Visions of North in Premodern Europe. Dolly Jørgensen and Virginia Langum, eds. Cursor Mundi 31. Turnhout: Brepols, 2018. x + 374 pp. €90

Since antiquity, ideological and cultural visions of the North, both by outsiders and insiders, contrast, from the land of cold and darkness to the land of perpetual sunshine. The historical material is treated through various disciplines, such as cultural history, literary studies, art history, environmental history, and the history of science. Polar or brown bears, belonging to perception of the terrestrial North in the Middle Ages, were replaced through more appropriate and partly domesticated animals such as reindeer, wolverine, and beaver.