Svalbarðs fundr. The Place Name Svalbard and Its Connotations in Medieval and Modern Literature and Cartography

The paper analyses medieval forms of the name Svalbard as applied to the land “discovered” in 1194, suggests that this Arctic discovery could have been named after a farmstead in Iceland, and follows the story of the name by discussing its contexts in medieval and modern literature and on maps. Howe...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nordlit
Main Author: Leonid S. Chekin
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Norwegian
Published: Septentrio Academic Publishing 2020
Subjects:
Svalbarði
hafsbotn
medieval geography
Ívar Bárðarson
Jón Guðmundsson
Jacob Fredrik Neikter
Norwegian literature
PT8301-9155
Arctic
Svalbard
Iceland
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.7557/13.5025
https://doaj.org/article/51329f26f7c8451fb520ab81758e10dd
Description
Summary:The paper analyses medieval forms of the name Svalbard as applied to the land “discovered” in 1194, suggests that this Arctic discovery could have been named after a farmstead in Iceland, and follows the story of the name by discussing its contexts in medieval and modern literature and on maps. However little information about Svalbard survived in the Icelandic annals, the Landnámabók, and related texts, it became part of competing visions of the Arctic, from the late medieval Samsons saga fagrathrough the adoption of Svalbard as the name of a new territory under Norwegian rule in 1925.

Similar Items