King Haraldr on the Jelling stone — 1067 Memory’s role in the Rök stone — 1069 A runic miscellany of memory, memorials and remembering — 1071 Colour Plates — 1079 Select Bibliography of Pre-Modern Nordic Memory Studies — 1103 Contributors — 1113 Index — 1117 Stephen A. Mitchell II: 57 Swedish Perspectives 1 Introduction Concerned about the treatment of Swedish history by foreign chroniclers using loose rumours (“lööss ryckte”) – and implying awareness of the distinction between individual perspectives and what today, following Assmann (1995), would be called collective memory and cultural identity – the early sixteenthcentury Swedish chronicler, Olaus Petri, argues that he will instead form his work around what resides “i manna minne” (Svenska Krönika, 7) [in men’s memory (author’s translations)]. In fact, Swedish cultural memory had been carefully groomed by native chronicle writers throughout the Middle Ages (cf. Connerton 1989). Given modern perceptions of pre-Christian Sweden, it is striking that none of the historical works that constitute the pillars of medieval Swedish literature dwell at any length on the country’s former heathen status or the exploits of its Viking ancestors. Indeed, between, at one end, the era of “rune Swedish”, where one might see an occasional inscription such as “Sa varð dauðr […] i vikingu” (Vg 61) [He died […] on a Viking raid (author’s translation)] (see fig. 1), and, at the other, the publication in 1664 in Uppsala of the bilingual edition of Gautreks saga, neither Ordbok öfver svenska medeltids-språket nor SAOB cite a single Swedishlanguage instance of the word viking. It is true that Old Swedish texts often refer with regret to the pre-Christian past by noting that the names of the weekdays – Wednesday and Thursday in particular – are a legacy of their former paganism e.g. “manghe andre daghar som æn haua nampn af heþnom afguþum ok þo cristna dyrkt som oþens daghar ok þors daghar” (Sagan om Vår herre, 61) [many other days which still have the names of heathen gods, despite Christian worship, like Odin’s day and Thor’s day (author’s translation)], yet they purposefully, it seems, avoid discussing embarrassing truths about the nation’s pagan and Viking pasts, mostly preferring to begin their histories with or after the Conversion to Christianity (cf. Hermann 2009, 292–295; Burke 2000). So when Olaus Petri depends on what is ‘in men’s memory’, such memories, at least in the vernacular, are more likely than not to have been channeled in ways suggesting cultural censure, even erasure, of what was embarrassing and un-useful to and among ecclesiastical elites (cf. Haki Antonsson 2010, 28–29). For while Latin liturgical works from medieval Sweden celebrate the lives of key figures in the conversion of the Swedes (e.g. the officia of Ansgar, Botvid, Sigfrid, Eskil, and Helena of Skövde), original vernacular literature in medieval Sweden https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110431360-093 II: 57 Swedish Perspectives: Stephen A. Mitchell 825 Text Fig. 1: The Härlingstorp rune stone (Vg 61) Photo from Wikimedia Commons (at least before the mid-fifteenth century), most notably the quintessentially historical genre of the rimkrönika (rhymed chronicle), simply do not take up the country’s shift in faith, nor do they show much interest in the adventures of their forefathers, especially when compared to Icelandic saga tradition (cf. Lönnroth 1996; Sävborg 2015). 826 Part II: Power: National memories 2 Case study: Sweden, cultural memory and nation-building Amid the religious turmoil and incipient Nordic nationalism of the sixteenth century, historical Swedish narratives such as the reworked materials that make up the so-called Yngsta rimkrönikan (also known as Cronica Swecie, 1523–1525; [The Youngest Rhymed Chronicle]) and Johannes Magnus’s Historia de omnibus gothorum sveonumque regibus (1554; [History of all the Gothic and Swedish Kings]) provide forceful expressions of an emergent nationalist, or proto-nationalist, fervor. The subsequent seventeenth-century fortunes of this Swedo-centric view of history