Saga Thing

Episode 27b - Floamanna Saga (Part 2)

Just in time for Halloween, John and Andy return for the second part of Flóamanna saga. When last we left you, our hero, Thorgils had battled two restless spirits. This time around, he's taking on berserks, madmen, and everyone's favorite hammer-wielding deity. As if that wasn't scary enough for you, Thorgils also contends with a shipwreck in Greenland, starvation, the walking dead, and a hungry baby.

Along the way, we talk about keg duels, a lucky Norwegian companion, and male lactation. Check out some of our sources:

Oren Falk, "Bystanders and Hearsayers First: Reassessing the Role of the Audience in Duelling," in A Great Effusion of Blood: Interpreting Medieval Violence edited by Mark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery, and Oren Falk. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004: 98-130.

Caroline Walker Bynum. Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press, 1982.

Barbara Orland. "Why Could Early Modern Men Lactate? Gender Identity and Metabolic Narrations in Humoral Medicine" in Medieval and Renaissance Lactations: Images, Rhetorics, Practices edited by Jutta Gisela Sperling. Burlington: Ashgate, 2013: 37-54.

Nikhil Swaminathan. "Strange but True: Males Can Lactate" Scientific American September 6, 2007.

A special thank you to Matt Smith, aka Barbarian Lord on Twitter, for sharing his talents with us once again. This original drawing will make more sense once you listen to the episode.

Music Credits:

Intro Music - "Prelude and Action" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Review Music - "On the Mississippi" by Prince's Band

Summary Music - A blending of "Classic Horror 2" and "Unease" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Outro Music - "Stormfront" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Selections from music by Kevin MacLeod licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Episode 27a - Floamanna Saga (Part 1)

This is the saga of the hero Thorgils Scar-leg's Stepson. In this episode, you’ll encounter a number of Thorgils’ ancestors, starting with Atli the Slender, who was given charge of Sogn in Norway by Halfdan the Black. The story of Thorgil’s family is tied to this land and their claim of sovereignty over it despite the objections of several generations of Norwegian royalty.

You’ll also meet Thorgils’ great-grandfather, Hallstein Atlason, a noble chieftain who was forced to flee Norway due to rising tensions with King Harald Fair-hair and the results of a hastily made oath to be a fair-minded judge. But don’t worry about Hallstein. Things turn out well for him in Iceland, where he marries the lovely Thora Olvisdöttir and becomes both popular and quite powerful. After he dies happily in his old age, we’re introduced to his son, Atli, a meddlesome man who enjoys wielding power and influence. In the end, Atli gets caught up in a property dispute that proves fatal.

Fortunately, Atli’s young son, Thord proves a capable avenger. Young Thord survives just long enough to father our saga’s hero, Thorgils, before disappearing at sea.

Thorgils has a bit of a rough start in Iceland, but he’s soon off adventuring, making friends with Norwegian royalty, and wrestling with the walking dead. Yes, Thorgils is a monster killer. But he’s more than that. Learn all about his life, his adventures, and the miracles he performs as Saga Thing takes on Flóamanna Saga!

As always, a special thanks to our resident Saga Thing Artist, Matt Smith, for bringing these stories to life through his talents. This time around, we've got the restless corpse of Audun's mother, Gyda, popping out of her coffin to get one last hug from her baby boy.

Music Credits:

Intro Music - "Prelude and Action" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Summary Music - "Darkling" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Outro Music - "Stormfront" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Selections from music by Kevin MacLeod licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

 

A Quick Chat in Reykholt from the Saga Conference 2018

Greetings from Iceland! In this episode, John and Andy sit down in the lobby of the beautiful Fosshotel in Reykholt to chat about the conference and Andy's travels around Iceland. 

