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<p>This article explores ritualistic cliff jumping in the Nordic literary tradition and its later adaptation in the film <i>Midsommar</i>. Both the medieval Icelandic <i>Gautreks saga</i> and Ari Aster’s 2019 film portray pagans who voluntarily jump to their deaths from a so-called family cliff. The cliff jumpers in the saga choose to die because they fear material loss and prefer to join Óðinn (Odin) in the afterlife, whereas the cliff jumpers in the film choose to die to conform to their community’s worldview, an outlook that prescribes death at age seventy-two. To contextualize the saga, I firstly provide an outline of influential premodern European attitudes toward voluntary death. I then go on to analyze the sacrificial episode from <i>Gautreks saga</i>, and subsequently describe the reception of the family cliff motif in Sweden, before scrutinizing <i>Midsommar</i>’s adaptation of the motif.</p>

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The family cliff: Voluntary death in Gautreks saga, Swedish folklore, and Ari Aster’s Midsommar

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年3月30日

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  • Andrew McGillivray

摘要

This article explores ritualistic cliff jumping in the Nordic literary tradition and its later adaptation in the film Midsommar. Both the medieval Icelandic Gautreks saga and Ari Aster’s 2019 film portray pagans who voluntarily jump to their deaths from a so-called family cliff. The cliff jumpers in the saga choose to die because they fear material loss and prefer to join Óðinn (Odin) in the afterlife, whereas the cliff jumpers in the film choose to die to conform to their community’s worldview, an outlook that prescribes death at age seventy-two. To contextualize the saga, I firstly provide an outline of influential premodern European attitudes toward voluntary death. I then go on to analyze the sacrificial episode from Gautreks saga, and subsequently describe the reception of the family cliff motif in Sweden, before scrutinizing Midsommar’s adaptation of the motif.