2020-21 Academic Catalog

What remains of the beliefs of the pre-Christian Norse and Celts represent some of the stranger and more obscure elements of Western tradition. Preserved thanks to the literacy which was brought by the new religion that extinguished it, the mythology of the Irish, Welsh, and Icelanders left a legacy that reveals itself in surprising places in our modern world. This course studies works such as the Prose and Poetic Eddas, The Mabinogi, and The Táin to explore myths as the products of environment and culture and examine the problems of transmission inherent to Christian descriptions of pagan belief.