"The Icelandic Sagas and the British Isles" - Talks by Professor Gisli Sigurðsson
Monday 22 June @ 7.00pm (doors 6.30pm) - Unst Heritage Museum, Haroldswick, Unst
Tuesday 23 June @ 7.30pm (doors 7.00pm) - Shetland Museum and Archives, Hay's Dock, Lerwick
Professor Gisli Sigurðsson studied at the University of Iceland, UCD Ireland and University of Manitoba in Canada, where he also served as a visiting associate professor.
Gisli has extensively studied Canadian-Icelandic language and folklore and medieval Icelandic saga and oral tradition. He’s written a book on Gaelic influences in Iceland, published a complete annotated edition of ‘Eddaic Poems, a book on ‘Orality and the Sagas and delivered many articles, lectures and editions focusing on Vikings, Vinland voyages, Eddas, Sagas and Icelandic folklore.
He is currently research professor in the Folklore Department at the Arni Magnũsson Institute in Iceland.
His talks in Shetland will focus on these sagas and how people in Iceland remembered the settlement period, how they traced their roots to both Norway and the Norse colonies in the British Isles and how they portrayed the British Isles, and in particular the Northern Isles, in the stories they told back home in Iceland.
Gisli is a natural story-teller, so these talks promise to be interesting and entertaining events.
This is a free event.
For further information, please contact: Davie Gardner, tel 01595 695675 / 07867 654 509 or e-mail davie.gardner@btinternet.com
