Violence and Risk in Medieval Iceland: This Spattered Isle, by Oren Falk

Abstract

Medieval Iceland was, according to its sagas, a society riven with feud. Numerous prose narratives composed from the thirteenth century onwards related narratives that focused on feud, set in the centuries from the island’s settlement (around 870) to just after its conversion to Christianity (roughly 1030). These are conventionally known as the ‘sagas of Icelanders’ (Íslendingasögur). During the same period, a further set of sagas was composed, dealing with more recent history, from the mid-twelfth century up until a few decades before the date of composition: these are known as the ‘contemporary sagas’ or samtíðarsögur. Both saga genres derive their narrative material and dramatic impetus from stories of kin-group-based reciprocal violence. Much has been written, by historians, literary scholars, legal historians and anthropologists about the violence apparently endemic in medieval Icelandic society. Can anything new be said about it? The answer to this question turns out to be an emphatic ‘yes’. This new book, by Oren Falk, takes a fresh look at violence as a phenomenon in the saga corpus. Falk propounds a complex and persuasive analysis of violence, as being concerned not only with the exercise of power and the creation of symbolic significance, but also—as his title signals—with risk. Falk nuances standard theories of violence as instrumental or expressive with a sophisticated understanding of the ways in which violent actors assess risk; he incorporates notions of jeopardy with regard to multiple factors, and ‘edgework’—the recognition that some actors do not care about minimising risk, but rather take pleasure in exhibiting their particular skills in risky situations.