A survey course on the mythology of medieval Scandinavia, this course focuses on the mythology as a profound enabling force for the Vikings during their extraordinary territorial expansions - to Normandy and Sicily in the South, to Russia and Byzantium in the East, and to Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland in the West. We shall analyze the role of the different mythic entities - gods, giants, elves, dwarves, comparing them where possible with their counterparts in mythologies elsewhere in the world. We shall trace how the ancestral myths, cults, and rites changed under the impact of Christianity but continued to play an active part in the formation of colonial societies, especially Iceland. We shall make ourselves familiar with the principal narratives: how the world was created; how Odin stole the mead of poetry and learned the use of runes; how Skadi chose her marriage partner; how the trickster god Loki engineered Baldur's death, and much more. We shall consider how these stories are told: some enacted in dramatic form, perhaps as vestiges of religious rites; some re-worked with cool irony by the great thirteenth-century collector of myths and poetry, Snorri Sturluson; some coopted into international literature in the florid Latin prose of Saxo Grammaticus. Finally we shall investigate the impact of archaeology, anthropology, and other modern disciplines on our knowledge of medieval myths and cults. By the end of the course, we should feel conversant with Viking mythology and with the scholarly tools that can be used towards its better understanding. There will be four examinations and a paper. This course applies towards the undergraduate Minor in Medieval Studies.