"The Six Pillars of Saga Reliability"

(The following article by Prof. Torgrim Titlestad of the University of Stavanger [pictured above] was published by Saga Bok Publishers on their website here. What follows is my translation, posted here at the request of Saga Bok. lw)

Changes in attitudes toward the sagas

Up until the 1900s, the sagas were regarded as highly reliable, and Norway had several eminent professors in the field, such as Gustav Storm and Alexander Bugge. But in the past century the sagas have been regarded as generally unreliable as historical sources. Instead, they have been described as brilliant romances. Progressive historians like Lauritz Weibull (of Sweden) and Halvdan Koht (of Norway) promoted this view through most of the 20th Century. Nevertheless it appears that, beginning in the 1990s, this trend has begun to change, and Prof. Sverre Bagge of the Univ. of Bergen was the first, in 1995, to publicly point out the damage caused by this “hyper-critical” view of the sagas. “The early middle ages and the Viking Age remain the most neglected fields in medieval history in Norway. This is arguably the result of source difficulties in the wake of the destructive attack on the sagas at the beginning of that century.” Prof. Vidar Sigudsson of the Univ. of Oslo renewed this critique in 2010: “The harsh criticism which was directed against the use of the sagas as sources resulted in that aspect of our past being neglected.”

The Weibullian and Kohtian view that we must reject the sagas was that, by and large, they are not contemporary records, but were written down about 300 years after the events described. This “modernist” view ruled out any appreciation of the sagas as the product of oral culture: That is, that both Norway and Iceland, as mostly illiterate societies (though runes were used for shorter messages) had developed specialized mnemonic techniques in order to preserve historic events. In this context the unusual skaldic poems must be emphasized. Their unique form (“as if carved in stone”) testifies to the historical confidence of the Vikings, and their trust that this technique of oral memorization would permit memories to live on for a long time. (Similar techniques can be found, and continue to be found, in other mostly illiterate cultures.) Continue reading "The Six Pillars of Saga Reliability"

Sorry for the Outage

Sorry for the blog outage yesterday. The ever-conspiring Manx (not Manites–don’t click that link) succeeded in getting around our defenses and taking us down. We will work ever-harder to keep that from happening again. Aside from that, do you have any issues using this blog, any performance issues, I mean? Feel free to use this space to tell us about it.

(BTW, outage is one of those ugly words that looks like contemporary terminology to me, but it’s actually over 100 years old.)

They Want To You Write

Here’s some optimistic encouragement to Londoners on writing plays. Write the way you speak is fair advice, but I think many creative writers believe they are writing that way when they aren’t. And what if you want a character to sound different than you? What you do then, eh?

(ED: The title for this post reflects my disturbed mindframe.)

In which I play prophet of doom

I’ve been waiting to see a response from other social conservatives to the recent Gallup Poll which reports that Americans now favor “gay” marriage by a percentage of 53% to 45%.

This year’s nine-percentage-point increase in support for same-sex marriage is the largest year-to-year shift yet measured over this time period. Two-thirds of Americans were opposed to legalized same-sex marriage in 1996, with 27% in favor. By 2004, support had risen to 42% and, despite some fluctuations from year to year, stayed at roughly that level through last year.

I haven’t seen much yet along those lines, so I’ll say something myself. I don’t expect to convince anyone of anything (I rarely do), and it goes without saying I’ll be compared to a Nazi, but I’ll do it anyway, because it’s been on my mind.

First of all, I’m not entirely convinced by the figures. My experience is that people with liberal views are generally oversampled in such polls.

But that doesn’t alter the fact that, beyond question, acceptance of homosexuality has been growing rapidly among Americans. Among young people, it’s barely an issue anymore.

Barring some major critical event, like a movement of the Holy Spirit or a re-make of Rocky Horror Picture Show, it would appear that gender-neutral marriage is in our future. How are we to think about that?

For me, the answer is clear. I shall despair of my country. I do not consider this a minor issue, a cosmetic matter, a sideshow. In my view, even if conservatives sweep all the elections and take all the seats of power for the next century, it will mean nothing if we lose the marriage battle.

