Anatoly Liberman

Professor, Department of German, Scandinavian and Dutch, University of Minnesota

Anatoly Liberman is professor in the Department of German, Nordic, Slavic and Dutch at the University of Minnesota. He writes the weekly Oxford Etymologist column for Oxford University Press, and his books include Word Origins … And How We Know Them (2009) and The Saga Mind and the Beginnings of Icelandic Prose (2018).

Written by Anatoly Liberman

A historical book illustration featuring intricate circular designs and Norse symbols in faded colours; a page of old text is visible.

In Viking sagas, the ‘truth’ is a tangle of history and fiction

Historical ‘truth’ looked very different to medieval Icelanders, whose old sagas reveal a tangle of fiction and history

by Anatoly Liberman