Abstract
This paper seeks evidence among our extensive Scandinavian mythological texts for an area which they seldom discuss explicitly: the conceptualisation and handling of illness and healing. Its core evidence is two runic texts (the Canterbury Rune-Charm and the Sigtuna Amulet) which conceptualise illness as a "purs" ("ogre, monster"). The article discusses the semantics of "purs," arguing that illness and supernatural beings could be conceptualised as identical in medieval Scandinavia. This provides a basis for arguing that myths in which gods and heroes fight monsters provided a paradigm for the struggle with illness.
Highlights
Healing does not feature prominently in those medieval texts canonically associated with what has traditionally been termed ‘Old Norse mythology’
Healing powers find mention,[2] medical texts themselves are little attested in our medieval Scandinavian manuscript record, while illness and healing are not presented as central themes of medieval Scandinavians’ mythical understanding of the world
We need not doubt that the differences in emphasis between traditional Scandinavian mythological texts
Summary
Healing does not feature prominently in those medieval texts canonically associated with what has traditionally been termed ‘Old Norse mythology’. Each text is a medicinal charm intended to counteract illness, and directed at beings called þursar (singular þurs) In themselves, these texts are well-known, but I suggest that the attitudes to illness which they imply are more deeply connected to the wider world-views attested in medieval Scandinavian mythological texts than has been realised. I argue that þurs can be understood at some level to denote a kind of monster (as has traditionally been recognised) and, at one and the same time, an illness This opens up a reading of our evidence in which healing and illness was understood as a transformation of one of the fundamental themes of medieval Scandinavian mythologies: the cosmic struggle of the human in-group and its gods against the barbarians and monsters which threaten the fabric of society. In keeping with the spirit of the present collection, this text provides a modern anthropological parallel to the medieval material which helps to illustrate the kinds of networks between moral transgression and health which beliefs in þursar might have promoted
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