15/10/2026
Jennifer Hemphill, Weather Magic in Medieval Scandinavia Old Norse-Icelandic Traditions in Broader Scandinavian Contexts (Routledge, October 2026)
https://www.routledge.com/Weather-Magic-in-Medieval-Scandinavia-Old-Norse-Icelandic-Traditions-in-Broader-Scandinavian-Contexts/Hemphill/p/book/9781041252979
Weather Magic in Medieval Scandinavia explores how people in medieval Scandinavia understood and attempted to influence the weather through magic. Covering the period from c. 800 to 1555 ᴀᴅ, the book reveals how storms, winds, and divine tempests shaped not only medieval imagination but also law, ritual, and power across the North.
Drawing on Old Norse sagas, poetry, law codes, religious texts, archaeology, and early modern trial records, this is the first comprehensive study of weather magic across the medieval Scandinavian world. The book argues that weather magic was not a marginal superstition but a key part of how medieval societies conceptualised human and divine agency within nature. It traces how figures such as Óðinn, völur, and saints appear as mediators between people and the elements, and how ideas of magic and miracle blurred in Christian and non-Christian contexts. By combining literary, historical, and material evidence, Weather Magic in Medieval Scandinavia illuminates how weather manipulation was bound to performance, voice, and social power, linking magic, seafaring, warfare, and the legitimisation of elite authority. The study offers new interdisciplinary insights into belief, ecology, and cultural exchange in the medieval North.
The book appeals to scholars and students of Old Norse studies, medieval history, folklore, religious studies, and environmental humanities, as well as general readers interested in the intersections of magic, mythology, and climate in the North.
