Icelandic Sagas

That by his death Grettir is treated by the saga's composer as a monster, similar to those he killed, and that this is done ironically, with echoic passages studying monstrosity throughout this latest extant version of the narrative. The composer does this for complex reasons, to which I intend to return at some point in the next year or two.

This chapter focuses on acts of speaking, writing, and hearing verbalized accounts of Icelandic place, and their role in establishing a distinct Icelandic identity in Íslendingabók and Landnámabók. The chapter opens by considering how the landscape of Iceland is verbally mapped, and argues that this is a textual priority for the Icelanders. While many of the places featured in Íslendingabók and Landnámabók were historically real, verbalized topographies, which can collapse time, animate foundational events and actors, accomplish something more. Like pilgrimage and travel accounts, verbal topographies enable moving, affective experiences and provide admission to an aspirational Icelandic national space fusing real and imagined elements. This chapter demonstrates that through the combination of writing, oral performance of placelore episodes (on site and otherwise), and the resultant experience of living within a re-imagined, storied landscape of Iceland, important lessons about Icelandic identity are transmitted.

Snorri contributed much to the image, prestige, and authority of poets in Old Norse vernacular literature. However, he did not originate or conclude this lionization of poets and poetry in the culture, and those who came before and after him also played their parts in establishing a robust and impressive written reputation for the poets. From almost the beginning, Old Nose vernacular literature would gradually come to exalt poets and poetry in many domains. These domains would include grammar, historic factuality, prestigious origins, mythology, narrative uses, runes, and magic. To show that, this essay surveys key Old Norse works over a two hundred year period. The works considered here have been chosen because they deal with poetry and poets in a wide variety of ways, and they are notable or represent significant developments in Icelandic literature.

Snorri à beaucoup contribué à l'image, au prestige et à l'autorité des poètes dans la littérature vernaculaire en ancien norrois. Cependant, il n'est ni l'instigateur ni le dernier chantre de cette glorification des poètes et de la poésie dans la culture, et ses prédécesseurs et successeurs jouent également un rôle dan l'établissement d'une réputation solide et impressionnante pour les poètes. Presque dés son commencement, la littérature vernaculaire en ancien Norrois exalte les poètes et la poésie dans de nombreux domaines. Ces derniers incluent la grammaire, la véracité historique, les origines prestigieuses, la mythologie, les usages narratifs, les runes et la magie. Afin de démontrer cela, cet essai passe en revue les travaux littéraires en ancien norrois sur une période de deux cent ans. Les oeuvres étudiées ici ont été choisies car elle adressent la question des poètes et de la poésie de manières variées et représentent des développements significatifs dans la littérature islandaise.

For medieval Icelanders, horses were among the most important animals. It should come as no surprise, as they were used for transport, in pagan rites (hippomancy, funerals, sacred horses), eating, and also for sports. These sports were the horse-fights (hestavígs) and horse-racing (skeið). Reading the sagas, one can find a lot of references to horse-fighting. This sport was considered of such importance among medieval Icelanders that laws have been written down regarding this entertainment, yet there is no exact description of how such events were organized. Only by putting all the references together can one endeavor to explain what these horse-fights may have actually been like. In my paper I would like to present the basis for these horse-fights. Their terminology has been frequently misinterpreted, and no critical investigation yet exists into the staging and organization of such events, which would shed light on the meaning and role of this sport to medieval Icelanders. It will be shown that horse-fighting functioned not only as brutal entertainment in itself, but also played a social role in the broader context of inter-district assemblies.

With this thesis I would like to analyse the Icelandic saga of Eirík the red, Eiríks saga rauða in Old Norse, that narrates the colonization of Greenland and the exploration of Vinland, an apparently paradisiacal land located somewhere along the shores of the North American continent and discovered by Norse sailors around the end of the 10th Century and the beginning of the past millennium.

The present study scrutinizes the outlawry and outlaws that appear in the Icelandic Family Sagas. It provides a thorough description about outlawry on the basis of extant law and saga texts as well as an analysis of referential connotations attached to it. The concept of outlawry was fundamental for the medieval Icelanders conceptions of their past. Indeed, understanding outlawry is essential for understanding many of the Family Sagas. Outlaws appear in saga texts in significant roles.

The Icelandic Family Sagas comprise a group of prose narratives that were written down in the 13th and 14th century Iceland. They are based on events and personae that belong to the 10th century Iceland. These narratives introduce many outlaws, out of which some 75 are named.

The Family Sagas are studied here as one corpus and special emphasis is given to those narrative features that repetitively appear in connection with outlawry and the outlaw characters. Therefore, the eventual objects of this study are the medieval Icelanders general conceptions of the historical outlawry as well as the variations of these conceptions throughout the period of saga writing. The medieval Icelanders general conceptions about the 10th 11th century, which are reflected in the Family Sagas, are here referred to as the Saga World. The Saga World is the historically based taleworld to which all of the Family Sagas refer.

The medieval law texts, which were derived from centuries old legislative traditions, reveal that outlawry meant banishing from the society and being denied all help, and that the outlawed person lost the protection of the law. In practice, outlawry was a death sentence.

However, outlaws occupy many differing roles in the saga narratives even in connection with recurrent narrative motifs. These roles reflect the social and spatial structures of the Saga World. The inspection of outlawry within these structures reveals that the definition of outlawry as it appears in the law texts is insufficient for understanding outlawry in the saga texts.

The social and spatial structures also provide a basis for the connotations of outlawry. In this study, these connotations are inspected primarily from the referential connections between outlawry in the Family Sagas and corresponding phenomena in other concurrent literature. This is done by studying the implementations of the basic elements of outlawry in the Family Sagas marginalization, banishing, rejection and solitariness within other literary genres and the taleworlds to which they refer. It is argued that these taleworlds reflect the same ideas that were associated with outlawry in the Family Sagas albeit in different forms and that these different forms reciprocally contributed to the conceptions of outlawry.

The variety of denotations and connotations of outlawry that is visible in the medieval Icelandic texts reflects the ambiguity of outlawry in the Family Sagas. This ambiguity may shed light to questions such as why an outlaw could be perceived as a hero in a literary genre that predominantly promoted law and order and why the same outlaw could be perceived as a villain on another occasion.

в отечественной науке роль варягов в образовании древнерусского государства оценивается весьма высоко, в частности у исследователей уже практически не вызывает сомнений скандинавское происхождение самой княжеской династии Рюриковичей. Однако на сегодняшний день в так называемом варяжском вопросе наблюдается известное противоречие: при огромном массиве археологических данных, недвусмысленно свидетельствующих об активном присутствии варягов на Руси в X–XI вв., мы располагаем весьма ограниченным количеством лингвистических следов и примет этнокультурного взаимодействия русских и скандинавов в эту эпоху. Данная книга представляет собой опыт историко-филологического разыскания в области культурных контактов Скандинавии и Руси на излете эпохи викингов. Образ идеального правителя, практика обмена дарами, представления о статусе и наследственных правах незаконнорожденного, рассказ о предках как средство характеристики потомков, перекличка личных имен, прозвищ и торжественных панегириков — такова лишь часть тех напряженных точек этого взаимодействия, к которым мы попытались подступиться в нашем исследовании.
The Varangian contribution to the formation of the ancient Russian state is highly
evaluated in the national scholarly tradition, more specifi cally, there are practically
no doubts about the Scandinavian origin of the Rurik dynasty. However, there is
a certain contradiction in the so-called Varangian problem: given a huge body of
archaeological data unambiguously confi rming the active Varangian presence in Rus
in the 10th–11th centuries, we can only have at our disposal a very limited amount
of the linguistic traces of ethnic and cultural connections between Russians and
Scandinavians at that time.
This book presents an attempt at the historical and philological study in the
fi eld of the cultural contacts between Scandinavia and Rus before the very end of the
Viking age. The image of the ideal ruler, the practice of gift exchange, the concepts of
the status and inheritance rights of illegitimate children, a narrative about ancestors
as a way of characterizing descendants, and similarities between personal names,
nicknames and solemn eulogies — these are, to name just a few, the intense points of
this interaction which became the focus of our study.

