Islands in the West: Classical Myth and the Medieval Norse and Irish Geographical Imagination (Medieval Voyaging) (Medieval Voyaging, 4)

This monograph traces the history of one of the most prominent types of geographical myths of the North-West Atlantic Ocean: transmarine otherworlds of blessedness and immortality. Taking the mythologization of the Viking Age discovery of North America in the earliest extant account of Vinland ('Wine-Land') and the Norse transmarine otherworlds of Hvitramannaland ('The Land of White Men') and the Odainsakr/Glaesisvellir ('Field of the Not-Dead'/'Shining Fields') as its starting point, the book explores the historical entanglements of these imaginative places in a wider European context. It follows how these Norse otherworld myths adopt, adapt, and transform concepts from early Irish vernacular tradition and Medieval Latin geographical literature, and pursues their connection to the geographical mythology of classical antiquity. In doing so, it shows how myths as far distant in time and space as Homer's Elysian Plain and the transmarine otherworlds of the Norse are connected by a continuous history of creative processes of adaptation and reinterpretation. Furthermore, viewing this material as a whole, the question arises as to whether the Norse mythologization of the North Atlantic might not only have accompanied the Norse westward expansion that led to the discovery of North America, but might even have been among the factors that induced it. This monograph traces the history of one of the most prominent types of geographical myths of the North-West Atlantic Ocean: transmarine otherworlds of blessedness and immortality. Taking the mythologization of the Viking Age discovery of North America in the earliest extant account of 'Vínland' ('Wine-Land') and the Norse transmarine otherworlds of 'Hvítramannaland' ('The Land of White Men') and the 'Ódáinsakr/Glæsisvellir' ('Field of the Not-Dead'/'Shining Fields') as its starting point, the book explores the historical entanglements of these imaginative places in a wider European context. It follows how these Norse otherworld myths adopt, adapt, and transform concepts from early Irish vernacular tradition and Medieval Latin geographical literature, and pursues their connection to the geographical mythology of classical antiquity. In doing so, it shows how myths as far distant in time and space as Homer's Elysian Plain and the transmarine otherworlds of the Norse are connected by a continuous history of creative processes of adaptation and reinterpretation. Furthermore, viewing this material as a whole, the question arises as to whether the Norse mythologization of the North Atlantic might not only have accompanied the Norse westward expansion that led to the discovery of North America, but might even have been among the factors that induced it List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgements xi Introduction 1 A View to the West 1 Historiographical Context 4 A Word on Methodology and Terminology 10 Summary of Research Objectives and Structure of the Enquiry 21 Chapter 1. North-Western Europe: Scandinavia, Ireland, and the Land of the Living 25 Irish Beginnings 25 Scandinavian Transformations 64 Chapter 2. The Classical Mediterranean: Rome, Greece, and the Islands of the Blessed 107 Greek Beginnings 108 First Transformations in the West: The Paradisiacal Otherworld Island in Etruria 165 Second Transformations in the West: The Paradisiacal Otherworld Island in Rome 191 Chapter 3. Eastern Roots? 209 Egypt via Crete 209 The Garden of Eden 218 Mesopotamia 222 Chapter 4. Continuity, Interaction — and Westward Expansion? 235 By Way of a Summary: Continuity Orient–Scandinavia? 235 Typology and Mechanisms of Regional Interaction 265 Types of Religious Contact Exemplified by the 'Islands in the West 268 Mechanisms of Religious Contact Exemplified by the 'Islands in the West' 279 Paradise on Earth, Resonance, and the Norse in the Farthest West 287 Appendix. Beyond History 295 Bibliography 313 Index 349