̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Iceland

Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity

sc604 — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 00:48:16 +0000

A team of scientists and medieval historians, led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, has used information contained within ice cores and tree rings to accurately date a massive volcanic eruption, which took place soon after the island was first settled.

Having dated the eruption, the researchers found that Iceland’s most celebrated medieval poem, which describes the end of the pagan gods and the coming of a new, singular god, describes the eruption and uses memories of it to stimulate the Christianisation of Iceland. ̽��ֱ��results are reported in the journal Climatic Change.

̽��ֱ��eruption of the Eldgjá in the tenth century is known as a lava flood: a rare type of prolonged volcanic eruption in which huge flows of lava engulf the landscape, accompanied by a haze of sulphurous gases. Iceland specialises in this type of eruption – the last example occurred in 2015, and it affected air quality 1400 kilometres away in Ireland.

̽��ֱ��Eldgjá lava flood affected southern Iceland within a century of the island’s settlement by Vikings and Celts around 874, but until now the date of the eruption has been uncertain, hindering investigation of its likely impacts. It was a colossal event with around 20 cubic kilometres of lava erupted – enough to cover all of England up to the ankles.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge-led team pinpointed the date of the eruption using ice core records from Greenland that preserve the volcanic fallout from Eldgjá. Using the clues contained within the ice cores, the researchers found that the eruption began around the spring of 939 and continued at least through the autumn of 940.

“This places the eruption squarely within the experience of the first two or three generations of Iceland’s settlers,” said first author Dr Clive Oppenheimer of Cambridge’s Department of Geography. “Some of the first wave of migrants to Iceland, brought over as children, may well have witnessed the eruption.”

Once they had a date for the Eldgjá eruption, the team then investigated its consequences. First, a haze of sulphurous dust spread across Europe, recorded as sightings of an exceptionally blood-red and weakened Sun in Irish, German and Italian chronicles from the same period.

Then the climate cooled as the dust layer reduced the amount of sunlight reaching the surface, which is evident from tree rings from across the Northern Hemisphere. ̽��ֱ��evidence contained in the tree rings suggests the eruption triggered one of the coolest summers of the last 1500 years. “In 940, summer cooling was most pronounced in Central Europe, Scandinavia, the Canadian Rockies, Alaska and Central Asia, with summer average temperatures 2°C lower,” said co-author Professor Markus Stoffel from the ̽��ֱ�� of Geneva’s Department of Earth Sciences.

̽��ֱ��team then looked at medieval chronicles to see how the cooling climate impacted society. “It was a massive eruption, but we were still amazed just how abundant the historical evidence is for the eruption’s consequences,” said co-author Dr Tim Newfield, from Georgetown ̽��ֱ��’s Departments of History and Biology. “Human suffering in the wake of Eldgjá was widespread. From northern Europe to northern China, people experienced long, hard winters and severe spring-summer drought. Locust infestations and livestock mortalities occurred. Famine did not set in everywhere, but in the early 940s we read of starvation and vast mortality in parts of Germany, Iraq and China.”

“ ̽��ֱ��effects of the Eldgjá eruption must have been devastating for the young colony on Iceland – very likely, land was abandoned and famine severe,” said co-author Professor Andy Orchard from the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford’s Faculty of English. “However, there are no surviving texts from Iceland itself during this time that provide us with direct accounts of the eruption.”

But Iceland’s most celebrated medieval poem, Vǫluspá (‘ ̽��ֱ��prophecy of the seeress’) does appear to give an impression of what the eruption was like. ̽��ֱ��poem, which can be dated as far back as 961, foretells the end of Iceland’s pagan gods and the coming of a new, singular god: in other words, the conversion of Iceland to Christianity, which was formalised around the turn of the eleventh century.

Part of the poem describes a terrible eruption with fiery explosions lighting up the sky, and the Sun obscured by thick clouds of ash and steam:

“ ̽��ֱ��sun starts to turn black, land sinks into sea; the bright stars scatter from the sky.
Steam spurts up with what nourishes life, flame flies high against heaven itself.”

̽��ֱ��poem also depicts cold summers that would be expected after a massive eruption, and the researchers link these descriptions to the spectacle and impacts of the Eldgjá eruption, the largest in Iceland since its settlement.

̽��ֱ��poem’s apocalyptic imagery marks the fiery end to the world of the old gods. ̽��ֱ��researchers suggest that these lines in the poem may have been intended to rekindle harrowing memories of the eruption to stimulate the massive religious and cultural shift taking place in Iceland in the last decades of the tenth century.

“With a firm date for the eruption, many entries in medieval chronicles snap into place as likely consequences – sightings in Europe of an extraordinary atmospheric haze; severe winters; and cold summers, poor harvests; and food shortages,” said Oppenheimer. “But most striking is the almost eyewitness style in which the eruption is depicted in Vǫluspá. ̽��ֱ��poem’s interpretation as a prophecy of the end of the pagan gods and their replacement by the one, singular god, suggests that memories of this terrible volcanic eruption were purposefully provoked to stimulate the Christianisation of Iceland.”

Reference:
Clive Oppenheimer et al “ ̽��ֱ��Eldgjá eruption: timing, long-range impacts and influence on the Christianisation of Iceland.” Climatic Change (2018). DOI: 10.1007/s10584-018-2171-9

Inset image: Codex Regius, which contains a version of the Vǫluspá.

Memories of the largest lava flood in the history of Iceland, recorded in an apocalyptic medieval poem, were used to drive the island’s conversion to Christianity, new research suggests.

With a firm date for the eruption, many entries in medieval chronicles snap into place as likely consequences.

Clive Oppenheimer

Eldgjá fissure in southern Iceland

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Tree rings pinpoint eruption of Icelandic volcano to half a century before human settlement

sc604 — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 16:21:01 +0000

̽��ֱ��team, which included volcanologists, climatologists, geographers and historians among others, used a combination of scientific and historical evidence to pinpoint the eruption date of the Katla volcano between late 822 CE and early 823 CE, decades before the earliest settlers arrived. Their results are reported in the journal Geology.

In a similar way to how fossils can be used to understand the development and evolution of life on Earth, different types of environmental evidence can be used to understand what the Earth’s climate was like in the past and why. ̽��ֱ��‘fingerprints’ contained in tree rings and ice cores help scientists to estimate past climatic conditions and extend our understanding of the interaction between humans and the environment hundreds and thousands of years back in time.

“In our work, we’re trying to reconstruct past natural temperature and precipitation variability from tree rings – trying to reveal when it was cold and wet or warm and dry for instance,” said Professor Ulf Büntgen of Cambridge’s Department of Geography, the paper’s lead author. “We’re also interested in detecting and understanding key drivers of the Earth’s climate dynamics and their possible linkages with changes in human history.”

Currently, Iceland is for the most part treeless. However, before the first permanent settlers arrived in the late 9^th century, it was most likely covered by extensive woodland. Early settlers harvested most of the trees they found on the island to establish an agricultural-based society, and the trees never recovered.

In 2003, a spring flood of the Thverá River exposed hundreds of birch trees which had been buried for centuries beneath layers of volcanic sediment. ̽��ֱ��so-called Drumbabót forest is the best-preserved prehistoric forest in Iceland, and had been buried by an eruption of the nearby Katla volcano, Iceland’s most active volcanic system.

Volcanic eruptions are often responsible for an abrupt period of cooling, but only with a precise date of eruption can researchers definitively account for the variability in climate. Büntgen, who uses the information locked within tree rings to reconstruct past climate conditions, used the trees exposed by the 2003 flood to pinpoint when this particular eruption took place.

̽��ֱ��team behind the current work have previously confirmed that in 775 CE, a large solar flare caused a spike in radiocarbon levels in the Earth’s atmosphere, which would be stored in the wood of trees that were alive at the time. By measuring the radiocarbon levels in one of the Drumbabót trees, Büntgen and his colleagues were able to pinpoint the year 775 in the tree rings, and measure outward to the bark to count the number of years to the Katla eruption, when the tree died. ̽��ֱ��outermost tree ring had completely formed and a new one had not yet started, meaning that the eruption occurred after autumn 822 and before spring 823, before the next year’s growth had begun. Iceland was not settled until around 870, so this particular forest was destroyed almost half a century before humans arrived.

