Search results for "VDP::Humanities: 000::Archeology: 090::Nordic archeology: 091"

The thistle-mistle formula in the Viking Age and Nordic Middle Ages – Form, function, and symbolic value

2021

The paper aims to shed new light on the thistle-mistle formula in the famous Bósa saga and in a series of younger runic inscriptions, including some hitherto unpublished runic scribbles on a churchwall in Denmark. The author explores different graphological representations and disgui¬sed variants of this runic formula to get to grips with its positive and/or negative content. Thus, the thistle-mistle formula in the Nordic Viking Age and Middle Ages is identified as a clear-cut case of the written, visual formula which may be deliberately disguised for magical reasons. Based on Harris (1975) and Mitchell (1998), the author argues that this is a prototypical fertility formula which can be cha…