Hrafnkel

In Hrafnkel’s Saga, the use of landscape and setting took on a different purpose than it has in the other three epics we have read. Throughout the saga, the description of the landscape seemed to be more prevalent and noticeable to the modern reader. To the 13th c. reader, however, it would have been less noticeable. This is because it was a landscape which most would have known as their own. I believe this …

…this made having plenty of grassy areas important. The farmers seem to have spread themselves out because of this and because of the tradition of transhumance. It seems that often numerous hills separated the farms from one another and farmers therefore had little interaction. This is the type of landscape the contemporary readers of the author would have recognized as theirs, or one that was not too far in the past to be pictured vividly.