Sailing the Saga Seas: Narrative, Cultural, and Geographical
Perspectives in the North Atlantic Voyages of the Íslendingasögur
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough*
Abstract - Given the geographical magnitude and cultural significance of the medieval Norse voyages across the North
Atlantic, the Norse-Icelandic Íslendingasögur (Sagas of Icelanders) may seem to accord such crossings relatively limited
dramatic intensity and narrative weight, at least at first glance. However, close analysis of the texts reveals how deeply
ingrained these sea journeys were in the Norse cultural mentality. The following paper explores narrative descriptions of
sea voyages in the sagas, focusing on three key areas of this North Atlantic diaspora: Norway, Iceland, and Greenland. By
identifying the narrative patterns associated with these journeys and situating them within their wider literary, cultural, and
geographical contexts, the aim is to demonstrate that the accounts of sea journeys in the sagas, however fictionalized and
stylized, are closely aligned with the geographical reality of the voyages as well as with the medieval Icelandic perception
of the wider Norse diaspora and their place within it. The sagas in themselves are a type of textuality that both reflected
and helped to shape the “cognitive mapping” of the geographical region as it was perceived in Norse-Icelandic society (and
often in the wider Norse diaspora), both at the time of saga writing and also all the way back to the earliest Norse voyages
in the Atlantic. In the analysis that follows, I aim to move towards an understanding of how these narrative, cultural, and
geographical impulses come together to shape the Norse textual imagination and the picture of North Atlantic voyages that
emerges from the sagas.1
*The Queen’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; eleanor.barraclough@ell.ox.ac.uk.
Introduction
Spread out across the islands of the North Atlantic
and some coastal areas of the European mainland, the
medieval Norse diaspora was a culture predicated on
sea travel. Such voyages were deeply ingrained in
the Norse cultural mentality, as Judith Jesch (2001)
has shown in her extensive study of the evidence for
Viking-Age ships and voyages in runic inscriptions
and skaldic verse.2 Yet often in the Íslendingasögur
(Sagas of Icelanders), journeys across the vast span of
this ocean are described with a cool nonchalance that
may seem fitting for the reputed bad boys of the medieval
sea, but in fact belies the magnitude of these voyages.
In his discussion of the sea route west to Greenland,
G.J. Marcus (1957:14) observes “how often
what was unquestionably the longest and most formidable
ocean voyage known to the medieval world was
commemorated in a brief sentence or so”. Compared
to the dramatic seascapes found elsewhere in medieval
literature—Old English texts such as Beowulf
and The Seafarer, Irish navigational stories such as
Immram curaig Máele Dúin or Latin equivalents
such as Navigatio Sancti Brendani, not to mention the
descriptions of stormy voyages to be found in skaldic
poetry—the sagas take a muted approach to the subject,
in keeping with their general laconic style. At the
same time, this reticence should not be interpreted as
negating the significance of these lengthy and perilous
voyages. As Kristel Zilmer (2005:73) notes in
an article on travelling in the sagas, such narrative
brevity “does not automatically mean that the act of
travelling is in itself regarded as insignificant—otherwise
it could simply be left unmentioned. Rather, this
presentation strategy stands in connection with the
general style of saga writing, which concentrates on
the most dramatic events”.
Lamenting the “remoteness of the academic
tribe from the realities of the ‘sea affair’ ”, Marcus
(1980:xii) observes that descriptions of sea voyages
in the sagas are rarely analyzed as literary narratives
embedded in the physical world in which they
developed. Marcus could speak with authority here,
since his own analysis of the written sources was
informed by his practical experience of sailing these
waters. In the ensuing discussion, I intend to redress
this imbalance by examining the narrative patterns
associated with these journeys and situating them
within their wider literary, cultural, and geographical
contexts. Through close textual analysis, my aim
is to demonstrate that the accounts of sea journeys
in the sagas, albeit fictionalized and stylized, are
closely aligned with geographical and meteorological
realities as well as with medieval Icelanders’ perception
of the wider Norse diaspora and their place
within it. My focus will be on journeys to three key
destinations: Norway, Iceland, and Greenland.
We must start with the caveat that the sagas that
describe these voyages are in part literary creations:
voyage motifs have important narrative functions, to
be discussed presently, that contribute to the dramatic
coloring of the sagas and the events they describe.
As Robert Kellogg (2001:31) points out, “these were
2012 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 19:1–12
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narratives with their own aesthetic ends; not just records
[…] of important geographical and historical
facts.” Some motifs would be considered highly improbable
or even supernatural by today’s standards,
although it is rarely possible to separate experience
from imagination in these texts in a definitive fashion.
Likewise, we should always bear in mind that
the saga-writing period in most instances comes
centuries later than the implied date of the voyage
being described. With the principles of cultural
memory in mind (see Glauser 2007), we can reasonably
assume that the texts were strongly influenced
by the social and political complexion of the period
of writing (particularly in the case of the landnám
narratives associated with voyages to Iceland).
Astrid Ogilvie and Gísli Pálsson (2003:269) have
suggested that the natural landscape described in the
Íslendingasögur was “closely intertwined with the
cultural landscape” of medieval Icelandic society. If
this is so, it follows that both the cultural and natural
landscape—or in this case seascape—would have
colored the literature produced by this culture.
These caveats notwithstanding, highly realistic
elements within the saga narratives of voyages have
been pointed out by scholars such as Þorsteinn Vilhjálmsson
(2001) and Gísli Sigurðsson (2004:253–
302), who note the evident interest in precise seafaring
routes and geographical “immanent maps” of
the lands travelled (ibid.:299). Jesch (2009:79), for
her part, argues that a major impulse behind these
medieval Icelandic narratives “came from [Icelanders’]
history of experiencing and perceiving the wide
world around them, and their experience of extending
its boundaries far to the west.” Altogether, then,
it seems a reasonable premise that the sagas both
reflected and helped to shape the “cognitive mapping”
of the geographical region as envisioned by
the medieval Icelanders—and perhaps in the wider
Norse diaspora—both at the time of saga writing and
all the way back to the earliest Norse voyages in the
Atlantic and the earliest oral accounts thereof.3 Such
mapping, in an on-going, self-renewing process,
could naturally help to shape the contemporary accounts
of sea journeys undertaken by Norse sailors,
as well as the narrative conventions of saga writing
and the traditional conceptualizations of this geographic
space informed by centuries of sea travel in
the region.