have been well-investigated, particularly as it forms part of the propaganda explaining and justifying Stormatktstiden. But this muscular sense of nationhood and privilege was not exclusively a post-medieval phenomenon, and the foundations of a national narrative or myth are already to be seen in such pre-Reformation texts as Prosaiska krönikan [The Prose Chronicle], Lilla RimKrönikan [The Little Rhymed Chronicle] and the Chronica regni Gothorum [The Chronicle of the Gothic Kingdom] of Ericus Olai of 1470, as well as the oft-cited ‘invention’ of late medieval göticism by Bishop Nicolaus Ragvaldi at the Council of Basel in November of 1434. On the cusp of its entry into the Thirty Years War, Sweden, like Denmark before it, issued a royal decree (through the influence of Johannes Bureus) calling for a canvassing of the country for ‘antiquities’, oral as well as physical. Typical of the decree is the beginning of item 4 specifying the collection of: “Sammaledhes allehanda krönikor och historier, vhrminnes sagur och dickter om drakar, lindormar, dwergar och resar. Item sagur om nampnkunnighe personer, gamble klöster, borger, konungasäter och städher […]” (Almgren 1931, 36) [Likewise all manner of chronicles and histories, ancient tales and poems about dragons, lindworms, dwarves and giants. Item tales about renowned persons, old monasteries, castles, royal seats and cities […] (author’s translation)]. With the realisation that these ‘popular antiquities’, together with such medieval materials as the Icelandic legendary and kings sagas, could push the boundaries of the nation’s past into hitherto officially uncharted territory, the hunt for a reliable re-created past, a newly manicured collective memory, around which to form ideas of the nation was on (cf. Armstrong 1982; Smith 1987, 2009). By the late seventeenth century, serious interest was underway in procuring, editing, and publishing manuscripts that could help substantiate such a view (e.g. Gautreks saga [the saga of Gautrek]; Gutalag & Gutasaga [the law of the Gotlanders and the saga of the Gotlanders]; Ketils saga hængs [the saga of Ketil Trout]), culminating in 1737 with Erik Björner’s massive trilingual Nordiska kämpa dater (Nordic Heroic Exploits) (cf. Mitchell II: 57 Swedish Perspectives: Stephen A. Mitchell 827 Fig. 2: The title page from Björner’s Nordiska kämpa dater (1737) © Bayerische StaatsBibliothek digital 1991) (see fig. 2). These materials seriously engaged the nation’s intellectual elite, prominent public figures like Olaf von Dalin, Sven Lagerbring, and Johan Ihre, who looked to variously critique, evaluate and incorporate the historical world of the texts into the nation’s sense of self (see Wallette 2009). In the early nineteenth-century era of Romantic Nationalism, such extraordinary attempts to restore and embrace this cultural identity rose to the fore in Sweden. Nothing could be more symptomatic of this change than the establishment in 1811 of Götiska förbundet, a group “egnadt åt upplifwandet af de 828 Part II: Power: National memories Fig. 3: The title page from the 2nd edition of Tegnér’s Frithiofs saga (1876) Photo from Wikimedia Commons gamle göters frihetsanda, mannamod och redliga sinne” (Starbäck and Bäckström 1880, 763) [devoted to the revival of the ancient Goths’ spirit of freedom, manly courage and irreproachable disposition (author’s translation)]. The society’s rituals included such ‘revived’ traditions as each member taking the name of a known personality from the medieval period and, as part of his inaugural address, offering comments to that person’s memory. Among the members was Esaias Tegnér – nicknamed “Bodwar Bjarke” – from whose pen would spring the II: 57 Swedish Perspectives: Stephen A. Mitchell 829 most successful literary effort of the age, Fritiofs saga (1825) [The saga of Fritiof], a poetic recasting in Swedish of an Icelandic saga (see fig. 3). The allure of the medieval Nordic past remained strong throughout the nineteenth century, wellattested in so famous a cultural figure as August Strindberg (Törnqvist 1996). So important has this trend