̽��ֱ��unique tree ring results were then linked with those of co-authors Professors Christine Lane and Clive Oppenheimer, also from Cambridge’s Department of Geography. Lane and Oppenheimer used independent lines of ash (tephra) and ice core evidence to detect fingerprints of the Katla eruption.

In addition to the scientific results, the team also involved historians who analysed written documentary evidence from Europe and Asia, and found that there was a severe cold spell consistent with the timing of the reconstructed Katla eruption.

“It was a happy coincidence that we were able to use all these different archives and techniques to date this eruption,” said Büntgen. “Data and methods we are using are constantly getting better, and by building more links with the humanities, we can see the real effects volcanoes have on human society.”

Reference
Büntgen et al. ‘Multi-proxy dating of Iceland’s major pre-settlement Katla eruption to 822-823 CE.’ Geology (2017). DOI: 10.1130/G39269.1

An international group of researchers has dated a large volcanic eruption in Iceland to within a few months. ̽��ֱ��eruption, which is the oldest volcanic eruption to be precisely dated at high northern latitudes, occurred shortly before the first permanent human settlements were established, when parts of the now mostly treeless island were still covered with forest.

It was a happy coincidence that we were able to use all these different archives and techniques to date this eruption.

Ulf Büntgen

Drumbabót forest in Iceland

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Chasing the volcano

tdk25 — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 06:00:00 +0000

Faced with the prospect of an imminent volcanic eruption, most people would head for safety, but for one group of Cambridge research students, the aim is to get as close as they realistically can.

That opportunity suddenly presented itself when, on the night of August 28, 2014, members of the ̽��ֱ��’s Volcano Seismology group were shaken awake by a series of low-magnitude earthquakes. ̽��ֱ��tremors were being caused by the movement of an underground channel of molten rock which they had been tracking for 10 days as it forced its way north-east from the Barðarbunga volcano in central Iceland.

̽��ֱ��group’s work involves measuring and studying such seismic events, which warn that a volcanic eruption may be about to take place. As it became clear that this was now imminent, the team hastily finished deploying field instruments around the tip of the area where they knew the channel was flowing. Just hours later, it ruptured the Earth’s surface, disgorging huge fountains of magma that reached up to 150 metres high, announcing the start of Iceland’s biggest volcanic event for 200 years.

Click image to enlarge

̽��ֱ��story of the group’s dramatic fieldwork – and why it matters – is now the subject of a display at this year’s Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, which will be taking place in London from 4-10 July 2016.

During the build-up to the eruption, a total of 30,000 mini earthquakes occurred as the molten rock forged a crack through the earth, several kilometres beneath the surface. By analysing these earthquakes, the team were able to understand more about the physical process that was happening under their feet. This knowledge helps to inform both early warning tools that can be used to anticipate a volcanic eruption, and scenario-planning around its potential consequences.

Robert Green, a Seismology PhD student from St John’s College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, was one of the Cambridge researchers responsible for assessing the tremors around Barðarbunga. “Most people think of a volcano as being a large mountain where molten rock comes straight up from under the ground and erupts directly from the summit, either explosively creating a huge ash cloud, or producing lava which flows down the sides,” he said.

“Those are certainly options, but this one was different. Instead the molten rock moved 46 kilometres underground away from the volcano before it emerged in a completely different place. When it did, the eruption formed a curtain of fire the height of Big Ben.”

Earthquakes such as those measured by Green and his colleagues are caused by the molten flow cracking through rock in the Earth’s crust. As the rocks slide past one another, they cause the ground to shake. In August 2014, it was this seismic activity that indicated that one of these so-called “dyke intrusions” had developed from the Barðarbunga volcano.

̽��ֱ��scientific community was quick to respond, deploying researchers from 26 different institutions, including the Cambridge team. This group effectively chased the volcano, travelling in helicopters, snow scooters and offroad vehicles to install seismometers and track its subterranean progress.

They also worked closely with civil and aviation authorities to keep them up to date about potential impact. Airlines feared a repeat of the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, when a plume of volcanic ash infamously led to the cancellation of 100,000 flights during the Easter holidays.

When the fissure eruption finally happened, it was at the Holuhraun lava field, the site of a 19^th Century volcanic event north of Barðarbunga itself. Some of the Cambridge group’s seismometers had been positioned so close that they had to be hastily retrieved in the face of the advancing lava flow.

̽��ֱ��eruption was on a huge scale, lasting from August 2014 until February 2015. During its early stages, about 500 tonnes of rock were flung out of the Earth every second at temperatures of about 1,300 degrees C. ̽��ֱ��thermal energy was calculated to be equivalent to one Hiroshima atomic bomb being detonated every two minutes for almost six months.

For the researchers, it was an unprecedented opportunity to gather data about the effects of the movement of magma under the ground during such events. “Earthquakes accompanying the movement of magma underground are the best volcano monitoring tool we have, but we don't yet understand the mechanics of it - precisely why, when and where the earthquakes occur, and why, when and where they don't,” said Jenny Woods, another member of the team, based at Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “These are important things to learn if we want to understand the behaviour of volcanoes and improve eruption prediction.”

In the case of the 2014 eruption, scientists and government teams had to consider the possibility that lava might erupt beneath a local ice cap, causing an ash cloud which could disrupt flights, and a major flood. Even more frightening was the possibility was that it might continue moving until it met another reservoir of molten rock beneath the Askja volcano, triggering a major eruption that would have had devastating consequences for much of northern Iceland.

“There is no certainty during these events that it will even erupt at all,” Green added. “ ̽��ֱ��whole time we were looking at several possible scenarios, one of which was that the lava would just stay in the ground.”

“Tracking the Bárdarbunga intrusion and witnessing the eruption was an utterly surreal experience: arriving in Iceland, deploying instruments in an evacuation zone, being shaken awake by an earthquake, and then being the first group on the scene at the eruption in the middle of the night under the northern lights,” said Woods. “It was a real reminder of the raw power trapped in the earth beneath our feet!”

̽��ֱ��study also involved an assessment of the stress changes that occurred within the Earth’s crust as a result of the tremors. These findings could, among other things, help with the assessment of human activities that have a similar effect, not least the highly sensitive question of where and when it is safe to undertake “fracking” for shale gas.

̽��ֱ��group’s display at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition, which is aptly entitled “Explosive Earth”, will feature several hands-on activities enabling visitors to discover how researchers monitor the movement of molten rock under the ground, how they triangulate the point of origin from tremors to track the magma’s course, and how an earthquake itself is measured.

In 2014, Cambridge researchers monitored a series of seismic shocks which preceded Iceland’s biggest volcanic eruption in 200 years. ̽��ֱ��dramatic story of their work, and its scientific value, is now part of this year’s Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition.

̽��ֱ��eruption formed a curtain of fire the height of Big Ben.

Robert Green

EXPLOSIVE EARTH - Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 4-10 July 2016

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Yes

Outlaws, trolls and beserkers: meet the hero-monsters of the Icelandic sagas

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 14:28:14 +0000

“I’ve come to kill your monster!” exclaims Beowulf in the 2007 film version of the epic poem. But how do his suspicious Danish hosts know that this monstrously huge stranger is actually a hero searching for glory? And, by the same token, how do modern audiences with no prior knowledge of the Marvelverse know that the Incredible Hulk is a “good guy”? At least readers of the Icelandic sagas had an advantage: they were used to their heroes being monsters – at least part of the time.

Iceland’s medieval literature is rich in many regards: in Eddas and sagas, it tells us about early Scandinavia and its expanding world-view, ranging from the mythology of the North, the legends and heroes of the migration age, the Viking voyages and the settlement of Iceland all the way through to the coming of Christianity and the formation of kingdoms in Scandinavia.

It also tell us about monsters – for the literature of medieval Iceland is also rich in the paranormal. In mythology, gods and men fight against giants. In the sagas, humans battle the forces of disorder, the trolls and revenants – think a cross between a vampire and a zombie – that inhabit the wild mountains and highlands of Norway and Iceland. Or at least that is what, on the surface, appears to happen.

Trolls won’t always be trolls

Monstrosity, however, is never clear-cut. Because of their hybrid nature, monsters cannot easily be categorised – instead, they demand to be approached and read in a more nuanced way. Such a reading will soon lead to the realisation that not all monsters are created equal, that they do not all pose the same threat. For trolls are not always trolls.

In fact, the word “troll”, which we now understand to denote some kind of mountain-dwelling ogre, was used for a number of different kinds of figures: witches, the undead, berserkers, but also people who were larger or stronger or uglier than ordinary humans. Which leads us to the monstrous heroes of the medieval Icelandic family sagas, or Íslendingasögur.

Half monster, half hero

In these texts, we encounter characters that are both troll-like monster and human hero – that both threaten and defend society and that therefore draw our attention to the fact that the boundary between monstrosity and heroism is not only thin but also regularly crossed.

While some of the creatures that are referred to as “trolls” – especially revenants, but also witches and even berserkers – are unequivocally monstrous, the characters that occupy the most ambiguous position suspended between monstrosity and heroism are outlaws. These, however, are also the characters that have captured the Icelandic imagination the most: there are three sagas that scholars agree to be major outlaw stories, the sagas of Grettir Ásmundarson, Gísli Súrsson, and Hörðr Grímkelsson.

There are also some sagas that draw on similar narrative motifs to tell the story of men who are outlawed for at least parts of their lives, like the saga of the Sworn Brothers (Fóstbræðra saga) or the saga of the people of Kjalarnes (Kjalnesinga saga). All of these marginal heroes border not only on society, but also on that which one encounters when one leaves the social spaces behind: the monstrous.

This has less to do with their physical location in the “wild”, and more with the way they interact with society: when Hörðr goes raiding with his outlaw band, he becomes a threat to the local community. And such a threat to economic growth and social stability has to be removed. However, if these characters were only threatening, only monstrous, they would not have their own sagas. They are not only monsters: they are also heroes, defenders of the society they themselves threaten.

Fringe dwellers

̽��ֱ��story of Grettir “the Strong” Ásmundarson is a particularly interesting example of this. In the 19 years Grettir spends as an outlaw both in Norway and Iceland, he constantly moves back and forth between human society and isolation as a “monster”, never fully belonging to either. When he steals from the local farmers or simply sits on their property and refuses to let go, he becomes a monster in the eyes of society. But when he fights against trolls and revenants, performing tasks no one else would be able to perform, he becomes a guardian of the medieval Icelandic galaxy that consists of farms and sheep.

In this duality, Grettir and Hörðr and other strong, troll-like men, are not too dissimilar from the monstrous heroes of the present day. Bruce Banner has clear anger management issues, but when he transforms into the Hulk, his strength enables him to perform amazing feats of heroism in defence of society. But the dual nature of his character can also make him turn against his friends and allies, just as Hörðr turns against his family when he wants to burn his own sister in her house.

This fluid continuity between monstrosity and heroism has been explored extensively in medieval literature: Beowulf or the Táin Bó Cúailnge, (the Cattle Raid of Cooley) – just like the Icelandic sagas – have their fair share of monstrous heroes. But it keeps fascinating us even today.

Shows such as Heroes have added a new shade to this exploration in recent years. Currently, even the humanness of zombies is on the cultural agenda in Warm Bodies or iZombie. Let us hope that, as this exploration continues, as we become more aware of the continuity between the monstrous and the human, we will eventually realise that, often, “the other” is just another “self”.

̽��ֱ��Avengers in the North, a talk by the author on the monstrous superheroes in the Viking Age, will be part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas.

Rebecca Merkelbach, Doctoral Candidate, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

Inset images: An old Mountain Troll, 1904 (Wikimedia Commons); ̽��ֱ��Hulk (Ton Haex).

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Rebecca Merkelbach (Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic) discusses the monstrous heroes of Scandinavian mythology and literature.

Wikimedia Commons

Manuscript of Beowulf, in the British Library

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Luck and lava

sc604 — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 09:34:16 +0000

̽��ֱ��team, led by Professor Bob White, has been monitoring activity near the Bárðarbunga and Holuhraun volcanoes since 2006, using up to 70 broadband seismometers.

Luckily, the seismometers and field researchers were still in Iceland at the time that this most recent volcanic activity began, as the team had recently finished recovering 25 seismometers from the Vatnajökull ice cap where they had been used for a study of small quakes caused by ice cracking.

Here, White and PhD student Tim Greenfield discuss their work, and what it’s like to be up close to such a spectacular eruption.

A team of researchers from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences have recently returned from Iceland where, thanks to a bit of luck, they have gathered the most extensive dataset ever from a volcanic eruption, which will likely yield considerable new insights into how molten rock moves underground, and whether or not it erupts.

Luck and lava

Simon Redfern

Aerial view of Bárðarbunga

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Research road trip to uncover Iceland’s literary and cultural heritage

ns480 — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:25:42 +0000

Emily, 31, intends to rely on the ex-MoD ambulance - and the kindness of strangers - as she makes her way across the wilds of Iceland on the trail of the Íslendingasögur ('sagas of Icelanders').

̽��ֱ��Íslendingasögur, written down in the 13th and 14th centuries, are enormously important in Icelandic literary history and are entrenched in the national consciousness. To this day, they are taught in schools around the country and are a central part of Icelandic culture.

̽��ֱ��sagas focus on Iceland and Icelandic society in the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries, and describe both the everyday life of the first generations of island-settlers, and the conflicts that arose between individuals and families. Along the way, they present a great number of highly individual and memorable characters.

Starting from the east of the island and criss-crossing the country, Emily will visit the physical settings of all 30 plus sagas over the course of her year's self-funded research.

Emily's progress - as she prepares to leave the UK and during her time in Iceland - can be followed at: http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/

She said: "My trip is going to be a 21st-century pilgrimage to the saga-steads of Iceland. I'm taking the ambulance from the UK to Denmark where I'll catch a ferry to the Faroe Islands and then, weather at sea permitting, to Iceland.

"Once in Iceland, I will travel around and across the country reading each of the sagas in the very landscapes in which they're set. I want to talk to people I meet about their personal interests in local sagas and hope to record their oral responses to the events and characters portrayed in them."

"Even though they are hundreds of years old, the sagas are still widely celebrated. They are a uniquely important part of Iceland's cultural heritage. People there are much more familiar with the sagas than the British are with the most important works of English literature - the works of Shakespeare, or Dickens, for example - although the sagas are much older.

"This is partly on account of the Icelandic language not changing much over time, and partly because of the island's history. But essentially, they are about human nature, and many of them are incredibly compelling stories concerned with honour and reputation, vengeance, love, desire and death."

Emily has already spent time in Iceland, spending the summer of 2008 working on a dairy farm to immerse herself in the language and culture of the country.

In preparation for her next trip, however, she has had to learn a host of new skills, including the inner workings of a 20-year-old former Ministry of Defence Land Rover.

She spent several days among mechanics in a Peterborough garage learning how to service and maintain the vehicle and has also learned how to drive off-road, fish, and attended a St John's Ambulance first-aid course covering outdoor emergencies and extremes of temperature. Winter weather in Iceland can be fierce with extremely strong winds and only a few hours of daylight.

Emily added: " ̽��ֱ��countryside and hugely varied landscapes always have the wow factor in photos, but first-hand, they are inconceivably beautiful and powerful. And the sagas are so fundamentally rooted in the landscape that I believe it is difficult to understand them without being familiar with the country itself, in different seasons and conditions.

"Iceland is a relatively isolated country, but although much has changed socially, politically and economically over the past century, there is also continuity between the past and present in some aspects of Icelandic life and most importantly, in the country´s natural environment.

"One of the underlying objectives of my year-long research trip and the book I intend to write is to show people back in the UK that there is more to Iceland than fishing, failed banking systems and volcanic ash clouds."

" ̽��ֱ��sagas were copied continuously by hand from the 13th to the 20th century - the printing press never having displaced that tradition - and they were read aloud in farmhouses during winter evenings, in some cases right up until the introduction of the first national radio station in the 1930s. By reading the sagas 'in situ', I want to explore the country's remarkable culture against the background of its extreme landscape - and most importantly, I want to communicate this in an engaging way to people outside of Iceland who may never have heard of the sagas before."

A decommissioned Land Rover ambulance will be home to Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Dr Emily Lethbridge from December – as she begins an epic year-long research trip around Iceland investigating the deep-rooted significance of its centuries-old sagas.

Even though they are hundreds of years old, the sagas are still widely celebrated. They are a uniquely important part of Iceland's cultural heritage.

Dr Emily Lethbridge

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Land Rover ambulance

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Yes