Norway
Voyages from Iceland to Norway in the sagas
are described with a characteristic brevity and understatement,
and the protagonists tend to reach
Norway at the appointed time and place. Some of
the more minimalistic descriptions tend to lack
distinctive content and are devoid of documentary
significance. Their main function seems to be narratological,
to bridge the interval between episodes
and thus create a sense of continuity. Even so, such
journeys are described as being actively good, rather
than merely passed over as uneventful. Their very
presence suggests that the community producing and
consuming sagas could readily accept that voyages
to Norway could be as uneventful as these. Had such
an assumption been counter-factual, the saga compilers/
authors could hardly have used this narrative
function as frequently as they do.
Egils saga is a particularly useful text to mine for
Norwegian voyages typical of those found elsewhere
in the saga corpus, since its international and political
dimensions mean that many of its characters are
often on the high seas. The “narrative-bridge” formula
greiddisk þeim vel (ESS 87, “they had a smooth
passage”) occurs on several occasions, almost always
in connection with the journey to Norway (see
also ESS 79 and 133). At certain points in the saga,
the narrative is more detailed, for instance through
mention of favorable winds: “[Þorgils and Þórólfr]
heldu aptr um haustit; þeim byrjaði vel, kómu at
Hϙrðalandi” (ESS 42, “[Þorgils and Þórólfr] set off
[for Norway] in the autumn; they had good winds
and landed in Hϙrðaland”), “Konungr sigldi hraðbyrja,
til þess er hann kom í Naumudal” (ESS 55, “the
king sailed with good winds until he came to Naumudalr”),
and “byrjaði þeim þá […] þeir sigla norðr
um Sognsæ byr góðan ok bjart veðr” (ESS 67, “then
they got a favorable wind […] they sailed north into
Sognfjϙrðr with a good wind and in fine weather”).
Conversely, when sailors attempt to avoid Norway
for political reasons, sailing conditions become
rough, implying perhaps that conditions would be
better if they were not attempting to steer clear of
the area and thus having to navigate open waters:
“þeim byrjaði illa ok hfðu réttu stóra ok velkði lengi
í hafi, því at þeir váru øruggir í því at firrask Nóreg
sem mest” (ESS 85, “the wind was unfavorable with
a strong headwind, and they were tossed about at sea
for a long time, because they wanted to stay as far
from Norway as possible”). Although the Íslendingasögur
does not explicitly mention this, when parties
were sailing without such constraints they could
hug the Norwegian coast and also use portages and
canals (where available, as at Selja) so as to avoid
the most exposed sea-routes.
Elsewhere in the saga corpus, similar patterns
are discernible. Vatnsdæla saga states perfunctorily,
“honum fórsk greitt ok kom við Nóreg” (VS 44, “the
journey went well for him and he reached Norway”).
Likewise in Króka-Refs saga we are told, “Bárðr lætr
nú í haf ok fersk vel. Kom hann í þær stöðvar, sem
hann mundi kjósa” (RS 142, “now Bárðr put out to
sea and his voyage [to Norway] went well. He came
to the ports that he would have chosen”).4 Later in
2012 E.R. Barraclough 3
the tale, Refr and his sons also have “útivist langa
ok hæga” (RS 150, “a long, easy voyage”) and reach
Norway in the winter (an unusual piece of timing that
will be considered presently). In Gunnlaugs saga,
Gunnlaugr enjoys good winds on his journey to Norway:
“er þeim gaf byr, létu þeir í haf ok kómu skipi
sínu norðr við Nóreg” (GnlS 68, “as soon they got a
good wind they put to sea and their ship reached the
north of Norway”). Fair winds are also mentioned
in Fóstbræðra saga’s description of Skúfr’s voyage
to Norway: “þeir fá góða byri; fersk þeim vel, taka
Nóreg” (FbS 257, “they got fair winds and their voyage
went well and they reached Norway”).
Laxdæla saga describes Hϙskuldr and his crew
en route to Hϙrðaland, where the winds are good:
“láta þeir í haf, ok gefr þeim vel, ok tóku Nóreg
heldr sunnarliga” (LS 22, “they set out to sea and
had favorable winds and landed in the south of Norway”).
Óláfr pái meets with similar conditions on
both his journeys to Norway: “þegar kom byrr á, er
Óláfr kom til skips, ok sigla þeir þegar í haf” (LS 51,
“a favorable wind rose as soon as Oláfr reached the
ship and they put out to sea immediately”; see also
chapter 21, LS 59). Given the frequency with which
young Icelandic heroes visit the Norwegian court in
Laxdæla saga, it is not surprising that this motif oc -
curs so frequently (see LS chapters 30, 38, and 40).
This point will be returned to later in the discussion.
Comparable descriptions feature in the outlaw
sagas. In Gísla saga, Vésteinn’s sons escape Iceland
and “þau váru skamma stund úti ok kómu við
Nóreg” (GSS 117, “they were at sea a short time and
reached Norway”). Similarly, Harðar saga describes
how Grímkell and his ship’s company “fóru síðan
utan […] ok kómu við Björgvin heilu skipi” (HS
35, “went abroad after that […] and got to Bergen
with the ship unscathed”). More detail is provided
in Grettis saga, which describes how Þrándr and
ϙnundr “sigldu vestan um haf til Nóregs ok fengu
svá mikit hraðbyri, at engi njósan fór um ferð þeir”’
(GSÁ 15, “sailed from the west across the sea to Norway
and got such a favorable wind that there was no
advance intelligence of their journey”).
Very occasionally, there are exceptions to this
pattern. In such cases the sagas take pains to explain
the reasons for a poor voyage to Norway, which is
usually due to the part of the country they are heading
for and/or the time of year when they are sailing.
Winter is a particular problem, for, as Brian Fagan
(2000:73) has noted, “the prudent medieval mariner
avoided going to sea in winter. Thirteenth-century
Scandinavians with their open boats stayed ashore
from November to March.” Two rare cases of unpropitious
voyages to Norway occur in the outlaw sagas
Grettis saga and Gísla saga.
