Table of Contents

List of figures and tables Abbreviations Preface and acknowledgements to the first edition Preface and acknowledgements to the second edition A note on language A note on seid 1. Different Vikings? Towards a cognitive archaeology of the later Iron Age A beginning at Birka Textual archaeology and the Iron Age The Other and the Odd? An archaeology of the Viking mind? 2. Problems and paradigms in the study of Old Norse sorcery Entering the mythology Research perspectives on Scandinavian pre-Christian religion Gods and monsters, worship and superstition The shape of Old Norse religion The double world: seiðr and the problem of Old Norse ‘magic’ Seiðr in the sources Seiðr in research 3. Seiðr Óðinn Freyja and the magic of the Vanir Seiðr and Old Norse cosmology The performers The performance Engendering seiðr Seiðr and the concept of the soul The domestic sphere of seiðr Seiðr contextualised 4. Noaidevuohta Seiðr and the Sámi Sámi-Norse relations in the Viking Age Sámi religion and the Drum-Time Rydving’s terminology of noaidevuohta Women and noaidevuohta The rituals of noaidevuohta The ethnicity of religious context in Viking-Age Scandinavia 5. Circumpolar religion and the question of Old Norse shamanism The circumpolar cultures and the invention of shamanism The shamanic world-view Shamanism in Scandinavia Seiðr and circumpolar shamanism 6. The supernatural empowerment of aggression Seiðr and the world of war Valkyrjur, skaldmeyjar and hjálmvitr Supernatural agency in battle The projection of destruction Battle magic Seiðr and the shifting of shape Berserkir and ulfheðnar Ecstasy, psychic dislocation and the dynamics of mass violence Weaving war, grinding battle: Darraðarljóð and Grottas˛ongr in context 7. The Viking way A reality in stories Viking women, Viking men 8. Magic and mind Receptions and reactions Cracks in the ice of Norse ‘religion’ Walking into the seiðr: contested interpretations of Viking-Age magic Queering magic? The social world of war The Viking mind: a conclusion References Primary sources, including translations Pre-nineteenth-century sources for the early Sámi and Siberian cultures Secondary sources Sources in archive Index

About the Author

by Neil Price

Reviews

This is a brilliant and beautifully written book, as evidenced, for instance, by Price’s evocative retelling of Ragnarǫkr in Chapter 2. The first edition of Viking Way was a watershed publication for Viking archaeology, and as it has now been updated and extended, this book will only cement its position as a truly fundamental piece of scholarship painting a much richer, more complex, and more disconcerting picture of what are frequently caricatured and romanticized people. The Viking Way will undoubtedly be read, cited, and remembered for a very long time.
*Early Medieval Europe*

The Viking Way is a saga-like page-turner. […] It was the most important work to have been published on Norse magic when I first read it in 2002. In this second, revised and expanded edition, Price sets the benchmark for research on the Viking Way for at least another twenty years.
*Time & Mind: the Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture.*

The Viking Way is a precious and detailed handbook in every respect […] the book is a first-rank culture history of the Vikings.
*Shaman*

Price’s easy-to-read writing style allows the study to clearly present and explain an assortment of complicated subject matters, which in turn makes these intricate topics more accessible for a varied audience […] Ultimately, this book remains one of the most influential studies on the Viking Age…
*Kyngervi*

In summary, readers will be pleased by this new edition in that it largely preserves the much sought-after first edition while simultaneously updating some pieces of information and adding over 500 new references to relevant works published since the first edition, some new photographs and illustrations, and an index.
*Journal of English and Germanic Philology*