TY - JOUR
AU - Parrish, Susan Scott
AB - 288 ISLE nerals, chieftains' ascendancies and royal exploits, and the most skilled poets were feared as well as admired. Legendary poets such as Egil Skallagrimsson appear as Janus-faced Jekyll-and-Hydes, often tracing shamanic or other form-changing precursors in their ancestry—Egil's father, for example, was reputed to be a werewolf. Fittingly, the Old Norse myth of the origin of poetry and poetic prowess outlines the duality in this tradition. Here the power of poetry resides in a special mead that the prospective poet must seek out by proving himself through ritual exploits. The mead, after having been stolen from the gods, was long held among the giants and thus kept from humans. But thanks to the god Odin's benevolent intervention and quest into the heart of giant country, involving his transformation first into a snake (to get into the mountain lair where the mead was held) and then into an eagle (to get above the dividing wall between human and giant worlds), the mead was secured for human poets. The myth does not lack humor: the beverage was almost lost as the pursuing, furious giants leapt after the Odin-eagle crossing the wall, causing it to defecate in fright. The portion of 
TI - Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World
JF - ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
DO - 10.1093/isle/13.2.288
DA - 2006-01-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/colonial-botany-science-commerce-and-politics-in-the-early-modern-523N12BEUT
SP - 288
EP - 290
VL - 13
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -