SOURCE: Linke, Uli. “The Theft of Blood, the Birth of Men: Cultural Constructions of Gender in Medieval Iceland.” In From Sagas to Society: Comparative Approaches to Early Iceland, edited by Gísli Pálsson, pp. 265-88. Enfield Lock, Middlesex, Eng.: Hisarlik Press, 1992.

[In the following essay, Linke studies the symbolic representation of female procreative power—and an instance of male appropriation of that power—in the Elder Edda.]

The present work is an excursion into the history of ideas, and not an exploration of customs or social forms. In this essay I examine cultural conceptions of gender in Icelandic mythology, as represented in the Edda (F. Jónsson 1900).¹ Building on previous investigations (Linke 1986, 1989, 1992), I will explore medieval notions of manhood or maleness in relation to femaleness with particular emphasis on the underlying ideologies of reproduction. I attempt to show how Icelandic models of social order are embedded in mythological images of sex, birth, and creation. More specifically, we will see that competing concepts of creative power (equated with chaos and order, good and evil) are expressed through mythic representations of female eroticism or motherhood and the antithetical images of male androgyny and male creativity. The underlying (symbolic) concerns of the Icelandic material are masked by numerous cosmic stories about the origin of the world: the interplay of fire and ice, a primeval river of venom, the filling up of the cosmic void, the birth of a giant, the creation and death of his offspring, the emergence of a milk-giving cow, the victory of gods over giants and dwarves, and their creative deeds. While these plots and motifs seem rather commonplace, one can discern the latent content of each myth through an interpretation of narrative detail. In other words, the elemental components of creation (fire, water/ice, venom/salt, saliva/blood) and the actions of mythical beings (killing, stealing, copulating, eating, giving birth, nurturing) provide an arena in which certain social themes are dramatized: incest, murder, procreation and male sexual domination.

In the mythological narratives, these themes and plots are never sharply delineated. They tend to blend one into another, flowing together and diverging, changing from one shape or motif into another. This transformation of symbolic images probably reflects the construction of a systematized body of folklore from the fragments and snippets of a medieval oral tradition: the myth-makers and poets, like bricoleurs, pieced their cosmologies together with the cultural scraps that were at hand (e.g., Lévi-Strauss 1966:16-22). The separate, yet interwoven themes and images thus correspond to different versions of the myth that were combined into a single text (cf. Odner, this volume).

Icelandic myths about pagan gods and cosmic creation have survived only in the form of medieval Icelandic documents, which were not transcribed until the thirteenth century, several hundred years after the conversion to Christianity had already begun (Lindow 1985:21-22). The resulting uncertainties about chronology and authenticity may have left anthropologists reluctant to explore the cultural and symbolic dimensions of the medieval texts. Although there is little likelihood that a prototypical myth was ever told in the form it appears in the Old Norse texts, the recurrent elements of Icelandic creation mythology may nevertheless shed light on early historic assumptions about sexuality and procreation. Our problem is essentially one of correct decoding, of how to read the narrative representations of gender (e.g. Moore 1988). As we shall see, the ideologies and attitudes that govern the social aspects of the reproduction of life are embedded in images of procreative bodies: the differences of form, substance, and bodily function that arise in the process of reproduction supply a steady stream of myth material that ‘acts as a language’ and from which are fashioned the messages and explanations for the social inequalities between men and women (Godelier 1986:xi-xii).

NARRATIVE IMAGES AND EVENTS

While Icelandic creation myths often seem inconsistent and contain many contradictions, they are founded on one essential paradigm: the world emerged from a primeval chaos, a state of disorder, in which basic physical distinctions were yet unmade.² Composed of formless matter and infinite space, chaos preceded all differentiation. A poetic rendition of such a cosmogonic conception of the early universe is preserved in the texts of the Völuspá (st. 3): “In the olden times / did Ýmir live: there was no sand / nor ice-cold waves, neither earth was there / nor sky above, but a yawning void / and green things nowhere.” The mythological poem makes comprehensible the primordial chaos by describing that which has not yet been created: ‘water’, the ‘ocean shore’, ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’. While the poem negates the presence of space and matter, it affirms the existence of other elements. During the early state of chaos, there existed a ‘void’ and a primordial being ‘Ymir’.

In a more extensive prose account of the world's origin, chaos is described in slightly different terms (Gylfaginning, ch. 4). Although conceived as some sort of void, the narrative text reveals that chaos was not equated with an empty abyss, composed of ‘dead’ matter. In the myth, it emerges as a primeval gap in space, which was infused with magical potential and power (Vries 1930/1931:65-66; Schier 1963: 309-310). Furthermore, the text suggests that the outer limits of chaos were defined by a number of mythological worlds. In the southern region surfaced Múspell, a land defined as ‘light’ and ‘hot’, ‘glowing’ and ‘burning’, which was protected against foreign intruders by Surtr with his ‘flaming sword’. In the northern part emerged Niflheimr, a dark sphere filled with ‘ice’ and ‘frost’. Midmost within this cold world lay a well or fountain named Hvergelmir (‘roaring cauldron’), from which eleven rivers poured forth. These together were called Élivogar or ‘ice-waves’.

The basic elements of fire, water and ice assume procreative connotations in the subsequent account of creation, for it is their interaction which produces the first living creature. Following the mythological narratives, the fluids of the primordial rivers solidified under the influence of the northern cold, turning into ice and rime. Upon contact with the heat and sparks from the southern part of chaos, the ice began to melt and produced the giant Ýmir. The force of fire acts as a male generative agent in this creative process, anthropomorphized by Surtr with his blazing sword (Schröder 1931:3-5; Schröder 1960:222, 235): it is, as the text implies, the sign of a war god. This image of Surtr as an aggressive god of fire and solar deity is made explicit in the poetic text of the myth (Völuspá, st. 52): “Surtr fares from the south / with switch-eating flame. On his sword shines / the sun of the war-gods”. Such a depiction of ‘fire’ as a masculine and warlike figure consists of a thematic representation of an ancient motif from European solar mythology (e.g. Jones 1971:285; Eliade 1976:95). In the context of the Icelandic myth material, the imagery of ‘fire’ may be interpreted as a representation of the creative potential of a primordial male consort. In contrast to the masculine force of ‘fire’, the elements of ‘water’ and ‘ice’ have been interpreted consistently as metaphors for female reproductive power (Schröder 1931:3-5; 1960:222, 235). Even outside the Northern European culture area, mythological fluids and primal liquids, either molten or frozen, tend to become regarded as female in contrast with mineral or organic solids (rock or bone), which are usually male (e.g. Baumann 1986:310-311; LaBarre 1984; O'Flaherty 1980:33). It would thus seem plausible that water and ice, like the element of fire, assumed a fundamentally creative role in the genesis of the cosmos. The myth does in fact attribute the initial creation of organic life to the common interaction of these basic elements: according to the narrative, the generative process had its origin in the union of ‘fire’ and ‘ice’. The mythological text describes the creative process in the following way (Gylfaginning, ch. 5):

