Tag: Medieval Iceland
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Harald Fairhair: Unification and Cultural Migration
This post was originally delivered as a virtual lecture to the New York Ancient Cultures MeetUp on September 20th, 2020. It was a group effort between myself (fjörn) and Joshua Gillingham (author of The Gatewatch). Below is the transcript I used while giving my portion of the talk. As such, I don’t have any footnotes,…
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Álfablót: Sacrificing to the Elves (Audio Version)
Occasionally, Viking fans and modern-day Norse pagans throw around the term álfablót (elf-sacrifice), but what does that actually involve? What is an elf-sacrifice, anyway? And what is it for? In this episode of the Fjorn’s Hall Podcast, I share a few stories from medieval sources dealing with this topic: sacrifices made to the elves. Although…
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ヴィンランド・サガ: Vikings in Manga & Anime
Although the Vikings never quite made it to Japan (as far as we know), their culture still managed to find its way there hundreds of years after the Viking Age. But the impact has been…minimal, to say the least. After all, whenever a curious wanderer searches for バイキング (that’s ‘Viking’ in Japanese) on Google, they…
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No Runestones in Iceland?
genericlifeform-blog asked: I’m fairly new to the Vikings (it all started with an icelandic geology obsession) and found a short but interesting article about runestones. Shortly after I tried to find out more about runestones placed in iceland and had to learn to my disappointment that there are none. Now to my question which is I…
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Honor and Feud in Medieval Iceland: A Question about Njal’s Saga
Anonymous asked: In Njal’s Saga, on page 154 of the Robert Cook translation, Njal says it would be unjust if his sons were killed now. Why is there antipathy between them and Thrain, and why should they be killed for it? (sorry if this sounds like a stupid question) The tension between Thrain Sigfusson and the…
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The Christianization of Iceland
tyrsbeast-blog asked: I saw a documentary recently, in which they said, Iceland became Christian basically because Denmark became Christian and imprisoned every Iceland not der on it’s soil, sending an ultimatum to Iceland, that they would execute them, if Iceland wouldn’t convert. A heathen law man, respected by Christians and Heathens alike, was in the end…
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The Age of Settlements
“Iceland was first settled from Norway in the days of Haraldr the Fine-Haired, son of Hálfdan the Black, at the time…when Ívarr, son of Ragnarr loðbrók, had St. Edmund, king of the Angles, killed; and that was 870 years after the birth of Christ, according to what is written in his [Edmund’s] saga.” (Ari Þorgilsson…
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Language in Medieval Iceland
“There was a man named Thorarin who lived at Sunnudale. He was an old man with failing eyesight. He had been a fierce viking in his youth and though he was now old he was still not easy to deal with.” (Þorsteins þáttr stangarhöggs – Miller, 52.) They called their language the Dönsk Tunga, the Danish Tongue.…
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Land-Taking in Medieval Iceland
“Floki took three ravens with him on the voyage. When he set the first one free it flew back from the stern, but the second raven flew straight up into the air, and then back down to the ship, while the third flew straight ahead from the prow, and it was in that direction that they…
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Primary Sources for Women in the Viking Age
tatterhood asked: Hello, I have a ‘quick’ question regarding your most recent post about Women in the Viking Age. You list your sources at the bottom, but do you know what (primary) source they use? (You have a truly wonderful source-list page, but there wasn’t a ‘Law and Society’/’Women’ section, so I thought I’d ask) Thanks!…
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Medieval Iceland: A Unique Settlement
“Medieval Iceland is an almost unique instance of a community whose culture and creative power flourished independently of any favoring material conditions, and indeed under conditions in the highest degree unfavorable. Not ought it to be less interesting to the student of politics and law as having produced a Constitution unlike any other whereof records…
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Blood, Feud, and Honor in the Viking Age
Last week we discussed the ideal system of law in Viking Age society. Yet, that is just the surface of the system that actually existed. Although not directly related, feud was the true process for obtaining justice. Law was merely a phase that most feuds would go through. This lesson aims to shed light on…
