Icelanders and the Kings of Norway - Medieval Sagas and Legal Texts
The book uses sagas and legal texts to re-examine the relations between mediaeval Icelanders and the Norwegian kings. It demonstrates that the Icelanders - partly subjects of the king, and partly beyond his power - were ready to negotiate with him for their own benefit, and presents a methodological re-evaluation of authorial attributions of the sagas and their use as historical sources. Key to the book is a revisionary analysis of two laws made between the Icelanders and the kings of Norway...
Heiðarvíga saga or The Story of the Heath-Slayings is one of the Icelanders' sagas. It is badly preserved; 12 leaves of the only surviving manuscript were destroyed along with their only copy in the fire of Copenhagen in 1728. The content of that part is only known through a summary written from memory by Jón Grunnvíkingur who had made the lost copy. The saga is written in a quaint and clumsy style, which some scholars have taken as indication that it is among the oldest Icelanders' sagas.
"Kormaks saga is one of the Icelanders' sagas. It tells of the 10th century Icelandic poet, Kormkr Ogmundarson, and Steingerdr, the love of his life. The saga preserves a significant amount of poetry attributed to Kormakr, much of it dealing with his love for Steingerdr. Though the saga is believed to have been among the earliest sagas composed it is well preserved. The unknown author clearly relies on oral tradition and seems unwilling to add much of his own or even to fully integrate the different accounts he knew of Kormakr. Often he does little more than briefly set the scenes for Kormakr's stanzas.
The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki is one of the major Scandinavian legendary tales and belongs to the group of mythic-heroic Icelandic stories known as the "sagas of ancient times," or fornaldar sagas. These texts, which are also sometimes called the 'legendary sagas,' are distinctive in that they tell of events that occurred, or are supposed to have occurred, long before the ninth-century settlement of Iceland.
From runic inscriptions to sagas, this book introduces readers to the colourful world of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. An introduction to the colourful world of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. Covers mythology and family sagas, as well as less well-known areas, such as oral story-telling, Eddaic verse and skaldic verse. An introduction helps readers to appreciate the language and culture of the first settlers in Iceland. Looks at the reception of Old-Norse-Icelandic literature over the ages, as views of the vikings have changed. Shows how a whole range of authors from Shakespeare to Seamus Heaney have been influenced by Old Norse-Icelandic literature.
