Sverrir Jakobsson and Araltes the Varangian
Channel: RyanEiri
Date: 2024-04-05

Sverrir Jakobsson joins the students of the Department of Icelandic Language & Literature at the University of Manitoba via Zoom to discuss the end of the Viking Age and its representation in late medieval Icelandic literature. Our starting point is the life of Harald the Severe who came to be a legendary figure of the Varangians. Sverrir traces this identity through both Icelandic and continental sources to derive conclusions about the stereotypical Varangian of the Icelandic sources.

Sverrir is a great author of a multitude of articles and monographs that explore Icelandic and world history from differing perspectives, teasing out the historical events portrayed by a variety of sources from across a broad geographical area.