The episode in Grettis saga can be explained
by both the time of year when they are sailing—the
beginning of winter—and the location, Staðr (Cape
Stad). The saga states that Grettir and the rest of the
crew “fóru norðr með landi ok fengu opt hϙrð veðr,
því at þetta var ϙndverðan vetr. Ok þá er þeir sóttu
norðr at Staði, fengu þeir illviðri mikit með fjúki ok
frosti ok tóku nauðuliga land eitt kveld” (GSÁ 129,
“sailed north along the land and often had harsh
weather, because it was the start of winter. When
they came north to Staðr, they experienced a great
storm with driving snow and sea-rime and made it to
land with difficulty one evening”). Renowned for its
harsh and extremely windy conditions, Staðr is the
only mainland peninsula in Norway that juts out into
the open sea.5 In addition to this verisimilitude, the
account of the adverse conditions plays an important
role in the narrative as part of the cause and effect
sequence that leads to Grettir’s eventual outlawry. In
order to get fire to warm up his storm-battered shipmates,
he swims across the channel, but his cloak
freezes when he gets to the other side and magnifies
his bulky form, so that the men at the house he is
making for mistake him for a troll. In the panic that
follows, the house is set on fire and the occupants are
burnt to death.
In Gísla saga, too, Gísli and Vésteinn’s shipwreck
on the way to Norway is linked specifically
to the fact they are travelling at the start of winter,
at the dead of night, and with a blizzard blowing:
“[þeir] váru úti meir en hundrað dægra ok sigla um
vetrnáttaskeið at Hϙrðalandi í miklu fjúki ok ofviðri
um nótt, brjóta skipit í spán, en halda fé sínu ok
mϙnnum” (GSS 27, “they were out at sea for more
than one hundred days and around the first day of
winter came to Hϙrðaland at night in heavy driving
snow and stormy weather, breaking their ship to
splinters but without losing their goods and men”).
These exceptions notwithstanding, the stereotype
is a benignly favorable voyage eastwards. This
is not merely literary convention, because such
descriptions make sense in terms of the prevailing
oceanographic conditions that generations of Norse
voyagers would have experienced on the journey
from Iceland to Norway. It is actually the case that
the prevailing currents and wind patterns tend to
make for a swift passage east. The key current is the
fairly weak, northward-flowing North Atlantic Drift
located between Iceland and Norway, which becomes
the Norwegian Atlantic Current further north
(CIMAS 2012). Journeys from the west to Norway
would have benefited from the direction of flow,
while on the final approach to the Norwegian coast
the sailors would have picked up the system of warm
currents heading north. The latter would be especially
helpful if the destination lay in a more northerly
part of the country such as Þrándheimr (as described
in Egils saga and Gunnlaugs saga), Niðaróss (as in
Laxdæla saga and Gunnlaugs saga), and Staðr (as
4 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 19
in Grettis saga and Laxdæla saga). The prevailing
westerly jetstream would also have contributed to
the general trend of west-to-east voyages being easy.
A third factor shaping the saga descriptions
seems to be the cultural valences assigned to Norway
in the general medieval Icelandic world view,
in terms of the historical and political position it
occupied within the Norse sphere and beyond. A
tendency towards swift and easy sea journeys east
to Norway fits with the country’s culturally secure,
politically dominant position in the Norse diaspora,
traditionally viewed as the homeland for fledgling
Norse societies such as Iceland. The same attitude
is also reflected more generally in Norse-Icelandic
directional vocabulary, for, as Jesch (2005:120) explains,
“The primal voyage from Norway to Iceland
is fossilized in the directional adverbs used by medieval
Icelanders, in life and in literature. To sail út
‘out’ was to sail from Norway to Iceland, while the
journey from Iceland to Norway was figured as a return
journey, as útan, literally ‘from the place which
is ‘out’ ’, with Iceland as the outpost, in relation to
the point of origin in Norway.”
In many of these episodes, this cultural context
fits with the subsequent narrative pattern that takes
place once the voyagers have landed in Norway.
When—as is often the case—it is a young Icelandic
hero who is at the center of the story, his smooth,
swift journey east is invariably followed by a
character-forming episode during which he proves
his manliness and worth at the royal court. Often
this episode is preceded with a brief spell of tension
during which he locks horns with the king, thus
emphasizing the fact that Icelanders are—at the very
least—equal to Norwegian monarchs. Subsequently,
the youth is feted as a great hero, converts to Christianity,
and returns to Iceland with tokens of royal
favor (for discussions of this motif see Harris 1972,
1976; Schach 1982). Within this context, his easy
voyage to Norway is a fitting portent of the noble
destiny that awaits him.
In short, it is likely that a mix of narratological,
geographical, and cultural factors contributes to
form the saga descriptions of voyages from Iceland
to Norway.
Iceland
Voyages in the opposite direction, from the east
to Iceland, are described most fully in the sagas
when they occur within the context of the ninthcentury
landnám (“land-taking” or “settlement”)
narratives. The significance of this “migration myth”
as part of the cultural memory of thirteenth-century
Icelandic society has been discussed at length, and
Pernille Hermann (2010:72) has drawn attention to
the way in which the past dealt with in the Íslendingasögur
“is seen through an interpretative web
indebted to contemporary experiences and current
ideologies”, not least the political turmoil of the later
period. By means of a set of narrative conventions
common to many Norse texts—indications that the
proto-Icelander’s destiny lies in Iceland, the voyage
there, quasi-supernatural signs directing the ship’s
company to land, land-claiming and place-naming
strategies, and beneficial relationships formed with
land-spirits—the story of the landnám demonstrates
the process by which the settlers take control of the
Icelandic landscape and forge a cultural and social
identity within it. Before they even reach Iceland,
the settlers’ interaction with the seascape is a preview
of the way in which they will later form a relationship
with the topography of this new land.
To some extent, the seascape is still marginal,
for, as has been noted by Margaret Clunies Ross
(1998b:130), “this privileging of the idea of land
taking as a means of humanising the environment
had its antithesis in the relative neglect of matters to
do with the waters and their inhabitants which were
placed in a special, somewhat marginal category
associated with anomaly and uncertainty”. As with
the seas around Greenland—which will be discussed
below—and occasionally Norway, there are descriptions
of rough passages in the sea around Iceland as
the sailors near their destination. However, whereas
the many Greenlandic storms and shipwrecks described
in the sagas have significant repercussions in
the narratives, their Icelandic equivalents are more
subdued in their effects. Storms blow over quickly,
voyagers land without further ado, and even if there
is a shipwreck, the travellers usually reach their intended
destination. As Jonathan Grove (2009:41–42)
notes, in comparison to the sea voyages to Greenland,
“the winds that blow about early Iceland in the
sagas tend to draw pioneers to their destined landholdings
in the new country rather than threatening
them with hardship and destruction at the edge of the
known world.” Examples of such episodes appear in
Laxdæla saga (chapter 5), Grettis saga (chapter 8),
Bárðar saga (chapter 3), and Egils saga (chapter
33). Another episode from Egils saga, Skallagrímr’s
landnám, is a particularly good illustration of this
motif and worth quoting in full:
“Er þeir váru komnir við Ísland, þá sigldu þeir
sunnan at landi; þeir sigldu vestr fyrir landit, því at
þeir hϙfðu þat spurt, at Ingólfr hafði sér þar bústað
tekit; en er þeir kómu fyrir Reykjanes ok þeir sá
firðinum upp lúka, þá stefna þeir inn í fjϙrðinn
báðum skipunum. Veðr gerði hvasst ok væta mikil
ok þoka; skilðusk þá skipin. Sigldu þeir inn eptir
Borgarfirði, til þess er þraut sker ϙll; kϙstuðu þá
akkerum, til þess er veðr lægði ok ljóst gerði.”
(ESS 71–72, “When they came offshore from
Iceland, they sailed towards land from the south,
2012 E.R. Barraclough 5
then west along the coast, since they had heard
that Ingólfr had settled there. When they sailed
around Reykjanes and saw the fjord open up, then
they sailed both ships into the fjord. The weather
grew rough and there was much rain and fog
and the ships were separated. They sailed along
Borgarfjϙrðr beyond all the skerries; they cast
anchor until the storm died down and it became
light.”)
In this measured approach to the land, despite
the rain and darkness, Iceland appears as an open
landscape where sailors are able to make their way
around sections of the coast. At least in terms of syntax,
the land itself is a dynamic agent in this interaction,
actively responding to the settlers’ approach as
they see the fjord opening up to receive them (þeir
sá firðinum upp lúka). Even when a storm hits, they
ride it out without incident, casting anchor and waiting
for it to pass.
Such landnám voyages to Iceland are purposeful,
quasi-supernatural events, often guided by prophecies
that are made before the settlers even set off for
Iceland (as in the case of the reluctant landnámsmaðr
(settler) Ingimundr in Vatnsdæla saga). Once
at sea, the use of ϙndvegissúlur (“high-seat pillars”)
to direct the would-be settlers to their new land is
a classic landnám motif that appears throughout
the relevant Icelandic literature. The trope has been
thoroughly analyzed elsewhere (see particularly
Clunies Ross 1998b:122–157, Strömbäck 1970,
Wellendorf 2010:11–12), so here a brief summary
will suffice.
The practice of throwing high-seat pillars
overboard on the approach to Iceland in order to
determine the place of settlement is described in
numerous episodes in the sagas (not to mention
Landnámabók), including Laxdæla saga (chapters
3 and 5), Kormáks saga (chapter 2), Þorsteins
þáttr uxafóts (chapter 1), Flóamanna saga (chapter
4), and Eyrbyggja saga (chapter 4). An episode
from Eyrbyggja saga encapsulates the importance
of semi-supernatural forces in enabling the seafarers
to approach and settle the land, with the Þórrcarved
pillars driving Þórólfr towards both the
land and his destiny:
“Siðan sigldi Þórólfr í haf, ok byrjaði honum vel,
ok fann landit ok sigldi fyrir sunnan, vestr um
Reykjanes; þá fell byrrinn, ok sá þeir, at skar í
landit inn fjϙrðu stóra. Þórólfr kastaði þá fyrir
borð ϙndvegissúlum sínum, þeim er staðit hϙfðu í
hofinu; þar var Þórr skorinn á annarri. Hann mælti
svá fyrir, at hann skyldi þar byggja á Íslandi, sem
Þórr léti þær á land koma. En þegar þær hóf frá
skipinu, sveif þeim til ins vestra fjarðarins, ok
þótti þeim fara eigi vánum sinna. Eptir þat kom
hafgula; sigldu þeir þá vestr fyrir Snæfellsnes ok
inn á fjϙrðinn.”
(EbS 7–8, “Then Þórólfr sailed out to sea and he
got a fair wind and sighted the land and sailed
along the south coast, west towards Reykjanes;
then the breeze dropped and they saw where large
fjords cut into the land. Then Þórólfr cast overboard
the high-seat pillars that had stood in his
temple; Þórr was carved upon one of them. He said
that he would settle in Iceland at the place where
Þórr caused the pillars to land. As soon as the pillars
were thrown from the ship, they were swept
towards the western side of the fjord and it seemed
to them [the voyagers] as though they [the pillars]
moved in other than the way they expected. After
that a sea breeze sprang up; then they sailed west
around Snæfellsnes and into the fjord.”)
Here, rather than running into storms as they
approach the coastline, the voyagers experience a
drop in the wind and are able to see the broad fjords
that will bring them to land. Once the pillars have
been lowered into the water, the text creates a sense
of supernatural interaction with the meteorological
and oceanographic conditions, working in concert to
welcome them and to create an effortless entry into
the country. The verb sveif (“swept”) emphasises
the sense of the pillars’ swift movement, which is
accentuated by the information that the manner in
which they are moving is somehow unexpected. As
with the description of Skallagrímr’s landnám in
Egils saga, the sailors are able to sail freely around
the coast, arcing around Reykjanes and the headland
of Snæfellsnes before being propelled into the fjord
by a hafgula (“sea breeze”) that springs up to speed
them on their way.
