Details for Professor Kristina Jennbert's Munro Lecture. Animals in Old Norse Religion and in Scandinavian Iron Age Event details Date: Thursday 17 October 2013, 5.15pm - 6.15pm Venue: Meadows Lecture Theatre, Medical School, West Side, Teviot Place, Edinburgh EH8 9AG Find out more about the lecture venue Image Lecture abstract Animals are in many ways important to all of us. In Old Norse mythology, they appear to be powerful, cunning and necessary for the gods and giants. Animals illustrate the pre-Christian fauna, animal husbandry and breeding. It appears that, in the period of Christianisation, animals were both functional and symbolic, as today, but in a different way. The Scandinavian archaeological finds give a perspective and a pre-Christian background to the Old Norse mythology. In Scandinavian archaeological material records, animals of all kinds have been revealed; domestic, wild, exotic, and even imaginary. In Old Norse religion, animals represented prosperity, social identity, and status; they shared some human characteristics and became metaphors for people¹s world view, and ideas about the cosmos. Related links Professor Kristina Jennbert's academic profile This article was published on 2024-08-28
