Liepe, Lena. The Knight and the Dragon Slayer.

• Author: Liepe, Lena
• Title: The Knight and the Dragon Slayer: Illuminations in a Fourteenth century Saga Manuscript
• Place, Publisher: Trondheim
• Year: 2008
• Pages: 179-199
• E-text:
• Reference: Lena, Liepe. "The Knight and the Dragon Slayer. Illuminations in a Fourteenth Century Saga Manuscript." Ornament and Order. Essays on Viking and Medieval Art for Signe Horn Fuglesang. Ed. Margarethe C. Stang and Kristin B. Aavitsland. Trondheim, 2008. 179–199.

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• Key words:

Annotation

The article is an examination of two historiated and one inhabited initials in Njáls saga manuscript AM 133 fol., Kálfalækjarbók, from the textual and iconographical perspective with an analysis of Christian, chivalric and pre-medieval pictorial traditions in these illuminations. By observing the correlation between these illuminations and their connection to Augustine doctrine along with pre-Christian Scandinavian mindset Liepe discovers an extra layer of significance: cultural transition in Medieval Iceland. Although these illuminations seem to represent utterly Christian concepts like wisdom and courage fight against evil, charity and forgiveness virtues, chivalric aspect; their iconography is connected to a common imagery established in Viking Age such as Sigurðr renderings, symbolic representation of power and “deceased warriors riding to the battlefields of Valhalla.”

Links

• Written by: Daria Segal
• Icelandic/English translation: