Sigrun Þormar

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My name is Sigrun Guttormsdóttir Þormar. I live inBorgarfjord west Iceland, where I work as a project leader at the cultural medieval center Snorrastofa in Reykholt. For those that don't know, Reykholt was the home of Snorri Sturluson, medieval writer and poet whom lived in Reykholt from 1206 to 1241. He was the author of the Edda, Heimskringla (History of the kings of Norway) and Egils Saga Skallagrimsson. For me Snorri is the most amazing employer whom I proudly serve and constantly present in my every day life! He is absolutely still going strong at 835 years of age. Please come and visit us at www.snorrastofa.is. We are open all weekdays during the winter and all days during summer. We have an exhibition about Snorri Sturluson and offer lectures for groups. Hope to see you soon :)

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Did Gandalf and the Hobbits come from Iceland ?

Sigrun Þormar

Did Gandalf and the Hobbits come from Iceland ?

I want to share this information with you, with the kind permission from the author of "Song of the Vikings" Nancy Marie Brown. "Bifur, Bafur, Bombor, Nori, Ori, Oin, and … Gandalf! These were all names from The Hobbit. What were J.R.R. Tolkien’s wizard and his dwarves doing in medieval Iceland?"… and Nancy continues…. "The wizard Gandalf, for example, is an “Odinic wanderer” (in Tolkien’s words)—like the old man with a broad-brimmed hat and a staff who wanders the nine worlds in Snorri’s tales and sits by King Olaf’s bedside keeping him up late with his wondrous stories. Besides th

Sigrun Þormar

America2Iceland

America2Iceland - Equestrian Focused Education Vacations Nancy Marie Brown ( writer of " The Song of The vikings") will be giving guided tours of Reykholt and the vicinity this summer through America2Iceland.com, in partnership with Guðmar Pétursson at Staðarhús. Visit the website, the tour looks quite exciting! You can read more about the tours here: http://america2iceland.com/trips/

Sigrun Þormar

Heimskringla

Snorri Sturluson's history of the kings of Norway has come to be known as Heimskringla ( The Orb of the World), from the first sentence of Ynglinga saga: "The orb of the world that is inhabited by men has a deeply indented coastline" The book begins with legendary Swedish kings, after the clan moves to Norway. The story becomes more historical with Halfdan the Black and his son, the conquering hero Harald Fairhair. Each king has his own saga, in chronological order, while the longest and most detailed of the sagas is that of the canonised King Olaf Haraldsson, who was the primary saint of

Sigrun Þormar

The Song of The Sun - Sólarljóð

The church in Reykholt has beautiful windows created by the artist Valgerður Bergsdóttir. She gets her inspiration from old manuscripts, and focuses on the written word which is the most important thing in Reykholt. In the window facing North the text is from an old icelandic poem, "Sólarljóð" - "The Song of The Sun". "Sólarljóð is a powerful dream vision, in which a dead father appears to his son and advises him or conduct his life and achieve salvation, after having given a striking account of his own death, his journeys and his vision of Christ as the sun of righteousness. This po

Sigrun Þormar

Homer of the North?

Asbjørn Aarne, professor of European literature at the University of Oslo wrote the book " Lyset i Nord- Et Snorre Album". In the book Aarne shows the effect Snorris work has had on the Nordic and European romanticism, that Snorri is indeed "Homer of the North". Snorris work were made available for a larger readership in Europe by the translation of the Edda by Swiss Paul-Henri Mallet into French in 1756. Aarne published three books (2008 at Vidarforlaget i Oslo ) all are highly recommendable; Lyset i Nord, Høvdingen and Edda ( translatiion by Anne Holtsmark ). And more from others

Sigrun Þormar

J.R.R Tolkien, The Inklings And Iceland

(From "Song of the Vikings" with the kind permission by author Nancy Marie Brown ) What troubles the gods? what troubles the elves?… would you know more, or not ? From Snorri's Edda... "Tolkien believed too much time was spent on writers like Shakespeare, instead Tolkien thought, students should read Snorri Sturluson. And not only Snorri but the other fine authors of the Icelandic sagas and the Eddic poems. And the students should read them in Old Norse. See also how Tolkien was influenced by an Icelandic au-pair. C.S. Lewis had read the mythological tales from Snorri's Edda in Englis

Sigrun Þormar

Tolkien's Icelandic au-pair

J.R.R Tolkien, author of Lord Of The Rings, The Hobbit and more amazing tales, studied the Icelandic language and heard of the Trolls in Iceland from an Icelandic au-pair. The interview appeared in Morgunbladid 1999 and the lady in question, named Arndis but known as 'Adda', was a doctor's daughter from the West Fjords ( Bíldudal), who went to work with the Tolkiens in 1930, when she was twenty. Tolkien collected her from Oxford station and greeted her in Icelandic. She then talks about her working conditions – she was meant to be one of the family, but she never had a holiday. Th

Sigrun Þormar

Skogshistoriska Tidender nr 4.2013

Tak til Nordisk Skoghistorisk konferens for besøg i Snorrastofa i august 2013 :) I er altid velkomne og håber at jeg ser nogle af jer igen til næste sommer!

Sigrun Þormar

Snorra Edda

The Edda, known as "Snorra Edda", is generally believed to be the oldest of Snorri's writings. It is the only one of his works that can be dated with some accuracy. The oldest section of the Edda is the poem "Háttatal" ( in praise of King Hakon and Earl Skuli) composed in 1220 after Snorri's return from his first journey to Norway. Snorri added two other parts to his Edda. In Gylfagynning he recounts the heathen mythology required in order to understand the sumbolic language of scaldic poetry, "dróttkvæði", but is carried away by his storrytelling zeal into telling various other stories w

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