Conference: "Landscape and Myth in North-Western Europe"

Institut für Nordische Philologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 6-8 April 2016

Rooms D116/RiWa and D118/RiWa, Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie, Richard-Wagner-Str. 10, München

Day 1

13.30 Matthias Egeler: Welcome address and introduction

14.00 Session 1: Dindshenchas
Grigory Bondarenko & Nina Zhivlova (Moscow): Codal and Ériu: Feeding the Land-Goddess
Marie-Luise Theuerkauf (Dublin): The Road Less Travelled: Cú Chulainn's Journey to Matrimony and the Dindṡenchas of Tochmarc Emire

15.00 Coffee

15.30 Session 2: Landscape, Myth and History
Jonas Wellendorf (Berkeley): Myth, Landscape and Legendary History
Reinhard Hennig (Mid Sweden University): Natural Resources, Sustainability and Environmental Change in Medieval Icelandic Literature
Natalia Petrovskaia (Marburg/Utrecht): Mapping Religion and History in Imago Mundi and Delw y Byd

17.00 Coffee

17.30 Keynote
Terry Gunnell (Reykjavík): Spaces, Places and Liminality: Marking Out and Meeting the Dead and the Supernatural in Old Nordic Landscapes

18.30 Drinks reception

Day 2

9.30 Session 1: Landscapes of Myth and Literature
Vittorio Mattioli (St Andrews): The Worlds of Grímnismál: Perceptions of Space in Mythological Landscapes
Lukas Rösli (Basel): The Myth of Útgarðr: A Toponym as a Basis for an Old Norse System of Values?
Nicolas Meylan (Lausanne): King Sverrir’s Mythic Landscape

11.00 Coffee

11.30 Session 2: Landscape Mythology and Landnámabók
Verena Höfig (Urbana-Champaign): The Legendary Topography of Ingólfr Arnarson’s ‘landnám’
Matthias Egeler (Munich): Death and Immortality by the Arctic Ocean

12.30 Lunch

14.30 Session 3: Beyond the North-Western Middle Ages
Jörg Füllgrabe (Frankfurt a.M.): The Localisation of ‘Dietrichs Ende’: A Geographical and Mythological Transfer from Late-Antique Italy to the Central-European and Northern Hemisphere
Anna-Konstanze Schröder (Bern): Dragør, Kullen, Skagen from the Sea: Scandinavian Landmarks as Holy Places and Ritual Cues for Mecklenburgian Sailors in the 19th Century
Jonathan Westaway (Preston): The Inuit ‘Discovery’ of Europe? Finnfolk, Preternatural Objects and the Abducted Autochthonous Body

16.00 Coffee

16.30 Keynote
Stefan Brink (Aberdeen): Toponyms, Landscape and Myth in Early Scandinavia

19.00 Conference dinner

Day 3

10.30 Session 1: Fiannaigheacht
Elizabeth FitzPatrick (Galway): Wilderness in the Mythical Tales and Real-World Landscapes of Finn mac Cumaill
Edyta Lehmann (Harvard): “If we settled in the forest…”: Irish Forest as a Place of Madness, Wisdom, Self-discovery and Healing
Tiziana Soverino (Dublin): “Here, Finn… Take this and give him a lick of it”: Two Place-lore Stories about Fionn Mac Cumhaill in Medieval Irish Literature and Modern Oral Tradition

12.00 Lunch

14.00 Session 2: Combining Oral and Other Traditions
Nela Scholma-Mason (York): A Norse View on Ancient Sites
Gregory R. Darwin (Harvard): The Mélusine Legend in Written and Oral Tradition

15.00 Coffee

15.30 Keynote
Gregory Toner (Belfast): Myth and the Creation of Landscape in Early Medieval Ireland

16.30 Closing discussion