The following is a bibliography of some scholarship relevant to the study of disability in medieval saga writing. I will try to add links to all articles that are downloadable and/or viewable open access. Don’t hesitate to contact me at cwe1 [at] hi.is to suggest any sources you feel should be added to the bibliography.
Note: If you make significant use of the bibliography in your research, please be sure to cite it so that others are able to find and use it.
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Anderson, Katelin E. Mediating the Other through Language: Medieval Icelandic Sagas and the Construction of Disability Discourse. University of Iceland: MA thesis, 2016. (https://skemman.is/handle/1946/25906)
Arwill-Nordbladh, Elisabeth. “Ability and Disability, On Bodily Variations and Bodily Possibilities in Viking Age Myth and Image.” In To Tender Gender: The Pasts and Futures of Gender Research in Archaeology, edited by Ing-Marie Back Danielsson and Susanne Thedeen. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press, 2012, pp. 33–60.
Ármann Jakobsson. “The Spectre of Old Age: Nasty Old Men in the Sagas of Icelanders.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 104, 2005, pp. 297–325.
_____. “Hinn fullkomni karlmaður: Ímyndarsköpun fyrir biskupa á 13. öld.” Studia theologica islandica 25, 2007, pp. 119–30.
_____. “Masculinity and Politics in Njáls saga.” Viator 38 (1), 2007, pp. 191–215.
_____. “Fötlun á miðöldum: svipmyndir.” In Fötlun og menning. Íslandssagan í öðru ljósi, edited by Hanna Björg Sigurjónsdóttir, Ármann Jakobsson, and Kristín Björnsdóttir. Reykjavík: Félagsvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands og Rannsóknarsetur í fötlunarfræðum, 2013, pp. 51–69.
_____. “The Madness of King Sigurðr: Narrating Insanity in an Old Norse Kings’ Saga.” In Social Dimensions of Medieval Disease and Disability, edited by Sally Crawford and Christina Lee. Studies in Early Medicine 3. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2014, pp. 29–35.
Ármann Jakobsson, Anna Katharina Heiniger, Christopher Crocker, and Hanna Björg Sigurjónsdóttir. “Disability before Disability: Mapping the Uncharted in the Medieval Sagas.” Scandinavian Studies 92 (4), 2020, pp. 440–60.
Bornholdt, Claudia. “‘Everyone Thought It Very Strange How the Man Had Been Shaped’: The Hero and His Physical Traits in the Riddarasögur.” Arthuriana 22 (1), 2012, pp. 18–38.
Bragg, Lois. “Disfigurement, Disability, and Disintegration in Sturlunga saga.” alvissmál 4, 1994, pp. 15–32. (https://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~alvismal/4disfig.pdf)
_____. “From the mute God to the Lesser God: Disability in Medieval Celtic and Norse Literature.” Disability and Society, 12 (2), 1997, pp. 165–78.
_____. “Generational tensions in Sturlunga Saga.” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 116, 1997, pp. 5–34. (https://journals.lub.lu.se/anf/article/download/11561/10247/)
_____. “Impaired and inspired: the makings of a medieval Icelandic poet.” In Madness, Disability, and Social Exclusion: The Archeology and Anthropology of ‘Difference,’ edited by Jane Hubert. London and New York: Routledge, 2000, pp. 128–43.
_____. “Telling Silence: Alingualism in Old Icelandic Myth, Legend, and Saga.” Journal of Indo-European Studies 32, 2004, pp. 267–98.
_____. Oedipus Borealis: The Aberrant Body in Old Icelandic Myth and Saga. Cranbury, N.J.: Rosemont, 2004.
_____. “Norse Sagas.” In The Encyclopedia of Disability, ed. Gary S. Albrecht. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Press, 2005, pp. 1160–61.
Brynhildsvoll, Knut. “Die strukturelle Antinomie von Heil und Unheil in der Isländersaga am Beispiel der Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar.” In Der literarische Raum. Konzeptionen und Entwürfe. Frankfurt/Main, Berlin, Bern… Verlag Peter Lang, 1993.
Buntrock, S. and W. Heinzmann. “Hrútur Herjólfsson: A Viking too Large for his Wife? Uro-Philological Workup of a 1000 Year Old Story.” European Urology Supplement 7 (3), 2008, p. 71. (https://www.eu-openscience.europeanurology.com/article/S1569-9056(08)60007-X/pdf)
Byock, Jesse L. “The Skull and Bones in Egil’s saga: A Viking, A Grave, and Paget’s disease.” Viator 24 (1993), pp. 23–50
Choe, Sharon. “Hann var blindr: The Function of Disability in the Aftermath of Ragnarǫk.” Disability in the medieval Nordic world, a special issue of the journal Mirator 20 (2) edited by Christopher Crocker, 2021, pp. 5–20. (https://journal.fi/mirator/article/view/91899)
Clover, Carol J. “Regardless of Sex: Men, Women, and Power in Early Northern Europe.” Speculum 68 (2), April 1993, pp. 363–87.
