Icelandic Folklore and the Cultural Memory of Religious Change

This book attempts to understand the origins and development of religious belief in
Iceland and greater Scandinavia through the lenses of five carefully selected Icelandic
folktales collected in Iceland during the nineteenth century. Each of these five stories
has a story of its own: a historical and cultural context, a literary legacy, influences from
beliefs of all kinds (orthodox and heterodox, elite or lay), and modalities (oral or written)
by which the story was told. These factors ...