ENGLISH HISTORIES AND chronicles of the Viking Age (ca. 793–ca. 1066) are clear on the presence of Scandinavians on English shores. In these, Anglo-Scandinavian cultural interaction is usually characterized by conflict, defined by the actions of viking raiders and marauding Scandinavian armies, by their conquests and settlement in England's east and north. However, this is a one-sided perspective. There is no comparable Scandinavian record for the period. The Scandinavian cultures which contributed to the viking phenomenon left little record of how they self-identified or perceived their own actions. Nonetheless, it may be possible to reconstruct some sense of a Scandinavian perception of Viking Age cultural contact with England from later texts. Scandinavian literacy and the writing of the Scandinavian past flourished from the late-twelfth century, and Iceland was a locus for this activity. One corpus of texts which takes a particular interest in the events of the Viking Age is that of the Íslendingasögur (sagas of Icelanders). The Íslendingasögur comprise some forty-odd texts, most authored in the thirteenth century, all written in Old Norse-Icelandic vernacular, that relate the lives of Iceland's leading figures and families from the time that Scandinavian settlers arrived on the island ca. 870, through to the mid-eleventh century. While these are stories couched in literary conventions that make them difficult as historical sources, they nonetheless purport to be histories. Íslendingasögur narratives frequently intersect with historical events and figures of the Viking Age North Sea world, and this extends to England. Norwegians and Icelanders were, according to the Íslendingasögur, common visitors there, the corpus recording no fewer than thirty such journeys.

This study surveys Íslendingasögur references to England, categorizing the intent of the cultural contact they imply. Here, travel to England is rarely characterized as “viking,” but tends to be in aid of trade and commerce with, travel to, or settlement within, established communities. Where such activity does take on a martial aspect, as in the adventures of the skáld Egill Skallagrímsson, Bjǫrn Hítdoelakappi, and Gunnlaugr Ormstungu, the Icelanders usually take on a role in service to the English king, rather than as an antagonist or aggressor.