The streams called ‘ice-waves’, which come from the fountain-heads, were so long that the yeasty venom upon them had hardened like the slag that runs out of the fire; these then became ice. And when the ice halted and ceased to run, it froze over above. But the drizzling rain that rose from the venom congealed to rime, and the rime increased, frost over frost, each over the other, even into Ginnungagap, the ‘gaping void’. … Ginnungagap, which faced toward the northern quarter, became filled with heaviness and masses of ice and rime, and from within, drizzling rain and gusts; but the southern part of the void was lighted by those sparks and glowing masses which flew out of Múspellheimr … so also all that which looked toward Múspell became hot and glowing; … and when the breath of heat met the rime, so that it melted and dripped, life was quickened from the [poisonous] yeast-drops, by the power of that which sent the heat, and became a man's form. And that man was named Ýmir.

(adopted from Brodeur 1929:17)

In this text, the creation of organic life is expressed in liquid terms and the myth clearly attributes Ýmir's birth to the transformation of fluids. The primeval waters of Élivogar continuously changed their composition under the combined influence of ‘fire’ and ‘frost’, initially turning into solid ice, then again assuming liquid form. The generative process finally comes to an end within the magic void (a macro-cosmic ‘womb’), which is filled with procreative fluids that have grown inside it to form the giant's body. This symbolic emphasis on ‘fire’ and ‘water’/’ice’ in the medieval Icelandic myth affirms a cultural recognition of the reproductive role of women and articulates an ideology of bilateral descent, that is, a belief in the creative potential of both mother and father, man and woman (e.g. Goody 1983; Miller 1990:139-178). Accordingly, in Norse mythology, the creation of life is accomplished through the equal participation of a male and female element: life begins when ‘fiery semen’ comes into contact with the ‘icy fluids’ of the watery womb. These images of primal creation are summarized in Fig. 16–1.

THE POETICS OF FEMALE CREATION

The generative images contained in Norse mythology can be interpreted as structural or narrative analogues to early north Germanic assumptions about sexual procreation. Thus the metaphor of ‘liquid’ creation probably alludes to the parallel image of birth and to fantasies about the embryo inside a woman's womb, the world of the unborn perhaps thought of as ‘wet’ and ‘fluid’. The emergence of a primeval creature from ‘drops of melting ice’ thereby assumes thematic importance: it symbolizes the process of birth from female uterine waters and placental blood.

These allusions to female sexual creation are dominated by assertions of a liquid cycle. According to the Norse myth (Gylfaginning, ch. 5), moisture from the northern parts of chaos rose to the surface in a fountain or well. Eleven rivers were said to have sprung from this source. As these streams followed their course, flowing toward the primal ‘void’, their liquid content froze and became ice. This sequence of events was repeated whenever the drizzling rains, which emerged from the primeval rivers, turned into rime and snow. Such a successive or recurring transformation of elements (from ‘moisture’ to ‘well’ to ‘river’ to ‘ice’ and ‘snow’) assimilates the act of creation to the changing seasons of the year. As suggested by the mythological imagery, the liquid cycle moves from the reviving waters of spring to the frozen waters of winter. These cyclical changes are accompanied by a transition from liquids to solids, from movement to stagnation, and from fertility to temporary latency.

On a cosmological scale, the Icelandic creation myth seems to have been modelled after images of vegetative growth and reproduction. The symbolism of the liquid cycle thus came to represent the earth mother, whose productivity was latent during the cold times of the year, but who was also renewing her procreative potential every spring. By contrast, in an anthropological sense, the seasonal or periodic changes in the composition of creative fluids probably reflected cultural interpretations about female menstruation: rhythmic images, cycles and seasons belong to a mythopoetic repertoire of sexual metaphors which circumscribe the periodicity of menstrual bleeding (e.g., Delaney, Lupton & Toth 1976:146, 207). The cyclical renewal of female fertility (typically equated with the rhythmic appearance of blood) is thereby represented in the mythological realm by the transformation of primeval fluids from water to ice.

Such liquid images of sexual reproduction extend beyond the north Germanic context. Ancient Greek and Vedic texts, for instance, suggest that a woman's menstrual blood periodically retreated to the womb, where it coagulated to become the substance from which the foetus was formed (Linke 1985:362; 1992). Human procreation was thereby linked to the stagnation and solidification of female sexual or uterine blood. In Icelandic mythology, this concept is expressed in cosmic terms through images of frozen fluids: the containment of ice and rime inside the cosmic void enacted the process of conception in a metaphorical sense. The symbolic representation of female creation in myth is thereby suggestive of winter, the cold time of the year, when the ‘seeds’ of organic life (produced by the earth mother) lie buried in a seemingly dead world of snow and frost.

The primary model of conception in both Indo-European and Germanic cosmology is rooted in the ‘liquid’ rhythms of the female body: while the regular appearance of menstrual blood indicated a woman's ability to bear children, its temporary stoppage during pregnancy suggested a further link between menstruation and the creation of new life (Bettelheim 1962:107). Symbolic equations as these probably gave rise to the assumption that the foetus was formed from retained menstrual blood, being initially merely ‘thicker’ blood, that is uterine blood in a solid or ‘frozen’ state (e.g. Lévy-Brúhl 1935:319-324).

CONFLICTING IMAGES OF MOTHERHOOD

In the world of Norse mythology, women were envisioned as equal participants in the creative process. Their generative potential, expressed symbolically through liquid metaphors, was explicitly acknowledged. At the same time, however, female sexuality was regarded with feelings of resentment and ambivalence. This is especially apparent in the mythological depiction of the primordial ‘mother’, who is impregnated by Surtr (god of fire/sun deity), and subsequently gives birth to the giant Ýmir. She is represented in the narratives as a turbulent river of ice, a mythopoetic image for ‘menstrual blood’. The metaphorical portrayal of the birth-giving female in terms of sexual fluids suggests that the power of the procreative woman was centered upon the vagina: she was defined as carnal and erotic.