This is not just a book about a battle; it is a book about the biggest battle before Hastings 1066.
This is a battle most people have probably never heard of, but it is a battle where five Scottish and Viking kings and seven earls died, somewhere in the kingdom of Northumbria in late 937. As well as royalty, the bones of tens of thousands of ordinary men from Northern England, Scotland and the Viking territories lie buried in a place which, according to the chroniclers, is no longer known.
This book is about that battle and the search to find the long-lost site. Thousands of pages have been written about the Battle of Brunnenburh, but this book is unique. It is written by descendants of a legendary Viking Egill Skallagrimsson. Thousands of pages have been written about Brunnenburh but all of them are written from the perspective of the victor, King Athelstan of Wessex and Mercia. This book is the closest anyone is likely to get to a Northern Viking account.
Even if you have no real interest in the site of the Battle of Brunnenburh this is worth the effort you will put into it this book to understand it. Take a deep dive into the world and beliefs and times of the competing factions in 10 th century England and beyond, and the battle that first unified the United Kingdom.

This anthology explores depictions of alterity, monstrosity and deviation in medieval Icelandic literature, Scandinavian history, and beyond. The authors explore issues of identity, genre, character and text and the interplay between them, challenging long-held perceptions about the lack of ambiguity in Old Norse literature and culture.

Medieval Icelandic literature has often been reduced to the supposedly realist Íslendingasögur and their main protagonists at the expense of other genres and characters. Indeed, such a focus obscures and erases the importance of those beings and narratives that move on the margins of mainstream culture — whether socially, ethnically, ontologically, or textually. This volume aims to offer a new perspective on a variety of theoretical and comparative approaches to explore depictions of alterity, monstrosity, and deviation. Engaging with the interplay of genre, character, text, and culture, and exploring questions of behavioural, socio-cultural, and textual alterity, these contributions examine subjects ranging from the study of fragmented and ‘Othered’ saga narratives, to attitudes towards foreign people and lands, and alterities in mythological and legendary texts. Together the papers effectively challenge long-held perceptions about the lack of ambiguity in medieval Icelandic literature, and offer a far more nuanced understanding of the importance of the ‘Other’ in that society.

http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503585864-1

The three Íslendingasögur about major outlaws have long fascinated scholars and readers alike, and the question why medieval Icelanders told tales in which social outsiders play the part of the hero has been the concern of scholarship for a number of years. At the heart of this scholarship has been a preoccupation with the characters and their families, for these families play a prominent role in the texts: Gísli is outlawed for killing one brother-in-law to avenge another; Hörðr does not trust any of his male relatives, and this eventually leads to his downfall; and Grettir's difficult relationship with his father seems to lead to his reckless and arrogant behaviour later in life. But why are these stories about outlaw heroes so focussed on the relationships between the individual and his kin group? And why were Icelanders – medieval and modern – so fascinated by these marginal, destructive figures?
In this article these questions are addressed by approaching the outlaw from the perspective of monster theory. The monster, as a creature that points towards or even embodies meaning beyond itself, lends itself well to such an investigation into social and cultural concerns whose reflection we might see in the literary products of said culture. So far, outlaws have not been included into the corpus of Íslendingasögur monsters, and therefore, the article consists of four parts. First, the concept of social monstrosity is established, based on Cohen’s monster theory but more suited to the unique situation in the Íslendingasögur. This concept is then applied to the three major outlaws before turning to the discussion of outlaws within their matrix of family ties. In the final step, the monstrous outlaw in his disrupted, disruptive family will be read as symptomatic of medieval Icelandic socio-cultural concerns about the fragmentation of family structures.

