Celestial Bodies & Norse Myths-January Webinar
- Icelandic Roots
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
The Snorra Edda is more than a collection of myths—it is a map of the night sky, where stories serve as constellations and the heavens become a mnemonic for the world of the gods. In this webinar, Professor Gísli Sigurdsson explains how Gylfi’s Illusion (Gylfaginning) in the Prose Edda transforms what can literally be seen above us—the movements of stars, sun, and moon—into a mythological cosmos.
By taking Snorri’s metaphor at face value, we can read the sky as a kind of celestial memory palace: every bright point and phenomenon corresponds to a god, a tale, or a force of nature. This way of seeing reveals a worldview deeply rooted in pre-Christian northern cosmology, where storytelling served not only as entertainment or theology, but also as a guide to orientation—both physical and spiritual.
Gísli Sigurdsson has written an academic paper on this subject entitled, “How Gylfi’s Illusion Breathes Life into the Sky.”
The paper is available to read at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eHyb1mzGOamKAl4tnYERo-cmnihNY3Hm/view?usp=sharing 1
Join this webinar to rediscover the Snorra Edda as our ancestors may have: not as a written book, but as a living sky full of names, stories, and meaning.
View the online presentation “Celestial Bodies & Norse Myths: A discussion with Professor Gísli Sigurdsson” on Monday, January 26 at:
10:00 AM Pacific,
11:00 AM Mountain,
12:00 PM Central,
1:00 PM Eastern, and
6:00 PM in Iceland
Join the presentation a few minutes before the start time for your timezone.
The webinar link is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87828482161
Footnote:
1 Shared under fair use for nonprofit educational and cultural‑heritage purposes through the Danish journal, Journal of Religious Studies Creative Commons license; all rights to Gísli Sigurðsson’s article in the journal remain with the original copyright holders.