An important cultural explanation for such
positive descriptions of the westward voyages is
the medieval Icelanders’ fierce desire to define and
legitimize a strong sense of Icelandic identity, particularly
in opposition to Norway. These deep-seated
tensions grew in the thirteenth century, during which
many of the sagas were committed to writing, as
Norway flexed its political muscles, eventually taking
control of Iceland in 1262–1264. Under these
circumstances, the sagas became an important social
and political tool. As Clunies Ross (1993:379–380)
notes, “Icelandic literature took shape during a period
of acute political crisis for the Icelanders […]
They needed to tell the world, and the Norwegians
in particular, that their claim to sovereignty was as
good as their neighbours.”
Clunies Ross (1993:375–376) has demonstrated
that central to this impulse were the traditions associated
with the landnám and genealogies, reflecting
the Icelanders’ aspirations to establish their nascent
nation within a larger European framework. Within
this context, the positive aspects of the country’s
landscape and its role in the landnám were particularly
important, not only in the outward voyage but
6 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 19
also in depictions of the subsequent land-claiming
and settlement. Thus, the landnám narrative pattern
underlines Iceland’s identity as a land destined to
be the future home of the Icelandic people, not only
through prophetic statements concerning individuals
but also through their interaction with the seascape
and coastline on the approach to their new country.
These deeply engrained narrative conventions,
strongly informed by the cultural anxieties of the
saga-writing period, are key to understanding why
sea journeys to Iceland were depicted so positively
in the sagas.
Here too, there are prevailing oceanographic conditions
that must be taken into account as we assess
the saga descriptions. These conditions are registered
in somewhat inconsistent fashion in our texts.
On the one hand, the texts do not mention adverse
winds that might be expected, from present-day
data on the westerly jetstream, to impede outward
voyages. Possibly the saga narratives play down the
prevalence of adverse winds for ideological reasons
of the kind posited above. On the other hand, the
pattern of sea currents in the waters around Iceland
does indeed fit nicely with elements of the landnám
narrative pattern, where settlers are swiftly pulled
towards the coast and welcomed by the land itself, as
if physically destined for Iceland. Under prevailing
conditions, a ship coming from Norway would find
the final stages of its approach to Iceland facilitated
by the East Icelandic Current, which flows clockwise
around Iceland. Such a direction fits with the descriptions
of the settlers “curving” clockwise around the
coast, with examples from Egils saga (“er þeir váru
komnir við Ísland, þá sigldu þeir sunnan at landi; þeir
sigldu vestr fyrir landit”; ESS 71, “When they came
offshore from Iceland, they sailed towards land from
the south; then west along the coast”), Þórðar saga
hreðu (“sigldu svá vestr fyrir landit ok svá norðr […]
ok nær inu norðr landinu”; ÞSH 269, “they carried
on sailing west round the coast, then north […] and
around the northern part of the land”), and Bárðar
saga (“helt Bárðr Heyangrs-Bjarnarson vestr fyrir
landit ok svá í norðr”; BSS 109, “Bárðr the son of
Heyangr-Bjϙrn held a westerly course around the
land and so to the north”).
It is likely that these motifs in the sagas began
life as straightforward navigational features experienced
by voyagers to Iceland and reinforced
over the centuries as the same routes continued to
be used. Over the generations, as the significance
of the landnám story grew in the Icelandic cultural
imagination, information on oceanographic features
of the journey would have become connected
to and qualified by other ideologically motivated
ideas about the voyage’s significance, until the
pattern fused into a culturally meaningful literary
trope in the saga texts.
Greenland
Earlier sagas
If voyages between Iceland and Norway are
depicted in the sagas as relatively smooth undertakings,
those to and from Greenland are an entirely
different matter. As Grove (2009:41) notes, “the
turbulent voyage becomes a principal leitmotif of
Icelandic tales concerning Greenland.” Additionally,
there appears to be a definite development
in the saga descriptions over time. Establishing a
chronology, either absolute or relative, is admittedly
very difficult, since some sagas may have undergone
mutual influence (in some cases possibly in
Greenland as well as in Iceland) before being written
down. However, taking the saga dates tabulated
by Vésteinn Ólason (2005:114–115) and Grove
(2009:33) as a rough guide, the earliest sagas associated
with Greenland seem to be Grænlendinga
þáttr (perhaps late twelfth century, although with
possible incorporation of Icelandic salvage laws
into the extant mid-thirteenth century version), the
Vínland sagas Grænlendinga saga and Eiríks saga
(early thirteenth century), Fóstbræðra saga (early
to mid-thirteenth century), and Eyrbyggja saga
(mid-thirteenth century). Later texts include Flóamanna
saga (late thirteenth or early fourteenth century),
Króka-Refs saga (mid-fourteenth century),
Bárðar saga (mid- to late fourteenth century), and
Jökuls þáttr and Gunnars saga (both late fourteenth
to fifteenth century). Gunnars saga seems to have
been pieced together from a number of other sagas
and does not mention Greenland by name, so it will
be mentioned only incidentally here (see Margrét
Eggertsdóttir 1993).
In Grænlendinga þáttr, the two ships that escort
the bishop to Greenland meet with storms: “létu
þeir í haf, ok greiðisk eigi byrrinn mjϙk í hag þeim”
(Gþ 275, “they put out to sea, and the wind was
not greatly in their favor”). One ship is lost, with
the crew meeting a grisly fate in the Greenlandic
wilderness. In Grænlendinga saga, from the time
when Bjarni sets out from Iceland for Greenland,
the narrative conveys a sense of going beyond the
familiar and known world of Icelandic society;
Bjarni declares, “óvitrlig mun þykkja vár ferð, þar
sem engi vár hefir komit í Grænlandshaf” (GS 246,
“our journey will be considered unwise, given that
none of us has sailed the Greenland sea”). A healthy
respect for the perils of voyages and the discovery
of unknown lands is encapsulated by Hafgerðingadrápa,
a verse said to have been composed during
one of the first voyages to Greenland: “mínar biðk
at munka reyni / meinalausan farar beina” (GS 245,
“I ask the unblemished {tester of monks} [GOD] to
assist my travels”). Despite such prayers, on Bjarni’s
outward journey the familiar world of Iceland
2012 E.R. Barraclough 7
retreats until “landit var vatnat” (GS 246, “the land
was made water”), with the sense of the land itself
being swallowed up by the ocean. The unfamiliar
seascape is threatening and difficult to navigate:
“lagði á norrænur ok þokur, ok vissu þeir eigi, hvert
at þeir fóru” (GS 246, “northern winds and mists
assailed [them], and they did not know where they
were going”).
