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towards impairment functions as a narrative prosthesis, but it should not
be considered an expression of indifference or even ignorance; rather, it
emerges as a serious and telling taciturnity that strongly urges an audience
to read between the lines.
In this article, I suggest that the narrative silence of these texts re-
presents a disability, or more accurately an inability – namely, the inability
to deal with traumatic incidents of impairment on the narratological level
of the saga as much as on the intradiegetic level of the saga characters
and their society. After a brief introduction to those aspects of dis/ability
studies and dis/ability history that are foundational for my argument, I
focus on an episode from Eyrbyggja saga (ch. 45) as a starting point and
case study to support my argument; the discussion also occasionally draws
on examples from other Íslendingasögur. Methodologically, the aforemen-
tioned dis/ability approach is complemented by and expanded in reference
to further relevant concepts, including the previously mentioned idea of
narrative prosthesis, insights from trauma theory, and Pierre Bourdieu’s
understanding of capital. I argue that these theoretical concepts offer a way
to see beyond the reluctance of the sagas to talk about embodied difference
and to understand how saga society attempts to deal with the traumatic
experience of dis/ability.
Before beginning the discussion, it is important to define certain ter-
minological usages. I use the terms dis/ability and embodied difference
synonymously to refer generally to a holistic, multi-faceted, and context-
dependent discourse of dis/ability as outlined and developed by scholars
such as Cordula Nolte, Irina Metzler, and Tom Shakespeare.6 Moreover, I
spell dis/ability with a slash in order to emphasise the complex relationship
between disability and ability, which are best thought of not as mutually
6 For modern dis/ability studies, see Tom Shakespeare, Disability Rights and Wrongs
(London: Routledge, 2006) and Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited (London: Routledge,
2014). For dis/ability history, see Irina Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe: thinking
About Physical Impairment During the High Middle Ages, c. 1100–1400, Routledge Studies
in Medieval Religion and Culture (London: Routledge, 2006); Christina Lee, “Abled,
Disabled, Enabled: An Attempt to Define Disability in Anglo-Saxon England,” Dis/ability,
ed. by Cordula Nolte, WerkstattGeschichte 65 (Essen: Klartext, 2015), 41–54; Cordula
Nolte, “Editorial,” Dis/ability, ed. by Cordula Nolte, WerkstattGeschichte 65 (Essen:
Klartext, 2015), 3–8; and Nolte et. al., Dis/ability History der vormoderne: ein Handbuch.
Premodern Dis/ability History: A Companion (Affalterbach: Didymos, 2017).
THE SILENCED TRAUMA IN THE Í sLEnDInGAsÖGUR