Baptising an image: Rivers in pre- Christian and early Christian tradition

Abstract

This paper suggests that after the conversion of the North to Christianity, the underlying emotional colouring of religious imagery changed much more slowly than explicit mythology and religious belief did. An instance of this can be seen in the associations of rivers, which in sources derived from pre-Christian culture are usually seen as dangerous and threatening, whereas their associations in Christian tradition are mostly positive and often associated with baptism and salvation. The paper looks at episodes in the synoptic histories and Orkneyinga saga in which rulers bathe in the River Jordan, and shows that the expected Christian associations are present only where there is a clear propagandist motive. Elsewhere, the positive associations of bathing in the Jordan are undermined, either by discordant details within the episode itself, or by later events in the protagonist’s life that parallel but undercut it. In Morkinskinna these episodes generally use Christian-derived imagery, while in Snorri’s Heimskringla they include some echoes of pre-Christian mythology, but both adopt a view of rivers and other stretches of water which seems emotionally akin to the pessimistic pre-Christian attitude towards them