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Matthew Roby

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Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Grettis saga
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Media, Saga Places

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Grettis saga

29/12/202129/12/2021 by admin2 Min Reading

Join me and the Reykjavík Grapevine for an extra special episode of Saga Stories about the famous Grettis saga sterka, known in English as “The

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Berserks and Zombies in Eyrbyggja saga
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Media, Saga Places, Supernatural Stories in the Icelandic Sagas

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Berserks and Zombies in Eyrbyggja saga

05/11/202129/12/2021 by Matthew Roby2 Min Reading

Join me and the Reykjavík Grapevine on another trip to the majestic Snæfellsnes peninsula for the second of two videos about Eyrbyggja saga. This saga depicts

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Witches and Wonders in Eyrbyggja saga
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Media, Saga Places, Supernatural Stories in the Icelandic Sagas

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Witches and Wonders in Eyrbyggja saga

20/09/202106/11/2021 by Matthew Roby2 Min Reading

Join me and the Reykjavík Grapevine on another trip to the majestic Snæfellsnes peninsula for the first of two videos about Eyrbyggja saga. This text

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Bárðar saga
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Media, Saga Places, Supernatural Stories in the Icelandic Sagas

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Bárðar saga

09/09/202120/09/2021 by Matthew Roby2 Min Reading

Join me and the Reykjavík Grapevine on a trip around the beautiful Snæfellsnes peninsula and I’ll tell you the tale of Bárðr, a troll who

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Harðar saga
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Media, Saga Places

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Harðar saga

18/04/202118/04/2021 by Matthew Roby2 Min Reading

Join me and the Reykjavík Grapevine on a trip around southwest Iceland and I’ll tell you all about Harðar saga, the tale of an unlucky

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Volcanoes in the Sagas
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Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Volcanoes in the Sagas

03/04/202118/04/2021 by Matthew Roby4 Min Reading

Why no Hrings saga gulla? It’s often said that the sagas pay very little attention to the unique geological and climatic phenomena for which Iceland

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Njáls saga
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Media, Saga Places

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Njáls saga

21/02/202121/02/2021 by Matthew Roby4 Min Reading

We return to south-west Iceland for the fourth episode of the ‘Saga Stories’ series. This time, we’re near the modern-day town of Hvolsvöllur, telling stories

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Flóamanna saga
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Media, Saga Places, Supernatural Stories in the Icelandic Sagas

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Flóamanna saga

06/02/202120/09/2021 by Matthew Roby2 Min Reading

In the third episode of the ‘Saga Stories’ series, I travel to South Iceland to tell stories from the lesser-known Flóamanna saga. This saga is

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Egils saga
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Media, Saga Places, Supernatural Stories in the Icelandic Sagas

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Egils saga

09/01/202120/09/2021 by Matthew Roby1 Min Reading

The second episode of my new video series ‘Saga Stories’ looks at Egils saga. In this episode, I travel to three locations around Borgarnes and

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Þingvellir
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Media, Saga Places

Saga Stories with the Reykjavík Grapevine: Þingvellir

26/12/202006/02/2021 by Matthew Roby2 Min Reading

Here is the first in a new series of videos I will be making with the Reykjavík Grapevine, one of Iceland’s leading English-language media outlets.

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About This Site

I will be using this blog to post about aspects of my research as a medievalist that I find especially fascinating. This will include brief summaries and analyses of medieval texts from Iceland and throughout Europe, with a particular focus on narratives about sexuality, monsters, or both.

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Matthew Roby's Old Norse Blog is at University of King's College, Halifax.

3 days ago

Matthew Roby's Old Norse Blog
Last night was the book launch of the Broadview Press Anthology of Medieval Arthurian Literature, an exciting new collection that demonstrates the staggering geographical, cultural, and linguistic diversity of Arthuriana. I read from my own contribution to the anthology, excerpts from the Old Norse-Icelandic “Merlínússpá” (Prophecy of Merlin). “Merlínússpá” was originally translated by the Icelandic monk Gunnlaugr Leifsson in the early thirteenth century. Gunnlaugr took the Latin prose “Prophecies of Merlin” from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain and not only rendered them into the Old Norse language but also acculturated them fully into the Old Norse-Icelandic poetic tradition. His text is replete with kennings and references to figures from Norse pagan myth and legend, such as Óðinn, Fenrir, and Völundr. He also arranged the prophecies into the same alliterative verse form as found in several Eddic poems, including “Völuspá” (The Seeress’s Prophecy), a work that charts pagan universal history from creation to Ragnarök, and one to which “Merlínússpá” makes several clear allusions. In my own translation, I attempted to retain this alliterative form to give readers a better sense of the content and style Gunnlaugr’s text. I am grateful to the amazing editors, Kathy Cawsey and Elizabeth Edwards, for inviting me to contribute to this anthology, which will no doubt become the new standard teaching text for Arthurian literature courses throughout Canada and beyond! ... See MoreSee Less

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