Between History and Myth: Stories of Harald Fairhair and the Founding of the State by Lincoln Bruce

Author:Lincoln, Bruce [Lincoln, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2014-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

Acknowledgments

This book evolved over many years, beginning as an ill-advised attempt to recover the lost myths, rituals, and religious ideology of pre-Christian Europe, but slowly discovering its current focus, methods, and raison d’être, which—I hope—are not only more intellectually defensible, but also more challenging, innovative, consequential, and lively. Collegial input was crucial to that metamorphosis at all stages, and there are many people to thank. Several colleagues invited me to present individual chapters at various stages of their development, and the critical feedback I received on these occasions helped me refine my thinking. Along these lines, I’m grateful to Anders Andrén, Tamara Chin, Magnus Fiskesjø, Joseph Harris, Anders Hultgård, Kristina Jennbert, John Lindow, Robin McNeal, Rory McTurk, Catarina Raudvere, Rick Rosengarten, and Terence Turner. Equal if more diffuse collegial gratitude is due to Clifford Ando, Maurizio Bettini, Claude Calame, Wendy Doniger, Chris Faraone, Carlo Ginzburg, Cristiano Grottanelli, Richard Leppert, Bernard McGinn, Michael Murrin, Martin Riesebrodt, Marshall Sahlins, Stefanie von Schnurbein, James C. Scott, Kathleen Self, Hugh Urban, Kevin Wanner, Morten Warmind, Christian Wedemeyer, and others with whom I’ve had the occasion to discuss some of the materials and issues treated in the preceding pages. Particular thanks are owed to Nicolas Meylan and Margaret Clunies Ross, who read and commented on an earlier draft of the full manuscript. Professor Ross gave particularly close attention to details and nuances of the Old Norse and pointed out many shortcomings of my earlier translations. I have benefited greatly from her criticisms and such errors as remain are in spite of her good efforts. I’m also grateful to the University of Chicago and to Dean Margaret Mitchell of its Divinity School for funds that helped support publication of this book. Deepest thanks, as ever, go to Louise Lincoln, for support and encouragement of more sorts than one can imagine or articulate.

An earlier version of chapter 8 was published as “Kings, Cowpies, and Creation: Intertextual Traffic between ‘History’ and ‘Myth’ in the Writings of Snorri Sturluson,” in Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes, and Interactions, ed. Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2006), 381–88.

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