Medieval Greenlanders may have chased dwindling walrus herds ever farther north in an effort to maintain their economy, when the value of walrus ivory tanked after the introduction of elephant tusks into European markets in the 1200s.
New DNA analysis reveals that, before their mysterious disappearance, the Norse colonies of Greenland had a “near monopoly” on Europe’s walrus ivory supply. An overreliance on this trade may have contributed to Norse Greenland’s collapse when the medieval market declined.
A conference taking place today in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic is the first step in an ambitious graduate-led project to create an online database of the diverse and often confounding miracle accounts which abound in the vast body of saintly literature produced by medieval authors.
A mass grave found in Dorset could belong to a crew of Viking mercenaries who terrorised Europe in the 11th century – according to a new documentary on National Geographic which pieces together the story behind the burial.
Cambridge University academic, Dr Emily Lethbridge, is breathing new life and understanding into the centuries-old Sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur) during a unique year-long research trip.
Now mid-way through a year-long 21st-century pilgrimage to the settings of Iceland’s famous medieval Íslendingasögur (‘sagas of Icelanders’), Dr Emily Lethbridge has crisscrossed the country in her ex-MOD Land Rover ambulance on the trail of outlaws, shapeshifters, mound-dwelling viking-zombies, and ordinary men and women who lived in Iceland a thousand years ago.
Six months after she set forth on an epic tour of Iceland in a Land Rover ambulance on the trail of the country’s medieval sagas, Dr. Emily Lethbridge will be giving a free, public lecture in Cambridge this week to update her followers on the story of her project so far.
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