Can you solve Odin’s Riddles?
Here are 14 riddles that the Norse god Odin says to King Heidrek. Can you solve them?
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
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.
“Viking” Pilgrimage to the Holy Land fram! fram! cristmenn, crossmenn, konungsmenn! (Oláfs saga helga, ch. 224.)
The Viking predilection for travel and adventure made it easy for Christianized Scandinavians to adopt the idea of pilgrimage. It was, after all, not entirely unlike their own secular tradition of going a-viking.
The Headless Norsemen: Decapitation in Viking Age Scandinavia
I will concentrate my attention only on single and double decapitation burials and mostly those from the area of Scandinavia. What did similar practices mean? What kinds of individuals were subject to decapitation? Were they criminals, slaves, aggressors, deserters swathed in infamy or perhaps unfortunate victims of bloody attacks?
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.
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?
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.
Accepting Fools as Heroes
What sociocultural attitudes towards the intellectually disabled – commonly referred to as fools – were prevalent during the Viking Age?
Enter the Dragon: Legendary Saga Courage and the Birth of the Hero
What is the dragon to Sigurðr? His attitude is interestingly nonchalant. The question arises, Who is Sigurðr the dragon-slayer? Why is he the best person to kill the dragon? And furthermore, why is the dragon important to the hero?
Textual Efflorescence and Social Resources: Notes on Mediaeval Iceland
The overt double function of culture traits and products, namely instrumental- ity and symbolicity, which may be explicit in some elements, often remains hidden for other ones.
Gunnhildur and the male whores
Queen Gunnhildur is one of the most evil Norwegian female characters in the Middle Ages. She appears in many old stories where she is usually the female agent for ill in the sagas; she is wicked, promiscuous and very often skilled in magical arts.
Sagas and politics in 13th century Borgarfjörður
Why did the Icelanders write so much more than almost everybody else in the Middle Ages? This is an old problem that has still not been solved to everyone’s satisfaction.
Orkneyinga saga : A Work in Progress?
The reconstituted text conventionally known as Orkneyinga saga has many points of interest for Old Icelandic literary history, in addition to any intrinsic literary qualities, and its interest as a source for the history and culture of Scandinavian Scotland.
Hawkers, beggars, assassins and tramps : Fringe characters in the Íslendinga sögur
The paper will identify a number of different types of vagrants portrayed in the sagas and their varying roles within saga plots.
Why Care about Later Folklore in Old Norse Studies?
It is not unusual that folklore data can be demonstrated, with high probability, to reflect ancient times, for reasons like those mentioned in the Bárðar saga example, or other reasons – as many of us know.
Can Statistics show if the Icelandic Sagas were true?
The Icelandic sagas of the Norse people are thousand-year-old chronicles of brave deeds and timeless romances, but how true to Viking life were they?
The Hunted Children of Kings: A Theme in the Old Icelandic Sagas
In this instance life appears to imitate art, that is if we categorize fairy tales as art. Life, or at least the life of King Sverrir, resembles a story about stepmothers.
The Viking Age and the Crusades Era in Yngvars saga víðförla
The ‘Saga of Ingvar the Far-Traveller’ is based on a reliable fact, justified by about 25 runic inscriptions which date to the first half of the eleventh century, that a military expedition, led by Ingvar, went from Sweden to Eastern Europe, then moved to the South or to the South-West and perished there.
Sex, lies and the Íslendinga sögur
Sex, lies and the Íslendinga sögur By Damian Fleming Sagas and Society, No.6 (2004) Abstract: Past scholars used to look upon the Icelandic…
Why skaldic verse? Fashion and cultural politics in thirteenth-century Iceland
In this paper I intend to address this question through the poetic evidence of the sagas of Icelanders, analyzing two sagas which were written in the west of Iceland in the middle of thirteenth century.
Nancy Marie Brown: The Song of the Vikings, Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths
Nancy Marie Brown gives a talk about her recent book The Song of Vikings, Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths