‘Þú Eigir Illa Móður’: Of Cunning Kerlings and fjǫlkynngi—Disrupting Social Cohesion Through Magic

Old Norse magic has been the object of considerable and composite historiography, discussed in various contexts in premodern Scandinavian studies. The concept is still subject to discussion, as reflected by the different issues addressed in this volume. The term ‘magic’ itself is loaded with meanings and interpretations, and its Old Norse counterparts (fjǫlkynngi, trolldómr, seiðr…) do not make its definition easier. Since antiquity, magic has been regarded as an Othering discourse, an illicit and disruptive power knowledge that is intrinsically antisocial, and which, with the rise of Christianity, has also come to be correlated with demons and pagan worship (Flint 1991; Bailey 2006; Meylan 2014). The study of magic frequently intersects with gender studies, particularly in the Old Norse field, for the narrative sources explicitly gender the practice of magic, as illustrated by the famous excerpt from Ynglinga saga: ‘but this magic, when it is practiced, is accompanied by such great perversion that it was not considered without shame for a man to perform it, and the skill was taught to the goddesses’ (Finlay and Faulkes 2011).