The sexually erotic mother is perceived as dangerous and potentially destructive. She is depicted in the realm of myth as liquid venom: the primeval river of ice, a metaphor of female sexuality and symbol of her fluids, consists of poison. According to the Icelandic text, the icy stream was neither a pure nor fertile fluid (Gylfaginning, ch. 5): the rivers of Élivogar carried within their waters a ‘poison’ (eitrkvika), and out of this venomous substance the first mythical being was formed. Venom or poison is of course not literally a bodily or sexual fluid. In a symbolic sense, however, it is equated with female genital blood. The anthropological evidence does in fact suggest that menstrual or uterine blood is universally perceived as a pollutant, as a dangerous fluid that causes sickness and death (Buckley & Gottlieb 1988; Delaney, Lupton & Toth 1976; Lévy-Brúhl 1935:301-311). Symbolically, the sexual blood of women may acquire the destructive qualities of poison. This negative imagery of female genital blood is translated in the world of myth into a liquid metaphor of venom.

The concept of the erotic mother as a source of danger is equally apparent in other mythical descriptions of her ‘liquid’ domain. The world of the North, source of the poisonous river and of female procreative power, is demonized, envisioned as both dark and cold. In subsequent accounts of creation, this region is equated with the netherworld, the realm of death, which is populated by poisonous snakes and devouring serpents. The demonic mother, who is venom and death, becomes a raging fury: thus, the icy stream (which is her symbolic manifestation), its eleven branches and their common source bear names denoting violence, turbulence and danger (e.g. Vries 1961; Neckel 1962), such as roaring cauldron (Hvergelmir), torture/burning pain/cold (Svöl or Kvöl), devourer/gluttonous eater (Sylgr). These images and circumlocutions of primeval fluids as ‘cataclysm’, ‘torture’, ‘aggressive warrior’ or ‘devouring animal’ seem to reflect a deep emotional ambivalence toward female sexuality. As metaphors of the erotic female, such terms consist of a brutally bald statement of the fantasy of the poisonous or ‘castrating’ mother (i.e. Delaney et al. 1976:61-64), the woman who devours her husband and feeds on his substance.

The image of the demonic mother stands in striking contrast to the figure of the loving mother, who suckles her offspring (e.g., Freud 1959:198-199). In Norse mythology, the nurturing female appears in the form of a cow, the earth-cow Auðhumla, who feeds the primeval giant with milk from her breasts (Gylfaginning, ch. 6): “Straightway after the rime dripped, there came into being from it a cow called Auðhumla; four rivers of milk ran from her udders, and she nourished Ýmir.” According to this text, the cow is the image of the mother full of milk, a primary psychological symbol of goodness and love. The earth-cow represents the nurturing mother, who is culturally defined as non-erotic and made the female ideal. She is the good mother, the white mother, in contrast to the evil, demonic and dark mother, the venomous and devouring mother, whose sexuality is perceived as a threat.

Thus, in the world of myth, the erotic female becomes a negative force and is replaced by the gentle, milk-producing cow. The transformation occurs through metaphors of procreation: the evil mother, a venomous river of ice, is reborn or reproduces herself by liquid means. She gives birth to the good mother in the form of a lactating cow, who comes into existence from ‘drops of melting rime’ (i.e. venom/blood). Here, the most dangerous of substances thus changes into the purest of substances: blood turns to milk, and venom transforms into food. This transmutation of female sexual images suggests that the Germanic woman cannot behave in a manner simultaneously erotic and maternal: she cannot be a mother and a wife, a milk-cow and a menstruating spouse. The myth expresses this dilemma by splitting the image of the mother into two: she is either erotic (imagined as a poisonous river of ice) or nurturing (in the form of a milk-giving cow). As a sexually erotic woman, her power is centered upon the vagina. As a maternal figure, who feeds her offspring, her power is centered upon the breast. Thus, the emphasis is on the pleasure of food rather than the pleasures of sex.

Given this symbolic focus, the dissociation or splitting of the maternal image is equally apparent in the corresponding ‘liquid’ metaphors (see Table 16.1): blood stands for the erotic mother, while milk belongs to the cow. Blood is sexually productive, and therefore dangerous and life-draining. Milk is non-erotic and therefore life-giving: it engenders and nurtures. Creation through sexual blood (nature) is negative and demonic,

TABLE 16.1. DUAL IMAGES OF MOTHERHOOD

Erotic Mother		Nurturing Mother
river of ice	(image)	cow
blood	(fluid)	milk
vagina	(body)	breast
poison	(symbol)	food
dark	(color)	white
demonic	(quality)	pure
devours	(role)	nourishes
wild	(status)	domesticated
female	(gender)	androgyne
sexual	(creation)	alone
giants	(progeny)	gods

while creation through milk (nurture) is positive and heroic. Whereas blood ‘breeds’ giants and hostile monsters (i.e., Ýmir and his kin), the milk-producing cow gives rise to a line of culture heroes and gods (i.e., Búri, Óðinn, etc.). The mythological depiction of the erotic mother thus amplifies female sexuality through images of blood and violence. The symbolism of the lactating cow negates female sexuality through images of non-erotic benevolence.

The milk-giving cow is a symbol of non-erotic fertility. In the myth, she is named Auðhumla, the cow ‘of plenty without horns’. This verbal metaphor emphasizes her non-phallic nature: although the cow is fertile, she is not perceived as a threat. Unlike the evil mother, the ‘whore’, who procreates sexually, the ‘chaste’ cow creates offspring unilaterally, without a male agent (Gylfaginning, ch. 6): “She licked the rime-stones, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the stones, there came forth from the stones in the evening a man's hair; the second day, a man's head; the third day the whole man was there. He is named Búri: he was fair of feature, great and mighty.” According to the narrative, the milk-cow creates offspring alone with her mouth, a probable euphemism for ‘vagina’ or ‘womb’. She brings into existence a son, a man called Búri, whose birth is represented metaphorically in stages: the appearance of the hair, the crowning of the head, the emergence of the whole body. Búri comes to life from blocks or ‘stones’ (rocks) of frozen rime. The creative substance from which he is made thus consists of solid ice. The cow gives birth to her son by ‘licking’ (melting/churning) the ice with her tongue. While the tongue, in this context, is probably a phallic and life-creating symbol, ice and rime are symbols of female uterine blood. These mythological images seem to suggest that procreation occurs outside the body of the cow: they are images of disembodied and non-erotic creativity.

MALE ANDROGYNY

In medieval Icelandic mythology, the symbolism of female procreation and child-bearing is sharply opposed to the mythic images of male creation. This is especially apparent in the myth about the primeval giant, which begins with a description of his birth. When the primeval fluids had been transformed into a creative substance under the combined influence of ‘fire’ and ‘frost’, the first mythological creature was born in the form of a giant man. After his birth, he assumed the name Ýmir. Based on the etymology of this term, there has been some speculation that Ýmir may have come into existence as a male androgyne, a being capable of producing offspring by himself: Old Norse Ýmir has been derived from terms denoting ‘twin’, ‘hermaphrodite’, ‘double fruit’ (Schröder 1931:7; Vries 1961:678; Meletinskij 1974:52). The etymological meaning of the name Ýmir possibly hints at bisexuality, thereby alluding to the giant's androgynous form, his body being half male and half female.