Collins, Cecilia. “Heillög Bein, Brotin Bein: Manifestations of Disease in Medieval Iceland.” In New Approaches to Disease, Disability and Medicine in Medieval Europe, edited by Erin Connolly and Stefanie Kunzel. Oxford: Archaeopress Archaeology, 2018, pp. 109–25.
_____. “Tuberculosis in medieval Iceland: evidence from Hofstaðir, Keldudalur and Skeljastaðir.” HOMO: Journal of Comparative Human Biology 71 (4), 2020, pp. 299–316.
Conway, Rebecca. “Stumped in the Sagas: Woodland and Wooden Tools in the Íslendingasögur.” University of Iceland: MA thesis, 2015. (https://skemman.is/handle/1946/22708)
Crocker, Christopher. “Disability and dreams in the medieval Icelandic sagas.” Saga-Book 43, 2019, pp. 39–58.
_____. “Narrating blindness and seeing ocularcentrism in Þorsteins saga hvíta.” Gripla 31, 2020, pp. 267–92. (https://doi.org/10.33112/gripla.31.9)
Crocker, Christopher and Ármann Jakobsson. “The Lion, the Dream, and the Poet: Mental Illnesses in Norway’s Medieval Royal Court.” Disability in the medieval Nordic world, a special issue of the journal Mirator 20 (2) edited by Christopher Crocker, 2021, pp. 91–105. (https://journal.fi/mirator/article/view/91949).
Christopher Crocker and Yoav Tirosh. “Health, Healing, and the Social Body in Medieval Iceland.” In Understanding Disability Throughout History: Interdisciplinary perspectives in Iceland from Settlement to 1936, edited by Hanna Björg Sigurjónsdóttir and James G. Rice. New York and London: Routledge, 2021, pp. 113–27. (https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003180180-7).
Christopher Crocker, Yoav Tirosh, and Ármann Jakobsson. “Disability in Medieval Iceland: Some Methodological Concerns.” In Understanding Disability Throughout History: Interdisciplinary perspectives in Iceland from Settlement to 1936, edited by Hanna Björg Sigurjónsdóttir and James G. Rice. New York and London: Routledge, 2021, pp. 12–28. (http://doi.org/10.4324/9781003180180-1).
Eichhorn-Mulligan, Amy C. “Contextualizing Old Norse-Icelandic Bodies.” In The Fantastic in Old Norse/Icelandic Literature: Sagas and the British Isles: Preprint Papers of the Thirteenth International Saga Conference Durham and York. 6-12 August, 2006, edited by John McKinnell, David Ashurst, and Donata Kick, 2 vols. Durham: Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Durham University, 2006, I: pp. 198–207. (http://sagaconference.org/SC13/SC13_Eichhorn-Mulligan.pdf)
_____. “Anatomies off the Map: “Secret and distant freaks” and the Authorization of Identity in Medieval Icelandic and Irish Literature.” In Á austrvega: Saga and East Scandinavia. Preprint papers of the 14th International Saga Conference, Uppsala, 9th—15th August 2009, edited by Agneta Ney, Henrik Williams and Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, 2 vols. Gävle: Gävle University Press, 2009, I: pp. 213–20. (http://sagaconference.org/SC14/SC14_PAPERS1.PDF)
Ekholst, Christine. “ The Value of a Thumb: Injuries and Disability in Medieval Swedish Law.” Disability in the medieval Nordic world, a special issue of the journal Mirator 20 (2) edited by Christopher Crocker, 2021, pp. 38–53. (https://journal.fi/mirator/article/view/91931)
Finnur Jónsson. Tilnavne i den islandske Oldlitteratur. Særtryk af aarbøger for nordisk oldkyndighed og historie (1907). København: H. H. Thieles Bogtrykkeri, 1908. (https://archive.org/details/tilnavneidenisl00jngoog)
Getz, L., Kirkengen, A.L., Pétursson, H., and Sigurðsson, J.Á. “The Royal road to Healing: A Bit of a Saga.” The British Medical Journal 343, Dec. 2011, pp. 1312–13.
