Sagas, Saints and Settlements

Download or read book Sagas, Saints and Settlements written by Gareth Williams and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2004-05-01 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume includes selected papers from an interdisciplinary symposium in Norse Studies held at the University of St Andrews. The symposium brought together scholars with a shared interest in medieval Scandinavian history and culture, especially the sagas, from a variety of disciplines, and this diversity is reflected in the papers published here. Topics covered include saga genre, with particular focus on encyclopaedic manuscripts and the late Íslendinga sögur respectively, the relationship between saga literature and hagiography, with papers on Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar and on the textual traditions surrounding St Magnús of Orkney and St Thomas of Canterbury, and various aspects of the Norse settlement in Scotland. The volume shows the variety of approaches which can be taken to the sagas as texts, especially when combined with other historical and literary material.