In a cosmological sense, male androgyny is an element of chaos within creation. It promotes the symbolic restoration of a primordial condition in which basic sexual and physical distinctions are not yet made (e.g. Eliade 1965:114-115). This state of disorder is anthropomorphized by the androgynous figure of Ýmir (Meletinskij 1973:52). Interestingly, such a fusion of male and female sexual characteristics is associated with a destructive substance in the mythological narrative: the Norse myth states explicitly that the hermaphroditic giant was born from venom or poison. This image is made explicit once again in a poetic verse about his birth (Vafþrúðnismál, st. 31): “Out of Élivogar / spurted venom drops, then they grew until a giant emerged therefrom.” Thus, if symbolized by poison, male androgyny was charged with negative connotations in Icelandic mythology, perhaps despised as an anomaly, an undesirable blurring of sexual categories. In this context it is important to note that poison is a liquid symbol of the erotic mother: the primeval giant was born from the carnal female, who in the myth is represented as a venomous river of ice. Creatures born by her are said to be excessively evil and lustful: the male androgyne is thereby explicitly denigrated in symbolic terms.

As an anthropomorphic androgyne, embodied in human form, Ýmir was fertile and had the ability to generate life unilaterally. By implication, he was therefore perceived as a complete being who could create from within himself: his children were born from his armpits and from contact between his feet. Initially, Ýmir gave birth to a set of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. Through the making of these twins, the mythical giant reproduced his androgynous identity in an unambiguous, physically separate form. A fragment of the Old Norse prose text tells us how the act of creation took place (Gylfaginning, ch. 5): “and it is said that when he was asleep, a sweat came upon him, and there grew under his left arm a man-child and a maid.” This ‘nocturnal’ event of creation might be expressive of male pregnancy envy. Giving birth in a dream-like state alludes to the subconscious desire of men to procreate like women. Such a collective fantasy is here projected into the text of the myth, where the primeval giant comes into existence as a male hermaphrodite. This fantasy (which in the wider Indo-European context was made concrete through the idea and practice of patrilineal descent), is treated as a ‘perverse’ and immoral manifestation in the Icelandic narratives. The figures of the androgynous giant and his offspring are rejected by the Norse text as contemptible: “he was evil and all his descendants” (Gylfaginning, ch. 5).

The giant's physical or bodily attempts at creation resemble natural childbirth. Ýmir, as a primordial male, creates offspring unilaterally from his left armpit, a probable circumlocution for a displaced ‘vagina’ (i.e, the ‘hairy cavity’). At the same time, the giant gives birth by producing generative fluids: his body emits ‘sweat’, a salty substance, which is implicated in the act of creation (just as are the salty rime stones churned by the earth-cow Auðhumla, when she creates the god Búri). In Norse mythology, as in the context of Indo-European folklore generally, sweat—when produced by the body of men—may serve as a ‘seed’ substitute, the symbol of male procreative power (O'Flaherty 1980:39-40; LaBarre 1984:114). Yet this liquid results in demonic and perverse creations, because sweat is also regarded as an inferior, negative form of male seed (O'Flaherty 1980:40): it is the fluid of involuntary emissions and uncontrolled emotion. Given these connotations, it only makes sense to find that sweat is a common blood metaphor in Old Norse poetry and narrative (e.g. Meissner 1921:206): ‘sweat’ appears as a circumlocution for ‘blood from a wound’, ‘blood lost through injury’. Once outside the body, both sweat and blood are perceived as negative discharges.

After the initial creation of the (incestuous) twin-siblings, the primeval giant produces a single male descendant by rubbing together his feet. A poetic verse renders the event in the following way (Vafþrúðnismál, st. 33): “And foot with foot / did the frost giant fashion / A son that six heads bore.” The metaphor of ‘rubbing’ projects the latent image of creating offspring by masturbation (e.g. Bachelard 1964:24-35). In the myth, it is a gesture or motif of male sexual reproduction. Again, however, this creative effort appears to have been negatively charged: it brings to life a demonic creature, a monstrous being with six heads.

In the medieval Icelandic narratives, the male androgyne's creative efforts are thus judged to be perverse. The giant's offspring are described as monstrous beings and abnormal creatures, who restore and populate the world of chaos. Androcentric and more fundamentally male-unilateral procreation is thereby explicitly rejected as a negative cultural model by the mythological text. This negation of male unilateral creation results ultimately in the death and dismemberment of the primeval giant. The Norse myth, in subsequent cosmogonic accounts, describes how Ýmir and his descendants were killed by the gods.

In a cosmological sense, the death of the giant may reflect the need to dispel chaos (here regarded as non-creative) and to establish order. Chaos is something that must be transcended or overcome before life can begin (O'Flaherty 1980:293-294). In cultural terms, the giant's murder has been understood by some as a variant of sacrificial dismemberment: “So close are the analogies between the splitting of the androgyne and the dismemberment and sacrifice of the primeval deity that at least one scholar has advanced the suggestion that the basic Indo-European myth of creation was in fact a combination of these two themes: the sacrifice and dismemberment of an androgyne (this hypothesis is not, however, generally accepted)” (O'Flaherty 1980:295). Others have argued that the death of the primeval giant evokes images of cannibalism: such an imagery usually includes not only visions of torture and mutilation, but the tearing apart of the sacrificial body (Frye 1957:148). There is, however, little evidence to support either one of these interpretations with the mythological material at hand.

From an anthropological point of view, it seems plausible that the murder of the primeval androgyne reflects a symbolic attempt to displace a characteristically Indo-European model of creation: male androgyny embodies the principles of patrilineal descent and male unilateral creation. Such conceptual images are necessarily negated by a society that favors women as equal participants in the creative process, and whose patterns of social organization are based on principles of bilateral descent.

It is significant that in Norse mythology male androgyny is rejected and denigrated in favor of female androgyny: the Icelandic image of the androgyne is morally positive if female, but negative if male. As in the case of the primeval giant, the androgynous figure may be primarily male: Ýmir plays male social roles (son/father), has male physical characteristics (large body/emits sweat/semen), and manifests basic male sexual patterns (nocturnal emissions/masturbation/procreation through genital substitutes). In the myth, the figure of the male androgyne and his desire to create by himself is regarded as morally contemptible by what appears to have been a matricentric society. The male androgyne plays a perverted and culturally unacceptable role, in this instance, controlling women through unilateral creation, which is depicted as an anti-social and hostile act.

