The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

by Neil Price

Thus, in an episode from the Saga of Hrólf kraki when sorcery was unleashed, we read how “the air and the paths were alive with magic”—it captures the weird power of the Old Norse, the crackling tension of the Other World at its intersection with our own. None of this is direct reportage or anything like it, of course, but it is striking how the literary world of Scandinavian magic is decidedly not a replica of medieval European witchcraft as it was perceived at the time of the saga-writers. In fact, the material culture depicted in the sagas is generally consistent with the Viking-Age world they describe, not the medieval one of their scribal production, arguing strongly for at least a basis in historical circumstances and oral memory.