In Eiríks saga, the poor sailing conditions
on the voyage to Greenland are even more pronounced.
The departure from Iceland is attended
by good weather, but “er þeir váru í hafi, tók af
byri” (ES 205 “when they were at sea, the favorable
wind ceased”). The voyage is plagued by storms
and sickness associated with the Greenlandic sea:
“fengu þeir hafvillur, ok fórsk þeim ógreitt um
sumarit. Því næst kom sótt í lið þeira” (ES 205,
“they lost their bearings and made little progress
during the summer. Following this, illness came to
the company”). Later in the saga, the bad weather
associated with this stretch of water is responsible
for Leifr’s discovery of Vínland, while on a subsequent
expedition to Vínland, the voyagers are lost
at sea all summer in a storm, returning to Greenland
battered and bruised. Similarly in Fóstbræðra
saga, Skúfr’s outward journey to Greenland—“skip
velkir úti lengi; fá þeir veðr stór” (FbS 223, “the
ship was tossed about at sea for a long time; they
got bad weather”)—stands in sharp contrast to his
aforementioned journey to Norway.
In these earlier sagas, descriptions of troubled
sea journeys to Greenland relate culturally to the
land’s comparatively insecure position in the wider
Norse diaspora. Given Greenland’s physical position
at the western edge of the Norse world, such
peripheral representation is unsurprising. In the
most realistic depictions of the land and its settlements,
the country is decidedly part of the Norse
world, but, more generally, saga descriptions of
difficult Greenland voyages can be interpreted as
among the “marginalizing strateg[ies]” that serve
to “place Greenland firmly at the edge of the map”
(Grove 2009:32). Greenland emerges from the saga
corpus as a somewhat marginal, socially unstable set
of settlements, afflicted by plagues and eerie events
and dominated by its dramatic physical topography
of vast glaciers and towering mountains.
Many sources other than the sagas—both Icelandic
and non-Icelandic—describe shipwrecks and
storms on the route to Greenland, which suggests
that the tradition of a bad voyage to Greenland is
not confined to the thematic traditions of this literary
corpus (for a broader overview of these sources,
see Grove 2009:41–44). An oft-cited passage in
Landnámabók describes how in the first voyage out
to Greenland, only 14 of the 24 ships arrived safely,
while geographical descriptions of the region in the
manuscript Hauksbók (ca. 1306–1310) confirm the
picture that emerges from many of the sagas, with
a lengthy and evocative account of Greenland’s
difficult currents, disorientating winds, darkness,
and glaciers. Similarly, the Skálhólt annal entry
for 1347 records sailors from Markland making for
Greenland but being blown off course and landing in
Iceland (see Seaver 1996:28).
Norwegian sources take a similar view. In
Konungs skuggsjá (King’s Mirror, ca. 1250), the
meteorological conditions experienced by sailors
around Greenland are linked explicitly to the presence
of the glaciers that dominate the landscape:
“er þar kann illviðri að vera, þá verður það þar með
meiri ákefð en í flestum stöðum öðrum, hvortveggja
um hvassleik veðra og um ákefð frosts og snjóa” (KS
130, “when there are storms, then they develop with
greater severity than in most other places, because of
both the harshness of the winds and the accumulation
of frost and snow”). The passage goes on to describe
shadowy figures of sailors abandoning their ships
and valuables at the margins between the water and
the ice and dragging their boats up onto the shelf:
“þeir hafa tekið smábáta og dregið á ísa upp með sér
og hafa svo leitað landsins” (KS 119, “they have taken
their small boats and have dragged them up on the
ice with themselves, and thus have made their way to
land”).
A comparable description is given in the Norwegian-
Icelandic official Ívarr Bárðarson’s account
of his journey to Greenland (ca. 1364), in which he
describes the glaciers that sailors encounter when
they near the coastline, the ice and snow that lie on
the land and sea, and the storms that rage in the area
(Jónsson and Pétursson 1899:48–52).6 While the
depiction of the treacherous voyage to Greenland
in saga literature may have been colored by literary
factors, these non-saga texts indicate that the perception
of bad voyages to Greenland was held widely
throughout the Norse world. Significantly, Konungs
skuggsjá and Ívarr’s account are from Norway rather
than Iceland, unsurprising given that the voyages
to Greenland were predominantly conducted from
Norway, especially in the later period (see Marcus
1957:13–14).
All the descriptions cited above probably originate
in real-life experiences of sailing to Greenland.
Particularly interesting in this respect are the descriptions
in the Hauksbók and Sturlubók redactions
of Landnámabók (Book of Settlements). These
accounts may not be strictly accurate (see Jesch
2009:65), perhaps at best “the literary version[s] of
a far longer and fuller set of oral instructions that
were familiar to all mariners with long experience
of the Greenlandic run”, as Marcus (1957:25) describes
them. Nevertheless, they outline a typical
passage from Hernar (approximately 30 miles north
8 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 19
ratives, eventually replacing the settlements as the
main setting (for example, in Flóamanna saga and
Jökuls þáttr). At the same time, uncanny creatures
such as trolls begin to supersede humans as the main
inhabitants (particularly in Jökuls þáttr).
In Flóamanna saga, predictions of disaster are
made even before the company set sail: Þorey declares,
“misráðit mun [...] at þangat sé farit” (FlóS
276, “it is a bad plan to be going there”’). Once they
are at sea, Þórr appears to Þorgils and threatens (then
brings about) a shipwreck, visually highlighting the
power of the sea by showing Þorgils a cliff “þar sem
sjóvarstraumr brast í björgum,—‘í slíkum bylgjum
skaltu vera ok aldri ór komast’ ” (FlóS 279, “where
the ocean current pounded against the rocks—‘you
will find yourself in such waves and never escape’ ”).
