%0 Journal Article
%A Stefka G. Eriksen
%D 2026
%C Berlin, Germany
%I Peter Lang Verlag
%J Mediaevistik
%@ 2199-806X
%N 1
%V 39
%T Rebecca Merkelbach, Story, World and Character in the Late Íslendingasögur. Rogue Sagas. City: D. S. Brewer, 2024, 285 pp.
%R 10.3726/med.2026.01.137
%U https://www.peterlang.com/document/1748881
%X The aim of the book is to revisit the ‘post-classical’ Íslendingasögur from their “position at the crossroad of genre, mode, and style” (1–2) and offer new insight into the relationship between their secondary saga world and the primary world from which they arose, i.e., late medieval Iceland. The main motivation behind this investigation is to rectify the attitude toward this sub-group of about fourteen sagas, from being seen as late, inferior, simplistic, decadent, and ultimately less worthy of studying (especially for scholars with nationalistic agendas), to being appreciated as rich, versatile, complex, relevant, and important sources that can offer new understanding of Old Norse society during the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries. By referring to them as “rogue” (3), Merkelbach emphasizes that “the ‘post-classical’ sagas call into question the norms from which they deviate, opening up new perspectives and challenging our assumptions” (3).