Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a lecturer in medieval literature at Durham University in the UK. Danielle Marie Cudmore is a lecturer at Halmstad University in Sweden. Stefan Donecker is a research fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

"[T]his book is not only diverse and engaging, it also sheds light on the normative role of ‘the north’ in time and space as well as within different cultural contexts.... I therefore applaud the editors for having compiled a captivating volume of northern research which I wholeheartedly recommend for scholars of Scandinavian and Arctic studies, literary studies or cultural studies in general." [Full review at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247417000341]

Nikolas Sellheim, Polar Record

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“This is a North populated by gods, witches, real and imagined invaders, allegorical figures, monsters from the margins of maps, spirits, demons, and trolls.... Sixteen scholars from twelve countries across Europe, North America, and Australia explore particular instances of the North’s symbolic geography.... Notes and bibliographies throughout, and a really excellent index at the end, round out a good scholarly work. It belongs on the shelf of polar collections … [and] collections on the history of Western science, literature, or religion.” [Full review at https://doi.org/10.1657/AAAR0049-4-book2]

Shelly Sommer, Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 49:4

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"[M]ost of the chapters take an anthropological or cultural studies approach, although many other disciplines are involved, including history, linguistics, literary studies, and folkloristics.... Supernatural North provides an accessible introduction to a vast subject by touching on such a variety of aspects related to the North and its hold on the Western imagination." Canadian Literature 233 (Summer 2017) [Full review at http://canlit.ca/article/imagining-the-land]

Marinette Grimbeek

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"Imagining the Supernatural North is a collection of sixteen essays written by scholars from various fields of study, who have investigated, from multiple perspectives, the theme of the North as part of the collective imagination throughout history, while focusing on the kindred connection between Northerness and the supernatural.... In summary, this brief overview of the wealth of information, expertise and thought-provoking suggestions contained in this book cannot do full justice to its alluring potential as a research instrument. While on the one hand the scientific approach and language make for a delightfully riveting read, on the other hand, the trans-historic perspective helps the reader identify a number of threads which crisscross the whole volume and which call for further investigation." Nordicum-Mediterraneum, Vol 14, No1, 2019 [Full review at https://bit.ly/2GPnfcR]

Sara Culeddu

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[T]his book is not only diverse and engaging, it also sheds light on the normative role of ‘the north’ in time and space as well as within different cultural contexts.... I therefore applaud the editors for having compiled a captivating volume of northern research which I wholeheartedly recommend for scholars of Scandinavian and Arctic studies, literary studies or cultural studies in general. And of course, I encourage also others to read this book..." Polar Research [Full review at doi:10.1017/S0032247417000341]

Nikolas Sellheim,

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"...a collection such as this presents an opportunity to begin to think more critically about how the North and the peoples who inhabit it, in particular Indigenous peoples, are represented in popular culture as products of a particular cultural imagination."

Kirsten Møllegaard, Folklore

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William Mills Prize, United States
Short-listed
2018

Introduction // Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, Danielle Marie Cudmore, and Stefan Donecker

PART I | ANCIENT ROOTS / The Menace and the Divine
1 In Jewish Lore, Not Only Evil Descends From the North // Ya’acov Sarig
2 The Realm of the North in Ancient Greek Proverbs // Maria Kasyanova
3 The Ancient Greek Myth of Hyperborea
Its Supernatural Aspects and Frameworks of Meaning // Athanasios Votsis

PART II | FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD / The Monstrous and the Demonic
4 Monstra septentrionalia
Supernatural Monsters of the Far North in Medieval Lore // Rudolf Simek
5 From Eiríkr the Red to Trolls in the Wilderness 77
The Development of Supernatural Greenland in the Old Norse Sagas // Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough
6 Winter’s Flesh
Septentrio and the Monstrous Female Body in Late Medieval
Medicine and Theology // Brenda S. Gardenour Walter
7 The Supernatural Image of Iceland in Johannes Kepler’s Somnium (1634) // Stefan Donecker

PART III | THE NINETEENTH CENTURY / The Scientific and the Spiritual
8 Imagining the Celtic North
Science and Romanticism on the Fringes of Britain // Angel Byrne
9 Mesmerism and Victorian Arctic Exploration // Shane McCorristine
10 Myths of Iceland and Mount Hekla and their Deconstruction
Ida Pfeiffer’s Journey to Iceland // Jennifer E. MichaelS
11 Moon Men and Inland Dwellers
The Dissemination of Greenlandic Legends and Myths in the Writings of
Hinrich Rink and Knud Rasmussen // Silvije Habulinec

PART IV | CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES / The Desire for a Supernatural North
12 A Distant Northern Land
Nabokov’s Zembla and Aesthetic Bliss // Brian Walter
13 The Idea of North
Intertextuality and Environmentalism in Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass // Danielle Marie Cudmore
14 The Elf in Self
The Influence of Northern Mythology and Fauna on Contemporary Spiritual Subcultures // Jay Johnston
15 A Blaze in the Northern Sky
Semiotic Strategies of Constructing the Supernatural North in Music Subcultures // Jan Leichsenring
16 Men, Women, and Shamans
Daily Ritual Practice in the Supernatural North // Erica Hill

Contributors 293
Index 299