3/6/2023 0 Comments Navigare necesse est![]() The gist and heritage of Guta saga have had a momentous impact, for instance, on the tourist industry which so often looks back at the Middle Ages. This medieval narrative proved vital in later times, also when new economic and political powers gained a foothold in the Baltic and Gotland itself lived through less successful phases. The Saga shows that water is a boundary, but also, and above all, a medium for mobility which allows networks of connectivity and exchanges to be developed, including the importation of a new faith and integration into the Baltic arena. This portrait challenges and tends to contradict assumptions that establish a causal link between geographic features inherent in islandness and ideas of isolation and economic and commercial backwardness that such a condition would entail. The narrative strategies reveal the main facets of islandness and its function in the identity formation of the medieval Gotlandic community, which continue to be prominent even in our age. Guta saga’s background is an affluent society that derived its resources mainly from its role as a transit zone on the commercial routes that had connected East and West since the Viking Age and as a thriving marketplace well into the Late Middle Ages. This representation is characterised by the insistence on the island’s autonomy from external forces, the ability of its inhabitants to deal with the authorities of the age and to successfully promote their interests. The selection of the episodes – the first migration from the island, the compact with the Swedish king, the conversion and the relationships with representatives of secular and religious powers – and the strategies adopted by the author bear witness to the intention of building an identity. ![]() It also includes episodes, partly rooted in historical facts and circumstances and some of which are contemporary with the writing down of the Saga. Guta saga ‘The history of the Gotlanders’, a short historiographic work written in Old Gutnish in the thirteenth century, hands down some of the major turning-points in the history of Gotland, starting with its legendary discovery and settlement. ![]() To what extent do the runestones bear witness to Ingvar’s expedition and is the Ingvar named on the runestones the same person as his namesake in the saga? This paper seeks to answer these questions by critically re-examining the runestones alongside evidence from both historical and geographical sources. reference to Serkland, have been used to flesh out lacunae in the saga, and it is not uncommon to see Ingvar’s journey recast as an expedition to Serkland or Persia, neither of which is mentioned in the saga. One upshot is that the sparse data on the runestones, e.g. ![]() Although the saga may be rooted in a real historical event, fact and fiction are so tightly intertwined that it is difficult at times to separate one from the other. However, this is problematic as there are many more runestones bearing the name Ingvar than those designated as Ingvar stones, which raises questions about the comprehensiveness of previous analyses of the runestones. Many scholars believe the runestones provide corroborative evidence of the journey immortalised in the saga and treat them as a factual given. In Sweden, a number of runestones bear the name Ingvar and reference a journey to the east. Despite the saga’s improbable storyline, it may have a basis in historical fact. ![]() The saga recounts the exploits of an eleventh-century Swedish Viking, Ingvar, who led a voyage east that ended in disaster, somewhere southeast of Russia, around 1041. Yngvars saga víðförla is a fantastic story of adventure in exotic, faraway lands. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |