útrásarvíkingar! Before you start to read this book, take this moment to think about making a donation to punctum books, an independent non-profit press, @ https://punctumbooks.com/support/ If you’re reading the e-book, you can click on the image below to go directly to our donations site. Any amount, no matter the size, is appreciated and will help us to keep our ship of fools afloat. Contri- butions from dedicated readers will also help us to keep our commons open and to cultivate new work that can’t find a welcoming port elsewhere. Our ad- venture is not possible without your support. Vive la Open Access. Fig . 1. Hieronymus Bosch, Ship of Fools (1490–1500) útrásarvíkingar! the literature of the 2008 icelandic financial cri- sis. Copyright © 2020 by Alaric Hall. This work carries a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 International license, which means that you are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and you may also remix, transform and build upon the material, as long as you clearly attribute the work to the authors (but not in a way that suggests the authors or punctum books en- dorses you and your work), you do not use this work for commercial gain in any form whatsoever, and that for any remixing and transformation, you distribute your rebuild under the same license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc-sa/4.0/ First published in 2020 by punctum books, Earth, Milky Way. https://punctumbooks.com ISBN-13: 978-1-950192-69-4 (print) ISBN-13: 978-1-950192-70-0 (ePDF) doi: 10.21983/P3.0272.1.00 lccn: 2020930124 Library of Congress Cataloging Data is available from the Library of Congress Book design: Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei ÚTRÁSARVÍKINGAR! The Literature of the Icelandic Financial Crisis (2008–2014) Alaric Hall Contents Preface 17 1. Opening an Account 21 2. The Crisis of Realism 59 3. Neomedievalism and a Microstate 131 4. Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson, Knight of Industry 197 5. Utopianism 271 6. Interest Payments 327 Bibliography 345 Index 375 For my teachers Why aren’t there any elves in Hellisgerði any more? They’ve moved to Kópavogur to get some peace and quiet. 17 Preface Language-learning, my Glasgow colleague Alison Phipps once pointed out to me, is not so much epistemological as ontologi- cal: it is not a change so much in what you know as in how you are. In this respect, and in others, this book reflects a winding ontological journey. Correspondingly, my acknowledgements feel painfully incomplete, yet awkwardly capacious. Please bear with me. Vaikka “valmistuin” Helsingin yliopiston tutkijakollegiu- mista yli kymmenen vuotta sitten, tämä on monessa suhteessa kollegiumin kirja ja monet siinä esiintyvistä ajatuksista liitty- vät asioihin, jotka opin Helsingin yliopistossa ja ystäviltäni yli- opistolla. Matkani ovat ikävä kyllä suuntautuneet viime aikoina usein luoteeseen koillisen sijaan, mutta minulla on ikävä teitä! (Trots att jag “utexaminerades” från Helsingfors universitets forskarkollegium för mer än tio år sedan så är den här i många avseenden en “Kollegiumbok.” Bland dessa sidor finns mycket som jag lärde vid universitetet och från mina vänner där. Ty- värr har jag rest på senare tid oftare till nordväst än nordost; jag saknar er!) But this book is most of all a product of my time at the Uni- versity of Leeds, in the School of English and the Institute for Medieval Studies. Wittingly or unwittingly, we all seek the ap- probation of our colleagues and students, and one way or an- other this shapes the research we do. My colleagues at Leeds 18 útrásarvíkingar! have been exceptionally supportive at every turn. I am grateful for the semesters of research leave granted by the School of Eng- lish in 2014 and 2017 that enabled me to complete a good half of the work for this project. I am particularly indebted to David Higgins, Hamilton Carroll, Jeremy Davies, and Rory McTurk for their willingness to read draft material or discuss my ideas. Much of the learning that underpins this book I gained alongside