Chapter 4 of Eiríks saga rauða has long drawn the attention of scholars due to its detailed description of a seiðr, a rare occurrence in Íslendinga sǫgur as well as in sagas of other genres. The protagonist of the scene, a Greenlandic seiðkona named Þorbjǫrg, is depicted as a social functionary who creates a relationship with the supernatural world and acquires a deeper knowledge and foreknowledge concerning the surrounding area, for the benefit of the local community. The performance takes place during a great famine at the beginning of the eleventh century, and the semi-public ritual had the purpose of predicting when the dearth would come to an end. It consisted – among other things-of a ritual meal: a porridge of kid's milk and of the cooked hearts of all the living creatures that inhabited the area. The present paper aims at casting light on this specific aspect of Þorbjǫrg's seiðr, and at contextualizing it within a wider literary and historical landscape. The intention is to integrate traditional interpretations with observations on the importance of sympathetic magic in ancient and medieval Europe, and particularly in medieval Scandinavia.

The paper provides a brief summary of the Old Norse Grettis Saga and examines it in terms of research aspects outside of the field of literary studies. It highlights the historical, cultural, social, and religious contexts of the work, giving explanation as to where indications of them can be found in the saga. At the same time it tries to explain some of the more obscure aspects, such as the supernatural elements, in order to give clarity to the method of interpretation. Vital information on the grouping of Old Norse sagas, as well as the importance of ancestry in the texts, are provided and elaborated. Definitions of key terms essential to understand the source material are provided and kept on a level clear to a reader not fluent in the topic. Categorizations of the mentioned saga genre are also provided, with the hope to spark interest in the vast variety of motifs and key aspects of the Old Norse sagas. Further suggestions for research outside of the field are presented; however, they are not taken up completely. The paper shows the Old Norse sagas as potent, yet often overlooked, literary works worthy of attention as possible research material in the field of humanities.

This paper seeks to provide a new contribution to the debates on Viking Age women by focusing on a rather controversial notion of ‘female warriors’. The core of the article comprises a preliminary survey of archaeological evidence for female graves with weapons (axes, spears, swords and arrowheads) from Viking Age Scandinavia. Attention is focused not only on the types of weapons deposited with the deceased, but first and foremost on the meanings which similar practices may have had for the past societies. The author discusses why, where and how the weapons were placed in female graves and attempts to trace some patterns in this unusual funerary behaviour. In addition to exploring the funerary evidence, the iconographic representations of what could be regarded as ‘female warriors’ are also briefly considered. Lastly, a few remarks are also made on the notion of armed women in the textual sources.

In Ari fróði Þorgilsson’s Íslendingabók, the settlement of Iceland is said to have first begun from Norway in 870, the year that “Ívarr, son of Ragnarr loðbrók, had St Edmund, king of the English, killed.” He attributes his knowledge of the date of this martyrdom to a mysterious “saga” of St Edmund, the identity of which has long been debated. This note considers the various alternatives put forth by previous researchers and concludes that that the most likely candidate for this saga is in fact a composite of two texts, Abbo of Fleury’s Passio Sancti Eadmundi and Hermannus the Archdeacon’s De miraculis Sancti Eadmundi. These texts are known to have been bound together in at least one manuscript from the early twelfth century. It is argued that a similar manuscript may have circulated in Iceland and was used to inform several other Old Icelandic texts composed over the following two centuries.

This article deals witha wide concept of freedom as an idea that constitutes communities in Early Middle Ages. The work is split in three parts: a theoretical side, a practical side, ad final conclusions, The first touches upon issues related to the "origines gentium" stories, which are about peoples' origins, where as the second serves as a supplement to earlier considerations. Mention of several examples illustrates the practical aspect of formation and organisation of said communities, based on the premise of liberty.

