Posts by aezcr
5. Time to relax (and worry) with friends… plus some Christmas travel chaos
21/12/2024
With the tendency to gather in followers and retainers in winter’s darkest days Christmas seems to have also been a good time to find people at home, and with the men in the saga acting like… men in a saga… this was a good time to go visiting. In Gairsay we find Sveinn Ásleifarson at …
4. Now behave! More family squabbles and some politicking
20/12/2024
Þorfinnr’s murder of his nephew in episode 3 is a reminder of the stresses of familial relationships around Christmas and how one might take out one’s frustrations a little too far. Families, Christmas and fighting remain linked in the saga. In chapter 54 we are told that Earl Haraldr had to pay compensation for killing …
‘Cancelled, no room to write’!
06/11/2024
The Ordnance Survey Name Books are a valuable and productive resource for place-names research… but for places like the small island of Fair Isle it seems there just wasn’t enough room to write all the names that were collected onto the map! A bit of background first: these books contain place-name information and the sources …