This book provides an in-depth study of depictions of England in the Saga of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur), examining their utility as sources for the history of Viking Age Anglo-Scandinavian cultural contact.
The Íslendingasögur present themselves as histories, but they are difficult historical sources. Their setting is the Saga Age, a period that begins with the settlement of Iceland in the late ninth century and ends along with the Viking Age in the late eleventh century–however, the saga texts are disconnected from this setting, having first been written down in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This book traces the transmission and development of Icelandic cultural memory of Saga Age England across this distance of centuries. It offers case study analyses of how historical time, place, cultures, and events are adapted and conceptualised in the Íslendingasögur and suggests methodological approaches to their study as historical literature.
Remembering England is an interdisciplinary book that will appeal to scholars and students of the history of pre-Norman England, the Icelandic sagas, medieval literature, and cultural memory.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Literature and Memory, History and Historiography
Cultural Memory and the Íslendingasögur
Íslendingasögur as Sources of History: The Debate
Æthelstan, Æthelred and Knútr: A Historical Overview
Chapter Overview
Part 1
1 Narrative, Verse and Memory
The Fear of Forgetting and the Value of Writing
Cultural Memory and Medieval memoria
Communicative Memory and Skaldic verse
Memory and Literature
2 Saga Age England
England in the Íslendingasögur
England in the skáldasögur: Egils saga
England in the skáldasögur: Gunnlaugs saga, Bjarnar saga
3 Iceland and the Writing of the Íslendingasögur
The Íslendingasögur Corpus
Saga Age Iceland
Iceland in the Age of Saga Writing
Part 2
4 Memories of Heroism: Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa
Manuscript Contexts
Bjǫrn’s Travels
Reconstructing a Chronology
Thematic Intertextuality: Of Kings and Dragons
5 Memories of Rulers: Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu
Gunnlaugr’s Travels
The skáld in Literary Frameworks
The skáld as Poet: The Hierarchies of Verse
The skáld as Warrior: A Fabricated Narrative
6 Memories of Conflict: Egils saga Skallagrímssonar
Egill’s Travels
The Battle of Brunanburh
The Court of Eiríkr blóðøx in York
Conclusion
Interpretation and Reinterpretation
Remembering England
Bibliography
About the Author :
Matthew Firth is Australian Research Council Fellow (DECRA) and Associate Lecturer in Medieval History at Flinders University, Australia. His research focuses on historical narrative and its transmission across time and place with particular interest in the historiography of tenth- century England. Matthew’s first monograph, Early English Queens, 850– 1000: Potestas Regina, was published by Routledge in 2024. He is also the author of over twenty articles and book chapters focused on the development of medieval history writing traditions.
Review :
‘… serious scholars of the Íslendingasðgur, and especially the skáldsðgur, will need this book ... medieval historians will find the analysis of how memories of events in England during the Viking Age manifested themselves in the cultural memory of a medieval society geographically distant several centuries later to be rewarding’ - Parergon 42.2 (2025).
