The Fimbulvetr Myth as Medicine against Cultural Amnesia and Hybris

Abstract

ABSTRACT: An increasing number of scholars has associated the Fimbulvetr myth with the dust veil event of 536 CE, due to several apparent consistencies between its representations in eddic tradition, contemporary historical accounts, and modern scientific evidence. In this article such consistencies are first summarized, with the aim of enhancing the debate and explaining why recording the dust veil event could have been important to its witnesses and to the creation of their cultural memory. Dendrochronological and archaeological evidence suggests that the 536 CE event was probably catastrophic, and this article argues that its memory may have been preserved and recorded in myth. The related myth may have had the purpose of handing down important teachings to future generations: the awareness that life is cyclically threatened by natural disasters, the value of humbleness before nature, and the hope that, no matter what happens, humankind is going to survive.