Snorri's hot tub

August 30, 2004 9:07 PM

Snorri Sturluson, author of the Prose Edda and the Heimskringla, was also a hot tub enthusiast.
posted by homunculus (11 comments total)

Damn, now I want to go to Iceland. One of my favorite college courses was a comparative religions course that differed depending on the professor and one semester it was focused entirely on the Norse history/mythology/customs. It was a fascinating course, and one of the hardest grades I've ever worked for...but so worth it. I still have the Eddas on a shelf in the reading room and periodically, I'll pull them out and read a few stories. But I had no idea that you could go visit Snorri's abode...he's almost as mythical in my mind as Sleipnir. :)
posted by dejah420 at 9:28 PM on August 30, 2004

Before I had the good fortune of taking an excellent class on Viking Civilization I had no idea how unique and progressive Iceland was a millennia ago. Their representative supreme governmental body, the Althing has survived off and on for more than a thousand years. We know so much about life and history in Northern Europe during the Dark Ages from the sagas which come to us primarily through Iceland.

The set of Family Sagas enable most current residents to trace their ancestry back to the original 20,000 or so settlers in the 10th century.

Other Sagas also make great reading. Egil's Saga is the prototype for almost all fantasy novels written these days and it's better than most of them. Tolkien and Wagner drew inspiration from the Volsung Saga which was part myth, part legend, and part oral history. And Njal's Saga is considered one of the great books of Western Civilization and a tragic example of life and death in medieval Iceland.
posted by euphorb at 9:29 PM on August 30, 2004

Very, very nice. Thanks for posting this.

(This is an area of study for me but must ... sleep ... now...)
posted by anastasiav at 9:49 PM on August 30, 2004

Whenever I think of Njal's Saga, I think of Ulf the Unwashed. What a great name.
posted by homunculus at 10:21 PM on August 30, 2004

Very interesting - I didn't know about Snorri, and this is all fascinating. There's a very colorful bio of Snorri here (oddly, a student bio for a course on "Gothic Paris". The site, incidentally has some cool maps of Roman, 6th Cent. and 12th Cent. Paris).

I also came across this nice stamp honoring Snorri, plus another stamp called "Queen Ragnhild's Dream", with an illustration from the Heimskringla, as well as a parchment page from Heimskringla (click for larger image).
posted by taz at 12:12 AM on August 31, 2004

I increasinly suspect Iceland is my spiritual home. Less rape more pillage I say.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 4:58 AM on August 31, 2004

Yeah, I want to go to Iceland now. My name (while, first name) fits the place.
posted by dagnyscott at 6:56 AM on August 31, 2004

Tolkien and Wagner drew inspiration from the Volsung Saga

Tolkien vs. Wagner.
posted by homunculus at 7:18 AM on August 31, 2004

say, speaking of iceland, did ol' number 1 ever take that trip?
posted by kaibutsu at 9:38 AM on August 31, 2004

Thanks homonculus. A timely post for me since I just finished reading the Prose Edda a few weeks ago.
posted by turbodog at 11:03 AM on August 31, 2004

say, speaking of iceland, did ol' number 1 ever take that trip?

I don't know, but plep is on his way. I wonder if he's going to check out Snorri's tub.
posted by homunculus at 9:16 AM on September 2, 2004