Sagas Archive
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Access to the Margins: Outlawry and Narrative spaces in medieval Icelandic outlaw sagas
Posted on April 28, 2013 | No CommentsIn a society where social ties and solidarity were needed in order to endure the unwelcoming weather and landscape, exclusion and isolation appear as the worst punishment that man can inflict to man, even worse than death. -
Black Sun, High Flame, and Flood: Volcanic Hazards in Iceland
Posted on April 1, 2013 | No CommentsIceland is one of the most volcanically active areas on earth, but were it not for the description of the end of the world in the poem Völuspá, one might think volcanic activity made little impression on Medieval Icelanders. -
Lawyers in the Old Icelandic Family Sagas: Heroes, Villains, and Authors
Posted on March 24, 2013 | No CommentsAlong with the accomplishments of skill in arms and verse-making, many a saga hero is credited with a knowledge of law and legal procedure. Many of these heroes are shown duelling with their enemiesin a series of legal disputes forming a series of chapters. -
Egil Skallagrimsson and the Viking Ideal
Posted on March 18, 2013 | No CommentsHow did the Vikings want to be perceived--by other members of their own culture, and by posterity? -
Viking poetry of love and war – new book by Judith Jesch
Posted on March 18, 2013 | No CommentsThey are most famous for being violent invaders of foreign shores but a new book by a University of Nottingham Viking expert shows they were also poetry lovers with a wicked sense of humour! -
The Vínland sagas as propaganda for the Christian Church
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsOver the last two centuries, the Vínland Sagas have become some of the most discussed of Medieval Nordic documents. There are arguments about every aspect of the sagas: What the name Vínland means, if Vínland existed, where it would have been geographically, and how much of their content is historically accurate. -
The Church and sexuality in medieval Iceland
Posted on February 13, 2013 | No CommentsFrom its earliest days Christianity has attempted to control human sexuality. The letters of Paul and the writings of the Church Fathers praise the state of virginity above that of marriage, and within matrimony permit sex only for procreation. -
Strangers in Icelandic Society, 1100-1400
Posted on February 11, 2013 | No CommentsThe term ‘stranger’ (der Fremde) was defined by Georg Simmel (1858-1918) in a brief excursus (1908, 685–91). Scholars following in the footsteps of Simmel have distinguished at least two different types of stranger. One is the sojourner, who clings to the culture of his own ethnic group. The other is the immigrant, a newly-arrived outsider who has come to stay (see Siu 1952; Wood 1934, 43–44). The merchant Örn is close to the first type... -
Riding To The Afterlife: The Role Of Horses In Early Medieval North-Western Europe
Posted on February 6, 2013 | No CommentsIn order to establish the role of horses in the pre-Christian religions of Anglo-Saxon England, Viking-Age Scandinavia and other Germanic regions in mainland Europe, this dissertation will look for evidence of burial, sacrifice and other rituals involving horses in both archaeological and literary sources -
Marriage between King Harald Fairhair and Snæfriðr, and their Offspring: Mythological Foundation of the Norwegian Medieval Dynasty?
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsHistorians in Nordic countries since the turn of the twentieth century have become increasingly aware of the problem using these primary sources from earlier times, especially the sagas from the late twelfth- and thirteenth centuries, about three hundred years after Harald assumedly lived. It was Halvdan Koht(1873-1965)who introduced this point of view into Norwegian historiography, although some researchers, including Yngvar Nielsen, had cast doubt on the accuracy of the account before him. -
Awkward Adolescents: Male Maturation in Norse Literature
Posted on January 25, 2013 | No CommentsAlthough medieval masculinities have become a subject of scholarly interest, there has been relatively little discussion of the transition in Old Norse until very recently. -
The Place of Greenland In Medieval Icelandic Saga Narrative
Posted on January 23, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper explores the accounts of Norse Greenland in the medieval Icelandic sagas, looking past the Vínland sagas to examine ways in which Greenlandic settings are employed in the 'post-classical' saga-tradition and other texts. -
The Wilderness of Dragons: The reception of dragons in thirteenth century Iceland
Posted on January 13, 2013 | No CommentsIn thirteenth century Iceland, however, the dragon consists of more than the mere imagining of man; it is a creature that is imbued with centuries of history, biology, theology, and mythology synthesized into an oftentimes wholly logical and other times completely fantastical beast. -
TROUBLESOME CHILDREN IN THE SAGAS OF ICELANDERS
