Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Saga of the Earls of Orkney, as told in the 13th Century by an unknown Icelander. This was the story of arguably the most important, strategically, of all the islands in the British Viking world, when the Earls controlled Shetland, Orkney and Caithness from which they could raid the Irish and British coasts, from Dublin round to Lindisfarne. The Saga combines myth with history, bringing to life the places on those islands where Vikings met, drank, made treaties, told stories, became saints, plotted and fought. With Judith Jesch Professor of Viking Studies at the University of Nottingham Jane Harrison Archaeologist and Research Associate at Oxford and Newcastle Universities And Alex Woolf Senior Lecturer in History at the University of St Andrews Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production Reading list: Theodore M. Andersson, The Growth of Medieval Icelandic Sagas, 1180-1280, (Cornell University Press, 2012) Margaret Clunies Ross, The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga (Cambridge University Press, 2010) Robert Cook (trans.), Njals Saga (Penguin, 2001) Barbara E. Crawford, The Northern Earldoms: Orkney and Caithness from AD 870 to 1470 (John Donald Short Run Press, 2013) Shami Ghosh, Kings’ Sagas and Norwegian History: Problems and Perspectives (Brill, 2011) J. Graham-Campbell and C. E. Batey, Vikings in Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 2002) David Griffiths, J. Harrison and Michael Athanson, Beside the Ocean: Coastal Landscapes at the Bay of Skaill, Marwick, and Birsay Bay, Orkney: Archaeological Research 2003-18 (Oxbow Books, 2019) Jane Harrison, Building Mounds: Orkney and the Vikings (Routledge, forthcoming) Ármann Jakobsson and Sverrir Jakobsson (eds.), The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas (Routledge, 2017) Judith Jesch, The Viking Diaspora (Routledge, 2015) Judith Jesch, ‘Earl Rögnvaldr of Orkney, a Poet of the Viking Diaspora’ (Journal of the North Atlantic, Special Volume 4, 2013) Judith Jesch, The Poetry of Orkneyinga Saga (H.M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures, University of Cambridge, 2020) Devra Kunin (trans.), A History of Norway and the Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Olafr (Viking Society for Northern Research, 2001) Rory McTurk (ed.), A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture (Wiley-Blackwell, 2004) Tom Muir, Orkney in the Sagas (Orkney Islands Council, 2005) Else Mundal (ed.), Dating the Sagas: Reviews and Revisions (Museum Tusculanum Press, 2013) Heather O’Donoghue, Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Short Introduction, (John Wiley & Sons, 2004) Heather O'Donoghue and Eleanor Parker (eds.), The Cambridge History of Old Norse-Icelandic Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2024), especially 'Landscape and Material Culture' by Jane Harrison and ‘Diaspora Sagas’ by Judith Jesch Richard Oram, Domination and Lordship, Scotland 1070-1230, (Edinburgh University Press, 2011) Olwyn Owen (ed.), The World of Orkneyinga Saga: The Broad-cloth Viking Trip (Orkney Islands Council, 2006) Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards (trans.), Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney (Penguin Classics, 1981) Snorri Sturluson (trans. tr. Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes), Heimskringla, vol. I-III (Viking Society for Northern Research, 2011-2015) William P. L. Thomson, The New History of Orkney (Birlinn Ltd, 2008) Alex Woolf, From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070 (Edinburgh University Press, 2007), especially chapter 7
BBC sounds music Radio podcasts.
This is in our time from BBC Radio Four, and this is one of more than 1000 episodes you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website.
If you scroll down the page for this edition, you find a reading list to go with it.
I hope you enjoyed the program.
Hello.
Around the turn of the 13th century, an unknown Icelander created the Orkneying saga, the story of arguably the most important strategically of all the islands in the british viking world.
This was a time when Earls of Orkney controlled Shetland, Orkney and Caithness, from which they could raid the irish and british coasts from Dublin around to Lindisfarne.
And the saga mixes myth with history, bringing to life the places on those islands where vikings met, drank, made treaties, told stories, became saints and murdered or were murdered.
With me to discuss the Orkneyinga saga are Judith yes, professor of viking studies at the University of Nottingham, Jane Harrison, archaeologist and research associate at Oxford and Newcastle universities, and Alex Wolf, senior lecturer in history at the University of St Andrews.
Alex, can you give us an idea of what the saga covers and which period?
Well, the saga, as you say, written in Iceland in the early 13th century, but apart from a very brief mythological beginning, which basically is part of the mythological origin of the Norwegians, it covers the history of Orkney from about 900 to about 1200.
And it focuses particularly on the internecine strife between the different members of the family of earls, how they betray each other, ally with each other, go to the scottish and norwegian kings to get help in this struggle, and it focuses very much on that internal struggle within the family.
The bulk of the land is a single large island, which is called, slightly confusingly, mainland nowadays, and what's called hrose in the Vici age, the horse island.
And it lies within sight of the north coast of the mainland of Scotland.
And then beyond that, you have the Shetlands, which are out of sight, though fair isle lies between them and is indivisible between the north of Orkney and the south of Shetland.
And Shetland was part of the earldom of Orkney, though most of the political action of the saga takes place on the main archipelago and in Caithness, the immediately adjacent bit of Scotland.
We've said that an Icelander wrote this.
What do we know about him and the origins of the saga?
We don't know anything specific about the Icelander.
What we can tell is that he's working in the same milieu as other saga writers, particularly the ones who wrote the accounts of the norwegian kings that they seem to be familiar with each other's work to some extent, or the different scholars argue about whether there's direct copying and so on.