Digital Mapping and the Narrative Stratigraphy of Iceland

Abstract

The relationship between narrative and place in Iceland (as elsewhere) is an intricate and symbiotic one that is always in process. Digital mapping tools make it possible to take steps towards establishing chronologies of storied places. In addition, such tools aid in the interrogation and characterisation of the reciprocal dynamics of story and place in Iceland in ways not conceivable before. The ongoing Icelandic Saga Map (ISM) project attempts to link Iceland’s rich medieval textual corpus with the country’s geography, thus facilitating a better understanding of the various functions the landscape fulfils in the medieval sagas and in other works, as well as encouraging reflection on the role that landscape has played in the transmission and reception of these works over a time-period of a millennium or so. This chapter provides an overview of the medieval Icelandic textual corpus and a description of some technical aspects of the ISM project, followed by a discussion that focuses on the methodological challenges encountered and theoretical insights gained from the mapping process. Examples drawn from the most famous of all sagas, Njals saga, provide a sense of the complexity of correspondences between textual representations of Icelandic landscape and its ‘real-world’ counterpart(s).