Abstract
The objective of the study is to examine how the story-worlds of Old Norse saga narratives are constructed in terms of the relationship between centre and periphery. I hope to show that marginality is not presented in the sagas as an undisputedly given category, but that it can be constructed, challenged, or subverted in various narrative discourses, instead of being accepted as an unchangeable fact.
The central question is how the concept of marginality as an element of the saga story-worlds is related to the medieval Icelanders' perception of their own peripheral position in a geographical or political sense. The study therefore focuses on the depiction of Iceland as a story-world, and on the different ways in which the centre and periphery can be conceptualized in this case.