Reconstructing the past in medieval Iceland

Abstract

C  C  Locating and dating sagas is a difficult but still important task. This paper examines the relationship between the Sagas of Icelanders, which are concerned with tenth-and eleventh-century events, and the contemporary sagas of the mid-thirteenth century. Drawing upon models from anthropology, it looks at how contemporary ideas permeated these historicizing texts and how genealogy and geography act as structures around which the past is remembered. The many political relationships which occur in Laxdaela saga are analysed in relation to those from contemporary sagas from the same area of western Iceland. Since it appears that there is relatively little in common between the political situations depicted in Laxdaela saga and those portrayed in the contemporary sagas, it is likely that Laxdaela saga and the contemporary sagas were actually written down in different periods. It is possible, therefore, that the Sagas of Icelanders give us a view of the past which originates earlier than is usually suggested.

Coercion, vengeance, feud and accommodation: homicide in medieval Iceland

“…Laxdaela saga portrays political relationships between farms which appear to substantially predate its presumed thirteenth-century written origin. 25 Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu and Harðar saga ok Hólmverja describe events which are at least consistent with recent archaeological findings. 26 Egils saga Skallagrímssonar describes the exploits of a tenth-century figure previously interpreted in purely symbolic and fictional terms, who may well have been a historical figure who suffered bone-thickening Paget's disease.…”