The Sagas of Iceland: Creating Terra Nova
Janina Ramirez, presenter of a new BBC documentary on Iceland and its literature, explores the country’s sagas, their wide-ranging legacy and what they tell us about the history and culture of the Arctic island and its peoples.
During the 13th and 14th centuries on a sparsely populated, volcanic and inhospitable island at the edge of the Arctic Circle there was an outpouring of literary creativity unparalleled in the medieval world. The legacy of the family sagas, penned by anonymous Icelanders some 600 years ago, has endured over the centuries and has even influenced some of Britain’s best-loved writers. How a tiny population of Viking settlers came to produce so many fascinating stories is one of the great riddles of literary history. What was it about the experience, culture and attitude of these Icelandic authors that enabled them to create what has been described as ‘the most remarkable vernacular literature in medieval Europe’?
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