Fantasy novels by Icelandic writers were not very common in the 20th  century. In the last few decades they have grown in numbers and Icelandic fantasy is becoming more and more popular. Fantasy in general has not been considered a very respectable genre, but recent studies have found that interpretation lacking. Scholars who have studied "the fantastic" have learned that the line between realism and the fantastic is perhaps getting blurry and that the two are in fact not so far apart.
Medieval Icelandic literature is in many cases overflowing with supernatural occurrences, but is the supernatural the same as the fantastic? In modern society supernatural beings are regarded as fiction, but that was not the case in medieval times. Perhaps we could assume that the medieval supernatural could be the equivalent of modern fantasy. Modern fantasy literature implies that this is indeed possible.
This thesis is written from the University of Iceland and is an M.A. thesis in Icelandic literature. In it the evolution of the term "fantasy" will be studied. The difference between the supernatural and the fantastic in medieval Icelandic sagas will also be investigated and analysed in regard to three modern Icelandic fantasy novels. The conclusion will show how Icelandic fantasy writers are inspired by the medieval sagas; whether it is intentional or not.

This chapter makes a close reading of a short vignette in Eyrbyggja saga - the attempted forced marriage between the Swedish berserk Halli and Víga-Styrr's daughter Ásdis - exploring the ways that various norms and normative expectations are deliberately manipulated by the characters in question to further their own social goals in the narrative.

Gísli Súrsson’s Saga is one of the most popular outlaw sagas in the corpus of Icelandic literature. In this story, Gísli experiences a series of prophetic dreams where two mysterious female figures appear to foretell his fate. Although the identities of these figures are not revealed, they do contain some of the same qualities that parallel other sources that might identify them as the Norns of fate of Norse mythology. This short paper will summarize Gísli’s dreams, and then compare them with a few other sources in order to investigate this potential connection. Finally, a short critique will be provided on this correlation that might help us lend some insight into the purpose behind these mythical beings, as well as to provide a basis for later inquiry on the subject.

Author: Noel Braucher

Cette communication propose de revenir sur le terme « viking » en analysant la notion de piraterie dans les sources norroises. Si les historiens sont familiers des témoignages des victimes de ces pirates du Nord, les sources norroises demeurent encore trop méconnues hors de Scandinavie. Les sagas, chroniques rédigées essentiellement au XIIIe siècle, sont des récits provenant des descendants de ces fameux Vikings et jouissant depuis ces vingt dernières années d’un regain d’intérêt de la part des historiens. 
Le mouvement de piraterie des Vikings, daté approximativement du VIIIe au XIe siècle, marqua profondément le Moyen Âge. De la route de l’ouest (vestrvegr) à la route de l’est (austrvegr), l’œkoumène des Vikings s’étendait de Terre-Neuve à Constantinople et de l’Islande au Maghreb. Ces pirates furent à l’origine de changements dans l’ensemble du monde médiéval : création d’États et de dynasties, consolidation du pouvoir, transfert des richesses, imposition de tributs aux peuples vaincus, explorations, mercenariat, etc. 
Devant la foule de problèmes soulevés par l’étude des Vikings, nous proposons ici de revenir à la notion de piraterie au sein des sources norroises. Nous tenterons tout d’abord de revenir sur la sémantique du mot víkingr et du champ lexical qui lui est associé. Puis à travers divers témoignages issus des sources norroises, nous essayerons de définir les enjeux et modalités de la piraterie vue par les Scandinaves.

Mots-clés : Vikings, piraterie, sagas, histoire maritime.

The story of the Chazars who had claimed a tribute from a Slavic tribe, the Poljanians, and received a sword in response, is usually considered in scholarship to be testimony that the Chazar empire was extended to the region of Kiev. A similar offering of a sword in Heimskringla and Nóregs konunga tal demonstrates that the story does not relate to a tribute paid to the Chazars, but rather the opposite, that the Poljanians suggested that the Chazars acknowledge their overlordship. Even if the narrative had Scandinavian origins, it was well assimilated by Russian compilers. Our interpretation shows that the story of the “Chazar tribute” belongs not to real, historical time or space, but rather to “annalistic space” under the influence of various narrative traditions. The theme of the sword became a kind of cliché, which is reiterated in several episodes when thePrimary Chronicle tells of political subordination in the pre-Christian epoch. The development of the written tradition under Prince Jaroslav the Wise and his descendants led to a change in the original meaning of the archaic ritual, considered now in the light of literary rationalism. The tale was most likely invented and included in the chronicle by an early compiler in the middle or the second half of the eleventh century. Around the year 1110, the original motif of offering a sword was elaborated into a claim of tribute.

