Heroic biography and the Viking age around the Irish sea

Abstract:How was the Viking Age remembered in texts from the Irish Sea zone, and what can this tell us about the culture of this region? When considering historical representations of the Vikings, the most often-cited texts are contemporary and capture the emotional toll of raids on a civilian population, yet were largely written from a monastic perspective. This article argues that in 'long twelfth-century' texts from the Irish Sea zone, the Viking Age was remembered as a period of opportunity which provided the backbone for a shared genre of 'heroic biography' within the textual corpus of the region. Works describe the mustering of pan-Irish Sea zone forces in order to restore an unjustly banished, exiled or disinherited figure to his rightful lands and status. Within this group of texts, insular Viking activity provides a unifying and productive opportunity to regain something lost rather than a destructive force for societal disruption.