Saga Stories #5: Volcanoes in the Sagas

Join Dr Matthew Roby (https://www.facebook.com/MatthewHRoby) on a trip to see the volcanic eruption in Geldingadalur!

While we're there, Matthew will explain the surprising absence of volcanoes in medieval Icelandic literature, before going on to talk about some of the rare instances in which they do appear. These include a few references from Íslendinga saga, the conversion narratives in Kristni saga and Njáls saga, and finally a cryptic poem spoken by the mysterious cave-dwelling creature in Bergbúa þáttr.

To watch, hear, and read more about the sagas, you can find Dr Matthew Roby’s blog at:
Website: http://www.matthewroby.com​​
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MatthewHRoby
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewHRoby
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matthewharoldroby/

Or buy a book in English at our shop:
https://shop.grapevine.is/search?q=saga

If you are struggling to understand the Icelandic names of people or places in this video, don’t forget to turn on closed captioning.

If you are looking for a compiled information set from Iceland, please consider subscribing to our newsletter: https://grapevine.is/newsletter-sign-up/.

**N.B.** Before making this video, the Reykjavík Grapevine team and I were aware that the valley in question was sometimes referred to as Geldingadalir (plural) rather than Geldingadalur (singular), including on Iceland’s best online map Kortasjá (http://kortasja.lmi.is/). In our choice to refer to the area as Geldingadalur, we were simply following the example of many major Icelandic media outlets and governmental websites, including RÚV, Morgunblaðið, and Ríkislögreglustjórinn Almannavarnadeild, which also referred to it as such in the early days of the eruption.

Видео Saga Stories #5: Volcanoes in the Sagas канала The Reykjavík Grapevine