Heiniger, Anna Katharina. “The Silenced Trauma in the Íslendingasögur.” Gripla 31, 2020, pp. 233–65. (https://doi.org/10.33112/gripla.31.8)
Higman, Judith. “Nobody’s fífl: Representations of intellectual disability in Old Norse-Icelandic literature.” Disability in the medieval Nordic world, a special issue of the journal Mirator 20 (2) edited by Christopher Crocker, 2021, pp. 73–90. (https://journal.fi/mirator/article/view/95084)
Holmøy, Trygve. “A Norse Contribution to the History of Neurological Diseases.” European Neurology 55, 2006, pp. 57-58. (https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/91431)
Høyersten, J.G. Personlighet og avvik: en studie i islendingesagaens menneskebilde, med særlig vekt på Njála. Bergen: Regionsenter for barne- og ungdomspsykiatri og Psykiatrisk institutt, Universitet i Bergen, 1998.
_____. “The Icelandic sagas and the Idea of Personality and Deviant Personalities in the Middle Ages.” History of Psychiatry 12, 2001, pp. 199–212.
_____. “Berserkene – hva gikk det av dem?” Tidsskrift for Den norske legeforening 124, 2004, pp. 3247–50. (https://tidsskriftet.no/sites/default/files/pdf2004–3247-50.pdf)
_____. “Madness in the Old Norse Society: Narratives and Ideas.” Nordic Journal of Psychiatry 61, 2007, pp. 324–31.
_____. “Manifestations of psychiatric illness in texts from the medieval and Viking era.” Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy 2, 2015, pp. 57–60. (http://www.archivespp.pl/uploads/images/2015_17_2/57Hoyersten_ArchivesPP_2_2015.pdf)
Jesch, Judith and Christina Lee. “Healing Runes.” In Viking Encounters: Proceedings of the 18th Viking Congress, edited by Soren Sindbaek and Anne Pedersen. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2020, pp. 386–98.
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson. “The appearance and personal abilities of goðar, jarlar, and konungar: Iceland, Orkney and Norway.” In West over Sea. Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement Before 1300, edited by Beverly Ballin Smith, Simon Taylor, and Gareth Williams. Leiden: Brill, 2007, pp. 95–109.
_____. “Becoming ‘Old,’ Ageism and Taking Care of the Elderly in Iceland c. 900–1300.” In Youth and Age in the Medieval North, edited by Shannon Lewis-Simpson. Leiden: Brill, 2008, pp. 227–42.
Kaiser, Charlotte. Krankheit und Krankheitsbewältigung in den Isländersagas: Medizinhistorischer Aspekt und erzähltechnische Funktion. Cologne: Seltmann & Hein, 1998.
Kanerva, Kirsi. “‘Eigi er sá heill, er í augun verkir.’ Eye Pain as a Literary Motif in Thirteenth and Fourteenth-Century Íslendingasögur.” ARV – Nordic Yearbook of Folklore 69, 2013, pp. 7–35. (http://gustavadolfsakademien.se/files/download/documents/Arv_2013.pdf)
_____. “Disturbances of the Mind and Body: The Effects of the Living Dead in Medieval Iceland.” Mental (Dis)Order in Later Medieval Europe, edited by Sari Katajala-Peltomaa and Susanna Niiranen, Leiden: Brill, 2014, pp. 219–42.
_____. Porous Bodies, Porous Minds: Emotions and the Supernatural in the Íslendingasögur (ca. 1200–1400). University of Turku: PhD thesis, 2015. (https://www.utupub.fi/handle/10024/103361)
Kolfinna Jónatansdóttir. “‘Blindur er betri en brenndur sé.’ Um norræna guði og skerðingar.” Fötlun og menning: Íslandssagan í öðru ljósi, edited by Hanna Björg Sigurjónsdóttir, Ármann Jakobsson, and Kristín Björnsdóttir. Reykjavík: Félagsvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands og Rannsóknarsetur í fötlunarfræðum, 2013, pp. 27–49.
Kroesen, Riti. “Hvessir augu sem hildingar – The awe-inspiring eyes of the King.” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 100, 1985, pp. 41–58. (https://journals.lub.lu.se/anf/issue/view/1836/155)
Künzler, Sarah. Flesh and Word: Reading Bodies in Old Norse-Icelandic and Early Irish Literature. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2016.
Lassen, Annette. “Øjets sprog. En undersøgelse af blikkets og blindhedens symbolværdi i den norrøne litteratur.” Maal og Minne (sérprent), 2001, pp. 113–34.
_____. Øjet og blindheden: I norrøn litteratur og mytologi. UJDS-Studier 13. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, Kobenhavns Universitet, 2003.
