Dr Emily Lethbridge, at the University of Iceland, is an expert on the Icelandic Sagas, those unique manuscripts which tell the story of the Icelandic settlement and the story of the Norse Vikings themselves.
The manuscripts were written some centuries after the events of the settlement but give remarkable accounts of both the heroic myths of the Vikings and the family sagas of the characters who are seen as forging the settlement of Iceland.
In this exchange composer Linda Buckley sits down with Emily at the Arni Magnusson Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavik english.arnastofnun.is and gets a deeper understanding not just of the sagas but how Ireland and the gaelic people feature in them, including the story of the supposedly mute Irish slave Melkorka. You can find out more about Emily’s work and research here: arnastofnun.is/is/stofnunin/starfsfolk/emily-lethbridge
Check out the award winning film Emily Lethbridge and Cambridge University made ‘Memories of Old Awake’ about Emily’s mapping of the Icelandic Sagas and how in Iceland the land itself tells the saga stories.