King Arthur and the Kennedy Assassination: The Allure and Absence of Truth in the Icelandic Sagas

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Scholars and readers have long been interested in the historical validity of the saga literature. This study addresses how the notion that the sagas had historical value was rationalized throughout the 20th century and goes on to explore how some late 20th-century questions about historical validity, well-known in the humanities at large but rarely asked in saga studies, might cast some light on the possibilities and impossibilities of finding historical truths in the sagas.