Saga Thing
Saga Thing
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Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Saga Thing episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Saga Thing for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Saga Thing episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Episode 27a - Floamanna Saga (Part 1)
Saga Thing
09/22/18 • 82 min
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/
08/17/18 • 33 min
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
04/16/22 • 87 min
Laxdæla saga holds a special place in the world of medieval Icelandic literature. Of all the Sagas of Icelanders, Laxdæla saga is second only to Njáls saga in the number of surviving manuscripts, suggesting an evergreen enthusiasm and interest in the saga from the time of its composition to the 21st century. While we don’t know for sure who wrote this incredible work of art, many have speculated that it might have been Snorri Sturluson himself. Others posit that it must have been one of Snorri’s nephews, either Óláfr Þórðarson hvítaskáld or Sturla Þórðarson. Given the saga’s interest in the lives of women, others have argued that it must be the work of an unknown female author. Whoever wrote Laxdæla saga, one thing is clear, it is among the most beloved and well-studied of all the Icelandic sagas. We're very excited to finally set sail on this journey through the saga with you.
In this episode, we explore the first seven chapters of the saga, following the life of Auðr djúpúðga Ketilsdóttir, also known as Unnr. Listeners will recognize her as Auð the Deep-minded, daughter of Ketill flatnefur (Ketil Flatnose). She appears in or is referenced in many sagas, including Eyrbyggja saga, Njáls saga, Grettis saga, and Eiríks saga rauða. Here in Laxdæla saga, more than anywhere else, Auð emerges as the matriarch of Settlement Age Iceland’s leading families. As you’ll discover, Auð’s long arm of influence extends well beyond Iceland.
Join us as we celebrate the life of Auð and the start of Laxdæla saga!
Jacob Foust, @skarphedin_illustrator, has provided us with this handy genealogy to help you keep track of the many characters. It can’t possibly include everyone in the saga, of course, but it’s a useful tool for mapping out the relationships between some of the saga’s major characters.
Music Credits
Intro Music - "Prelude and Action" by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4236-prelude-and-action
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Outro Music - "Stormfront" by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4421-stormfront
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Saga Brief 24 - Slavery in the Viking Age (Live Presentation at the University of Connecticut)
Saga Thing
04/10/23 • 85 min
We were recently invited to speak at the University of Connecticut's Annual Medieval Studies/ECE Outreach Seminar on a variety of subjects related to the Viking Age. We prepared and recorded our morning presentation on Slavery in the Viking Age as a Saga Brief so that everyone in our listening audience could enjoy. It's a subject Andy's been thinking about a lot as we've been working our way through Laxdaela Saga, which is why he took the lead on this topic. Later in the day, John presented on Viking Age board games, focusing on Nine Men's Morris and Hneftafl. We then led a conversation on the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok and his Sons among other topics. Sadly, these afternoon sessions were workshops and thus not recorded.
We hope you enjoy this little attempt at a live Saga Brief. The audio is not pristine, but it is pretty decent for a live recording. The questions from Q&A are a bit difficult to hear and had to be edited slightly. Apologies for the poor quality there. We'll use two mics next time.
For those interested in learning more, here is a list of valuable research on the subject Andy used to prepare the Saga Brief:
Brink, Stefan. "Slavery in the Viking Age." In The Viking World, edited by Stefan Brink and Neil Price, 246-257. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Brink, Stefan. Thraldom: The Viking Age Slave Trade. Uppsala: Swedish Science Press, 2018.
Byock, Jesse L. Viking Age Iceland. London: Penguin Books, 2001.
Gelsinger, Paul. Icelandic Enterprise: Commerce and Economy in the Middle Ages. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1981.
Gustin, Ingrid, and Sven Kalmring (eds.). Viking Age Trade: Silver, Slaves and Gotland. Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2013.
Heebøll-Holm, Thomas. "Piratical Slave-Raiding: A New Perspective on Viking Age Maritime Violence." In Viking-Age Trade: Silver, Slaves and Gotland, edited by Ingrid Gustin and Sven Kalmring, 219-240. Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2013.
Jarman, Cat. River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2021.
Jochens, Jenny. Women in Old Norse Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Jones, Gwyn. A History of the Vikings. Revised edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Karras, Ruth Mazo. Slavery and Society in Medieval Scandinavia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
Karras, Ruth Mazo. "Concubinage and Slavery in the Viking Age." Scandinavian Studies 79, no. 4 (2007): 403-422.
