![](http://static.cambridge.org/content/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:book:9781846154140/resource/name/9781846154140i.jpg)
- Publisher:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Online publication date:
- October 2017
- Print publication year:
- 2005
- Online ISBN:
- 9781846154140
- Subjects:
- Literature, Anglo Saxon and Medieval Literature
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A particular, recurring feature of Old Norse myths and legends is an encounter between creatures of This World [gods and human beings] and those of the Other [giants, giantesses, dwarves, prophetesses, monsters and the dead]. Concentrating on cross-gendered encounters, this book analyses these meetings, and the different motifs and situations they encompass, from the consultation of a prophetess by a king or god, to sexual liaisons and return from the dead. It considers the evidence for their pre-Christian origins, discusses how far individual poets and prose writers were free to modify them, and suggests that they survived in medieval Christian society because [like folk-tale] they provide a non-dogmatic way of resolving social and psychological problems connected with growing up, succession from one generation to the next, sexual relationships and bereavement.
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