It’s a matter of fundamental issues. Continue reading In which I play prophet of doom

Linkitude

Over at National Review, Jay Nordlinger has a delightful report on traveling in Norway. I’ve been on the tour he recommends, “Norway In a Nutshell” twice myself, and it’s all he says (the picture above was taken at a stop en route). (Tip: Mark Belanger)

And at I Saw Lightning Fall, Loren Eaton reviews The Windup Girl.

It’s a very good review.

Retro, by Loren D. Estleman

With apologies to Dashiell Hammett fans (after all, I am one myself), I think the archetypal hard-boiled private eye will always be Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. Every hard-boiled shamus to this day—and likely far into the future—has to touch his cap, one way or another, to that tall Californian in the trench coat. Even if “he” is a she, even if the writer updates the concept by giving him computer skilz, endowing him with a regular girlfriend, or moving his office to an airplane cockpit. Even if he doesn’t smoke and doesn’t drink, has adopted Buddhism, and treats his body like a temple.

Loren D. Estleman bucks that trend. He flatters, sincerely, by imitation. His Detroit P.I., Amos Walker, could be Marlowe’s love child, or maybe Marlowe was cryogenically frozen. Amos Walker wears a hat (or did in the early books of the series, though he admits here that he doesn’t own a trench coat). He smokes and refuses to worry about it, and drinks with enthusiasm. His office, in a seedy building downtown, is exactly like Marlowe’s as far as I can tell, except for the view.

The result makes for a very comfortable read for the hard-boiled fan. Why mess with a formula that works? Continue reading Retro, by Loren D. Estleman

Door 43

Last night I attended a cookout for our seminarians and seminary staff, at the dean’s home. The food was very good, and of course I ran away as soon as the eating was over and the time for fellowship was to begin, because a) that’s the way I am, and b) it was getting chilly and I’d forgotten to bring a jacket (despite the fact that the invitation expressly said to bring one).

Anyway, before the food was served I got into a conversation with one of the students. I asked him what he was doing for the summer. He told me he was working at home, helping to administrate a web project called Door 43.

You can examine it yourself here, but as I understand it, the idea is to provide an open-source, creative commons deposit of ministry and discipleship literature for Christians in the Third World.

His brother, a missionary, got the idea, he said, because he’d noticed that people in the remotest parts of Africa (and other places in the world) may not have running water, or regular internet access, but they have cell phones. He dreamed of providing Christian literature in these people’s languages, which they can read on their phones.

He approached various Bible and Christian publishers and found himself stymied by copyright laws. Various individuals told him they hailed his effort, and wished him well, but they were obligated to protect the copyrights on the literary property in their care.

So they decided to create a wiki (in two stages, so that it can’t be casually altered like Wikipedia). People who join the process will be able to help build up a library of creative commons material which can be accessed at no cost. They’re even working on Bible translations.

I got the impression that if you’re interested in this project, and have needed skills (language skills especially), they’d be happy to hear from you. I don’t know how far afield from Lutheranism they mean to go. You’d have to inquire about that.

Maybe Apathy Isn't Closing Public Libraries

Caldiero Reads "Howl"I agree that public libraries should have a line item in every city and state budget. Small towns particularly need libraries or cultural centers to draw their folks out of a small town mindset into the larger world, and even though this may be accomplished with private ownership, I’d think public funding or tax leniency would be needed to run a library suitable for a whole town or area of a city.
I get the impression that Charles Simic, writing in the blog for the New York Review of Books, is not reading off the page to which my book is open. He writes, “‘The greatest nation on earth,’ as we still call ourselves, no longer has the political will to arrest its visible and precipitous decline and save the institutions on which the workings of our democracy depend.”
It’s more correct to say there isn’t the political will to arrest the negligent spending in other areas–areas where new civil rights have been declared–that are squeezing out the funds for good, but unglamorous, services like libraries. Of course, there are competing voices Continue reading Maybe Apathy Isn't Closing Public Libraries