Naumann, Elise, Maja Krzewińska, Anders Götherström, and Gunilla Eriksson. "Slaves as Burial Gifts in Viking Age Norway? Evidence from Stable Isotope and Ancient DNA Analyses." Journal of Archaeological Science 41, (2014): 533-540.
Price, Neil. Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings. London: Allen Lane, 2020.
Raffield, Ben. "The Slave Markets of the Viking World." History Today 66, no. 4 (2016): 12-19.
Music Credits
Opening song – Icelandic Folk Music: Tröllaslagur
Outro – Ólafur Liljurós
12/07/24 • 137 min
Hwæt a Movie returns with Beowulf: Prince of the Geats! Given how hard this one is to find, we’d be surprised if any of you have seen it.
Released in March 2007, shortly after SYFY's Grendel and ahead of Robert Zemeckis's Beowulf, this Scott Wegener-directed indie film dives into the epic tale with a unique take on the hero and his legendary battles. And while the film’s limited budget and production constraints might be apparent, its dedication to the original text shines through. Making the film more charming and admirable is the fact that the production team and actors all worked for free on this passion project. All proceeds from the sale of the DVDs for Beowulf: Prince of the Geats went to aid both the American and Norwegian Cancer Societies. Get a sense of the film by watching the trailer here.
The film stars both Jayshan Jackson and Damon Lynch III as the younger and older Beowulf. Wegener’s decision to depict Beowulf as the son of an adventuring African fisherman offers some interesting possibilities and an approach to the character that we haven’t seen yet. It’s also one of the few film adaptations to follow Beowulf home to Geatland after his time in Denmark.
As always, our episode includes an exhaustive summary of the film, a Q&A discussion, and our final ratings. How do these versions of Beowulf, Grendel, and Grendel’s Mother stack up against those we’ve seen before? And how does this quirky, low-budget film score on its fidelity to the source material and its overall entertainment value?
As the length of the episode might suggest, we’ve got a lot to say about this one. This was a delightful film to unpack, and we hope you enjoy hearing about it as much as we enjoyed discussing it.
If you’re interested in reading more about Wegener’s decision to cast black actors to play Beowulf and the responses it prompted, check out the following articles and discussions:
Clark, David. "Race/Ethnicity and the Other in Beowulf". In Beowulf in Contemporary Culture, edited by David Clark, 31-50. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019.
Nokes, Richard Scott. "Beowulf: Prince of the Geats, Nazis, and Odinists". Old English Newsletter. 41, no. 3 (2008): 26–32.
Listen to our overview, watch the trailer (or find the film if you can), and let us know what you think on our social media:
Or join others like you on Saga Thing’s unofficial official Discord
01/19/24 • 85 min
We begin the new year with a saga that has been compared to the works of Shakespeare himself. Not necessarily in a favorable light, but definitely compared. As we hinted in our 10th Anniversary episode, we're jumping into the sagas of Eyjafjörður in Northern Iceland (including Svarfdæla saga, Valla-Ljóts saga, Víga-Glúms saga, and Ljósvetninga saga).
Up first is Svarfdæla saga, a surprisingly compelling (but sometimes frustrating) narrative that Jónas Kristjánsson described as "one of the greatest oddities among the sagas of Icelanders" in his book Eddas and Sagas (244). And if that doesn't sell you on it, then how about this fine quote from Fredrik Heinemann from his paper "Svarfdæla saga: The Norwegians and the Swedes," the saga efficiently characterizes minor and major figures with the deft brush strokes of saga writing at its best" (237). We think you'll agree after listening to this episode covering the first six chapters of the saga.
In this episode, we meet two brothers called Thorolf and Thorstein. One is a typical saga golden boy, the other is a kolbítr. But if you know your saga tropes, you know that big things are in store for that lazy coal-eater.
Along the way, we talk about other brothers we've met in the sagas, the sudden appearance of a castle in the narrative, and one of the more unbelievable candidates for Best Bloodshed we've seen in a while. We also get back to the listener runesack to address a question from our Discord page about Viking weddings.
There's all that and more in our first episode of 2024. It's good to be back!
If you're interested in doing your own word usage research, check out The Dictionary of Old Norse Prose.
