Cohen, Jeffrey; Stephanie Trigg. Fire

• Author: Cohen, Jeffrey; Stephanie Trigg
• Title: Fire
• Published in: Postmedieval 4/1
• Year: 2013
• Pages: 80-92
• E-text: ProQuest
• Reference: Cohen, Jeffrey and Stephanie Trigg. "Fire." Postmedieval 4/1 (2013): 80-92.

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Annotation

Summaries In this short article Cohen and Trigg analyze the narrative agency of Fire within Medieval Iceland through two sagas in particular, Njáls saga and Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar. They seek to offer parallels concerning this agency and the use of fire in contemporary and historical Australia. From the examination of both sagas Cohen and Trigg characterize fire through its transformative nature both in relation to human use, and unbound from human use. They then apply these examinations to studies of fire management within modern and historical Australian ecology. Throughout Cohen and Trigg offer insight into redefining the nature of fire as an independent actor within the context of literature, history, and modern ecology.

Lýsing

Texta vantar

References

Chapter 125: hlaupa upp eldur mikill : " The fire that burns Njal, his house and his family, is rehearsed many times before Flosi’s men start it in retribution for the killing of Hoskuld. In the first half of the saga, for example, Gunnar’s house is burnt down in a way that links the two parts of the narrative. Several omens also presage the second fire. Hildiglum, for example, witnesses a ‘witch-ride’ (gandreið): a vision of a man riding a grey horse through a ring of fire, and throwing his burning torch into the mountains, whereupon ‘such a great flame sprang up that he could no longer see the mountains‘. (p. 86)"

Links

• Written by: Karl Troxell
• Icelandic/English translation: