Cold Cases: Law and Legal Detail in the Íslendingasögur

The Islendingasogur [Sagas of Icelanders] are often said to be obsessed with law. But while the importance of legal themes to saga narrative cannot be doubted, the extent to which the sagas cite technical details of law and legal process varies greatly across the corpus. The use of law in this manner has various literary and stylistic effects which should be viewed as integral to the narrative design, and explored as such within individual sagas.