When his threat comes true, the description of the
shipwreck on the Greenlandic coast focuses on the
little ship washed up below the glaciers, compounding
the continuing sense of man’s insignificance and
vulnerability in the face of the hostile topography:
“þeir brutu skipit undir Grænlandsjöklum í vík nökkurri
við sandmöl. Tók skipit í sundr í efra rúmi”
(FlóS 282, “they were shipwrecked on a gravel bar
in a bay under the glaciers of Greenland. The ship
split at its upper deck”).
In the supernatural world of Jökuls þáttr, many
lines are devoted to the voyage to Greenland, emphasizing
an almost otherworldly disorientation, the
great length of time during which they are lost at sea,
and the ferocity of the shipwreck: “gaf þeim lítt byri,
og rak á fyrir þeim myrkr og hafvillur, svó þeir vóru
úti allt sumarið; en er hausta tók, gerði storma með
miklum hríðum og frustum, svó sýldi hvern dropa
[...] um síðir rak skipið að skerjaklasa miklum með
boðaföllum stórum” (JþB 47, “they got little wind,
darkness and disorientation overtook them, so that
they were out at sea all summer. When autumn came,
there were storms with a great deal of sleet and
frost, so that every drop of water turned to ice. […]
Eventually, the ship was wrecked on a great cluster
of skerries in great crashes of breakers”). A similarly
devastating shipwreck in the northern wilderness is
described in Gunnars saga.
A partial exception to this trend towards the
otherworldly is Króka-Refs saga, which, although
probably to be grouped chronologically with the
later sagas, as we have seen, has much in common
with the comparatively realistic portrayal of Norse-
Greenlandic settlements to be found in the earlier
sagas. Here, the adverse phase of the voyage begins
with the sighting of Greenland: “þeim ferst vel, þar
til er þeir fá sýn af Grænlandi, ok síðan velkir þá
lengi ok hefr þá norðr með landinu” (RS 131, “they
travelled well until they caught sight of Greenland,
and then they were tossed about for a long time and
driven north along the coast”).
of Bergen) due west to Hvarf (Cape Farewell, the
southern tip of Greenland) via the seas just north
of Shetland but south of the Faroes. If this route is
roughly correct, then the prevailing meteorological
and oceanographic conditions can readily be correlated
with those reported in the textual record.
Marcus (1980:xiv) has drawn attention to a “crucial
factor” in North Atlantic voyages, namely that “the
prevailing winds were contrary for westward ventures.
Throughout much of the year westerly predominated
over easterly weather”. Grove (2009:41)
correctly notes that “[g]etting back from Greenland
does not generally seem to involve the same difficulties
as getting there in these tales”, but his further
inference that this “asymmetrical pattern bespeaks
the artificiality of these narratives” (Grove 2009:41)
does not necessarily follow, given the well-documented
effect of the westerly jetstream.
In addition, sailors would have had to contend
with all the risks of the frequently foggy, turbulent
conditions at the cold–warm front found in the
Irminger Sea, where the largely northward-flowing
Irminger Current transports relatively warm, salty
water that mixes with colder, less saline water transported
by the East Greenlandic Current from the
Arctic Ocean (CIMAS 2012). This area is located
above the western slope of the Reykjanes Ridge to
the west of Iceland (at a longitude of approximately
26° W), and runs from latitude 67° N to 55° N, making
it an unavoidable part of any route from Norway/
Iceland to Greenland (CIMAS 2012). Such foggy
conditions may well be reflected in the various saga
descriptions of poor visibility encountered as the
voyagers neared Greenland.
Similarly, it is hardly surprising that we find descriptions
of ships to Greenland meeting bad weather
and being pushed north up the coast (hefr þá norðr
með landinu, as Króka-Refs saga has it). As in the
case of Staðr in Norway, the weather around the exposed
western coastline of Greenland is notoriously
bad, and the direction of travel follows the flow of the
West Greenlandic Current up the coast towards the
Davis Strait. A further relevant phenomenon is the
“Icelandic Low”, a term adopted by meteorologists to
describe the semi-permanent low-pressure center between
Iceland and southern Greenland. This is a principal
center of action in the atmospheric circulation
of the Northern Hemisphere, associated with frequent
cyclone activity, and the sailors of the Middle Ages
are likely to have run into it (NSDIC 2012).
Later sagas
In the later sagas, descriptions of voyages to
Greenland feature ever more ferocious gales, storms,
and shipwrecks. These grim accounts form part of a
broader shift in the literary depiction of Greenland,
where the wilderness begins to creep into the nar2012
E.R. Barraclough 9
traditional route. In addition, scientific studies suggest
that the winds around Greenland were becoming
significantly stronger between the period when
the Norse settlements were established (ca. 1000) up
to around AD 1300 and beyond, increasing difficulties
of access (Kuijpers and Mikkelsen 2009). Two
decades earlier than Ívarr, Bishop Hákon of Bergen
was probably not exaggerating when he wrote in
a letter to the Archbishop of Niðaróss (1341) that
the way to Greenland lay per mare non minus tempestuosissimum
quam longissimum (“over a sea no
less exceedingly tempestuous than it is exceedingly
wide”: see Marcus 1957:28).
Consequently, although Grove (2009:46) invokes
the “generic conventions [associated with the
literary representation of Greenland] that did not
value historical and geographical specificities in the
account of that ‘cold world’ ”, it is the very coldness
of this world and its surrounding waters that plays
the pivotal role in the dialogue between the sagas
and the geographical reality of Norse activities in
the region. As trading patterns changed and the sailing
routes to the country became unviable or were
abandoned, the perception of Greenland in the Norse
world view also changed. The region tipped over
from geographical and cultural peripherality to critical
isolation. Such a status chimes with Geraldine
Barnes’ (1994:21) description of the “divestment” of
the western world in post-classical saga traditions,
with the Greenlandic wilderness and other distant
lands such as Helluland merging together as a wild,
barren space across the sea. Greenland was now a
land beyond the Norse social sphere, its cultural
place having shifted until it largely vanished from
the cognitive map, leaving memories of storms, sea
ice, and shadowy isolation.
