Trauma, UAP, and the Phenomenon in the sagas of Vínland: Tales from the Uncanny Vallée

In this essay, I discuss the phenomenon of UAP and other paranormal encounters as they manifest themselves in a selection of scenes from the Icelandic sagas. More specifically, I want to address scenes that happen during the short Norse sojourn to modern day Canada. The point of this is twofold – first, to provide new case studies, from a body of text seldom discussed in this context. Second, I wish to expand upon the ties between paranormal and trauma, which have been suggested by Marion Poilvez. Poilvez has rightly noted that many of the occurrences of the paranormal in the Icelandic sagas coincide with events that could be characterized as traumatic, usually connected with violence or disease. These circumstances naturally lend themselves to a symbolic interpretation of the paranormal as reflecting the tortured psyche of the saga characters or that of the authorial voice itself. I seek to enhance this argument, questioning these phenomena as events isolated within the mind of simply one traumatized individual. Rather, these paranormal occurrences will be shown to go far beyond a specific event experienced by a specific person.