Iceland: Did you mean...?

Edda is a term used to describe two Icelandic manuscripts that were copied down and compiled in the 13th century CE. Together they are the main sources of Norse mythology and skaldic poetry that relate the religion, cosmogony, and history...

Aethelstan was the first King of England, ruling from 927 to 939. The son of Edward the Elder (reign 899-924) and grandson of Alfred the Great (reign 871-899), he inherited the southern-based Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons in 924 before capturing...

Sif is a fertility goddess in Norse mythology, wife of the thunder god Thor, best known for the story in which the trickster god Loki cuts her hair as a prank and is forced to replace it with a magical headpiece, leading to the creation of...

A dolmen is a megalithic structure typically formed from a large horizontal stone slab resting on two or more upright slabs. The oldest European examples are found in Brittany, northern France, and date to the 5th millennium BCE. Dolmens...

Birka, located on the island of Björkö in present-day Sweden, was an important trading center and strongly fortified town in the Viking Age which flourished from the 8th through the 10th centuries CE. Along with the town of Hedeby which is...

Vidar is a figure in Norse mythology, described as the silent god and almost as mighty as Thor. He will survive Ragnarök, the unavoidable and dramatic end of the world according to the prophecy that chief-god Odin extracts from a seeress...

Maglocunus, known as Maelgwn Gwynedd in Welsh (d. c. 547), was a 6th-century monarch based in Gwynedd, in north-western Wales. Maglocunus' name means "princely hound", and he expanded his influence to become one of the pre-eminent rulers...

The Knap of Howar is a Neolithic site on the island of Papa Westray in Orkney, Scotland. The name is Old Norse for `mound of mounds' or `large barrow'. The building preserved at the site is considered the oldest stone house in northern Europe...

Short talk about the prerequisites of Icelandic literature, how manuscripts were made and a great example of such a manuscript and its context!

In early Medieval Europe, a prime subject of frightening tales-come-true were the famously marauding and pillaging Vikings, spilling out of their dragon-headed longships in a state of bloodlust, thirsting for gold. With their menacing presence...