In the Labyrinth

Icleandanic Sagas, The Role of the Dead and the Life of the Landscape

Periodically, I love looking back at many of the articles I have posted on this blog. I am delighted to find this excellent article by Kirsi Kenerva on the fantastic in Iceland again. The video is pretty amazing. 

 

Here are two fascinating and remarkable takes on the traditions of the Icelandic Sagas. The first is a short documentary film created by (then graduate student, now a professor) Emily Lethbridge at Cambridge University, revealing the relationship between the landscape, as the context and texture of the Íslendingasögur, the sagas of Iceland. It's a beautiful and chilly film, but it demonstrates how people living in those locations of the tales," still talk about the events as if they occurred yesterday. And those stunning, stark views of the land -- just remarkable. 

 

 

 

 And for another take on the Medieval sagas, here is a terrific paper I came across that I enjoyed reading: The Role of the Dead in Medieval Iceland: A Case Study of the Erybyggja Saga, by Kirsi Kenerva. It's an exciting study on the presence of the undead who appear with the seeming purpose of committing violence against the living-- but whose acts function to uncover social wrongs in the community that must be corrected. The restless dead take various shapes, including a creepy disembodied seal head that rises from the floorboards and devours the cache of dried fish in the storeroom. The hero is at the center of the social upset -- a bastard son with no father -- he can only move through a rite of passage to adulthood, f he can confront the dead and use the law ( and what a strange trial it is) to address the grievances. I was unaware of the connections between the Icelanders and the Irish -- who also figure in this tale—a reminder to me of all the traveling between these sea-going people -- bound together by the Vikings. 

Here's the abstract: 

"The article concerns the ghost story of the Eyrbyggja saga, the so-called ‘wonders of Fróðá’ (Fróðárundr), and examines the symbolic meanings of this episode as they were interpreted in medieval Iceland. The analysis presupposes that, although the restless dead could be understood as ‘real’ by medieval readers and as part of their social reality, the heterogenic nature of the audience and the learning of the writers of the sagas made various possible interpretations of the ghost scene, both literal and symbolic. It is argued that the living dead in the Eyrbyggja saga act as agents of the order whose restlessness is connected to past deeds of those still living that have caused social disequilibrium. In Fróðárundr, these actions involve expressions of disapproved sexuality and offspring birth with indeterminate social status. For the ghost-banisher, the hauntings represent an opportunity to improve his indeterminate status."

 

 

 

Fighting Woman News:

Still one of my favorite images. I'm working on getting all healed up -- just so I can eventually go back to being a fighting woman! In the meantime, I am hoping to embroider this image on the back of a jacket. Maybe over this next year I will create a series of them and have an entire wardrobe of fighting women. Awesome. 

 

How They Drank in the 40s

 

 

 

Here's another one of those mysterious family photographs -- this one of my maternal grandmother (the one in the back-left squinting from the smoke of her cigarette) sitting at a small table in an even smaller kitchen with a group of really elegant women friends and a whole lot of bottles of Cutty Sark and Rexnord. It is impossible to tell what time of day it is -- but I always imagined for some perverse reason that it is in the afternoon -- and the shade is down to keep out the bright California sun. And then there are the vegetables incongruously sitting on the edge of the table -- as though someone any moment might actually get up and make dinner?

There is a long story behind the photograph -- my grandmother Jeanette Westegaard worked in Hollywood as a script writer. The other women all worked in costuming and especially elegant hats. They were good friends -- even at a time when segregation might have made it difficult for them to gather.  

And of course, I wonder about the woman who took the picture -- and the fact that none of her friends are looking at her, or posing for it. One of the group just stood up (and where has she been sitting? on a counter? there's no extra chair) and snapped it.

And what happened immediately after the photo was taken? Did they all look up from their intense conversations, put down their cigarettes and glasses, and laugh at being caught unawares by the camera?

Today Be Like....

I have always loved this weird and wonderful piece of medieval marginal art. She is cranky, aggressive, and ready to pull out hearts and saw off legs. I know I shouldn't like her so much, but on frustrating days (like paying the taxes), I feel a kindred spirit of Don't mess with me if you know what's good for you. I want to embroider her on the back of a jacket. 

 

Emile as a Young Sailor

 

I am a bit late in posting this, but I want to acknowledge my father's participation in WWII, which was considerable.

My Jewish father was 16 when he fled Nazi-Occupied France and arrived in the US. At 17, he enlisted in the Navy and served in almost every major Naval battlefield, including Normandy, where he fought to liberate France. His last engagement was in Okinawa, where a Kamikaze jet fighter bombed the destroyer and cast him and others into the sea. He floated, holding onto debris for close to 24 hours before being rescued. Like many men of WWII, he was modest and quiet about his service. He lost good friends and brought home to their families the last papers and items from their lives at sea.

 

 

 Much later, my son enlisted just after 9/11 and, much like his grandfather above, became a soldier, fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other dangerous places. He served for fifteen years until finally, he put down the sword and came home to a wife and new baby. The fox in his arms was a gift from a local man. And though my son accepted the gift (for not to do so would have insulted the man), he released the fox back into the wild, just beyond the wire where his anxious mother was calling for him.