The figure of the primeval giant thus stands in striking contrast to another type of north Germanic androgyne, the earth-cow Auðhumla, who is female, maternal and good. The androgynous cow plays a nurturing and motherly role, has basic female physical characteristics (breasts), and manifests female sexual patterns (produces milk/gives birth/nurtures). Unlike the male giant, the maternal cow is regarded as a symbol of loving benevolence. In the realm of Norse mythology, female androgyny thus assumes a positive social role by affirming culturally validated concepts of the relationship between the sexes: the good mother is both nurturing and procreative, but not erotic. Her creative abilities are therefore not experienced as a sexual threat (by men): she gives birth ‘outside’ her body. Her reproductive potential issues from her head and mouth: This image of the earth-cow is antithetically opposed to the male hermaphrodite, the giver of life from ‘inside’ the body, whose erotic actions violate Germanic cultural ideas about sexual creation, social order and descent.

MALE CREATION

While Norse creation myths clearly oppose the idea of men's appropriation of female procreative power, the narratives hint at the emergence of other forms of male sexual domination. This becomes apparent in the mythological descriptions of the giant's murder and dismemberment by the gods. The Icelandic texts reveal that the deities, after having torn Ýmir apart, also murder all (but one) of his descendants by drowning them in a deluge of blood (Gylfaginning, ch. 6): “The sons of Bor slew Ýmir the giant; but where he fell there gushed forth so much blood out of his wounds that with it they drowned all the race of the rime giants.” Here, the primeval androgyne is killed by several gods, ‘the sons of Bor’, who are identified in one of the texts as Óðinn and his brothers Vilji and Vé (Gylfaginning, ch. 6). These deities are the descendants of Búri (literally ‘progenitor’), who was born from the earth-cow Auðhumla (Brodeur 1916:18-19; Meletinskij 1973:52-53). The non-erotic, nurturing mother is thereby defined as the ‘totemic’ ancestor of the gods. By contrast, the giant and his offspring trace their ancestry to a primeval river of venom, the emblem of the dangerous and sexual mother. According to the text of the myth, the giants and gods, who are mutually antagonistic, derive their respective existences from separate mothers or primogenitors. This difference in mythopoetic origins suggests that the hostility between giants and gods mirrors the tension between opposing images of femininity: erotic sexuality and motherliness. The gods, as children of the good mother, the ‘chaste’ cow, act as culture (or epic) heroes, who protect the ordered universe from forces of destruction (cf. Meletinskij 1973:46-47; Meletinskij 1974:63, 70). The giants, as children of the evil mother, the ‘whore’, represent the realms of moral chaos, which are conquered by the gods. This conquest may perhaps be viewed as yet another kind of male dominance: female sexuality is negated in symbolic terms through the death of Ýmir, onto whom the destructive/demonic (and subhuman) qualities of the erotic mother have been projected or displaced.

Further allusions to the disempowerment of the erotic mother may be found in subsequent mythological accounts, hidden beneath images which make void or negate female creation. According to the Norse text, the death of the androgyne is marked by a great surge of blood, a deluge, with which the gods drown all but one of Ýmir's descendants. In narrative terms, the giant's blood hints at a return to liquid chaos, the realm of the erotic mother, which in the myth is described as a turbulent river of icy venom. When the gods thus submerge the existing universe in blood, they emulate (in macrocosmic dimensions) a carnal state that (in anthropomorphic terms) is linked to the reproductive cycle of women: here, the controlled appearance of blood serves as an instrument for annulling the creative potential of women. This male conquest of the erotic female is expressed in a symbolic sense not only through ‘liquid’ images of dissolution, and the reduction to the inorganic, but also through the very death of the giants. As such, the gods' creation of a deluge of blood appears to be an expression of male procreative envy (e.g. Dundes 1988): men, as divine actors, reproduce symbolically the important carnal or erotic element that women have naturally. Such an appropriation of female procreative power through the manipulation of blood is apparent in ceremonial episodes throughout Europe and elsewhere: the dramatic attempt to simulate menstruation through male circumcision, genital mutilations, blood letting (Brain 1988), and other forms of bleeding during rites of male initiation (Dundes 1976:220-238). Implicit in this imagery is the male fantasy that ritual or symbolic control of blood provides men with the power to create life.

Having thus annihilated the universe as made by the erotic mother, the gods proceed to take possession of her procreative potential. After murdering Ýmir in a state of (ritual) frenzy, the deities take hold of his body and hurl it into Ginnungagap, the primordial void. It is the realm of liquid chaos from which the giant was originally born: “They took Ýmir and flung him into the middle of the cosmic void” (Gylfaginning, ch. 7). The gods then appropriate his physical substance (flesh, blood and bones) to make the earth. Male creation is here revealed through the ‘filling up’ of the void by the divine heroes (cf. Martin 1981:367). In this process, the primeval mother does not seem to play an active role: she is mentioned only as a passive receptacle or container for the male ‘input’. While such images of femininity and motherhood stand in opposition to the Icelandic model of bilateral creation, they are compatible with the broader Indo-European concepts of patrilineal descent through the exclusive focus on the primacy of paternity and male creativity.

This interpretation is consistent with the final steps of the creative process, in which the gods establish their dominion over a benign and non-erotic universe. They accomplish this task through an act of sexual abduction: after returning the primeval giant to his ‘prenatal’ liquid realm, the divine heroes steal his body's essence from the maternal womb, and then make the world out of his flesh, blood, and bones. A description of this event exists in prose-narrative form (Gylfaginning, ch. 7): “They took Ýmir and bore him into the middle of the cosmic void, and made of him the earth: out of his blood the sea and the waters; the land was made of his flesh, and the mountains out of his bones; gravel and stones they fashioned from his teeth and grinders and from those bones that were broken. They also took his skull and made of it the sky and placed it up over the earth.” When the gods thus create the distinct parts of the universe from the elements of the primeval giant, in each instance, the matching parts or elements have been so codified that nearly identical versions can be found in several other medieval Icelandic poems (e.g. Vafþrúðnismál, st. 21; Grímnismál, st. 40). During these acts of male creation, the organic elements of the giant's body are (alchemically) transformed: the earth is made from the giant's flesh, the ocean from his blood, the mountains from his bones, and the sky from his skull. Thereby, the significant carnal parts of the giant's androgynous body are transposed or changed into seemingly indifferent (non-organic) elements: the earth, the ocean, and the sky.

