Metamorphosis, Hybridisation and Illusion
How might we bring this diverse spread of terms into a coherent framework for understanding medieval Icelandic conceptions of transformation, without flattening the nuances of narrators’ and poets’ language use? The point of such a synthesis is not simply classificatory: this lexicon is a window into how medieval Icelanders imagined the limits of the human body, the stability of identity and the possibility of change, at least in the stories they told. To explore this, I have organised the phrases discussed into overlapping groupings within a semantic field diagram, based on the ‘modes’ of transformation they tend to signify. The diagram is not a rigid taxonomy, but rather a heuristic tool for tracing different narratorial approaches to transformation in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century texts. While it cannot capture every nuance and application of each phrase, it brings into focus the variety in approaches to change across the corpus. A more sophisticated visualisation, such as a three-dimensional rhizomatic network, might better reflect the variations and overlaps within these terms and their usage – though whether such a model would remain intelligible to readers is another matter!
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Figure 2. Semantic field diagram of verbs and phrases used to describe transformation.
The diagram highlights the different ways vernacular texts from this period engage with ontological change, with some texts resisting, and others embracing, the possibility of physical transformation. The terms are organised into three modes of transformation, which I mentioned earlier: metamorphosis, illusion and hybridisation. Phrases depicting metamorphoses include those emphasising action in altered form, those emphasising process, and those emphasising state. Phrases depicting illusions maintain a focus on perception, aligning with Christian theological interpretations that transformation is a matter of appearances rather than physical reality. Phrases depicting hybridisation emphasise the donning or removal of an outer layer. While there is significant lexical and semantic overlap between metamorphosis and hybridisation, indicating the flexibility of these phrases, illusions rely on a more limited and largely exclusive lexical range.
The term
líki is most strongly associated with metamorphosis, while the term
hamr bridges metamorphosis and hybridisation, its modal classification depending on whether the narrator treats it as an abstract form or a tangible, detachable object.
1 Novotná’s work on the root ham- suggests that the use of hamr to describe a detachable bodily surface is indebted to continental influence (Between Body and Soul, pp. 70–71); on these grounds, we could therefore tentatively suggest that the use of hamr in the ‘hybridisation’ mode of transformation is a later development. Terms referring to outward human appearances (
litr,
yfirlit,
ásjóna,
mynd) can also be ambiguous, since their emphasis on image rather than form allows narrators to imply that transformations may be skin deep or illusory.
The mode of transformation depicted often aligns with a text’s genre, thematic focus and narrative setting. For example,
Íslendingasögur tend to present transformations as illusions, preserving narrative realism and avoiding lending credence to magical practices with pre-Christian associations. By contrast, mythological texts depict material transformations more freely, as metamorphoses, reflecting their spatial and temporal distance from Christian orthodoxy.
2 See further Haley-Halinski, ‘Birds and Humans’, p. 201. A similar trend is evident in
fornaldarsögur, where narratives take place outside of Iceland, with transformations occurring in more ‘fictional’ or ‘prehistoric’ settings. While in mythological narratives, transformations are often turned to practical ends (such as flight/travel), in
fornaldarsögur they are frequently used thematically. Texts like
Vǫlsunga saga,
Hrólfs saga kraka and
Gríms saga loðinkinna use the language of hybridisation to investigate the boundaries between human and nonhuman forms and identities.
The adaptability of transformation vocabulary does more than reflect the richness of shapeshifting as a narrative and cultural motif; it can reveal the choices narrators made when deciding how change should be imagined. This is particularly visible in translation: take the Old Norse rendition of Marie de France’s
Bisclavret, an Old French work translated into Norwegian during the reign of Hákon Hákonarson (1217–63), for example. Where Marie uses the verbs
devenir (to become) and
estre (to be), the Old Norse translator frames the transformation more as hybridisation, using the verbs
hamskiptask,
skipta ham and
ganga ór ham. Rather than using the more direct equivalents
verða and
vera, the translator thereby subtly shifts how the audience conceives of the nature and process of the transformation.
3 Strengleikar: An Old Norse Translation of Twenty-One Old French Lais, ed. and trans. R. Cook and M. Tveitane (Oslo, 1979), ch. 3, ch. 7, ch. 8 (pp. 88, 94 and 96).