Border Crossings: Landscape and the Other World in the Fornaldarsögur

[Kyrre]

This article argues that both This World and the Other World are presented as real places in the fornaldarsögur and examines how landscape is used to facilitate the narrative construction of different worlds and to indicate how, when and why borders between worlds are created, maintained or closed. By analysing the landscape in the adventures to the Other World in Þorsteins þáttr bæjarmagns I show that matrices of worlds operate. Other Worlds can be set inside Other Worlds, and characters must always traverse the borders of these worlds marked by the physical landscape. I then examine the converging worlds of Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana and conclude that once a character of This World has been sufficiently marked as Other the distinction between This World and the Other World collapses and there are no longer any typical landscape border motifs, such as mist, forest, darkness, cliffs and streams. The world-view of the fornaldarsögur is built up by a fusion of This World and the Other World, worlds which are separated but equally real and whose borders must be negotiated.