Visualising Mythologies in the Early Medieval North

Explore how myth was visualised, enacted and experienced through art, objects, texts, landscapes and ritual in the medieval North. An interdisciplinary conference exploring how myth was visualised, enacted and experienced across the early medieval North. Visualising Mythologies in the Early Medieval North is an interdisciplinary conference exploring how myth was made visible, imagined, enacted and experienced across the cultures of the medieval North.Continuing the tradition of the Aarhus Old Norse Mythology Conference series, the conference brings together scholars working on mythology, religion and cultural expression, with a particular emphasis on Old Norse traditions and their wider connections with the northern world. Across two days, papers will examine visual and material expressions of myth through objects, texts, manuscripts, landscapes, ritual and performance. Themes include mythological imagery and cosmologies; sacred and otherworldly landscapes; material and archaeological evidence; oral, textual and visual traditions; Norse–Celtic–Baltic cultural connections; and methodological approaches to interpreting myth in visual and material evidence. The conference welcomes interdisciplinary perspectives from archaeology, anthropology, comparative mythology, manuscript studies, literary analysis, folklore and the history of religions. The conference will take place at the University of Edinburgh on 9–10 December 2026 and is organised by the University of Edinburgh with the assistance of the Traditional Cosmology Society. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Important Registration Information – University of Edinburgh Students Admission is free for University of Edinburgh students. However, advance registration is still required to attend the event. Students must present a valid University of Edinburgh student ID upon arrival to confirm their eligibility for free admission. Registration closes at midnight on 6 November 2026. Students are also welcome to join delegates for dinner (10 December). Please note that dinner is not included in free admission and costs £65 per person. If you wish to attend the dinner, please select and purchase the Dinner Add-on when registering. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PROGRAMME Wednesday, December 9 9:00-9:25 Registration 9:25-9:30 Opening Address Session 1 9:30-10:00 On Visual Mythologies - Louise Milne 10:00-10:30 Framing Lost Contexts - Kees Samplonius 10:30-11:00 Coffee Session 2 11:00-11:30 Mjǫllnir Here, There, and Everywhere: Þórr’s Hammer, Popular Culture, and the Modern Afterlives of Symbols - Katie Beard 11:30-12:00 Bog Bodies: Rituals of Death and Afterlife - Alexandra Sanmark 12:00-14:00 Lunch Session 3 14:00-14:30 An Image of Freyja on the Sutton Hoo Sceptre? - Emily Lyle (online) 14:30-15.00 I’ve Seen this One, This is a Classic!’ (Marty McFly, 1955): Materiality and Parallels Between Scandinavian Myths and Legends - Jesse Barber 15:00-15:30 TBC - Alan Macniven 15:30-16:00 Coffee Session 4 16:00-16:30 When does a God not Look Like a God? Problematizing the Visualization of Deities Across Spheres of Old Norse Religion - Declan Taggart 16:30-17:00 Fetters of Guts – A License to Kill in Vǫluspá st. H30 - Henning Kure 17:00-17:30 Of Mounds and Pillars: Visualising Territorial Authority in Old Norse Literary and Archaeological Evidence - Verena Höfig Thursday, December 10 Session 5 9:00-9:30 The Sea has Slit the Bonds of my Kin: Vanishing Islands as an Ecology of Loss - Felix Lummer 9:30-10:00 Following the Buried River: Lybid Between Telling, Bronze and Water - Vincent Mundy 10:00-10:30 Sacred Landscapes and Religious Change at Borre - Vicky Katarina Mikalsen 10:30-11:00 Coffee Session 6 11:00-11:30 Bird’s Eye View on the Cosmological Role of ‘Creative Killing’ in Old Norse Mythology - Jan A. Kozák 11:30-12:00 Visualising Violence: Depictions of Battle and War in Insular and Old Norse Sources - Amina Otto 12:00-14:00 Lunch Session 7 14:00-14:30 A Visual Trick? Encrypted Paratexts in Eddic Manuscripts and their Reception - Lukas Rösli 14:30-15:00 Perspective in Visualisation - Ingunn Ásdísardóttir 15:00-15:30 Piercing the Portal: Reconceptualising Liminality in the Study of the Old Norse Imaginary - Cristina Ioana Ardelean 15:30-16:00 Coffee Session 8 16:00-16:30 Melatinskij’s Two-axis Cosmological Model and the Transcendence of Seiðr - Kendra Willson 16:30-17:00 From Totemic Ancestors to Mythical Heroes: Animal-Human Kinship and Metamorphosis in Old Norse Mythology - Gohar Gevorgyan 17:00-17:30 ‘Segðu mér þat, Alvíss’: Situated Knowledges and Cosmological Position in Alvíssmál - Anja F. Bjørlo 17:30-18:00 Völuspá: A Performative Study of Women’s Power - Clare Mulley