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
• Published in: Ornament and Order. Essays on Viking and Medieval Art for Signe Horn Fuglesang
• Edited by: Margarethe C. Stang and Kristin B. Aavitsland
• Place, Publisher: Trondheim: Tapir Akademisk Forlag
• Year: 2008
• Pages: 179-99
• 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, pp. 179–99. Ed. Margarethe C. Stang and Kristin B. Aavitsland. Trondheim: Tapir Akademisk Forlag, 2008.

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Annotation

The article is an examination of two historiated and one inhabited initials in Njáls saga manuscript AM 133 fol., Kálfalækjarbók, from a textual and iconographical perspective. The author analysis Christian, chivalric and pre-medieval pictorial traditions in these illuminations. By observing the correlation between the illuminations and 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, as well as chivalric aspect; their iconography is connected to a common imagery established in Viking Age, such as Sigurd renderings, symbolic representation of power and “deceased warriors riding to the battlefields of Valhalla.

Links

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