TY - JOUR AU - Jørgensen, Michael Riber PY - 2010/11/28 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Constructing History: The Use of the Past as a Model for the Present in the Icelandic Sagas JF - Collegium Medievale JA - CM VL - 23 IS - SE - Artikler DO - UR - https://ojs.novus.no/index.php/CM/article/view/123 SP - AB - The Icelandic sagas can be read and interpreted in many ways. This article examines the sagas both as literary expressions of a longstanding oral tradition and as part of a collective and cultural memory. The focus in the first part is on people and places in the sagas as "realms of memory": things that help construct a common past and a common identity. The second part of the article explores the role of the sagas in medieval Iceland as "key myths" that explain the origin and uniqueness of a society, and as moral and legal role models legitimizing the current social order. ER -