Old Norse Mythology and Learned Medieval Speculation

Abstract This chapter argues that the myths survived the conversion to Christianity primarily because of two medieval intellectual theories, demonization (the gods had just been minions of Satan) and euhemerism (the gods had originally been actual human beings whom later generations had come to venerate, thus making them into historical figures acting in a “learned prehistory”). I trace the operation of these notions, especially the latter, in the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus and the Edda of Snorri Sturluson. In addition, I consider other factors that might have helped the myths to survive: their entertainment value; ties to artefacts and the physical landscape; their value as intellectual paradigms; and especially their value in enabling scholars and poets to understand the tropes of the older poetry.