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The north : a cultural stereotype between metaphor & racial essentialism / Joep Leerssen -- Within or outside Europe? Modernists and anti-modernists visiting Iceland in the mid-nineteenth century / Sumarliði R. Isleifsson -- Is Nordic mythology Nordic or national, or both? Competing national appropriations of Nordic mythology in early nineteenth-century Scandinavia / Tim Van Gerven -- Norse myths, Nordic identities : the divergent case of Icelandic romanticism / Gylfi Gunnlaugsson -- Redbad, the once and future king of the Frisians / Han Nijdam and Otto S. Knottnerus -- Norse mythology in Icelandic fiction about the Second World War / Daisy Neijmann -- Of gods and men : uses and abuses of neo-paganism by nationalist movements in the "north" / Robert A. Saunders -- Heirs of Lonnrot : from Longfellow to Tolkien / Tom Shippey -- The Kalevala in international masks : a Japanese Aino and Kalevala dell'Arte / Kendra Willson -- The quest of Gangleri : theosophy and old Norse mythology in Iceland / Simon Halink -- Crossing the borders : Loki and the decline of the nation state / Katja Schulz -- Apocalypse now : Norse gods and the end of the nation / Carline Tromp. "This anthology of essays, Northern Myths, Modern Identities, explores the various ways in which ancient mythologies have been cultivated in the cultural construction of ethnic, national and supra-national identities from 1800 to the present. How were Old Norse, Finno-Ugric and Frisian myths employed as rhetorical devices in national narratives? And how did (and do) these new interpretations convey a sense of 'northernness'? This volume approaches these issues from an interdisciplinary and international perspective, and brings together case studies from Scandinavia, the Baltic region, Friesland, Britain, the United States and even Japan. Thus, it provides a unique insight into the reception history and uses of northern myths in the present, and their role in the creation of modern identities. Contributors are: Tim van Gerven, Gylfi Gunnlaugsson, Simon Halink, Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson, Otto S. Knottnerus, Joep Leerssen, Daisy Neijmann, Han Nijdam, Robert A. Saunders, Katja Schulz, Tom Shippey, Carline Tromp, and Kendra Willson"--
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