Music Credits:

Intro: Corvus Corax - Bibit Aleum

Outro: Rick Wakeman - Journey to the Center of the Earth

Saga Brief 14 - Medieval Archery with Patricia Gonsalves and Stephen Fox

In this special episode of Saga Briefs, our side project here at Saga Thing, John and Andy sit down with Patricia Gonsalves and Stephen Fox for a chat about archery in the Viking world. But the conversation isn't limited to medieval Scandinavia. Patricia and Stephen, both experts in archery and its history, have travelled the world learning everything they can about the subject. We take full advantage of their expertise as we cover everything from Gunnar Hamundarson's request for a lock of hair to make a bowstring to cinema's best archers. Along the way, we learn about fletch mites and the last official kill by a longbow in wartime (hint: it involves dead Nazis). This is our longest interview yet, but it's an informative and fun one from beginning to end. We hope you enjoy Patricia and Stephen as much as we do.

Patricia currently works as the archery consultant for the popular television series Arrow and The Flash, among other shows. While she works behind the scenes, you'll have seen her work in the skilled and realistic approach to archery she's trained into every actor who draws an arrow on the shows. Patricia grew up imagining herself in the shoes of literature's most famous archer, Robin Hood. Today, she not only gets to play with bows and arrows every day, she gets to help make television's Robin Hood look cool. You can follow Patricia's adventures on her Facebook page, TheEpicArcher.

Stephen Fox studied Experimental Archaeology and Viking Archery at University College Dublin. If you want to know anything about how bows are made, Stephen is your guy. He's toured the world studying archery, working at excavation sites and Viking museums. An expert in Viking bow-making, Stephen spent two seasons working at the Lofotr Viking Museum in Norway, where he built his own workshop in the chieftain's longhouse and crafted bows from scratch. Stephen currently works with Patricia as an archery technician for Arrow.

If you're interested in getting some hands-on training in historical or traditional archery, you're in luck. Patricia is the founder and lead instructor at Lykopis Archery, located in Vancouver, Canada. Stephen also works there as an instructor and administrator. In addition to teaching introductory archery classes to youths and adults, Lykopis offers detailed instruction in the Four Disciplines of Archery, including:

The Lithics Discipline: This discipline concentrates on bows and arrows that were used in the Stone Age and throughout prehistory.

The Asiatic Composite Bow: Examines the composites of the Steppe, Eastern Asian bows and the styles used in Mounted Horseback Archery.

The Longbow: Studies the theory and application Viking Longbow and the Tudor/Welsh Warbow and and the heavy draw technique that allowed warriors to pull up to 100 lbs in draw weight.

The Flatbow: Focuses on First Nations and Native American bows, flatbows of the 20th Century and techniques applicable for stealth and for hunting.

Follow Lykopis Archery on Facebook for news and updates on programming.

Saga Short 3 - The Tale of Jokul Buason

In this special episode, we pick up right where Kjalnesinga saga left off. Bui Andridson is lying dead on the ground, his ribcage crushed from the wrestling match with his son. Ashamed of his dastardly deed, Jokul Buason flees Iceland. And while Kjalnesinga saga assures us that there are no other stories about Jokul, one grouping of manuscripts appends a fun þáttr (tale) about where Jokul went and what became of him.

Follow along as Jokul gets stranded at sea and then shipwrecked in strange lands. If you like trolls, then you'll want to tune in. If you like wrestling, this is the episode for you.  If you're a fan of silly voices, you're in the right place. Join John and Andy as they review Jökuls þáttr Búasonar.

Looking for a copy of The Tale of Jokul Buason so you can read about his adventures for yourself? If the 5 volume set of Sagas of Icelanders isn't in your budget, then grab a copy of Ben Waggoner's Sagas of Giants and Heroes.  In addition to this tale, you'll get Kjalnesinga Saga and several other great ones as well. I may have indicated in the conclusion to this episode that the volume also includes Floamanna Saga (our next saga). I was mistaken. But the other contents more than make up for my blunder. It has several sagas mentioned in our previous episode, like The Saga of Halfdan Brana's Fosterling.  And who could pass up the opportunity to read The Tale of Asmund Ogre-Lucky?

And thanks to Matt Smith, aka @barbarianlord, for contributing another brilliant original illustration. We think he captures Gnipa and Geit perfectly. Follow him on Twitter to see more of his work or visit his webpage, matt-illustrations.com.

References:

McKinnell, John. Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005.

Music Credits:

Intro: From “Death Awaits” by Billy Malmstrom

Outro: From “Óðinn” by Krauka