Summary The term 'sacred' is often used in relation to the pre-Christian religions of Iron Age and medieval Scandinavia. But what did sacred really mean? What made something sacred for people? Why was one particular person, place, act, or text perceived to hold a sacral quality, while others remained profane? And what impact did such sacrality have on wider society, culture, politics, and economics, both for contemporaries and for future generations? This volume seeks to engage with such questions by drawing together essays from many of the pre-eminent scholars of Old Norse in order to reinterpret the concept of the sacred in the Viking Age North and to challenge pre-existing frameworks for understanding the sacred in this space and time. Including essays from Margaret Clunies Ross, Stephen Mitchell, John Lindow, and Judy Quinn, it is a treasury of commentary and information that ranges widely across theories and sources of evidence to present significant primary research and reconsiderations of existing scholarship. This edited collection is dedicated to Stefan Brink, an outstanding figure in the study of early Scandinavian language, society, and culture, and it takes as its inspiration the diversity, interdisciplinarity and vitality of his own research in order to make a major new contribution to the field of Old Norse studies. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction - OLOF SUNDQVIST, DECLAN TAGGART, AND IRENE GARC A LOSQUI O Part I: Understanding Sacredness What Does heilagr Mean in Old Norse? - MARGARET CLUNIES ROSS Landscape - Sacred and Profane - JENS PETER SCHJ DT Sacred and Profane, Visual and Lived-in: A Note on some Creative Tensions in the Landscape - MATS WIDGREN Part II: Sacredness and Space Ritual Places, Sacral Place-names, and Wetlands: Some Spatial and Archaeological Contexts from the Baltic Island of land - JAN-HENRIK FALLGREN Ritual Space and Territorial Boundaries in Scandinavia - TORUN ZACHRISSON Karlevi: A Viking Age Harbour on land - PER VIKSTRAND Stafgar ar Revisited - ANDERS ANDR N Sacredness Lost: On the Variable Status of Churches in the Middle Ages - BERTIL NILSSON Part III: The Sacred and the Text Tradition and Ideology in Eddic Poetry - JOHN MCKINNELL Sacred Hero, Holy Places: The Eddic Helgi-Tradition - CAROLYNE LARRINGTON Fifth-Column Mother: T r's Parentage according to Hymiskvi a - JUDY QUINN Part IV: Sacredness Across Contexts From Legend to Myth? - JOHN LINDOW The Landscape of Thor Worship in Sweden - TARRIN WILLS Conversion, Popular Religion, and Syncretism: Some Reflections -ANNE-SOFIE GR SLUND Swine, Swedes, and Fertility Gods - BO GR SLUND The Goddesses in the Dark Waters - TERRY GUNNELL Part V: Afterlives of Sacredness Valh?ll and the Swedish 'Valhall' Mountains of the Dead - ANDREAS NORDBERG Place-names, Periphrasis, and Popular Tradition: Odinic Toponyms on Sams - STEPHEN A. MITCHELL Sacred Sites and Central Places: Experiences of Multidisciplinary Research Projects - CHARLOTTE FABECH AND ULF N SMAN A Bibliography of Stefan Brink's Publications, Compiled with Assistance from Per Vikstrand