Drawing on anthropology and folklore research as much as on literary criticism, The Liminality of Fairies explains the process by which popular beliefs and folklore gave rise to the fairies of medieval romance, tracing both the direct borrowings and the unique literary transformations that fairies undergo in selected romance works.

Only a highly comparative study of medieval literature can help us to comprehend how much fundamental ideas and concepts were shared throughout the entire period. The idea of the trail as an epistemological vehicle for the protagonists proves to be critical in reaching a deep understanding of medieval values and ideals.

In a provocative take on Germanic heroic poetry, Taranu reads texts like Beowulf, Widsith, and the Waltharius as participating in an alternative mode of history-writing that functioned in a larger ecology of narrative forms alongside chronicles, Latinate ecclesiastical histories, and Biblical epics.

Polyphony and the Modern asks one fundamental question: what does it mean to be modern in one’s own time? To answer that question, this volume focuses on polyphony as an index of modernity.

This book focuses on the performance of oral epics and explores its significance for interpretation. The discussion is also relevant for the understanding of medieval and earlier oral-derived epics. The study is based on field-work on the oral traditions of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and Siberia.

This book explores the way in the Sagas of Icelanders depict the barbarity of foreign peoples, both abroad and in Iceland, through descriptions of diet, material culture, style of warfare, and character, and compares the portrayal with classical and contemporary European ideas.