Posted on December 28, 2012 | No CommentsIt must be stressed that the concept of childhood is certainly not an easy one. One is tempted to ask whether any generalisations about medieval or modern attitudes to childhood might not pose problems. -
The coming of the Christmas Visitors…Folk legends concerning the attacks on Icelandic farmhouses made by spirits at Christmas
Posted on December 21, 2012 | No CommentsThe motif seems to have ancient roots connected to the ancient beliefs of the first Icelandic settlers that the island was already populated by various forms of spirits, both positive and negative, which unofficially 'permitted' people to take up residence on their territory. -
Tolkien’s Cauldron: Northern Literature and The Lord of the Rings
Posted on December 14, 2012 | No CommentsTolkien was a scholar of Old Norse literature and much of his work in the Lord of the Rings is informed by his knowledge of old Norse mythology, Eddic poetry, and saga. Tolkien's use of these sources enriched this complex story of Middle-earth. -
INTERVIEW: Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths
Posted on December 13, 2012 | No CommentsAn interview with author Nancy Brown on her latest medieval offering: "Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths". -
Horses of Agency, Element, and Godliness in Tolkien and the Germanic Sagas
Posted on December 12, 2012 | No CommentsWhat is the contract between man and equine that allows a beast ten times our size and one hundred times our strength to willingly serve in our ambitions? What magnetism (and who placed it) is it that draws humanity and horses together? -
Madness in the Old Norse society: Narratives and ideas
Posted on November 25, 2012 | No CommentsIn the Viking Age (800-1030 a.d.) and the Middle Ages (1030-1500 a.d.) in Northern Europe, the main available information stems from fictional literature - more precisely the sagas, written predominantly in Iceland during the 13th century. -
Gender Roles and Symbolic Meaning in Njáls Saga
Posted on November 8, 2012 | No CommentsThere are many examples in Njáls saga of characters who fail to adhere to their assigned gender role and as a result perpetuate the chain of events that leads the saga to its grisly conclusion. -
The Representation of Hakon Sigurdsson and other Heathen Characters in Viking Age Literature
Posted on November 7, 2012 | No CommentsIn this essay I will attempt to understand the motives behind the portrayals of Hakon jarl and other heathen characters in several sagas and to decipher the symbolic meaning of some literary depictions of heathen ritual. -
Monstrosity in Old English and Old Icelandic Literature
Posted on October 31, 2012 | No CommentsIn medieval Europe belief in monsters allowed for corresponding acceptance of the possibility of humans transforming into monsters. In medieval Iceland and Anglo-Saxon England the mixture of Christian and pagan world views and beliefs create a situation where the boundaries are not merely fluid but can be transgressed, in either direction. -
Early Religious Practice in Norse Greenland
Posted on October 17, 2012 | No CommentsHow many Icelanders were Christian at the time of Greenland’s settlement? Were there any pagans? Did Greenland ever officially convert to Christianity and, if so, when? -
Iron Smelting in Vinland
Posted on October 7, 2012 | No CommentsAny former iron smelting site presents a special problem for archaeologists. The process of converting iron rich ore into a working iron bar requires a complex series of steps. Each separate function is most likely to be undertaken by heavily modifying the previous equipment set up. Unfortunately for the archaeologist, the evidence of those important earlier stages is certain to be blurred, if not totally obliterated, by later steps. It will be the very last part of the whole process which alone remain as evidence. -
![My intent in the following paper is to make a case for the usefulness of comparative analysis in a narrower and more specific context, that is, in examining two fascinating but often marginalized medieval works: the Irish Cogadh Gáedel re Gallaib (modern Irish Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh [“The Battle of the Gaels and the Foreigners”]) and the Icelandic/Orcadian Orkneyinga saga (“The Saga of the Orcadians”).](http://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/220px-Flatey_Book_Orkneyinga_saga-115x115.jpg "Juxtaposing Cogadh Gáedel re Gallaib with Orkneyinga saga")
Juxtaposing Cogadh Gáedel re Gallaib with Orkneyinga saga
Posted on September 18, 2012 | No CommentsMy intent in the following paper is to make a case for the usefulness of comparative analysis in a narrower and more specific context, that is, in examining two fascinating but often marginalized medieval works: the Irish Cogadh Gáedel re Gallaib (modern Irish Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh [“The Battle of the Gaels and the Foreigners”]) and the Icelandic/Orcadian Orkneyinga saga (“The Saga of the Orcadians”).
