essay
The name of the witch: sagas, sorcery and social content
Social approaches to Viking studies • Glasgow • Published In 1991 • Pages: 157-168
By: Gísli Pálsson.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
The Family Sagas provide numerous accounts of sorcery and withcraft, while such accounts are remarkably absent in the later Sturlunga Sagas. This suggests that accusations of withcraft were important during the earlier years of the Commonwealth Period but not during the age of the Sturlungs. This article places witchcraft accusations in the social context of the former period, using 'Eyrbyggja saga' in particular as a case study, and suggests an explanation for their absence during the second period in terms of changes in social and political organization (p. 158).
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Verbal arts
- Ingroup antagonisms
- Districts
- Sorcery
- Revelation and divination
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Early Icelanders
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2004
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Europe
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Scandinavia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Social Anthropologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- John Beierle ; 2002
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- no date
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- ninth-thirteenth centuries
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- general Iceland
- NotesAdditional notes
- Gísli Pálsson
- For bibliographical references see document 5: [Sampson]
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- gb 91006825
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Icelanders