Birds and Humans in the Old Norse World, c. 600-1500 AD

• Main Author: Haley-Halinski, Kathryn
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Cambridge 2022
• Subjects: Old Norse; Medieval; Human-Animal Studies; History; Literature; Birds; Viking; Norse; Interdisciplinary; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/336067; https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.83496

The central aim of this thesis is to explore the complexities of human-bird coexistence in Scandinavia and the Norse North Atlantic from 600-1500 AD, primarily focusing on the period c. 800-1400 within this time period. In particular, this thesis explores if and how literary representations of birds correlated in any way with zooarchaeological sources concerning human-bird interactions. To explore this central question, I employ an interdisciplinary methodology that combines literary analysis of textual sources with interpretation of archaeological reports that include bird bones. I also employ the theoretical lens of Human-Animal Studies, as it centres the lives of animals and the interactions of humans and animals, rather than considering animals a ‘blank canvas’ for human desires, needs, and meanings. There are three key sections of this thesis. The first section is in a chapter on folk taxonomies, which explores one possible methodology for studying how medieval Icelanders understood and categorised the entities they referred to as fugl (‘bird’). The second section is a series of case studies concerning humans’ coexistence with specific kinds of birds: domesticated birds, wild waterfowl and songbirds, hawks and falcons, eagles, ravens, and swans. These case studies analyse literary sources, documentary sources, and archaeological reports to build a multifaceted look at these birds and how they were understood, interacted with, and thought about. In many cases, the imaginative uses of these birds appear to have been at a remove from human-bird interactions, but in some cases there was a significant overlap. For instance, ravens appear to have been held in relatively low esteem despite their mythological and literary significance, whereas the literary uses and real-life treatment of hawks and falcons appear to have been more closely related. The final section consists of a chapter on human-bird transformation and communication in Old Norse literature. This chapter considers the wider questions regarding how ...