The Magical Reality of the Late Middle Ages: exploring the world of the fornaldarsögur

Abstract

This article looks at some sources seldom used by historians studying the late Middle Ages: fornaldarsögur (legendary sagas). It argues that these sources can offer new perspectives on Old Norse culture in this period. This is illustrated by an analysis of how magic is described in four fornaldarsögur labelled the Hrafnista sagas from the late 15th-century manuscript AM 343a 4to. These sagas attest to what has been called ‘a magical world-view’ of the Middle Ages. Moreover, they shed light on the importance of cooperating with the periphery for both magical and material reasons. Although it is difficult to use the Hrafnista sagas as historical sources to more specific issues, this can be done in two ways. First, a changing relationship to the northern peripheries in the late Middle Ages can be discerned by comparing different versions of these sagas from this period. Second, by situating the manuscript containing these sagas (AM 343a 4to) in its literary environment of late 15th-century northern Iceland, we get a glimpse of a cultural struggle about how to interpret the past – and ultimately the present.