The birth of the non-erotic universe may be seen as a male creative event, which seeks to negate female sexuality and reproduction. This feat is accomplished through a series of nullifying acts: the murder of Ýmir, the deluge of blood, the death of the giants, and, finally, the appropriation of female creativity. The male quest for power, both in a sexual and political sense, culminates in the gods' final construction of a sexless world (i.e. Jochens 1989:253-254, 261), in which the earth-mother, in her erotic and dangerous manifestation, is rendered impotent.

MALE CREATIVITY THROUGH MAGICAL MEANS

As we have seen, the thematic focus of many medieval Icelandic myths reveals a preoccupation with the transference of reproductive power from women to men. The narratives present a succession of models, beginning with female reproduction, followed by birth from androgynes, and finally male creation. It is significant that the initial set of mythological episodes concentrates on images of femininity and motherhood, while the final episodes emphasize the primacy of paternity and male descent. In the initial model, women are envisioned as equal participants in the creative process. Their generative potential is consistently acknowledged: through metaphors of ‘liquid’ creation, symbolizing birth from uterine waters and placental blood; and through the assertion of a liquid cycle, reflecting cultural interpretations about menstruation; through images of the solidification and containment of primeval fluids, expressing assumptions about the beginnings of foetal life in the maternal womb. This affirmation of female reproductive power, although framed by feelings of resentment and ambivalence, is further enforced by the negative depiction of the male androgyne. The figure of the androgynous giant and his birth-giving efforts are presented as morally contemptible by a society that favors women as equal participants in the creative process. The giant Ýmir, through his desire to create by himself, plays a perverted and culturally unacceptable role, in this instance, controlling women through unilateral creation, which ultimately results in his death and dismemberment. Male unilateral creation is thus explicitly rejected as a negative cultural model by the Icelandic texts. Nevertheless, in the final set of events, images of female reproduction are replaced by episodes of male creation. As we have seen, the male usurpation of power begins with an act of genocide and ends with the gods' universe-making. While the historically earlier mythological narratives clearly oppose the idea of men's appropriation of female reproductive power, later medieval texts hint at the emergence of alternate, culturally celebrated forms of male domination. I will now explore this transformation of creative models. I will show how the meaning and intent of male procreativity is reinterpreted: dissociated from female generative power, and focused instead on the production of knowledge. Such a shift in creative purpose encodes a denigration of carnality, a privileging of the mind over the body.

The sequence of procreative models, from the life-giving mother to the world-creating male is characterized by a unifying theme: the progressive dissociation of creative action from female corporeality. Thus, in the myth about the making-of-the-world, the gods complete their usurpation by an act of magic: the transformation of organic substances into natural elements. This imagery marks a shift in focus from the creative potential of the body to that of the mind. Other myths, such as the creation of dwarfs and the creation of people, contain similar motifs: the gods' transformation of organic substances into other life forms. While here male creative action has been dissociated from the physiological model of female procreativity, and the power to bestow life resides within the male gods, nevertheless this process is channeled through flesh. And furthermore, despite the exclusion of reproductive female figures from the texts, control of blood continues to signify, in a symbolic sense, the possession of creative power. For instance, the gods' production of a deluge of blood (by an act of murder) precedes their universe-making. In subsequent narratives, this theme is further accentuated. Male creativity, while perpetually contested, and explicitly linked to the possession of blood, is equated with mental power, issuing from the head rather than the body, engendering wisdom, insight, and knowledge.

The connection between reproductivity and carnality is made most explicit by the myth of dwarfs: the origin of dwarfs is linked to the primeval giant's flesh. From the mythic text (Gylfaginning, ch. 6) we learn the following: “Then the gods seated themselves on their thrones and held counsel, and remembered how dwarfs had quickened in the earth and under the soil like maggots in flesh. The dwarfs had first emerged and come to life in the flesh of Ýmir, and at that time were maggots. But by the decree of the gods they acquired human understanding and the appearance of men, although they lived in the earth and in rocks” (Young 1964:41). The dwarfs come into existence as maggots, eating the flesh of the murdered giant Ýmir. They are therefore equated with mortality, death, annihilation, decomposition and rot. Whereas the maggots reduce the giant's body to food (which becomes a source of life through oral incorporation), the gods magically transform the carrion eaters into dwarfs. Similarly, the dwarfs are consistently linked to the earth and the stony ground. They are said to live beneath the earth's surface, and in rocks or mountains (Meletinskij 1973:47-48): the dwarfs thus continue to inhabit the very domain which was made from the giant's flesh and bones. And although dwarfs are said to lack the magic wisdom of the gods, they are known as artisans and master craftsmen who make miraculous objects, sources of plenty and life renewal. Thus the dwarfs, like the androgynous giants, are creative through their physical labor. The power of their productive activity is located in the body, possibly a concealed manifestation of female creativity.

The symbolic link between creation and carnal substances persists in other versions of the myth (Gylfaginning, ch. 14). A poetic account renders the birth of dwarfs in the following way (Völuspá, st. 9-10): “Then sought the gods / their assembly seats, The holy ones, / and council held, To find who should raise / the race of dwarfs, Out of Brimir's blood / and the bones of Bláinn.” In the poem, the gods magically create the dwarfs with two elements: blood, a liquid (perhaps female) ingredient, and bones, a skeletal (perhaps male) ingredient (e.g. Vries 1961:349; Kuhn 1968:125). Here, as in the previous myth, it seems that the gods take both blood and bones from the primeval giant's body: brimir (sea, surge of waves, bloody moisture) and blain (black, dark, pale) are presumed to be metonymic attributes of his mythic identity (e.g. Vries 1967:42, 56-57; Bellows 1923:6, n. 9; Detter & Heinzel 1903:19, n. 9:7-8). In their universe-making, the gods kill Ýmir and use his blood to make the salty ocean water. The dark-colored giant is thereby associated with death and loss of vital fluids. His genealogical (maternal) origin marks him and his descendants as evil, a conception symbolized by the semantics of color (cf. Gylfaginning, ch. 10). In accordance with his ancestry, the giant is equated with blackness or darkness. Made by the gods from the giant's body, the dwarfs assume similar characteristics. The connection is affirmed by the meaning of their names: “most seem to refer to the nether world of death, cold, dissolution” (Hollander 1987:322, n. 1). The dwarfs are thus equated with the negative connotations of the corporal substance from which they were magically made by the gods.

This relation of male creative action to corporality is increasingly deemphasized in other narratives. For instance, in the myth of human creation, we read (Völuspá, sts 17-18):

Out of that group then came, kind and mighty,
From the gathered gods three great Æsir;
On the land they found, Askr and Embla,
Two without fate, empty of strength.
Breath they had not, mind they had not,
Blood nor manners nor sallow hues;
Breath gave Óðinn, mind gave Hœnir,
Blood gave Lóðurr and a fair complexion.

The gods endow the human ancestors with physical and spiritual characteristics: blood and external appearance confer their status as “full fledged members of the ethnic community,” transforming them into ‘people’ (e.g. Polomé 1969:288-289). Breath and mind, the attributes of life, are localized in the upper torso and the head.

A different, although structurally similar version of human creation also exists in prose form. It is an elaboration upon the same theme (Polomé 1969:265-266), although here the first human beings are made from pieces of wood (Gylfaginning, ch. 8-9): “While the sons of Bor [Óðinn, Vilji, and Vé] were walking along the sea shore, they discovered two tree trunks, took them up, and made human beings out of them; the first gave them breath and life, the second wit [inspired mental activity] and movement, the third appearance, speech, hearing and vision. Then they gave them names Askr and Embla, clothed them and set them in Miðgarðr where they and their descendants were to dwell.” Here, male reproduction is completely dissociated from female physiology. The creative process is presented as a true act of magic: the gods transform a natural substance (wood) into a corporeal one.

THE ORIGIN OF POETRY

The progressive disembodiment of the creative process culminates in the myth of the origin of poetry (e.g. Doht 1974; Frank 1981; Stube 1924). The narrative begins with an attempt at male unilateral creation. In order to end their warfare, the gods conclude a truce, which is consecrated by the members of each faction (Æsir and Vanir) spitting into a vat. From this substance, the gods then make a man, unequalled in wisdom and knowledge.

The gods had a dispute with the folk which are called Vanir, and they appointed a peace-meeting between them and established peace in this way: they each went to a vat and spat their spittle therein. Then at parting the gods took that peacetoken and would not let it parish, but shaped thereof a man. This man was called Kvasir.

(Brodeur 1929:92-93)

As in the preceding mythological texts, male unilateral productivity, when posed in physiological terms, is treated as a negative cultural model: the divine son is killed and his blood is transformed into a drink. Through this motif of murder and reduction, male procreative action is contested and annulled.

The murder of the gods' offspring is motivated by a quest for blood: the dwarves who commit the killing, take the body and drain its blood into two vats and a kettle (Stephens 1972:259). After thus containing the blood, the dwarves mix it with honey, transforming it, by a process of fermentation, into mead: whoever drinks it (we are told) becomes a skald or scholar (Brodeur 1929:92-93). Through their act of containment and transformation, the dwarves become the repositories of poetic knowledge. Hearing of this, the mighty giant Suttung threatens the dwarves and takes possession of the blood; he hides it in a cave, to be guarded by his daughter. In the myth, the control of blood, and thereby control of creative power, passes from the gods to the dwarves to the giants. These events constitute a reversal or inversion of the initial sequence of creation (i.e. Clover 1978:68-69). Generative power, previously originating with the sexually creative mother, now stems from a pantheon of male gods; the murder of her son, the primeval giant, is replaced by the murder of the god's offspring; the act of murder, previously carried out by the gods, is now committed by creatures (the dwarves) who trace their origins to the carnal manifestation of the primeval mother (giant's body); the gods, who in the making-of-the-world take possession of her creative power by killing the primeval giant and by drowning his descendants in a deluge of blood, are here dispossessed of this power; the blood of murder, which previously engendered a deluge, is now contained; this blood, previously identified as maternal and venomous, is now identified as a substance of manhood, which can be consumed. The message of these contrasting or oppositional images is twofold: while attesting to the shift of creative models, from birth-giving mother to generative males, they also convey a challenge or contestation to this appropriation of creative power by men. Control of blood/power is temporarily regained by female progeny, but only after its destructive propensity is vitiated through containment and fermentation.

Thus, in the final passage of this myth, (female) procreativity is envisioned as a ‘vat of blood’, guarded by a female giant. The culture hero and god Óðinn gains access to the liquid by sexual seduction: he swallows the blood and escapes (in form of an eagle). In flight, he vomits or regurgitates this fluid and thereby imparts to human beings the power of poetry. These images stress analogy and imitation of female reproductive processes, while acknowledging the failure to retain stolen power permanently. In the mythic realm, this dilemma between possession and loss is resolved by a focus on ‘pseudo’-procreation: the birth of poetic thought is attributed to men.

The medieval Icelandic myths thus hint at the emergence of an alternative order of male creation: from the production of offspring to the production of knowledge. The ‘natural’ female model, procreation through the body, is rejected as unsuitable for the purposes of male creativity.³ Instead, male procreation is redefined in terms of mental labor: the generation of poetic insight, wisdom, inspiration. The assertion that wisdom and knowledge originated with men rather than women is thus crucial to the cycle of Icelandic myths (cf. Jochens, this volume). The initial source of spiritual creativity, however, is the female body: it is killed, reduced to blood, transformed into a drink, and reborn through men. Poetic creativity is therefore still linked to the ownership of ‘blood’: men gain possession of a ritual substance, which contains or harbors the power that was originally controlled by women (e.g. Keesing 1982; Hiatt 1971). This imagery of blood renders ‘cosmic’ and ‘natural’ the competition for creative power. Poetry or oral productivity similarly relies on a physiological metaphor: the motif of ‘swallowing and regurgitation’ (e.g. Hiatt 1975:156); the recognition that the mouth, like the vagina, can both admit and expel productive substances; the circumscription of poetry in terms of saliva, drink, and vomit. Yet, creation from the mouth, being an organ of the mind or spirit rather than the body (e.g. Shapiro 1989:75), connotes control and intentionality: the regurgitation (or vomiting) of blood constitutes a reversal of the ‘natural’ course of events, which is opposed to female genital bleeding. The swallowing and regurgitation of blood displaces the locus of productive power from the body to the head. Consequently, “an important opposition exists between the body and the head. The body is associated with mortality in alimentary and sexual symbolism, while the head is associated with wisdom and immortality” (Oosten 1985:66). This shift in focus from body to mind, the privileging of the spirit over the flesh, promotes an antithetical model of male control: what men create is a ‘cultural’ order, while women reproduce the ‘natural’ order.

GENDER IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE

The mythological evidence suggests that the initial (and possibly historically earlier) Icelandic emphasis on bilateral creativity and female reproduction was superseded by a characteristically androcentric concern with male creativity. This shift in procreative models may have been triggered by a process of societal change: the male conquest of the erotic female, the destruction of her children, and the appropriation of her domain might be mythopoetic allusions to a contemporary drama of conquest and domination. Iceland was settled in the late ninth century by men and women from south-west Norway, who were later called ‘landtakers’. The society which they constructed in this uncultivated and uninhabited terrain was based on a system of decentralized self-government, which endured until the thirteenth century, when the Icelandic Commonwealth lost its autonomy to Norway in 1262. In Iceland, as in Christian Europe, king and church grew in authority while the power of women declined. In the realm of myth, this act of political ‘subjugation’ was conveyed through the control of the female body by male deities (cf. Karras, this volume).

