DeepSummary
The podcast episode discusses the Orkneyinga Saga, a 13th-century story about the Earls of Orkney and their control over the islands of Orkney, Shetland, and Caithness in Scotland. The saga combines myth and history, depicting the lives of Vikings on these islands, including their meetings, alliances, battles, and the rise of Christianity.
The guests, experts in Viking studies, archaeology, and history, analyze various aspects of the saga. They discuss the historical accuracy, the insight into Viking society and culture, the strategic importance of the islands, and the archaeological evidence that corroborates the saga's descriptions of life on the islands.
The episode explores the saga's portrayal of power struggles among the earls, their relationships with Norwegian and Scottish kings, and the role of women, saints, and miracles in Viking society. The guests also highlight the significance of the saga as a literary work and its value for understanding the Viking diaspora and the transition from Norse paganism to Christianity.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- The Orkneyinga Saga provides valuable insights into the lives, culture, and power dynamics of Viking society on the strategically located islands of Orkney, Shetland, and Caithness.
- The saga combines elements of myth and history, offering a unique perspective on the transition from Norse paganism to Christianity in these regions.
- While not entirely historically accurate, the saga's depictions of specific locations, events, and social structures are corroborated by archaeological evidence and other historical sources.
- The saga highlights the power struggles among the earls of Orkney, their relationships with Norwegian and Scottish kings, and the role of women and saints in Viking society.
- The anonymous Icelandic author drew from various sources, including eyewitness accounts and written records, to create a literary work that preserves the cultural heritage of the Viking diaspora.
- The Orkneyinga Saga is a valuable resource for scholars studying Viking history, archaeology, literature, and the spread of Scandinavian influence in the British Isles.
- The strategic location of the islands, their fertile lands, and access to fishing and trade routes contributed to their importance in Viking society and the saga's depictions.
- The saga provides insights into the daily lives, material culture, and occupations of Vikings, such as farming, fishing, and seafaring, as supported by archaeological evidence.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “It's not history quite, is it? But historians use it.“ by Melvyn Bragg
- “We don't know anything specific about the Icelander. What we can tell is that he's working in the same milieu as other saga writers, particularly the ones who wrote the accounts of the norwegian kings.“ by Alex Woolf
- “Iceland generally seems to be the main place where most of the sagas about age of scandinavian history were written down. This might be partly problem of recovery and survival, but it's not just that, because as early as the time the saga was being written, around about 1200, we have other scandinavian writers, like the danish latin writer Saxo Grammaticus, who tells us he's reliant on Iceland as sources for his own history.“ by Alex Woolf
- “And you can stand there and you can look back at the mainland and see the acres of fertile land and the little lochs, and you can see why that would be a great place to set up if you were the earl.“ by Jane Harrison
Entities
Company
Person
Place
Book
Episode Information
In Our Time
BBC Radio 4
7/4/24
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Saga of the Earls of Orkney, as told in the 13th Century by an unknown Icelander. This was the story of arguably the most important, strategically, of all the islands in the British Viking world, when the Earls controlled Shetland, Orkney and Caithness from which they could raid the Irish and British coasts, from Dublin round to Lindisfarne. The Saga combines myth with history, bringing to life the places on those islands where Vikings met, drank, made treaties, told stories, became saints, plotted and fought.
With
Judith Jesch Professor of Viking Studies at the University of Nottingham
Jane Harrison Archaeologist and Research Associate at Oxford and Newcastle Universities
And
Alex Woolf Senior Lecturer in History at the University of St Andrews
Producer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production
Reading list:
Theodore M. Andersson, The Growth of Medieval Icelandic Sagas, 1180-1280, (Cornell University Press, 2012)
Margaret Clunies Ross, The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
Robert Cook (trans.), Njals Saga (Penguin, 2001)
Barbara E. Crawford, The Northern Earldoms: Orkney and Caithness from AD 870 to 1470 (John Donald Short Run Press, 2013)
Shami Ghosh, Kings’ Sagas and Norwegian History: Problems and Perspectives (Brill, 2011)
J. Graham-Campbell and C. E. Batey, Vikings in Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 2002)
David Griffiths, J. Harrison and Michael Athanson, Beside the Ocean: Coastal Landscapes at the Bay of Skaill, Marwick, and Birsay Bay, Orkney: Archaeological Research 2003-18 (Oxbow Books, 2019)
Jane Harrison, Building Mounds: Orkney and the Vikings (Routledge, forthcoming)
Ármann Jakobsson and Sverrir Jakobsson (eds.), The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas (Routledge, 2017)
Judith Jesch, The Viking Diaspora (Routledge, 2015)
Judith Jesch, ‘Earl Rögnvaldr of Orkney, a Poet of the Viking Diaspora’ (Journal of the North Atlantic, Special Volume 4, 2013)
Judith Jesch, The Poetry of Orkneyinga Saga (H.M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures, University of Cambridge, 2020)
Devra Kunin (trans.), A History of Norway and the Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Olafr (Viking Society for Northern Research, 2001)
Rory McTurk (ed.), A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture (Wiley-Blackwell, 2004)
Tom Muir, Orkney in the Sagas (Orkney Islands Council, 2005)
Else Mundal (ed.), Dating the Sagas: Reviews and Revisions (Museum Tusculanum Press, 2013)
Heather O’Donoghue, Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Short Introduction, (John Wiley & Sons, 2004) Heather O'Donoghue and Eleanor Parker (eds.), The Cambridge History of Old Norse-Icelandic Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2024), especially 'Landscape and Material Culture' by Jane Harrison and ‘Diaspora Sagas’ by Judith Jesch
Richard Oram, Domination and Lordship, Scotland 1070-1230, (Edinburgh University Press, 2011)
Olwyn Owen (ed.), The World of Orkneyinga Saga: The Broad-cloth Viking Trip (Orkney Islands Council, 2006)
Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards (trans.), Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney (Penguin Classics, 1981)
Snorri Sturluson (trans. tr. Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes), Heimskringla, vol. I-III (Viking Society for Northern Research, 2011-2015)
William P. L. Thomson, The New History of Orkney (Birlinn Ltd, 2008)
Alex Woolf, From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070 (Edinburgh University Press, 2007), especially chapter 7