Gripping beasts

One of the best papers I heard at the conference was Carrie Roy's paper on the gripping beast motif, especially since her conclusions (based only on archaeology) matched my analysis of some Eddic poetry done without reference to material culture. So that is a nice little example of how people working with different methods can still reach the same conclusions. Both of us concentrated on the relationship to hugr and ideas of the penetrable body.  

But it occurs to me now that the beast may be gripping each other as a sign of protection through solidarity, and not, as she proposed, that this represents a fylgja, which is basically a helper-spirit. 

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