my students in Old Norse and modern Icelandic. They all have my thanks: it has been an enormous privilege to teach these subjects, and to work with such fun people. I suspect all my doctoral students would hear echoes of their research in this book, because they have all influenced it, but I must especially thank Catalin Taranu, Erika Sigurdson, Helen Price, Katherine Miller, Lynda Taylor, Sheryl McDonald Werronen, and Vicki Cooper for providing one crucial intellectual environment in which this book took shape, which I was very lucky to have. That intellectual environment was also defined by the Leeds University Old Norse Reading Group, to all of whose successive members I am indebted. But, to me, this is also a Leeds book in other ways. I suppose you might say that it is, tacitly, a dialogue between two adoptive homes, Leeds and Reykjavík. It was written as I put down roots in the former, and it has drawn much sustenance from friend- ships and activism here. I am grateful to the Team with Many Names, my neighbours, and latterly my teachers and fellow stu- dents at Leeds Beckett University. Yvonne Murray and David Hoghton-Carter, in particular, have endured long conversations about this book and offered valuable comments on early ver- sions. This book would have been finished much sooner were it not for Ed Carlisle and Leeds Green Party, but it would have felt less meaningful to write. In important ways, this project grew out of the University of Victoria inviting me to deliver the autumn 2011 Beck Lectures, and I am correspondingly indebted to the Richard and Margaret Beck endowment, and to Trish Baer and John Tucker for their hospitality. It was also nurtured through meetings of the Viking Society for Northern Research, and I am hugely grateful for the 19 preface groovy vibe we enjoy in Old Norse studies in the UK. Among Viking Society members, however, Haki Antonsson deserves particular thanks for his pithy observations on my musings. The foundational period of research leave for this book was sub- sidised by an invaluable Leverhulme Trust International Aca- demic Fellowship, which I also would not have received without the support of Matthew Driscoll, Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, and Terry Gunnell. One perhaps never accrues debts of gratitude quicker than when living in a foreign country. Ég er þakklátur öllum þeim sem hafa tekið þátt í að bjóða mig velkominn á Ísland, íslend- ingum og útlendingum. Fræðimennskan og gestrisnin Árna- styfninganna eru með réttlæti víðfregnar, og oft hefur orðsporið Stofnunar orðið sannað í mínu reynslu. Ég hefði aldrei lært íslensku nógu vel til að skrifa þessa bók án þess að búa hjá Björ- gu Sigurðardóttur og fjölskyldu hennar; meira að segja var það hjá henni að ég varð vitni að pólitísku atburðunum í kjölfarið Búsáhaldabyltingarinnar. Heimilið hennar hefur verið skjól og skóli mér á margan hátt, eins og mörgum. En ég hefði líka lært of lítið íslensku til að skrifa þessa bók án þolinmæðis og örlætis Elínar Ingibjargar Eyjólfsdóttur. Samstarfsmenn og vinir sem, beint eða óbeint, hafa haft mestu áhrif á þessu verkefni, en eru ekki nefndir annarsstaðar í þessum formála, eru Alex Murphy, Arndís Þórarinsdóttir, Ármann Jakobsson, Bjarki Karlsson, Claire Musikas, Claudia Heynen, Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdót- tir, Kári Tulinius, Katelin Parsons, Kristín Loftsdóttir, Lenka Kovářová, Ludger Zeevaert, Luke Murphy, Merrill Kaplan, Reynhildur Karlsdóttir, Susanne Arthur, og Teresa Dröfn Njarðvík. En ég verð að geta sérstaklega Jóns Karls Helgasonar, sem las drög að bókinni og bauð mér dýrmætt ráð, og Hauks Þorgeirssonar, sem hefur verið ótrúlega duglegur leiðsögu- maður um alla atriða íslenskar menningar. Takk öllum saman! The dedication of this book is meant inclusively, and both lit- erally and figuratively. I hesitate to mention any names because so many others ought to follow. Yet, amidst manifold gratitudes, I have most often found myself offering up a prayer of thanks for the exertions of Messrs Collier and Ferris, of Aylesbury Gram-