This volume is the first book-length study of masculinities in the Sagas of Icelanders. Spanning the entire corpus of the Sagas of Icelanders—and taking into account a number of little-studied sagas as well as the more well-known works—it comprehensively interrogates the construction, operation, and problematization of masculinities in this genre.

Men and Masculinities in the Sagas of Icelanders elucidates the dominant model of masculinity that operates in the sagas, demonstrates how masculinities and masculine characters function within these texts, and investigates the means by which the sagas, and saga characters, may subvert masculine dominance. Combining close literary analysis with insights drawn from sociological theories of hegemonic and subordinated masculinities, notions of homosociality and performative gender, and psychoanalytic frameworks, the book brings to men and masculinities in saga literature the same scrutiny traditionally brought to the study of women and femininities. Ultimately, the volume demonstrates that masculinity is not simply glorified in the sagas, but is represented as being both inherently fragile and a burden to all characters, masculine and non-masculine alike.

Abstract: Some of the bloodfeuds in Iceland during c. 870–1056 are described in details in the numerous sagas, which makes them the main source of this article. A thorough analysis of these texts leads to the conclusion that the feuds on the island follow the development of the social patterns, the jurisdiction and the legislation in medieval Iceland. In a way this personalizes the Icelandic type of feud. In order to substantiate this point, the article focuses firstly on revenge as an act underlying any enmity. Vengeance obeys a set of specific rules and norms that place it within a certain framework. Secondly, attention is paid to the public support as a factor crucial for any conflict during the first two centuries of the Icelandic history.
  Along with all this, to get an idea of the actual flow of events in any bloodfeud, one needs to trace the individual development phases of the feud. According to what is mentioned in the sagas, feuds are most often prompted by purely human feelings such as love, jealousy, pride, by selfish acts like desire for succession rights or avarice. The results of such acts usually lead to retaliatory actions that often escalate into physical attacks on someone’s life, property or honour. Thus a feud is already a fact and it can quickly escalate to bloodshed. Events of this kind are also at the centre of the plot in most Icelandic sagas. Any feud is at its deadliest point when escalated, but then it subsided, and the warring parties made peace with each other. In some cases an agreement is achieved by judicial decision. In others, lawsuits are resolved through arbitration, which represents an extrajudicial practice that includes negotiations and mediations between two parties. The dispute is resolved by a third party – an arbitrator, who is a respected and fair-minded neutral person. Most often he achieves agreement between the conflicting parties by directing and convincing them to make peace through certain guaranties, compensations and other payments.
Judging by the information in the Icelandic sagas, bloodfeuds are amongst the phenomenon characteristics of the medieval Icelandic society. On this basis most of the events during the period 870–1056 take place during one or another family conflict. Although the Icelandic people were not involved actively in the major events of the Viking era, their history contributes significantly to the understanding of the historical processes in the medieval Scandinavia.

This essay focuses on an understudied Old Icelandic saga, Kjalnesinga Saga (c.1310-1320), to examine medieval Icelanders' discursive construction of race following the collapse of the independent Icelandic commonwealth. Employing post-colonial and critical-race theories from K. Anthony Appiah, Homi Bhabha, Achille Mbembe, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, this essay posits post-Commonwealth Iceland conceived of race as a spectrum of comprehensibility. The saga affords narrative agency to the assimilated and culturally comprehensible Irish hero, Bú i, and casts him as a surrogate for Iceland's colonial struggle. No such agency is granted to the blá maðr (black-man), a monster sent against Bú i by the Norwegian King, Haraldr Fair-Haired (c.850-932). The blá maðr is subaltern: inaccessible outside Iceland's subordinating narrative, bestializing rhetoric, or Bú i's interpretation. Kjalnesinga Saga's racial discourse challenges modern conceptualizations of Scandinavia's homo-geneity and offers medieval Iceland as another space to explore constructions of race.

