Literary Routes to the New World: The Vínland Sagas

This article investigates Eiríks saga rauða and Grœnlendinga saga, together known as the Vínland sagas, as literary artefacts shaped by the ideological and cultural context of thirteenth- century Iceland. While archaeological discoveries, such as the settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, lend support to the historical plausibility of Norse exploration in North America around the year 1000, the sagas’ transmission, narrative structure, and ideological orientation suggest a more complex negotiation between memory and fiction. The study explores how Christian morality, social memory, and narrative tropes are embedded in the depiction of landscapes, characters, and events. The main conclusion is that the sagas reflect a deliberate authorial effort to inscribe the colonial memory of Vínland within the evolving Icelandic identity in the thirteenth century.