A handout produced by Joanne Shortt Butler on the Old Norse literature topic of 'The Saga of Hrafnkel Frey’s Godi', including background reading, questions to think about, and a glossary of terms and letters.
A handout produced by Joanne Shortt Butler on the origins of sagas: composition and tradition, including a timeline, extracts from sagas, and a reading list.
A short handout produced by Joanne Shortt Butler on the topic of Ari Thorgilsson’s Book of the Icelanders and Icelandic Identity, including a short reading list, questions, and a glossary of terms and characters.
Handout on Laxdœla saga saga (The Saga of the People of Laxárdalr) by Joanne Shortt Butler, including extracts from the saga, a family tree and reading list.
A handout produced by Rebecca Merkelbach to accompany an introductory lecture at Cambridge on Gísla saga Súrssonar (one of the Sagas of Icelanders dealing the outlaw figure Gísli).
Notes produced by Rebecca Merkelbach for an introductory lecture at Cambridge on Gísla saga Súrssonar (one of the Sagas of Icelanders dealing with the outlaw Gísli ).
Slides from three lectures introducing undergraduate students to Old Norse, with the main points of grammar covered as well as exercises to accompany the explanations. Includes a passage from Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða for translation. Used in Old…
Essay Title: ‘The incorporation of Norse mythological material in Beowulf is nothing more than a random assortment of half-remembered stories.’ Discuss.
Essay Title: ‘The primary value of eddic poetry and Snorri Sturluson’s Edda is located not in their aesthetic accomplishments but in their status as mythological sources.’ Discuss.
Essay Title: ‘There is ample evidence in the eddic corpus of a distinct genre of Odinic wisdom dialogue. The poems belonging to this genre are uniform in their themes and formulaic in their execution.’ Discuss.
Essay Question: How is the figure of the poet presented in the skáldasögur (Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa, Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, Hallfreðar saga, and Kormáks saga)?
Essay Question: Why do the authors of the skáldasögur (Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa, Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, Hallfreðar saga, and Kormáks saga) incorporate poetry in their sagas?
Essay Question: To what extent do the authors of Gísla saga Súrssonar and Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar critique Icelandic law and the sentence of outlawry?