European nationalism and global empires. The purpose of this essay is to begin to exam the scholarship around the "Viking Age" and determine if there are elements of racism in the construction's use. The Viking Age is examined by two academic disciplines: Literature and Archaeology. Much of the information used by historians to explain the Vikings has been derived from those two disciplines. Over the years, literary scholars ns (1). The book has three prominent themes: the collecting and translating of manuscripts by antiquarians, the changes within European Scholarship in the mid to late 1800s, and the popularization of the Viking Age that is still present today. Thomas Spray is also concerned with the 19 th Century British interest in the Sagas and Myths (2) in his thesis, Patterns of Nationalist Discourse in the Early Reception of the Icelandic Sagas in Britain. As the title suggests, the relationship between British Nationalism and the Sagas are paramount here. The work explains the context in different ways than Wawn.

Under Fly of Victory. King Sverrir and his Standard
Battle flag of the Norwegian King Sverrir, under which his supporters fought many times, was called ‘Fly of Victory’ (Sigrfluga), looking – to put it mildly – exotic even against the nontrivial names of weapons, ships and other military artefacts, known to us from sagas. The paper deals with the question of what could have been depicted on the banner with such an obscure name and the reasons of this choice for the insignia. Traditionally, the term Sigrfluga was considered by scholars as but a kenning of raven or eagle, but this explanation seems not entirely convincing. We attempt to provide an alternative interpretation of the its meaning and origin.

Þingeyrar Abbey was founded in 1133 and dissolved in the wake of the Lutheran Reformation (1550), to virtually disappear with time from the face of the earth. Although highly promising archeological excavations are under way, our material points of access to this important monastic foundation are still only a handful of medieval artifacts. However, throughout its medieval existence Þingeyrar Abbey was an inordinately large producer of Latin and Icelandic literature. We have the names of monastic authors, poets, translators, compilators, and scribes, who engaged creatively with such diverse subjects as Christian hagiography, contemporary history, and Norse mythology, skillfully amalgamating all of this into a coherent, imaginative whole. Thus, Þingeyrar Abbey has a prominent place in the creation and preservation of the Icelandic Eddas and Sagas that have shaped the Northern European cultural memory. Despite the dissolution of monastic libraries and wholesale destruction of Icelandic-Latin manuscripts through a mixture of Protestant zealotry and parchment reuse, philologists have been able to trace a number of surviving codices and fragments back to Þingeyrar Abbey. Ultimately, however, our primary points of access to the fascinating world of this remote Benedictine community remain immaterial, a vast corpus of medieval texts edited on the basis of manuscript copies at unknown degrees of separation from the lost originals.

The Old Icelandic text The Saga of Þórður kakali survives today as part of the fourteenth-century compilation The Saga of the Sturlungar. In extant form, The Saga of Þórður kakali is a biography of Þórður kakali Sighvatsson (c.1210–56) – chieftain, royal retainer, and sheriff – and covers the periods 1242–50 and 1254–56, providing an interesting view of power politics and political culture from the periphery of medieval Europe, challenging dominant historiographical narratives derived from the sources produced at the center.

Hitherto, only one English translation of The Saga of the Sturlungar (and thus The Saga of Þórður kakali) has ever been produced. This translation was carried out by Julia McGrew and R. George Thomas (published in two volumes, 1970–74). Nevertheless, even with the invaluable assistance of the eminent Icelandic scholar Sigurður Nordal – who provided English translations of the trickier passages of text – McGrew and Thomas’s translation turned out to be “defective and unreliable” (in the words of Oren Falk).

Published translations are cultural levelers insofar as they open up texts to broader audiences – members of the interested wider public – who may not have the means or time to learn the original language merely to study a single primary source or read a lone literary classic. While McGrew and Thomas’s translation of The Saga of Þórður kakali is more or less serviceable if used with extreme caution (i.e., by native English speakers with fluency in Icelandic), the importance of competent translations should not be forgotten, especially for the reader without Icelandic language skills: poor translations can offend, confuse, and mislead users of the target language.