Meet the Team
For years, John and Andy dreamed of creating a Saga Thing tour that would lead listeners through the same landscapes featured in the Icelandic sagas and discussed on the Saga Thing podcast. In the spring of 2024, that dream started to take shape when they traveled to Iceland and met up with seasoned guide (and longtime Saga Thing listener) Björn Grímsson. Over an unforgettable impromptu lunch in Reykjavík, filled with conversations about history, literature, favorite saga sites, and the art of running a good tour, it became clear that Björn’s knowledge of Iceland and his passion for sharing it made him the perfect partner.
Together, John, Andy, and Björn began to imagine a tour that would allow travelers to follow in the footsteps of the saga heroes, tracing the connection between story and landscape.
Our hope is that by retelling the sagas amidst the lava fields and cliffs and glaciers that gave them life, we can create unique experiences that bring us all closer to the stories, to Iceland, and to each other.
Andrew Pfrenger
Andy holds a PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Connecticut, where he specialized in early medieval England and Scandinavia. After teaching literature for many years, he now serves as Director of Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Studies at the University of Mississippi.
His passion for saga studies took root in graduate school while studying Old Norse with John. That’s where he first encountered the Icelandic sagas, a discovery that shaped the course of his career and eventually inspired the creation of Saga Thing back in 2013. Since then, Andy has explored the sagas from multiple angles, with a particular fascination for their landscapes and topography, the social and political worlds they depict, and the everyday lives of medieval Icelanders. His research and podcasting have taken him from classrooms to saga sites, where he’s developed a deep interest in how Iceland’s unique geography helped shape their stories. His current research examines how medieval Icelanders understood night and darkness.
John Sexton
John is a Professor of English at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts, where he teaches courses on the sagas along with classes on medieval English literature, writing, and the history of English. John holds a PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Connecticut, which he finished several years before Andy…although in fairness, he’s also several years older than Andy.
He got hooked on Old Norse literature and mythology after being given a book of Norse Myths at age 10, which is why teaching children to read is so dangerous. He began focusing on the sagas while at UConn, building files and charts with Andy while daydreaming about bringing the literature to a wider audience. Years later, the Saga Thing podcast became a way to fulfill those dreams and to continue those (possibly slightly obsessive) conversations. John’s focus is on the lived experiences depicted in the sagas. He spends his free time happily researching nicknames, family relationships, and the experience of disability in saga-age Iceland and in the sagas themselves.
Björn Grímsson
Björn Júlíus Grímsson is an Icelandic guide, Search & Rescue member, mountaineer and photographer.
He joins the Saga Thing Tour team equipped with an extensive knowledge and education in Icelandic culture, folklore, Geology and Geography as well as a fierce passion for showing off this beautiful country. Together with his wife, Zoe Ruth Erwin, he operates All Over Iceland Tours.