As medieval texts (13th century) focused on the Viking Age (9th-10th century) colonization of the Atlantic islands North, the sagas can be analyzed as vital accounts of these cultures, both in the era depicted and in the era of composition. For example, there is a wealth of literary evidence documenting the construction of the national identities of Iceland and Norway, drawn from the numerous family and royal sagas taking place in each country respectively. However, with only a handful of sagas focusing on other colonies, it is more difficult to conclude, from literary analysis alone, what collective identity may have developed in these countries over time. Nevertheless, extra-literary studies have supported the idea that a transnational culture did exist among Nordic peoples outside of the Scandinavian peninsula. The archaeological record of ship burials convincingly indicates the existence of a "North Atlantic" culture with commonalities between the colonies and their western Norwegian ancestors. Historiographical analysis suggests the different ways in which Scandinavians developed national boundaries – patriotically and politically – to effectively differentiate cultural groups. To further test these theories, we can search the literature of the islands, particularly Orkeyingasaga and Faeryingasaga, for similar constructions of self-determination. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get an original essayThe first step in defining a North Atlantic Nordic identity might be to examine Norwegian settler culture: how they defined their own 'Norwegianness'. Sverrir Jakobsson's 1999 historical review achieves this by comparing different perceptions of nationality in medieval Scandinavian texts. References to earlier studies of the sagas and annals, such as Fagrskinna (chosen because it is believed to have been written outside of Iceland) and Gesta Danorum seem, at first glance, to conclude that "the Danish and Swedish historians consider a common parliament to be a much more effective means. a more important source of identification for most people than an ordinary king. Only Norway seems to be different” (Jakobsson 96). According to some scholars, the Norwegians in the sagas, contrary to all accounts of medieval Scandinavia, identified with their kingdom before their country. Jakobsson refutes such an exception by asserting that the pro-monarchical texts cited by this contingent “sought to shape the common mentality, they do not reflect it” (100). While there was later a particularly Norwegian form of patriotic identity centered on the monarchy, as evidenced by "legal documents dating from around 1300," it followed these texts, but it did not necessarily corroborate them (100). Instead, Jakobsson identifies regional loyalty to the provinces, or homeland, as a more relevant concern for the Scandinavian people, including Norwegians. He cites the parishes, divisions of the Thing system, and the pre-saga text Historia Norwegiae as evidence of a more fractured identity than the authors of the kings' sagas would have us believe (99, 93). This text includes descriptions of the Norwegian kingdom as a collection of territories rather than as a singular nation, in the same way that the kings' sagas refer to the Danish and Swedish kingdoms (94). In his conclusion, Jakobsson recognizes that monarchical patriotism did indeed occupy a growing place in theNorwegian culture, but as an emerging “public identity” contrasting with latent regional “popular identities” (101). Norwegians who settled across the Atlantic were historically more likely to express their nationality in terms of regionalism; It was in the centuries following the Viking diaspora that monarchical patriotism became a distinctly Norwegian concern. If a Scandinavian hereditary aspect of North Atlantic culture manifests itself in the island sagas, it should denote a land loyalty to the rulers.The Atlantic, geographically and chronologically, is the development of Icelandic identity. There is less ambiguity about the relevance of the analysis of the sagas to Icelandic cultural history, because the texts in question were verifiably written by Icelanders in Iceland. Christopher Fee argues in a 2012 chapter on the medieval Atlantic that the main feature of Iceland's contribution to North Atlantic Viking culture is the nation's identification with law. The title of his article, “Med lögum skal land vort byggja,” is a quotation from Njalssaga, in which the titular hero proclaims: “the earth shall be built with law” (Fee 135). Fee cites this quote from the saga as "an expression indicating the centrality and necessity of law to the development of civil society and Iceland", referring specifically to the Thing assembly system which was already ingrained in the culture Nordic transatlantic (135). Before focusing on the specific importance of law to Icelanders, he defines the medieval Icelandic legal system as "the archetypal manifestation of the ancient Germanic assembly system" which was prevalent in the Viking world before the era of the sagas (125). Fee's proof of the vast reach of the system is the ubiquity of place names "-things", from the confirmed Icelandic gathering place of Thingvellir, across Scandinavia and the inhabited islands, to Tynwald Hill on the Isle of Man (126-127). As for the specifically Icelandic character of the law, Fee brandishes a “saga peppered with references to judicial and parliamentary assemblies, which often constitute significant milestones in the text” (132). He specifically contrasts the idea that "the non-violent settlement of disputes is a central goal of Njalssaga" with the feudal narrative of Orkneyingasaga, in which "an assembly is often explicitly concerned with the nature of [a ruler's] authority." ] count” rather than through a democratic decision-making