The Cold Counsel

The Women in Old Norse Literature and Myth

Sarah M. Anderson, Karen Swenson, Sarah M. Anderson, Karen Swenson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781138991460
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134821457
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Feminist Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Cold Counsel is the only collection devoted to the place of women in Old Norse literature and culture. It draws upon the disciplines of history, sociology, feminism, ethnography and psychoanalysis in order to raise fresh questions about such new subjects as gender, class, sexuality, family structure and ideology in medieval Iceland.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: "og eru köld kvenna ráð"
• "En hon er blandin mjök": Women and Insults in Old Norse Literature
• Hildigunnr's Lament
• Women's Voices in Old Norse Literature: The Case of Trójumanna saga
• Taming the Shrew: The Rise of Patriarchy and the Subordination of the Feminine in Old Norse Literature
• The Re-emergence of Women's Voices in Icelandic Literature, 1500-1800
• Vikings Westward to Vínland: The Problem of Women
• "þegi þú, þórr!": Gender, Class, and Discourse in þrymskviða
• Fathers, Mothers, and Daughters: "Hver er að ráða?"
• A Good Day's Work: Laxdœla saga, ch. 49
• Women's Counsel in the Riddarasögur: The Case of Parcevals saga
• The Woman Who Knows: Female Characters of Eyrbyggja saga
• Male Bonding, Female Body: The Absenting of Woman in "Bisclaretz ljóð"
• Ambiguously Gendered: The Skalds Jórunn, Auðr and Steinunn
• Women Outside: Discourse of Community in Hávamál
• Saga World and Nineteenth-Century Iceland: The Case of Women Farmers
• The Contributors
• Index