Conclusion
Close textual analysis of the North Atlantic voyages
described in the Íslendingasögur demonstrates
how literary stylization and fictional impulses come
together with geographical and meteorological
conditions, cultural preoccupations, and historical
events in order to shape and color the saga narratives.
Voyages to Norway, Iceland, and Greenland
invariably have important roles within the saga
plots, providing the narratives with both structure
and color. Yet it is also true that the brief and easy
sea journeys east to Norway fit with its secure, politically
dominant position within the Norse world,
reflecting the cultural valences assigned to the country
from a medieval Icelandic perspective. Similarly,
the sea journeys to Iceland are often described in the
context of the “mythically charged” landnám narratives,
used by the Icelanders to reinforce their sense
of identity, politically and ideologically distinct
The tendency for Greenland voyages to become
stormier, wilder, and weirder in the later sagas can
be linked to the growing popularity of supernaturally
themed, fantastical saga literature during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is true that the
traditional view of the development of saga genres
from Íslendingasögur to riddarasögur and fornaldarsögur—
as well as a shift from the more realistic
“classical” Íslendingasögur to their more supernaturally
inclined “post-classical” counterparts—has
now been replaced in scholarship by a more fluid
interpretation of the development of saga genres
(for an overview, see Vésteinn Ólason 1998:60–61).
Nevertheless, a general trend towards the fabulous
still seems to be discernible. This pattern has been
noted by Grove (2009:37), who goes on to remark
that “it is nevertheless striking that the remaking of
Greenland as a rendezvous for fabulous adventures
with little regard for even the most vaguely historicized
human dimension becomes most apparent at a
time when regular communications with Greenland
were diminishing, but, strangely perhaps, not necessarily
before they had ceased altogether.”
In reality, it is not so strange that such perceptions
had made their way into descriptions of voyages
while there was still contact with Greenland.
Rather, they point to the probability that near-contemporary
experiences of Greenland voyages were
still finding their way into the saga narratives, reflecting
the deteriorating climatic and oceanographic
conditions that voyagers would have experienced on
the crossing.
This shift prompts the more general question
whether Greenland’s representation in the sagas
became colored by changing literary fashions or—
as seems more plausible—Greenland became an
attractive setting for eerie and supernatural saga
episodes precisely because of the way the land and
the journey there were starting to be viewed by
the wider Norse world, as the settlements began to
decline and contacts with the east diminished. The
decline and demise of the Greenland settlements
have a number of complex and interrelated causes
(see Barlow et al. 1997, McGovern 2000), but for
present purposes, particularly significant is the deteriorating
climate (both on land and at sea). Sea ice
and the freezing of the fjords were on the increase
(see Jensen et al. 2004, Kuijpers et al. 1999, Lassen
et al. 2004, Roncaglia and Kuijpers 2004) as part of
more widespread changes in sea temperature and
glacial ice-calving; Icelandic sources investigated
by Ogilvie (1991) indicate that unusual levels of
sea ice reached Iceland on numerous occasions during
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (see also
Barlow et al. 1997, Christiansen 1998:720–726).
Ívarr Bárðarson’s account mentions navigational
difficulties caused by newly abundant sea ice on the
10 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 19
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from Norway in particular. Consequently, while the
voyages to Norway give the impression of natural
movement back to the “center” of the Norse cultural
sphere, they are not described with the same sense of
forward momentum and propulsion that characterizes
the voyages to Iceland, particularly in the context
of the landnám narratives. Likewise, the dangerous
and protracted saga voyages to Greenland reflect the
country’s ever-more marginal position in the Norse
cognitive “map”, not only as viewed from Iceland
but also in the wider diaspora.
At the same time, it is highly likely that the sagas
reflect the key oceanographic conditions experienced
by generations of Norse voyagers sailing across the
North Atlantic, including currents, prevailing winds,
and other oceanographic and climatic conditions.
The navigational conditions that had been experienced
over the centuries were built upon in the
literary texts to produce culturally meaningful, fictionalized
saga narratives. In the case of Greenland
in particular, these cultural, geographical, and historical
factors were tightly bound up with each other,
for the deteriorating meteorological conditions on
the sea routes to Greenland were directly linked to
the decline and fall of the Norse-Greenlandic settle -
ments and the increasing cultural distance between
Greenland and the rest of the Norse diaspora. The
motif of the difficult voyage to Greenland therefore
takes on a unique chronological dimension, with the
later sagas describing ever more turbulent seas and
uncanny shipwrecks on the wild Greenlandic coastline.
Thus, through close literary analysis of the sea
voyages described in the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas,
it is possible to restore these narratives to the
tangible, multi-dimensional seascape of the North
Atlantic, in order to better understand the literary,
geographical, oceanographic, cultural, and historical
impulses that informed and shaped these unique and
complex witnesses to the medieval Norse world.
Acknowledgements
I am extremely grateful to Russell Poole for the generosity
with which he edited this paper, which has been
greatly improved by his many insights and suggestions.
My particular thanks also to Judith Jesch, Kevin Edwards,
Denis Casey, and Rosie Bonté for reading and commenting
on an earlier version of this work, and to Jonathan
Grove for providing me with a draft of his article on
Greenland, which appeared in this journal in 2009. I am
also indebted to Antoon Kuijpers and Peter Wadhams for
their advice concerning the oceanographic conditions that
the Norse sailors might have encountered on their Atlantic
voyages. Research toward this paper was supported by the
Leverhulme Trust through an Early Career Fellowship at
the University of Oxford. All and any errors in this paper
are my own.
2012 E.R. Barraclough 11
Jónsson, Finnur, and Helgi Pétursson 1899. Um Grænland
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3I use the term “cognitive mapping” to refer to the geographical
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4Incidentally, Bárðr seems to be particularly lucky in his
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5Even today, the area creates difficulties for the shipping
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/12/17/us-norwayshipping-
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Endnotes
1This paper develops a topic that I began to explore several
years ago at the saga conference in Uppsala; for some
embryonic thoughts and general remarks see my pre-print
paper (Barraclough 2009).