Sex in the Sagas

Recorded in the 12thÍ14th centuries, The
Icelandic Sagas and the Old Norse Mythology are
IcelandÉs unique contribution to world
literature. The Sagas tell stories of the first
settlers and their families; the Mythology
describes their distinctly human gods.

Óttar
Guðmundsson is a well-known psychiatrist and
popular author. His 2012 best-seller, Heroes in
Despair, examines clues to mental illness and
personality disorders in the Sagas.

In this
book he goes on to discover what our oldest
literature can tell us about sex in that period.
He examines courtship, marriage, divorce,
adultery, sexual orientation, magic and more.
Delving also into contemporary books of law and
the church,
he finds, for example, directives
regarding forbidden sex acts and the rights of
men versus women.

Sex in the Sagas is
exceptional; a readable, often humorous, study
of what this ever-fascinating human activity was
like 1000 years ago, on a remote island in the
North Atlantic.