14 - Conversion and Literature

Summary

This chapter deals with the processes of conversion and Christianization as they are explored in Old Norse literature, focusing on skaldic verse composed in Norway and Iceland in the tenth and eleventh centuries. It begins by discussing the poetry of Hallfreðr Óttarsson vandræðaskáld as a representation of a poet’s experience of conversion, through looking at the poems Hallfreðr composed for the pagan Norwegian ruler Hákon jarl and the Christianizing king Óláfr Tryggvason. It then considers the prominent role played by skaldic verse in the conversion of Iceland, in which skaldic poems gave voice both to pagan resistance and to Christian attacks on the pagan gods. Finally, the chapter discusses how poets in eleventh-century Norway were able to adapt their verse to reorient it away from its associations with paganism, allowing them to praise the Christian king Óláfr Haraldsson while preserving the cultural value their art form had traditionally possessed.