Nicolas Meylan

Mana in the North: Power and Religion in Medieval Scandinavian Historiography

The religion of the Melanesians consists, as far as belief goes, in the persuasion that there is a supernatural power about belonging to the region of the unseen; and, as far as practice goes, in the use of means of getting this power turned to their own benefit. . . . There is a belief in a force altogether distinct from physical power, which acts in all kinds of ways for good and evil, and which it is of the greatest advantage to possess or control. This is Mana. (ROBERT CODRINGTON, 1891)

Mana in the North

In Mana: A History of a Western Category Nicolas Meylan proposes a critical account of Western imaginations of mana, an Oceanic word borrowed by Europeans to denote ‘supernatural power’.

Mana: A History of a Western Category

In Mana: A History of a Western Category Nicolas Meylan proposes a critical account of Western imaginations of mana, an Oceanic word borrowed by Europeans to denote ‘supernatural power’.

Fate is a hero’s best friend : towards a socio-political definition of fate in medieval Icelandic literature

Fate in medieval Scandinavia is generally defined as a religious category. The present article argues, however, that a socio-political analysis of fate as it is used both in Islendingasogur and Eddic poetry offers an alternative, more effective definition. This definition is further refined by placing fate in a structural relationship with magic.

Magic and Discourses of Magic in the Old Norse Sagas of the Apostles

This article discusses magic as it appears in the corpus of the Postola sogur. It suggests that such texts’ descriptions of magic are subordinated to discursive demands rather than empirical accuracy.