1.  April 7, 2009 agenda

2. Order of events  Small group work on final paper  Marvelous oral report  Glances: Vikings video and DVD sections  Common themes: Gwyn Jones  Thorstein, Saga-techniques and narratology; Roland and group analysis  Quiz

3. Gwyn Jones (1972) Kings Beasts & Heroes  Looks at 3 works: Beowulf, Culhwch and Olwen, and Hrolfssaga  Composed between 8 th and 11 th century, set in the 6 th century, and all concerning Denmark, Geatland Norway, Sweden, and Britain (the Welsh tale)  All associated with heroic legend – a hero tale “accredited to a known and named hero belonging in the early traditions of a tribe, people, country or race” as opposed to a wondertale/folktale

4. Jones on Beowulf as heroic poem  “a non-divine hero of wondertale descent associated closely, constantly, and prolongedly with the antecedents of northern tribal history …fight[s] to the death a destructive but conventional and nonapocalyptic foe”

5. Textual metamorphosis  “one kind of tale and telling can become something else: wondertale becoming heroic legend, heroic legend entering the realm of legendary history, and the attachment of floating story-material to a named hero in a known geographical setting….by such process the wondertale as it were, grows up, acquires morality and a social purpose”

6. Different shades of ‘historical’  Reality – and then there is  Historical tradition  Legendary history (associates legendary event with name discoverable in historical tradition)  Heroic legend  International popular tale  wondertale

7. Hunters with beasts  Mighty themes: perfect for epics, heroic legends, historical traditions  Hunting the bear  The whale  The boar  The lion

8. Categories of sagas  Historical sagas: Kings’ lives; Bishops’ sagas  Sagas of Icelanders: Sturlunga saga  Sagas of Olden Times: Volsungasaga and knightly romances  Thorstein….

9. Thorstein  3 good questions in the Norton Intro, p 1777  What purposes are served by the dialogue?  What is Thorarin’s motive for each of his acts?  How are the two women used as characters?

10. The Song of Roland  778 ADThe Song of Roland is an anonymous French epic concerning a legendary battle which took place in the valley of Roncesvaux in the Pyrenees in 778 AD and written down much later  1066 ADAt Hastings, in 1066, Taillefer the Jongleur is said to have gone before the army, flinging his sword in the air and singing stirring stanzas from the Song of Roland …This is recorded by several medieval writers

11. Working with Roland  Cultural implications of the period  Notice, p 1705 Norton, how the editors justify their claim that Roland is based on oral tradition  Stanzas for small groups: 87, 92; 128-31; 146-51; 173-6; 276-280

12. Useful links  http://www.oe.eclipse.co.uk/nom/sagas.htm http://www.oe.eclipse.co.uk/nom/sagas.htm  Good intro only http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/index2.html http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/index2.html  http://www.sjolander.com/viking/museum/bt/bt.ht m http://www.sjolander.com/viking/museum/bt/bt.ht m  http://www.geocities.com/profviano/medieval/4rol and.html http://www.geocities.com/profviano/medieval/4rol and.html