process. process (136, 134). Fee explains this division with Jessie Byock's observation that "[t]he Orkney was closer to Norway and the British Isles and was threatened by both" (133). We see here that depending on its proximity to danger – and therefore its need for centralized military leadership – a North Atlantic settlement may move away from the ancestral, decentralized rule of law. Iceland, far from the plunderers, chose the other path and, at least at the time of Njalssaga's composition, made its Althing "a model of public authority", in the words of the legal historian William Ian Miller (125). The law of assembly is a shared social structure across the Atlantic, but, specifically in Iceland, it appears to be the very core of national politics. Thus, one might reasonably expect that a region of the Atlantic that shares a more convergent cultural arc with Iceland than the countries of the Scandinavian Peninsula would have a saga identity centered on law above law. land and leadership. Or, as we have already seen with Orkneyingasaga, a divergent island culture could share the concept of the Thing,but would have transmuted it into a structure more conducive to nation-defining governance. As well as the omnipresence of the legislative assembly in place. names, the common culture of the North Atlantic can be inferred from archaeological evidence. The ritual of burial is a known signifier of cultural identity, expressed by archaeologist Erin Halstad-McGuire as “a tool for creating memory within a society” (Halstad-McGuire 166). Social memory, or the passing of traditions across generations, is particularly relevant to migrant cultures which, by definition, derive their traditions from the identity of a past community. Comparison between tombs drawn from these different cultures can show the connections or fractures between migrants' identities because “the symbolism embedded in funerary objects…. . . can serve as a tool for the creation of idealized identities of individuals, families, and communities” (167). Halstad-McGuire's study focuses on the rare, but clearly significant, burial practice of ship internment. Of the "more than 250 clinker-built boats dating from 800-1100 AD [that] have been found in Northern Europe", three particular cases are compared in detail: "one from western Norway representing the point of 'origin of migrants, and one from each of the emigrant communities in Scotland and Iceland' (167, 166). She concludes that the two emigrant sites reasonably derive from a specific burial tradition of continental Scandinavia. example, “the [Orkney] boat grave has close connections with north-west Norway. Burial on small boats was a common feature in the region”, “whale bone plaques are found mainly. in western and northern Norway” and “virtually identical examples of the rare Troms-type brooch have been found in far northern Norway” (171). is composed of traditions transplanted from the settlers' country of origin. Meanwhile, the Icelandic grave “is unusual, not because of what is present in the grave, but rather because of what is not there; there is no trace of a horse or equestrian equipment,” as is the case in “about 40 percent of the graves” in Iceland (174). Hallstad-McGuire explains that this is because the Icelandic grave is a deliberate return to the funerary style of the northwestern Norwegian people who spiritually and materially valued ships over horses. Norwegian and Orkney tombs also share the rare presence of high-class female internments, suggesting that deviations from local customs were intentional and perhaps related to the high status of the women buried. Hallstad-McGuire argues that, in the case of the Orkney burial, this is because the female settlers were able to prove their worth to a greater extent than in their homelands, perhaps through their passed down knowledge by oral tradition. The two settler graves are dated to the late 9th to early 10th centuries: after the first waves of expansion, but around the time when Viking Age settlers were developing a cultural identity for their colonies derived from their ancestral Norwegian culture (171, 172). . Archeology confirms that social structure, manifested in something as important and unique to Viking culture as ship burial, evolves between societies. The social identity of those buried and buried resembles that of their ancestors, while also including its own customs. A unique North Atlantic identity is therefore synthesized from Norwegian tradition and new developments in gender status and religion. Contrary to the sourcesViking Age textual works that claim to represent the lives of the first settlers, but are just as likely to reflect the medieval milieu of the sagamen and scholarly scribes, the burial shows a snapshot of the culture between the two eras. Thus, archeology supports the possibility that the saga, when considered as a source for the cultural history of the Viking Age, could testify to the existence of a hybrid identity in the North Atlantic. As we move forward with the analysis of the sagas themselves, it is useful to keep in mind Christopher Fee's warning that he could not rely entirely on Viking Age literature. As he begins to analyze the accounts of the Thing's process, he writes: "The saga texts, of course, offer us little in the way of pure historical evidence, and the Icelandic visions of the great Norse community are even more charged, especially if we look back during the process. centuries and biased by regional and family prejudices. . . Yet the sagas often touch on Scandinavian communities throughout the North Atlantic, and in situations where other documents or physical evidence help to corroborate key points, the sagas can add a rich texture of detail to our knowledge of life Scandinavian” (132). All this is true for our analysis. We have