Winner of the 2014 Mythopoeic Myth Fantasy Studies AwardAt the heart of the mythology of the Anglo-Scandinavian-Germanic North is the evergreen Yggdrasil; the tree of life believed to hold up the skies and unite and separate three worlds: Asgard; high in the tree; where the gods dwelled in their great halls; Middlegard; where human beings lived; and the dark underground world of Hel; home to the monstrous goddess of death. With the advent of Christianity in the North around the year 1000; Yggdrasil was recast as the cross on which Christ sacrificed himself. G. Ronald Murphy offers an insightful examination of the lasting significance of Yggdrasil in northern Europe; showing that the tree's image persisted not simply through its absorption into descriptions of Christ's crucifix; but through recognition by the newly converted Christians of the truth of their new religion in the images and narratives of their older faith. Rather than dwelling on theological and cultural differences between Christianity and older Anglo-Scandinavian beliefs; Murphy makes an argument internal to the culture; showing how the new dispensation was a realization of the old. He shows how architectural and literary works; including the Jelling stone in Denmark; the stave churches in Norway; The Dream of the Rood; the runes of the futhark; the round churches on Bornholm; the Viking crosses at Middleton in Yorkshire and even the Christmas tree; are all indebted to the cultural interweaving of cross and tree in the North. Tree of Salvation demonstrates that both Christian and older Northern symbols can be read as a single story of salvation.
#741298 in Books 2014-10-09Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 6.40 x 1.10 x 9.30l; .0 #File Name: 0199927294320 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Winning Freedom in St Louis - "By the help of God and a good lawyer" - and the Courage of the EnslavedBy Jim Schmidt"This gave my mother an immense amount of trouble; but she had girded up her loins for the fight; and; knowing that she was right; was resolved; by the help of God and a good lawyer; to win my case against all opposition." - Lucy A. Delaney.; "From the Darkness Cometh the Light"This is a really interesting book that covers about a dozen of approximately 300 "freedom suits" that took place in St Louis in the early- to mid-1800s; almost all before the infamous Dred Scott decision. The documentation of the suits has been collected; collated; and digitized in the past several years; and anyone can see the original documents at the St Louis Circuit Court Historical Records Project at stlcourtrecords dot wustl dot eduEach of the cases is very interesting from so many angles - the judges; the lawyers; the slaveholding defendants; the enslaved plaintiffs; St Louis and Illinois history; state; federal; and territorial law; the frontier; international law; and much more. I knew some about the slaveholding sympathies in downstate Illinois from reading about Abraham Lincoln's role in the Matson Slave Trial; but the facts of institutionalized slavery in a supposedly "free state" is made very clear in this book - likewise; the irony of a good number of successful freedom suits in the courts of a slaveholding city; such as St Louis. There is a lot of tragedy here; with murders; kidnappings; mistreatment; etc.; on top of the horrors of slavery. But also a lot of inspiration in the agency shown by enslaved persons to courageously press for their freedom against a slaveholding oligarchy; especially the power and generational vendettas of the Choteau family - founders of St Louis - against slaves seeking their freedomA few things kept me from giving this 5 stars - a) the presentation here of isolated cases is necessarily anecdotal; and the summary at the end is pretty cursory - there are two other book sin just the past few months/year that seem to take more of a synthesis approach and comparing the experience of St Louis claimants to courtroom experiences around the country - I look forward to reading those; b) though it didn't detract from the quality of the scholarship; the copyediting throughout; esp. in the last 25%; is sloppy enough to be distracting; and c) the author's metaphor of "redemption songs" was forced and strained in the introduction and the closing chapters - but was not pressed in the heart of the book; which was goodHighly Recommended
