Childhood in early Icelandic society: representations of children in the Icelandic Sagas
Thirteenth century Icelanders did not sentimentalize childhood, but rather viewed it as a learning stage, a crucial period for the acquisition of culture.
Of sagas and sheep: Toward a historical anthropology of social change and production for market, subsistence and tribute in early Iceland
This dissertation deals with the formation of chiefdoms, communities, ecclesiastical institutions and state, and with production for market, subsistence and tribute in early Iceland in the context of climatic change and ecological succession.
Messages from the Otherworld – The Roles of the Dead in Medieval Iceland
I will examine the role of the restless dead in sagas by focusing on the individuals who are responsible for banishing the malevolent ghosts, or encounter the benevolent or non-harmful living dead.
Vampires and Watchmen: Categorizing the Mediaeval Icelandic Undead
One can imagine three ways to approach a mediaeval Icelandic draugr, a term which is usually glossed as ‘ghost’ in English.
Vikings, the barbaric heroes: exploring the Viking image in museums in Iceland and England and its impact on identity
This study analyses the responses of Icelandic and English individuals in regards to their views on the Viking image as represented within museums and in society.
Understanding Grettir as an Ethical Hero: Comparing Havamal and Grettir’s Saga
The Icelandic family sagas are replete with heroes, fighting men and strong women who stood with their teeth to the wind and carved a life for themselves out of an inhospitable world
Ten Old Norse Proverbs: Wisdom from the Hávamál
The Hávamál (Sayings of the High One) is part of the Poetic Edda, a collection of Old Norse poems that survive in a 13th century manuscript.
Signs of Power. Manorial Demesnes in Medieval Iceland
An important aspect of medieval Icelandic social organization, namely the manor, has been neglected in previous research, and very little research has been undertaken comparing Icelandic manorial organization with other regions. This article focuses on one aspect of manorial organization, namely the manorial demesne or central farm of the manor.
The Fabulous Saga of Guðmundr inn ríki: Representation of Sexuality in Ljósvetninga saga
Guðmundr, a powerful goði living in the late 10th and early 11th century, was subjected to sexual insults by his rivals Þorkell hákr and Þórir goði Helgason. These sexual insults described him as effeminate and cowardly, and the thesis shows that the Ljósvetninga saga text follows suit with these slurs.
Discovering Law: Hayekian Competition in Medieval Iceland
From the start, Icelandic society operated with well-developed concepts of private property and law, but, in an unusual combination, it lacked most of the formal institutions of government which normally protect ownership and enforce judicial decisions
From Old Norse to Modern Icelandic
Thus the language spoken and written in Iceland today is quite close to what has been called Old Norse, such as it appears in the medieval texts.
Demonic Magic in the Icelandic Wizard Legends
Saemund Sigfusson is the earliest of the Icelandic wizards. According to the annals he was born in the year 1056. He was educated in France and returned to Iceland in 1076 or 1078.
Climatic Change and the North Atlantic Seaways During the Norse Expansion
In order to appreciate how the Norse expansion might have been influenced by climatic fluctuations it is necessary to consider in outline the mechanisms which control weather and climate in the North Atlantic area at the present day, and which also obtained in the past.
Surtshellir: a fortified outlaw cave in west iceland
The name Surtshellir means, variously, the ‘Black Cave’ or the ‘Cave of Surtur’,a powerful fire giant according to norse mythology. Surtshellir is mentioned several times in icelandic medieval literature and seems to have been well-known as a threatening place, inhabited by giants or outlaws.
A Grave Revisited: On Grave Robbery in Viking Age Iceland
Are they broken into for social or religious reason or perhaps for simpler reasons of plunder?
The King in Disguise: An International Popular Tale in Two Old Icelandic Adaptations
The following essay is intended as a contribution to the current reassessment of the rela- tionship of Old Icelandic saga literature to the European mainstream and of the ways of literary tradition in dealing with oral sources.
Time, space and power in later medieval Bristol
With a population of almost 10,000, Bristol was later medieval England’s second or third biggest urban place, and the realm’s second port after London. While not particularly large or wealthy in comparison with the great cities of northern Italy, Flanders or the Rhineland, it was a metropolis in the context of the British Isles.
Primstav and Apocalypse Time and its Reckoning in Medieval Scandinavia
This work is intended as an exploration of methods of time-reckoning and conception in Medieval Scandinavia. In the main this is tied to the dynamism between a duality: that of the cyclical and linear models of time‟s progression. Involved in this study are sources verbal and pictoral.
Island Words, Island Worlds: The Origins and Meanings of Words for ‘Islands’ in North-West Europe
This paper proposes the notion that words mirror ideas, perspectives and world- views. Etymologies and meanings of general words for ‘islands’ in a number of languages in North and West Europe are then discussed.
Enabling Love: Dwarfs in Old Norse-Icelandic Romances
Many of these romances deal not merely with love and adventure but also with dwarfs. But how do dwarfs fit in with the romantic idealism of these narratives? What exactly is their function?
Leiðarvísir: Its Genre and Sources, with Particular Reference to the Description of Rome
For the last two centuries, Leiðarvísir has been the subject of great interest by scholars from a variety of disciplines: not only Old Norse scholars, but also historians, geographers, toponymists and scholars of pilgrimage have studied and analysed this work.
Auðun of the West Fjords and the Saga Tradition: Similarities of Theme and Structural Suitability
This paper evaluates the story of Auðun from the West Fjords, a þáttr dating from the Sturlunga period of medieval Iceland. It compares the short prose narrative to the much longer sagas in terms of their mutual concerns with kings, peace, and the place of Iceland in a larger Christian world.
The Process of State-Formation in Medieval Iceland
The aim of this article is to analyze the process of state-formation in Iceland in light of some general models of state-formation in Europe in the Middle Ages.
All the King’s Men: Icelandic Skalds at Scandinavian Court
Spanning the gap between Iceland and mainland Scandinavia and sitting somewhere between freemen and nobility on the social scale were Icelandic court skalds, who frequented courts on the mainland throughout the Viking Age.