Lavender, Philip. “Vulnerable Masculinities and the Vicissitudes of Power in “Göngu-Hrólfs saga”.” Masculinities in Old Norse Literature, edited by Gareth Lloyd Evans and Jessica Clare Hancock. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2020, pp. 97–112.
Lawing, Sean. “The Place of Evil: Infant Abandonment in Old Norse Society.” Scandinavian Studies 85(2), 2013, pp. 133–50.
_____. “Re-membering Auðr’s Hand in Eyrbyggja Saga.” International Medieval Congress: The Literature of Medieval Scandinavia, III: Political, Cultural, and Mythological Empires. University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, 2014.
_____. Perspectives on Disfigurement in Medieval Iceland: Cultural Study base on Old Norse laws and Icelandic Sagas. University of Iceland: PhD thesis, 2016.
_____. “Victims of Maiming in Sturlunga saga: Worse off Living than Dead?” Disability in the medieval Nordic world, a special issue of the journal Mirator 20 (2) edited by Christopher Crocker, 2021, pp. 54–72. (https://journal.fi/mirator/article/view/91908)
Lawson, Michael David. Children of a One-Eyed God: Impairment in the Myth and Memory of Medieval Scandinavia. East Tennessee State University: MA thesis, 2019. (https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3538/)
Lönnroth, Lars. “Kroppen som sjalens spegel – ett motiv i de isländska sagorna.” Lychnos. Lärdomshistoriska Samfundets Årsbok, 1963–64, pp. 24–61.
Marold, Edith. “Die Augen des Herrschers.” In Beretning fra syttende tværfaglige vikingesymposium, edited by Dietrich Meier. Højbjerg: Forlaget Hikuin and Afdeling for Middelalder-arkæologi, 1998, pp. 7–29.
Matheson, Laura E. Madness and deception in Irish and Norse-Icelandic sagas. University of Aberdeen: PhD thesis, 2015. (https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.668973?)
Meulengracht Sørensen, Preben, The Unmanly Man: Concepts of Sexual Defamation in Early Northern Society, translated by J. Turville-Petre. Odense: Odense University Press, 1983.
Michelson-Ambelang, Todd. Outsiders on the Inside: Conception of Disability in Medieval Western Scandinavia. University of Wisconsin-Madison: PhD thesis, 2015. (https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/9912138737002121)
Miller, William Ian. Losing It. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.
_____. “Feeling Another’s Pain: Sympathy Saga Style.” European Review 22 (1), 2014, pp. 55–63. (https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles/1178/)
Morcom, Thomas. “After Adulthood: The Metamorphosis of the Elderly in the Íslendingasögur.” Saga Book 42, 2018, pp. 25–50.
Morrow, Meg. Disabled Masculinity: An Intersectional Analysis of the Icelandic Sagas. University of Oslo: MA thesis, 2020. (http://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-82377)
_____. “Disabled Masculinity: Njáll’s beardlessness in the changing religious landscape of Medieval Iceland.” Disability in the medieval Nordic world, a special issue of the journal Mirator 20 (2) edited by Christopher Crocker, 2021, pp. 21–37. (https://journal.fi/mirator/article/view/98543)
Mou, Jessica L. “’Sumir Kallaðr þat Meinsemd’: Going berserk in the Shadow of State Centralization in Old Norse Society.” In Treatment of Disabled Persons in Medieval Europe: Examining Disability in the Historical, Legal, Literary, Medical, and Religious Discourses of the Middle Ages, edited by Wendy Turner and Tory Vandeventer Pearman. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2010, pp. 95–116.
Overing, Gillian. “A Body in Question: Aging, Community, and Gender in Medieval Iceland.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 29 (1), 1999, 211–25.
Peterson, Paul R. Old Norse Nicknames. University of Minnesota: PhD thesis, 2015. (http://hdl.handle.net/11299/172669)
_____. “Old Norse Nicknames: Origins and Terminology.” Names: A Journal of Onomastics April 2018, pp. 1–10.
Phelpstead, Carl. “Size Matters: Penile Problems in Sagas of Icelanders.” Exemplaria 19 (3), 2007, pp. 420–37.
_____. “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Hair Loss, the Tonsure, and Masculinity in Medieval Iceland.” Scandinavian Studies 85 (1), 2013, pp. 1–19.
