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Paper short abstract

In this talk, I will describe different examples of ursine descent and bear characteristics among “super heroes” of Scandinavian mythology and folklore, and return to Friedrich Panzer’s ground-breaking study on the bear’s son motif, with more recent examples from folklore.

Paper long abstract

Stories of a hero with ursine descent is ancient and appears in folktales, folk legends, and myths from a large geographic area over the world. In folklore, what can be labelled “the bear’s son motif, or tale type” can be identified with well-known narratives or tale types where it is only one of several components. Famous heroes of Scandinavia like Beowulf or Bǫðvarr Bjarki have notable bear characteristics, even though the known stories or poems about them does not explicitly say that they were of bear parentage or raised by bears. We find stories of the bear’s son motif from the Middle Ages (i.e. in Saxo Grammaticus’ 13th century Gesta Danorum) up until the 19th century. In Swedish folklore, there is a legend type collected throughout the country, telling of how a bear kills a pregnant woman and tears the baby out of her womb. For a time, the baby is raised by the bear and becomes known for his extraordinary strength. In this talk, I will describe different examples of ursine descent and bear characteristics among “super heroes” of Scandinavian mythology and folklore, and return to Friedrich Panzer’s ground-breaking study on the bear’s son motif (Studien zur germanischen Sagengeschichte, I: Beowulf, 1910), with more recent examples from folklore.