Scandinavian Studies Vol. 82, No. 4 (Winter 2010), pp. 365-
388. Published by the University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study.The importance of landscape as a narrative device in the sagas has been a largely neglected area of research, and little detailed analysis of it has been attempted in the context of traditional saga scholarship. However, recent work by scholars such as Ian Wyatt has focussed on the role of topographic references that flinction as elements within the "narrative grammar" of the Íslendingasögur, in which features of the saga landscape act as literary devices employed by the saga author to direct the action. With such research in mind, this paper will examine the contrasting roles of die narrative landscape in the two outlaw biographies Grettis saga and Gísla saga.Contents:
Introduction
The Legal and Social Implications of Outlawry
The Peripherality of Gísli and Grettir
Landscape in Grettis saga
Kárr
Gláumr
The trolls of Sandhaugar
Fagraskógafjall
Drangey
Landscape in Gísla saga
The shadow of the haugr
The farmstead
Life on the edge
Conclusion
Works Cited