Sayers, William. “Njáll’s Beard, Hallgerðr’s Hair, and Gunnarr’s Hay: Homological Patterning in Njáls saga.” Tidskrift voor skandinavistiek 15 (2), 1994, pp. 5–31. (https://ugp.rug.nl/tvs/article/download/10360/7941)
Scally, Caitlin. “An examination of physical impairment in Norse myth and Icelandic saga: a reflection of medieval society?” The (Not So) Dark Ages: Postgraduate Pages. (https://darkagespostgradpages.wordpress.com/2021/01/18/an-examination-of-physical-impairment-in-norse-myth-and-icelandic-saga-a-reflection-of-medieval-society/)
Sexton, John P. “Difference and Disability: On the Logic of Naming in the Icelandic Sagas.” In Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations, edited by Joshua R. Eyler. London and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010, pp. 149–63.
_____. “Atypical bodies: Seeking after meaning in physical difference.” In A Cultural History of Disability in the Middle Ages, edited by Jonathan Hsy, Tory V. Pearman, and Joshua R. Eyler. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2020, pp. 19–34.
Sigurður Samúelsson. Sjúkdómar og dánarmein íslenskra fornmanna: Sjúkdómsgreiningar byggðar á frásögnum fornritanna. Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan, 1998.
Sigurjón Jónsson. Sóttarfar og sjúkdómar á Íslandi 1400–1800. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag, 1944.
Skúli V. Guðjónsson. Manneldi og heilsufar í fornöld: Skýrt samkvæmt fornnorrænum bókmenntum, translated by Ólafur Geirsson. Reykjavík: Ísafold, 1949.
Stride, Peter. “Egill Skallagrímsson: The first case of Van Buchem disease?” J R Coll Physicians Edinb 41, 2011, pp. 169–73. (http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/journal/issue/journal_41_2/stride.pdf)
Tirosh, Yoav. “Deafness and Nonspeaking in Late Medieval Iceland (1200–1550).” Viator 51 (1), 2020, pp. 311–44.
Walgenbach, Elizabeth. “Inciting Miracle in Njáls saga: Ámundi hinn blindi’s Gift of Sight in Context.” Saga-Book 43, 2019, pp. 125–36.
Waugh, Robin. “Misogyny, Women’s Language, and Love-Language: Yngvildr Fagrkinn in Svarfdœla saga.” Scandinavian Studies 70, 1998, pp. 151–94.
Waugh, Robin. “Language, Landscape, and Maternal Space: Child Exposure in Some Sagas of Icelanders.” Exemplaria 29, 2017, pp. 234–53.
Wäckerlin, Herbert. “The Silence of Sigurðr þögli – Vox Articulata, Vox Humana, and Vox Animalia in Sigurðar saga þögla.” In The Fantastic in Old Norse/Icelandic Literature: Sagas and the British Isles: Preprint Papers of the Thirteenth International Saga Conference Durham and York. 6-12 August, 2006, edited by John McKinnell, David Ashurst, and Donata Kick, 2 vols. Durham: Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Durham University, 2006, II: 1005–14. (http://sagaconference.org/SC13/SC13_Waeckerlin.pdf)
Whaley, Diana. “Nicknames and Narratives in the Sagas.” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 108, 1993, pp. 122–46. (https://journals.lub.lu.se/anf/article/view/11525/10217)
Whaley, D.C. and D. Elliot. “Dupuytren’s disease: A legacy of the north?” Journal of Hand Surgery (British and European Volume) 18B, 1993, pp. 363–67.
_____. “A Medieval Casebook: Hand Cures Documented in the Icelandic Sagas of Bishops.” Journal of Hand Surgery (British and European Volume) 19B.5, 1994, pp. 667–71.
Wills, Tarrin. “Physiology and Behaviour in the Sagas.” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 8, 2012, pp. 279–97.
Wilson, Josh. “Inter-Crural Relations: Abnormal representations of legs and feet in the Icelandic fornaldarsögur.” University of Iceland: MA thesis, 2016. (http://hdl.handle.net/1946/24085)
Wolf, Kirsten. “‘Engi er allheimskr, ef þegja má’: Women and Silence in the Sagas and þættir of Icelanders.” Maal og minne 110 (2), 2018, pp. 115–26. (http://ojs.novus.no/index.php/MOM/article/view/1577/1561)
Yelena Sesselja Helgadóttir Yershova. “Egill Skalla-Grímsson: A Viking Poet as a Child and an Old Man.” In Youth and Age in the Medieval North, ed. by Shannon Lewis-Simpson. Leiden: Brill, 2008, pp. 285–304.
Þórður Harðarson. “Sjúkdómur Egils Skallagrímssonar.” Skírnir 158, 1984, pp. 245–48. (https://timarit.is/page/6532881#page/n249/mode/2up)
Christopher W. E. Crocker 