Abstrakt
In my paper, I would present result of my research on the concept of body in Old Norse literature. As the term for body (líkamr) comes - as well as the term for immaterial soul (sál) - into the Old Norse with the Christian literature, I use as a marker radix ham- and analyse its occurrences.
Within the themes that have appeared in the Old Norse mythology (i.e. shape-shifting related to flying, battle frenzy and magic), occurrences can be ordered on an axis from those where the form (hamr) is considered to be holistic to those where just the form of body or soul is described. In the first part of this axis, the question of what will not change the god when he changes into an eagle, the question of identity, is an anachronistic one.
Therefore, I suggest an interpretation of the semantic field of radix ham- which combines its several disparate, according to dictionaries separate meanings and understand it as physical surface of living being, which is accompanied by inseparable qualities, as outer appearance that expresses or includes the inside. The fact that abstract ideas are depicted by means of concrete phenomena may indicate that the Old Norse culture did not use he transcendental dimension, and individual concrete phenomena included what would be described as a spiritual aspect in the Christian discourse.
The lecture was invited for the panel Old Norse Myth and Materiality