The Elephants are Coming! Zoology in Medieval Natural History, Didactics and Old Norse Fiction.
Florian Schreck (UiB) examines medieval zoology and the role of animal lore in the Old Icelandic romances.
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The Elephants are Coming! Zoology in Medieval Natural History, Didactics and Old Norse Fiction.
Florian Schreck, University of Bergen
This paper examines the medieval lore about animals with focus on Old Norse literature and its Latin sources. After a short overview of the different traditions surrounding animals from bestiaries - didactic texts that use animal allegory to illustrate Christian teachings and exegesis - to zoology in medieval natural history, here chiefly encyclopaedias, the lecture will turn towards the Old Icelandic romances. Many sagas of this genre tell of long travels to places like Arabia or India during which the protagonist often encounters numerous and exotic animals - frequently with extensive details given about the specifics of these animals, loaned from learned and scientific sources. While several examples will be discussed during the lecture, special consideration will be given to the elephant as a prominent specimen.
The paper argues that the Old Icelandic romances functioned as vehicles for knowledge transfer and instructed their audience about zoological knowledge, while at the same offering a space to speculate about this knowledge in a fictional setting, allowing both the writers and the audience to indulgence in thought experiments.
Welcome! The Research Group for Medieval Philology at UoB invites everyone interested. The lecture will be held in Norwegian.