Size Matters: Penile Problems in Sagas of Icelanders
» Heterogeneous
You never know where modern cultural studies will head next. One wonders what saga fans like W.H. Auden and C.S. Lewis would've made of Dr. Carl Phelpstead;s study of the topic of penis size in Icelandic sagas.
Dr Phelpstead analysed the cultural-historical significance of three remarkable accounts of penile problems in the texts know as ‘Sagas of Icelanders’, dealing with events supposed to have occurred in the 10th and 11th centuries. He undertook to see if Freudianism can illuminate the contents of these texts and found that, alongside some interesting differences, the meanings attributed to the penis in medieval Iceland are often remarkably similar to those of today.
Size matters - even to Viking heroes