Sagas, Saints and Settlements

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.

This volume contains seven papers relating to Norse history and literature. Two cover issues of saga genre, two explore the relationship between sagas and medieval hagiography, and three consider aspects of the Norse settlement in Scotland from an interdisciplinary perspective.
With contributions by Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, Phil Cardew, Haki Antonsson, Gareth Williams, Barbara Crawford and Simon Taylor.

Gareth Williams, Ph.D. (1997) in Mediaeval History, University of St Andrews, is a curator at the British Museum. He has published articles on Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Scottish topics, with particular interests in monetary history, land assessment and military organisation.
Paul Bibire is a Former Lecturer at the Universities of St Andrews and Cambridge, and has published on Old English and Norse.