been that the reception of the Nordic past in eighteenthand nineteenth-century Swedish historiography and elite culture has been the subject of several indepth studies, one appropriately entitled ‘the dream of the saga age’ (Mjöberg 1967–1968; Hall 1998; Wallette 2004). Importantly, the constructed vision of the past was not only the stuff of elite society; it percolated out into the population more widely, especially with the publication of books aimed at young readers like Rydberg’s Fädernas gudasaga. Berättad för ungdomen (1887) [Our Forefathers Myths. Told for Young People], which had appeared in five editions by 1926, and in Verner von Heidenstam’s Svenskarna och deras hövdingar. Berättelser för unga och gamla (1911) [Swedes and their Chieftains. Narratives for Young and Old], echoing Jane Porter’s famous Scottish Chiefs (cf. Ollén 1992; Skott 2008; Wickström 2008). Poems like Rydberg’s valourisation of the ‘guardian’ or ‘ancestral’ tree, “Vårdträdet” (1888), an alliterative poem composed in conscious imitation of Old Norse poetry, further cemented the connection between the ancient past and contemporary events. In it, responding to rumour panics about the possible invasion of the country, Rydberg combines the image of Yggdrasill, the world-tree of Scandinavian mythology, with that of a downed familial tree, which the family’s patriarch calls to be turned into weapons for the defence of the motherland, of law, and of freedom, traits associated with the imagined democratic yeomen-society of the Swedish Middle Ages: Ditt virke skall slöjdas till värnande sköldar att lyftas framför lag och frihet; med järnet spetsas till spjutstänger att föras i fejd för fosterjorden av mina söners modige söner i Svealandens kämpars led. [Your timber shall be carved into protective shields to be lifted before law and freedom; with iron are sharpened the spear-shafts to be carried into the fray for the native soil by my sons’ bold sons in the ranks of Sweden’s warriors. (author’s translation)] In similarly nationalist tones, Verner von Heidenstam, the author of numerous historical novels celebrating the nation’s seventeenth-century military prowess, published in Svenska Dagbladet (1899) a poem cycle entitled “Ett Folk” (A People). 830 Part II: Power: National memories The text, following an ancient formula in Scandinavian historiography, envisions the emergence of a Swedish people, beginning with the prophet Nahum speaking to the Assyrian king, and it suggests that the Swedes have emigrated from the ancient Mideast. At Óðinn’s (Odin’s) command, bards sing of their forgotten urhem; Viking exploits are valorised; and around a blood-stained altar, Óðinn sets up idols: Då stiger ur de äldstes krets, med isgrått skägg och lurvig mantel, trolsk, enögd, med en korp på skuldran och svärdet draget, undermannen. Han vinkar barderna – och sorgset de sjunga om förgätet urhem, när midnatt stirrar över tälten. Han talar – och kring offerstenen, som blodbestruken står vid eken, han ställer nya gudsbeläten och stannar själv som gud ibland dem. Då växer lövbeskuggat Birka, där roddarskepp med sång vid åran glatt skära vassen […]. [There rises from the throng of elders, With ice-gray beard and shaggy mantle, One-eyed, a raven on his shoulder. And sword unsheathed, a wonder-man. He motions to the bards – and sadly They sing of their forgotten birthplace, When midnight stareth on the tents. He speaks – around the altar-stone That, blood-smeared, stands beneath the oak-tree He sets new images of gods And stands himself as god among them. Then groweth leaf-o’ershadowed Birka, Where amid oar-song viking vessels Cut glad the waves […]. (Transl. C.W. Stork 1919, 136)] When, some years after WWI, von Heidenstam addresses the Nordic student meeting in Oslo, he calls on Norwegians, Danes, Finns, and Swedes to respond to their shared cultural and linguistic heritage, and to “den nordiska urreligion, som har en vrå kvar djupt i vårt bröst” [the ancient Scandinavian religion which still has a corner deep in our breasts (author’s translation)], and to imagine how they might collectively form “en hög, ja, en ny civilization” [a high, yes, a new civilisation (author’s translation)] (Uppsatser och tal, 152–153 [Essays and Speeches]; on these texts, see Mitchell and Tergel 1994). Something of that same enthusiasm II: 57 Swedish Perspectives: Stephen A. Mitchell 831 for Sweden’s ancient heritage can be seen in the monumental painting by Carl Larsson, Midvinter blot (Midwinter Sacrifice [1915]) (see colour plate 22), a massive work portraying a scene drawn from Ynglinga saga in which a Swedish king is sacrificed at Old Uppsala in order to save his people (see Lönnroth 1986). Larsson’s exacting yet often anachronistic historical reconstruction became highly controversial, and it was not until 1997 that the painting was finally installed at the National Museum. It is indicative of the degree to which this heathen Viking image of Sweden had been fostered that when a 70-minute travelogue on the country was released in 1934, it was given the title, “Sweden, Land of the Vikings” (prod. John Boyle), a national sobriquet found occasionally even today on tourist trade items. Embracing this image shortly thereafter were Frans G. Bengtsson’s Röde Orm [Eng. transl. as Red Orm and The Long Ships] volumes (1941, 1945), historical narratives encompassing the whole of Viking activities in the east and west, the basis for a musical, a comic book, films, and radio theatre, and books which have been translated into dozens of languages. In 1998, demonstrating the story’s staying power as an icon of cultural memory, Röde Orm was named the century’s third most significant Swedish book by popular vote on a Swedish television show. The strength and durability of this historical image continued for some decades, yet, in the context of Sweden’s decision to join the European Union (1995), the national self-portrait appears to have been adjusted to a Swedish role in the medieval crusades with Jan Guillou’s Arn novels (1998, 1999, 2000), later to be made into international film sensations, stories that emphasise Sweden’s historical integration into larger multinational frameworks. Indeed, the entry into the European Union seems to have awakened familiar concerns about what it means to be a nation, giving birth to Göran Hägg’s sweeping review of the evolution of ‘Swedishness’ (2003) with the important aphorism about such an enterprise: “Ett folk är en grupp människor som förenas av gemensamma vanföreställningar om sitt förflutna” (Hägg 2003, 12, 240) [A nation is a group of people united by shared delusions about their past (author’s translation)]. One wonders whether Olaus Petri might just accept that expression as a gloss on what he meant when he referred to “manna minne” [men’s memory] (Svenska Krönika, 7)? 832 Part II: Power: National memories Works cited Primary sources Bengtsson, Frans G. Röde Orm, hemma och i österled. Stockholm, 1945. Bengtsson, Frans G. Röde Orm, sjöfarare i västerled. En berättelse från okristen tid. Stockholm, 1941. Guillou, Jan. Vägen till Jerusalem. Stockholm, 1998. Guillou, Jan. Tempelriddaren. Stockholm, 1999. Guillou, Jan. Riket vid vägens slut. n.p., 2000. Gautreks saga = Gothrici & Rolfi Westrogothiae regum historia lingua antiqua gothica conscripta. Ed. Olof Verelius and Johannes Scheffer. Uppsala, 1664. Gutalag & Gutasaga = Gothlandz-laghen på gammal göthiska, med en historisk berättelse wid ändan, huruledes Gothland först är vpfunnit och besatt. Ed. Johan Hadorph. Stockholm, 1687. Heidenstam, Verner von. “Ett folk.” Svenska Dagbladet, 22nd September 1899. Heidenstam, Verner von. Svenskarna och deras hövdingar. Berättelser för unga och gamla. Läseböcker för Sveriges barndomsskolor. Stockholm, 1911. Heidenstam, Verner von. Sweden’s Laureate. Selected Poems of Verner von Heidenstam. Trans. Charles Wharton Stork. New Haven, CT, and London, 1919. Heidenstam, Verner von. Uppsatser och tal. Ed. Kate Bang and Fredrik Böök. Verner von Heidenstams samlade verk, 23. Stockholm, 1943. Ketils saga hængs = Ketilli Haengii et Grimonis Hirsutingenae patris et filii historia seu res gestae. Ed. 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