Grappling with the sagas: Embodied knowledge and reconstructing a historical martial art

• Main Author: Stetkevych, Qays
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: GT Manners and customs; H Social Sciences (General); HM Sociology; Iceland
• Online Access: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/148645/; https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/148645/1/2022qcstetkevychphd.pdf; https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/148645/2/qcstetkevych.pdf

This thesis aims to show the extent to which the accurate identification and reconstruction of historical martial techniques is possible through the analysis of historical written texts. In doing so I will trace from its origins the process of achieving adequate embodied knowledge, from the acquiring of one’s habitus to the various foundational factors that interact with one another in order to facilitate the creation of specific, accessible embodied knowledge. I further argue that an interdisciplinary expertise is needed to confidently identify such historical martial techniques: in order to maximize one’s insights and the credibility of one’s analysis one must have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the social, cultural, linguistic, and literary foundations within which the texts were written as well as an embodied, corporeal knowledge of the martial art or practice in question. I use as a case study for this research the sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur) and legendary sagas (fornaldarsögur): two of the most celebrated genres of medieval Scandinavian literature. In conjunction with the sagas’ particular historicity regarding the social norms and pastimes of medieval Iceland I argue that wrestling, in its broadest sense, is a primordial mode of combat that is universally found throughout human history and civilization. Due to wrestling’s ubiquitous and primordial nature, I argue that a modern scholar and grappler, with sufficient expertise in regard to both the literary/cultural aspects of the sagas as well as embodied knowledge in grappling, can accurately identify and recreate the wrestling techniques found in these and perhaps other historical texts. In evidencing my argument I critique contemporary claims about the wrestling style(s) found within the sagas and also argue that the frequent lack of relevant embodied knowledge in academia should be addressed as it manifests itself in poor or inaccurate translations of embodied techniques (such as grappling manoeuvres) found within historical texts ...