AUÐUN E L’ORSO

Auðunar þáttr vestfirzka or “The story of Auðun of-the-western-fjords” is one of the best known and interesting stories of medieval Icelandic narrative. It tells the story of a young pilgrim who visits the royal courts of Scandinavia with a polar bear in tow. This curious and, at times, amusing story is modeled on the universal structure of the short story specific to Nordic literature. This volume presents the original text and, for the first time ever, an Italian translation, including a scrupulous analysis which brings to the fore the organic, polysemous combination in the text at all possible levels – mimetic, historic, anthropological and symbolic – where narrative communication is fully achieved.

About Carla Cucina
Carla Cucina is a full professor of German Philology at the University of Macerata. Her research focuses on nordic studies and ancient English, with particular interest in the epigraphy of runes and literary manuscript production, both in verse and in prose. She has written articles on Old Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon literature, on the science of the runes of Vikings, and the circulation and the study of the runes during the Renaissance humanism. Her books include Il tema del viaggio nelle iscrizioni runiche (Pavia 1989), Vestr ok austr. Iscrizioni e saghe sui viaggi dei vichinghi (Rome 2001), Il Seafarer. La navigatio cristiana di un poeta anglosassone (Rome 2008). With EUM, she has published Libri runici del computo. Il calendario di Bologna e i suoi analoghi europei (Macerata 2013).