Join in on the conversation here:
Saga Thing’s unofficial official Discord
Music Credits
Intro Music - "Prelude and Action" by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Outro Music - "Stormfront" by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
01/24/21 • 142 min
Saga Thing returns from a much needed holiday break to tackle The Saga of Thord Menace. In this episode we meet the family of Thord, explore the formulas of saga writing, witness the assassination of Norwegian royalty, and learn how young Thord earned his menacing nickname. Oh, and we finally get to see some saga characters taking advantage of the lovely hot springs of Iceland. It's a great start to a saga that rarely gets the attention it deserves. Join us for The Saga of Thord Menace!
Our thanks to Bryan Foust for returning to share his talents with us once again. Check out his work on Instagram, where he's known as @skarphedin_illustrator.
And, as promised, some bibliography on saints and hagiography, courtesy of John. Blame any issues with citation style accuracy on him. I'm just cutting and pasting this time.
Dubois, Thomas A. Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia. University of Toronto Press, 2008.
Egilsdóttir, Ásdis. “Happy Endings: The (Para)Normality of Miracles.” Ármann Jakobsson and Miriam Mayburd, eds. De Gruyter, 2020.
Egilsdóttir, Ásdis. “The beginnings of local hagiography in Iceland : the lives of Bishops Þorlákr and Jón.” Lars Boje Mortenson, ed. The Making of Christian Myths in the Periphery of Latin Christendom (c.1000-1300). Museum Tusculanum Press (University of Copenhagen), 2006.
Grønlie, Siân. The Saint and the Saga Hero. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Phelpstead, Carl. Holy Vikings. ACMRS Press, 2007.
Wellendorf, Jonas. “Ecclesiastical Literature and Hagiography.” Ármann Jakobsson and Sverrir Jakobsson, eds. The Routledge Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas. Routledge, 2019.
And if you’re looking for a more general introduction to the phenomenon of medieval saints’ cults, you really can’t do better than Peter Brown’s The Cult of the Saints (University of Chicago Press, 1981).
Music Credits
Intro Music - "Prelude and Action" by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4236-prelude-and-action
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Outro Music - "Stormfront" by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4421-stormfront
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Saga Short 3 - The Tale of Jokul Buason
Saga Thing
07/26/18 • 90 min
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
Saga Brief 11 - The Lesser Ragnarssons
Saga Thing
01/16/18 • 105 min
Before we get back to the sagas of the Icelanders, we're pausing once again to provide you with some of the more interesting history and stories behind the History Channel's Vikings. We've got two lengthy Saga Briefs for you chock full of Vikings goodness ripped straight from the medieval sources that inform the show. We've already covered The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok, his death poem, Rollo and the Vikings in Paris, and the mythology surrounding the blood-eagle. This time around we've got our eyes on the Ragnarssons. As you'll learn, there are a lot of them. So many, in fact, that we don't even get to your favorites in this episode. That's right, you'll have to wait until next time to hear all about Ivar the Boneless, Ubbe, Bjorn, and Hvitserk. But never fear, there's plenty here to keep you entertained. Learn all about the origins of Sigurd's Snake-in-the-Eye. Discover the daring deed of Rognvald Ragnarsson. Ooh and aah over Ulvi's brief moment in the sun. Hear all about Hastein Ragnarsson, one of Ragnar's greatest and most trusted sons. And then there's Eirik and Agnar, Fridleif, Radbard, Dunwat, and even a few daughters to consider. There's also a good bit in here about Lagertha. We hope you enjoy!
Credits:
Intro - VioDance cover of "If I Had A Heart" by Fever Ray with Hardanger Violin
Closing Music - Logan Kendell's folk cover of "If I Had A Heart" by Fever Ray. To purchase a copy of the song, visit Logan Kendell's bandcamp page. Be sure to check out his other music while you're there. I highly recommend his cover of Cruzados' "La Flor de Mal."
Episode 27b - Floamanna Saga (Part 2)
Saga Thing
10/26/18 • 112 min
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.
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/
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FAQ
How many episodes does Saga Thing have?
Saga Thing currently has 194 episodes available.
What topics does Saga Thing cover?
The podcast is about Society & Culture, History and Podcasts.
What is the most popular episode on Saga Thing?
The episode title 'Episode 33e - The Saga of the Sworn Brothers (chapters 18-23)' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Saga Thing?
The average episode length on Saga Thing is 83 minutes.
How often are episodes of Saga Thing released?
Episodes of Saga Thing are typically released every 20 days, 14 hours.
When was the first episode of Saga Thing?
The first episode of Saga Thing was released on Sep 13, 2013.
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