Kuldkepp, Mart;
(2018)
A Study in Distance: Travel and Holiness in Eiríks saga rauða and Eireks saga víðförla.
In: Valk, Ülo and Sävborg, Daniel, (eds.)
Storied and Supernatural Places: Studies in Spatial and Social Dimensions of Folklore and Sagas.
(pp. 206-219).
Finnish Literature Society: Helsinki, Finland.
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Abstract
The aim of this article is to propose an analysis of some conceptual convergences in two Old Norse travelogues: Eireks saga víðförla (The Saga of Eirek the Far-Travelled), and the episode of Leif Eiriksson's discovery of Vinland in Eiríks saga rauða (The Saga of Eirik the Red). I will refer to these respectively as Eirek's Saga and Eirik's Saga, in order to avoid confusion between the names (the alternative spelling of Eireks saga víðförla would be Eiríks saga viðförla).i The term holiness, used throughout this article, should be understood as a shorthand for the complex Christian idea of 'closeness to the divine/related to God'. Just as 'travel', the notion is used here for a heuristic purpose. I therefore refrain from an extensive discussion about the historical uses of the word, either in the Middle Ages or later, and I do not claim to say anything about holiness in general – beyond it being a broadly relevant notion for my analysis of the two sagas mentioned above. What is important, however, is to note that I understand holiness as a Christian subcategory of the more general notion of the supernatural. By considering how the themes of travel and holiness are related in these texts, I attempt to outline a more general hypothesis about how the notion of distance might be useful in analysing the category of the supernatural. Even though the following is intended solely as a short pilot study, the implications it raises probably have relevance beyond these particular texts. In future, they can hopefully be tested on more extensive material.
| Type: | Book chapter |
|---|---|
| Title: | A Study in Distance: Travel and Holiness in Eiríks saga rauða and Eireks saga víðförla |
| ISBN-13: | 978-952-222-917-5 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.21435/sff.23 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.21435/sff.23 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution + Noncommercial + NoDerivatives 4.0 license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Copyright is retained by the author(s) |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > SELCS |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1519829 |
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