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Old Norse Mythology in the Sources
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This Course Includes
coursera
4.7 (349 reviews )
6 hours 
english
Online - Self Paced
course
University of Colorado Boulder
About Old Norse Mythology in the Sources
This course is an introduction to the religion of the Vikings as it is recorded in Old Norse and Scandinavian literature from the medieval period. You will learn about the different written sources and what they can teach us about pre-Christian religion in northern Europe in the Viking Age. The course surveys the primary collection of Old Norse poetry about the pre-Christian Scandinavian gods, the Poetic Edda. We will also work with the main collections of stories about the Old Norse gods in prose: Snorri Sturluson's Edda and Saxo's History of the Danes.
What You Will Learn?
- Identify the differences in literary representation of Old Norse myths in medieval literature and the pre-Christian religionUnderstand the processes underlying the codification of Old Norse mythology, and how the literature was interpreted in ChristianityDescribe the key elements and features of Old Norse mythology and understand how Old Norse mythology came into existence as medieval literature.