place names and archaeological evidence of transatlantic commonalities, as well as details of historically based sagas regarding Icelandic and Norwegian differences. All that remains to be seen is where the saga of the island communities fits into these documented trends in the evolution of national identity. It is important to note, however, that "the world thus reconstructed may belong more to the author of a given saga than to the subjects he claims to document" (132). Regardless, the interepistemic approach identifies a robust view of Viking Age culture, such that medieval literary concepts that fit this view lend credence to the idea that the sagamens expressed with precision the identity of their ancestors. When the points of view do not match, or appear to coincide, then the sagas are more revealing of their own cultural context in medieval Iceland. Melissa Berman, in a 1985 article comparing them with the Baltic Jómsvikingasaga, identifies Orkneyingasaga and Faeryingasaga as sagas particularly associated with diaspora identity. Unlike local family and royal sagas, these three “political sagas” are characterized by international contexts and conflicts. Orkneyingasaga presents the power struggle between the Norwegian earls, landowners and kings. Overall, the text is conservative and apparently factual, but a certain literary bias is present: "although the saga hardly challenges Norwegian hegemony, it implies that Norwegian kings never serve the best interests of the islands Orkney” (Berman 120). Faeryingasaga is more obviously dramatic and nuanced, as it follows the clashes between a well-developed hero, Sigmund, and the villain, Thrand. It's actually about the villain who cleverly fights for independence and kills the hero, before losing his life and landing in retaliation. . Berman takes this to mean that “resisting monarchy is wisest – but historical perspective teaches otherwise” (125). As with the depiction of law in Orkneyingasaga, the literary perspective of heroism is flexible. According to Berman, it is used for ironic effect, and the hero's actions result in the following result: at the end of the saga, "the Faroe Islands regularly pay tribute to Norway" and the old ways of life are not sustainable, even if it is judgedmorally right from a Christian point of view (125). Berman supports the dual possibility that these sagas could be read as reflections of the hybridization of historical Viking culture, or as allegories of medieval Icelandic concerns. She first argues that "political sagas represent a technique for examining historical movements by focusing on an iconic and dramatic conflict" in which "the conflict between the rebellious individual and the established ruler reflects the broader conflict between the colony and national power” (125). This push for independence is of particular concern for islands besieged by international claims. Its appearance as a common thread in island “political sagas” is indicative of the national identity of these islands. Their oral tradition of earls and landowners repelling Scottish and Norwegian forces suggests that Viking Age North Atlantic identities were formed in opposition to the dominant identities of Europe. Berman later decides that this culture is also indicative of "a real (if unconscious) convention in the Icelandic historical narrative: an attempt to understand power through the relationship between colony and national power" (Berman 126). Christopher Fee comes to the same conclusion in his analysis of Orkneyingasaga: “such references to suzerainty…. . . would have been a subject of intense interest in the era in which the political sagas were composed, which saw a growing movement toward the subjugation of the Icelandic Free State under the Norwegian crown” (Fee 135). For these two scholars, the debate over island independence in the sagas is less an indication of an independent-minded Viking Age identity than an expression of medieval politics in literary form. My own view is more in line with Berman's first point, as the sagas each share an aspect of transatlantic culture identified in Viking Age studies. Although their subtext is linked to Icelandic anxieties, the sagas speak above all of the cultural history of the islands. For example, the focus on land rights corresponds to Jakobsson's concept of a hereditary, land-centered public identity for the North Atlantic. In Orkneyingasaga this is seen in the common refrain of land divisions that accompanies every feud. By the end of the story, several rulers have traded, conceded, merged, or conquered the same halves or thirds of the island territory. A good example of this frequent process is the complicated feud between the brother counts Thorfinn, Einar and Brusi. Einar begins with two-thirds of the islands under his authoritarian, famine-inducing rule, Brusi claiming another third, and Thorfinn clinging to Caithness and Sutherland (Orkneyingasaga Ch. 13). Thorfinn also claims two-thirds of the islands, leading almost to a fight, but ultimately to a reconciliation settlement whereby "Thorfinn was to have his rightful third of the earldom of Orkney, while Earls Einar and Brusi would unite their shares under common rule." » (15). Following Einar's murder at the hands of Thorfinn's relative Thorkel, Brusi takes Einar's third (17). This, of course, angers Thorfinn, who wishes to divide the lands in two, and asks King Olaf of Norway to support him in this claim (17, 18). Olaf actually decides to divide the land into three parts because he considers Einar's third a fitting reward for the death of a servant (19). Olaf places his third under Brusi's control, but in the end Thorfinn keeps it in exchange for providing Brusi's share of the island's defenses (19). Later counts employed this same land negotiation tactic by promising territories.