Iceland: Did you mean...?

Bill Arnott guides readers on this bestselling literary odyssey, following history’s most feared and misunderstood voyageurs - the Vikings! To “go viking” is to embark on an epic journey. For eight years Bill Arnott journeyed throughout...

Around 1000 CE, European knowledge of the wider world was limited, uneven, yet slowly expanding, shaped less by direct exploration than by inherited classical learning, religious frameworks, and selective contact through trade and pilgrimage...

Illustration of Jörmungandr (the World Serpent) from the Edda oblongata, a 17th-century illuminated manuscript of the 13th-century CE Prose Edda, which is the basis for modern understanding of Norse mythology. Made c. 1680. Árni Magnússon...

The Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda is the oldest and most comprehensive extant source of Norse mythology. 14th century CE. It is housed at the Arni Magnusson Institute of Learning in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Map depicting the Norse Viking settlements in Greenland. The Eastern Settlement, here named 'Austerbygd' sat on the southwestern tip and was occupied between c. 985-1450 CE, while the Western Settlement (here called 'Vesterbygd', occupied...

A 14th century CE Icelandic manuscript illustration depicting Harald Fairhair, the first king of a united Norway (r. c. 872-933 CE). (Árni Magnússon Institute, Iceland)

Statue of the Norse Viking Leif Erikson (estimated c. 970-1020 CE) outside Hallgrimskirka in Reykjavik, Iceland. Leif was the son of Erik the Red, founder of the first Norse settlement in Greenland, and is himself often credited with being...

The hero Grettir Asmundson from the 13th-14th century CE Icelandic Grettir's Saga (also Grettis Saga). This saga features one of the best-known stories involving a draugr, a sort of Norse zombie, who is eventually destroyed by Grettir. This...

An 18th century CE Icelandic manuscript illustration showing the Norse god Odin in the guise of an eagle which produces the drink mead. (Árni Magnússon Institute, Iceland)

Illustration depicting the Norse god Heimdall, from the Edda oblongata, a 17th-century illuminated manuscript of the 13th-century CE Prose Edda, which is the basis for the modern understanding of Norse mythology. Made c. 1680 CE. Collection...