Norway and the islands of the Atlantic Ocean in the Icelandic sagas - “Kringla heimsins” before and after the settlement of Iceland

Abstract

This paper is the continuation of my study of the spatial ideas of medieval Scandinavians. As I have shown elsewhere, before the settlement of Iceland in the ninth century the Norwegians imagined the inhabited world as consisting of four quarters, with Norway forming the northern quarter and the islands in the Atlantic Ocean the western. However, according to the sources, travel from Norway to Iceland was described not by the term vestr “westward”, but by út “out, towards the outer side”. Here, I attempt to explain this phenomenon and to demonstrate the diversity of the spatial ideas and traditions preserved in the sagas.