Christian Carlsen: Visions of the Afterlife in Old Norse Literature

Abstract

In a much-anthologized story from Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, a pagan counselor of King Edwin compares earthly life to a sparrow flying through the hall, illuminated "for the briefest of moments" by the comfortable fires burning within, passing "out of the stormy winter and into it again". If Christianity, he concludes, "brings us more certain information", it is appropriate and right to accept it (II.13). A clearer conception of where one goes after death is posited as the single most significant attraction of the new Christian faith. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that the core element of lay belief in Norway and Iceland, according to Nedkvitne, was "doctrines about eternal life and salvation" (p. 310). In this book, Carlsen takes a look at some of the narratives generated by these core Christian beliefs: visions of the afterlife in Old Norse literature.