{"id":297,"date":"2023-05-17T12:50:13","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T16:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/?page_id=297"},"modified":"2023-07-10T11:21:41","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T15:21:41","slug":"females-and-the-supernatural-the-second-lay-of-helgi-hundingsbane","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/female-narratives\/females-and-the-supernatural-the-second-lay-of-helgi-hundingsbane\/","title":{"rendered":"Females &amp; the Supernatural: The Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The association of Viking Age females with the undead, as evidenced by the account of Ibn Fadlan, also manifest within several other textual sources\u2014notably, the <em>V\u00f6lsungakvi\u00f0a in forna<\/em> or <em>Helgakvi\u00f0a Hundingsbana II<\/em> (<em>The Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane<\/em>). This Old Norse poem is contained within the <em>Poetic Edda<\/em>, a collection of anonymous Old Norse poems.<\/p>\n<p>Within the poem, the male character Helgi is killed by his brother Dagr. At the end of the poem, Helgi\u2019s wife, Sigrun, visits Helgi\u2019s body in a grave-mound:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\">Sigrun arranged a bed in the grave-mound.<br \/>\n\u201cHere in the barrow\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0we\u2019ll go to bed,<br \/>\nreleased from sorrow,\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0my royal lord.<br \/>\nI will sleep, Helgi,\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0safe in your arms<br \/>\nThe way I used to\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0when you were alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\">Helgi said:<br \/>\n\u201cNow I know\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0that nothing again<br \/>\nwill seem a wonder\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in Sefafells,<br \/>\nsince you can sleep\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in a dead man\u2019s arms,<br \/>\nwhite Sigrun, here\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in Helgi\u2019s grave,<br \/>\nand you aren\u2019t dead,\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0O king\u2019s daughter!\u201d (trans. Terry 1990)<\/p>\n<p>While obviously different from the account of Ibn Fadlan, this passage allows us to observe a female figure participating in mortuary theatre\u2014Sigrun engages in physical intimacy with the body of her dead husband, which in turn is situated in a funerary site. Therefore, we can see a supernatural understanding of the Viking Age female, who takes part in the practices associated with the dead.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/female-narratives\/females-and-the-supernatural-ibn-fadlan-and-the-rus\/\">\u00ab Previous<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/female-narratives\/\">Home<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/female-narratives\/females-and-the-supernatural-the-tale-of-thorstein-bulls-leg\/\">Next \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The association of Viking Age females with the undead, as evidenced by the account of Ibn Fadlan, also manifest within several other textual sources\u2014notably, the V\u00f6lsungakvi\u00f0a in forna or Helgakvi\u00f0a Hundingsbana II (The Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane). This Old Norse poem is contained within the Poetic Edda, a collection of anonymous Old Norse poems.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/female-narratives\/females-and-the-supernatural-the-second-lay-of-helgi-hundingsbane\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4492,"featured_media":0,"parent":268,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-nosidebar.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-297","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4492"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":586,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/297\/revisions\/586"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}