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In accordance with our meta agreement to have topic challenges, seeing that the votes have stabilised, April is nearing its end, and it's time to announce the next topic challenge! Throughout May 2017, our topic challenge, proposed by Rand al'Thor, will be

Topic challenge: Icelandic Sagas

I think suggesting a single one would be too narrow a challenge to catch many people's interest, but Icelandic sagas as a whole definitely form an interesting (and influential) part of literature. I don't know too much about them, but some rudimentary research suggests that they started off as s in the 9th to 11th centuries and an evolved form of them was written down a few centuries later. Having a topic challenge about these might help to educate people about oral literature.

Although they are part of European culture, they still originate in a non-English-speaking country, and I think they count as broadening the cultural scope of the site; after all, we don't have any questions about yet. Being centuries old, of course, they're also freely available online, including in English translations - for example at the Icelandic Saga Database

As with the previous announcement, I post this before the actual start of the challenge, so that everyone has time to prepare. The topic challenge will start on May 1st.

What is a topic challenge?

During a topic challenge, community members read and ask questions about a particular topic.

Participation is not obligatory in any sense, but those who participate will be forever remembered in the annals of our history.

Question on other topics are always welcome as well, but they won't count as a part of this challenge.

How does one participate?

To participate in this topic challenge, all one has to do is ask or answer a question related to Icelandic sagas. That simple! Questions asked in the scope of this topic challenge should be tagged with or , as appropriate (see tagging discussion here).

Icelandic Saga Database (props to Rand al'Thor) has a collection of sagas available for download in multiple formats; also check this thread for places to find reading resources.

What else?

  • Vote here for the next topic challenge, or propose your own!
  • Vote here on the tagging for Scandinavian/Nordic literature questions!
  • Add resources with freely and legally available reading!
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  • Formatting shamelessly copied from Rand al'Thor's post.
    – Gallifreyan
    Commented Apr 25, 2017 at 7:39
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    If anyone's confused as to why this was announced so early, it's so people have time to find a copy or dust one off before the challenge starts.
    – user80
    Commented Apr 25, 2017 at 16:08
  • Are we going to be at risk of duplicates with Mythology.SE?
    – DVK
    Commented Apr 25, 2017 at 19:28
  • @DVK Which is even funnier given that our answer on main meta is right below theirs :D
    – Gallifreyan
    Commented Apr 25, 2017 at 19:33
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    See also mythology.meta.stackexchange.com/q/263/197 "Myth of the Month #1: Gylfaginning" on Mythology SE meta.
    – b_jonas
    Commented Apr 29, 2017 at 18:35

1 Answer 1

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List of all questions asked as a part of this challenge:

The highest-voted of these is Why is there so much legalese in Egil's Saga?, with a score of 7 at the end of the month.

The most viewed is What is a beacon?, with approximately 70 views during the month.

Each question received exactly one answer.

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