Visualising Mythologies in the Early Medieval North

Explore how myth was visualised, enacted and experienced through art, objects, texts, landscapes and ritual in the medieval North.
About this Event

An interdisciplinary conference exploring how myth was visualised, enacted and experienced across the early medieval North.

Visualising Mythologies in the Early Medieval North is an interdisciplinary conference exploring how myth was made visible, imagined, enacted and experienced across the cultures of the medieval North.Continuing the tradition of the Aarhus Old Norse Mythology Conference series, the conference brings together scholars working on mythology, religion and cultural expression, with a particular emphasis on Old Norse traditions and their wider connections with the northern world.

Across two days, papers will examine visual and material expressions of myth through objects, texts, manuscripts, landscapes, ritual and performance. Themes include mythological imagery and cosmologies; sacred and otherworldly landscapes; material and archaeological evidence; oral, textual and visual traditions; Norse–Celtic–Baltic cultural connections; and methodological approaches to interpreting myth in visual and material evidence.

The conference welcomes interdisciplinary perspectives from archaeology, anthropology, comparative mythology, manuscript studies, literary analysis, folklore and the history of religions.

The conference will take place at the University of Edinburgh on 9–10 December 2026 and is organised by the University of Edinburgh with the assistance of the Traditional Cosmology Society.

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Important Registration Information – University of Edinburgh Students

Admission is free for University of Edinburgh students. However, advance registration is still required to attend the event. Students must present a valid University of Edinburgh student ID upon arrival to confirm their eligibility for free admission.

Registration closes at midnight on 6 November 2026.

Students are also welcome to join delegates for dinner (10 December). Please note that dinner is not included in free admission and costs £65 per person. If you wish to attend the dinner, please select and purchase the Dinner Add-on when registering.

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PROGRAMME

Wednesday, December 9

9:00-9:25 Registration

9:25-9:30 Opening Address

Session 1

9:30-10:00 On Visual Mythologies - Louise Milne

10:00-10:30 Framing Lost Contexts - Kees Samplonius

10:30-11:00 Coffee

Session 2

11:00-11:30 Mjǫllnir Here, There, and Everywhere: Þórr’s Hammer, Popular Culture, and the Modern Afterlives of Symbols - Katie Beard

11:30-12:00 Bog Bodies: Rituals of Death and Afterlife - Alexandra Sanmark

12:00-14:00 Lunch

Session 3

14:00-14:30 An Image of Freyja on the Sutton Hoo Sceptre? - Emily Lyle (online)

14:30-15.00 I’ve Seen this One, This is a Classic!’ (Marty McFly, 1955): Materiality and Parallels Between Scandinavian Myths and Legends - Jesse Barber

15:00-15:30 TBC - Alan Macniven

15:30-16:00 Coffee

Session 4

16:00-16:30 When does a God not Look Like a God? Problematizing the Visualization of Deities Across Spheres of Old Norse Religion - Declan Taggart

16:30-17:00 Fetters of Guts – A License to K*ll in Vǫluspá st. H30 - Henning Kure

17:00-17:30 Of Mounds and Pillars: Visualising Territorial Authority in Old Norse Literary and Archaeological Evidence - Verena Höfig

Thursday, December 10

Session 5

9:00-9:30 The Sea has Slit the Bonds of my Kin: Vanishing Islands as an Ecology of Loss - Felix Lummer

9:30-10:00 Following the Buried River: Lybid Between Telling, Bronze and Water - Vincent Mundy

10:00-10:30 Sacred Landscapes and Religious Change at Borre - Vicky Katarina Mikalsen

10:30-11:00 Coffee

Session 6

11:00-11:30 Bird’s Eye View on the Cosmological Role of ‘Creative Killing’ in Old Norse Mythology - Jan A. Kozák

11:30-12:00 Visualising Violence: Depictions of Battle and War in Insular and Old Norse Sources - Amina Otto

12:00-14:00 Lunch

Session 7

14:00-14:30 A Visual Trick? Encrypted Paratexts in Eddic Manuscripts and their Reception - Lukas Rösli

14:30-15:00 Perspective in Visualisation - Ingunn Ásdísardóttir

15:00-15:30 Piercing the Portal: Reconceptualising Liminality in the Study of the Old Norse Imaginary - Cristina Ioana Ardelean

15:30-16:00 Coffee

Session 8

16:00-16:30 Melatinskij’s Two-axis Cosmological Model and the Transcendence of Seiðr - Kendra Willson

16:30-17:00 From Totemic Ancestors to Mythical Heroes: Animal-Human Kinship and Metamorphosis in Old Norse Mythology - Gohar Gevorgyan

17:00-17:30 ‘Segðu mér þat, Alvíss’: Situated Knowledges and Cosmological Position in Alvíssmál - Anja F. Bjørlo

17:30-18:00 Völuspá: A Performative Study of Women’s Power - Clare Mulley