Hunger Games: Supernatural Strategies Against Hunger in the Medieval North

Abstract

However substantial the effect of the Medieval Warm Period may have been in northern Europe around 1000–1200, medieval Scandinavia was not exactly a place of plenty: the harshness of climatic conditions did still have a profound impact on food supplies, raising the need for alternative solutions. The sagas show that, in addition to practical responses, northern people could resort to “magic” and to their traditional pagan gods, but also to the powers of the new Christian faith to fight the ever-looming threat of hunger that had earlier shaped their idea of the afterlife and of the end of the world.