Such a politicization of sexuality has been documented in our most recent history for the period of German fascism (e.g. Shapiro 1988; Linke 1986:239-240). The promotion of glorified hypermasculine values, and an emphasis on proficiency in physically aggressive activities like sports and warfare, were intertwined with a fear of pollution from ‘bad’ blood: fascism in Germany became obsessively concerned with controlling both women and reproduction. Politically effective images were drawn from fantastic fabrications about female carnality and animality, and visions of the destructive power of the vulva and its fluids. Society's energies were subsequently directed inward, toward ‘containing’ the penetration of the political body by elements of reproductive impurity. The medieval Icelandic narratives suggest in much the same way that the destructive power of the erotic mother can be subdued or neutralized by negating her creative potential and by killing her offspring. Similarly, the annexation of Iceland by continental European nations may have been conveyed by mythical images of blood pollution, and in terms of male sexual victory.

The directional change in creative models also hints at the radical transformation of gender roles that occurred throughout medieval Europe. Norbert Elias (1982), in an analysis of the dynamics of medieval feudalism, documented that changes in cultural attitudes toward women can be linked to the beginnings of a ‘civilizing’ process: the emergence of courtly society, and its concern with manners and codes of conduct. Until the ninth century, according to Elias, a man's social position was defined by his control of territory. The eventual collapse of this landbased economy was triggered by a multitude of factors, such as the scarcity of land, the hereditary control of property, and new transportation technologies. New sources of wealth through business and trade radically altered the social structure of feudal society. The richest and most powerful knights began to invest economic resources into symbolic forms of display: their courts gradually assumed more ‘cultural significance’ than the medieval towns and became, in effect, the great cultural centers of their time. It is these courts of the feudal lord, which begin to sponsor poets, singers and performers, and from whom the ideals of courtly love emerge.

While far from egalitarian, the great courts allowed women room for intellectual development, promoting their literacy and learning. These women were in a position to attract poets, singers, and learned clerics. This leads to ‘courtoisie’ or the polishing of conduct in the feudal courts (Elias 1982:86). The relationship between these high-ranking women and socially inferior men (not husband and wife), becomes characteristic of troubadour poetry: Minnesang poetry articulates man wanting an unattainable woman. For men of low rank, court poetry becomes a means for upward mobility by ‘expressing the interests and political opinions of the Lord and the beauty of the Lady’. Yet while Minnesang, medieval court poetry, and courtly forms of conduct attest to the changing behavior and attitudes accompanying the social transformation of feudal society, such forms of conduct attest to the simultaneous disempowerment of women: the Lady becomes a mere ornament, a decorum, of male power. And Minnesang itself suggests that the female voice is muted (e.g. Bottigheimer 1987): language has become politicized. Oratory and verbal art came to be defined as exclusive male prerogatives.

Finally, the dissociation of male creative action from corporeality or physicality, as suggested by the Icelandic myths, may articulate a change in Iceland's religious ideology: flesh and the mortal body (equated with women) are rejected in favor of spiritual immortality (a symbol of manhood). The cultural construction of gender in medieval Europe was deeply rooted in early Christian teachings. Women, in medieval Christian theology, were the typification of the human condition—the mortal body. Such views came to dominate ecclesiastical writing, letters, sermons, theological tracts, and canon law (R. Bloch 1986:87). The topic of womanhood, and physical reproductivity, through its dissemination in church scriptures, was probably identified with questions of language, literature, and poetry in late medieval Europe. Sacred knowledge was sought in written texts, which consistently equated women with the carnal body, and men with spiritual creativity.

A very explicit depiction of such views of the body and gender appear in European religious paintings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In an analysis of Medieval and Renaissance art, Leo Steinberg (1983) discusses the visual representations of early Christian doctrine. The significant theological motifs were based on the assumption of ‘incarnation’ (God becoming flesh), which declared “God's descent into manhood” (p. 8), the ‘humanation’ of Christ, who was mortal, sexual, and reproductive. According to Steinberg, these themes can be seen in the depiction of devotional imagery: the nursing Christ child (signifying his mortality); the circumcision of the infant (attesting to his humanity: the shedding of blood); the Madonna's hand shielding the child's genitals (attesting to the vulnerability of Christ's humanity); the child's erect penis (symbolizing his capacity for sex and lust, which he rejects and denies); the dead Christ's erect penis or ‘flesh enlivened’ (a manifestation of power over death). In contrast to the associations of ‘humanation’ with the lower body, the genital/sexual domain, Renaissance painters located spiritual transcendence in the upper torso and head: represented by a halo or gestures of benediction. Steinberg suggests that the symbolism of the unclothed and ‘naturalistic’ body of Christ, accompanied by different types of genital displays, served as a visual affirmation of mortality. The exposure of Christ's sexuality signified power, particularly the power to procreate. Yet through his chastity, Christ triumphed over sins of the flesh, and ultimately death, thereby abolishing the need for physical procreativity. This is much the same theme as articulated by the medieval Icelandic myths: the production of offspring or creation through the flesh/body is rejected as an appropriate model for the construction of manhood. The mythic symbolism of male power celebrates disembodied creativity and the production of ritual (poetic) knowledge.

Notes

1. An initial version of this article was read at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, 28 November 1990.

2. For a reading of the Old Norse prose text, I have used the normalized edition by Finnur Jónsson (1900). I relied on Neckel (1962, 1983) and Kuhn (1968) for my reading of the poetic verses. All translations are mine, in consultation with Bellows (1923), Brodeur (1916, 1929), Detter and Heinzel (1903), Hollander (1987), Nordal (1978) and other standard reference works.

3. In striking contrast, male symbolic creativity elsewhere remains focused on the female body and on women's physiological procreativity. The attempt to rival women's ‘natural’ procreativity is accomplished by means of the symbolic manipulations of body parts and substances: men ‘give birth’ through their mouth or anus, and through the metaphorical conveyance of this creative act in terms of vomit, blood, saliva, feces (e.g. Dundes 1976:220-238; Róheim 1949; Montagu 1937:307). These concepts are made plausible by a system of metaphors that equate oral incorporation and digestion with processes of female reproduction (Gillison 1983; Hiatt 1975; O'Flaherty 1980:264).

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