A Layered Landscape: How the Family Sagas Mapped Medieval Iceland
The Icelandic Family Sagas – Old-Norse prose narratives written during the 1200s – inscribe in retrospect a process by which the unknown terrain of late ninth-century settlement Iceland is ‘mapped’ through association with human story. Space begs history: family sagas locate past deeds in a present...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:fa8facf063e54366ba655dae14924dbc 2023-05-15T16:46:19+02:00 A Layered Landscape: How the Family Sagas Mapped Medieval Iceland Carol Hoggart 2010-07-01T00:00:00Z https://doaj.org/article/fa8facf063e54366ba655dae14924dbc EN eng University of Western Australia http://www.limina.arts.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/2571067/HogartArticle.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1833-3419 1833-3419 https://doaj.org/article/fa8facf063e54366ba655dae14924dbc Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies, Vol 16, Iss None, Pp 1-8 (2010) icelandic saga history settlement family saga Communication. Mass media P87-96 Sociology (General) HM401-1281 article 2010 ftdoajarticles 2022-12-31T05:04:44Z The Icelandic Family Sagas – Old-Norse prose narratives written during the 1200s – inscribe in retrospect a process by which the unknown terrain of late ninth-century settlement Iceland is ‘mapped’ through association with human story. Space begs history: family sagas locate past deeds in a present landscape. At the most evident level, sagas explain how places received their names by reference to the people who had lived there. Another layer of meaning is created by the movement of stories and journeys over this named geography. Furthermore, the saga landscape thus constructed is shown to have continuing relevance: the sagas link past and present, with physical evidence of saga action still evident in thirteenth- or even twentieth-century Iceland. Yet family sagas do not claim that all responsibility for this construction of landscape lay with the early settlers. The land too is shown to have had agency, so choosing its people and history. Article in Journal/Newspaper Iceland Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
icelandic saga history settlement family saga Communication. Mass media P87-96 Sociology (General) HM401-1281 |
spellingShingle |
icelandic saga history settlement family saga Communication. Mass media P87-96 Sociology (General) HM401-1281 Carol Hoggart A Layered Landscape: How the Family Sagas Mapped Medieval Iceland |
topic_facet |
icelandic saga history settlement family saga Communication. Mass media P87-96 Sociology (General) HM401-1281 |
description |
The Icelandic Family Sagas – Old-Norse prose narratives written during the 1200s – inscribe in retrospect a process by which the unknown terrain of late ninth-century settlement Iceland is ‘mapped’ through association with human story. Space begs history: family sagas locate past deeds in a present landscape. At the most evident level, sagas explain how places received their names by reference to the people who had lived there. Another layer of meaning is created by the movement of stories and journeys over this named geography. Furthermore, the saga landscape thus constructed is shown to have continuing relevance: the sagas link past and present, with physical evidence of saga action still evident in thirteenth- or even twentieth-century Iceland. Yet family sagas do not claim that all responsibility for this construction of landscape lay with the early settlers. The land too is shown to have had agency, so choosing its people and history. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Carol Hoggart |
author_facet |
Carol Hoggart |
author_sort |
Carol Hoggart |
title |
A Layered Landscape: How the Family Sagas Mapped Medieval Iceland |
title_short |
A Layered Landscape: How the Family Sagas Mapped Medieval Iceland |
title_full |
A Layered Landscape: How the Family Sagas Mapped Medieval Iceland |
title_fullStr |
A Layered Landscape: How the Family Sagas Mapped Medieval Iceland |
title_full_unstemmed |
A Layered Landscape: How the Family Sagas Mapped Medieval Iceland |
title_sort |
layered landscape: how the family sagas mapped medieval iceland |
publisher |
University of Western Australia |
publishDate |
2010 |
url |
https://doaj.org/article/fa8facf063e54366ba655dae14924dbc |
genre |
Iceland |
genre_facet |
Iceland |
op_source |
Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies, Vol 16, Iss None, Pp 1-8 (2010) |
op_relation |
http://www.limina.arts.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/2571067/HogartArticle.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1833-3419 1833-3419 https://doaj.org/article/fa8facf063e54366ba655dae14924dbc |
_version_ |
1766036415867518976 |