Public Lectures and Classes

With the arrival of Christianity in Scandinavia came literacy in Latin letters yet a surprisingly large number of inscriptions in runes, the original script of the Germanic peoples, can be linked to an ecclesiastical context. One Swedish church even featured a prominent painted inscription maintaining that the parish priest should know how to read and write runes. Scandinavian stone and stave churches contain a great number of inscriptions in runes, sometimes monumental texts referencing church activities or other historical events, sometimes incidental graffiti containing pious prayers or dirty doggerel. Some of these are about women, some of them (like Norway’s first recorded marriage proposal) are for women and some even appear to be by women, telling us something about the social role of runic literacy. This lecture will look at the rich inventory of runic inscriptions which, authorised or otherwise, are scratched, incised or even painted into many church buildings and church inventories by priests and laypeople during the medieval period in Scandinavia.   

Hawthorn University of the Third Age, Main Hall, 26 Sinclair Ave, Glen Iris, January 20th, 2023.

As the raising of monumental runic memorials died out in most areas of Scandinavia, runes continued to be used in all kind of contexts: from locker-room boasting to high-level diplomacy, for profane, religious and magical purposes, in poetry and prose written in Scandinavian languages as well as in Latin. We’ll look at the medieval rune-sticks, the ‘post-it notes’ of the Middle Ages, which indicate a surprisingly high level of urban literacy. 

There was life in Scandinavia before the Viking Age – but what kind of life was it? Take a whirlwind tour through the Scandinavian Bronze Age by looking at the top ten Bronze Age artefacts, as judged by Dr Mindy MacLeod. Find out when Scandinavians started to worship the sun, about where the myth of the horned Vikings really originated, and about the Bronze-Age bog bodies and what beer they liked to drink. 

The stave churches of Norway are the country’s oldest preserved wooden buildings, and contain some of their most important artistic objects. Unique to Europe, they are counted among the most important representations of medieval European architecture, as seen by the inclusion of the celebrated church at Urnes on the UNESCO World Heritage List. 

But what do they represent? Are they the synchronistic survival of Norse temples or mead halls, the bizarre emulations of Christian basilicas, or simply something unique to Norway? Join Dr. Mindy MacLeod as she takes us on a tour of some of Norway’s 28 remaining stave churches, looking at the architecture, pagan iconography and runic inscriptions which tell us something about the lives of the medieval Norwegians who made and used them.   

Mother's Day rightly celebrates mothers for the many sacrifices they make for their children. But not all of us buy into the Salzburg Sound-of-Music-type panegyrics to parenting. If you are more 'Mother-of-Dragons' than Mother Teresa, join Dr Mindy MacLeod as she takes us on a tour of some of the more unmotherly figures of literary legend. We'll look at some of the murderous mamas and monstrous mere-wives from Old Norse, Old German and Old English poetry and prose. A bloodthirsty take on Mother's Day for those who don't have kids, those who have days when they wish they didn't , and those who simply want to feel better about their own parenting style (because if you're not burning down the family home, sending your sons off to be slaughtered or baking your kids into a banquet, you're probably doing just fine!).

FEBRUARY 10th, 2022

The 2018 discovery of a ship buried at Gjellestad marked Norway’s first discovery of a Viking ship burial in over a century. The discovery has fuelled new research into Viking society, helping us get further behind the legends surrounding the people who dominated the North Atlantic for centuries. What do these burials, and the goods found inside them, represent? How do they fit into the larger context of Viking burial practices described in the literary and archaeological record?  Join Dr Mindy MacLeod as she discusses Gjellestad alongside Norway’s other famous ship burials and Viking graves in Scandinavia and beyond. 

FEBRUARY 15 UNTIL MARCH 8 and

APRIL 28 - MAY 19 

Pagan Scandinavians made little use of the Roman alphabet, so many of our (mis)understandings about the Viking Age are based on external, often hostile, sources, or Scandinavian writings such as sagas from much later periods. This course will instead take a closer look at what the Vikings tell us about themselves by looking at their own texts: the writing and iconography of the Viking-Age runestones. 

Each week, Dr. Mindy MacLeod, specialist in runic and Scandinavian languages, takes a closer look at different aspects of the Vikings and Viking society as revealed through the runestones: from legal and social conditions to the role of women, gods and heroes, and the extraordinary travels for which the Vikings are so well known. 

There's a lot of uncertainty about Ukraine's future right now, and there's always been a lot of uncertainty about its origins. Scandinavian merchant warriors travelled through the lands which became Ukraine and Russia during the Viking Age, establishing towns and trading networks along the major rivers. Join Dr Mindy MacLeod for this special lecture examining the thorny question of what the Scandinavians were doing in what came to be the Empire of Kyivan Rus, named after the Norse rowers who went there. Throughout the lecture, Mindy takes a close look at a wide range of sources: runic inscriptions in Scandinavia and Ukraine, archaeological remains in Russia and descriptions of Viking rule in the Rus Primary Chronicle and other Byzantine sources.