Description
Selected by Gwyn Jones--the eminent Celtic scholar--for their excellence and variety, these nine Icelandic sagas include "Hen-Thorir," "The Vapnfjord Men," "Thorstein Staff-Struck," "Hrafnkel the Priest of Frey," "Thidrandi whom the Goddesses Slew," "Authun and the Bear," "GunnlaugWormtongue," "King Hrolf and his Champions," and the title piece.
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The remote and inhospitable landscape of Iceland made it a perfect breeding-ground for heroes. The first Norsemen to colonize it in 860 found that the fight for survival demanded high courage and tough self-reliance; it also nurtured a stern sense of duty and an uncompromising view of destiny. These heroic ideals found expression in the Icelandic sagas, first written down in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, which relate the lives and feuds of individuals and their families between 930 and 1030. They are the very heart-strand of the native literature of medieval Iceland; but they are also part of the heroic literature of the German peoples, and rank alongside Beowulf, Maldon, and the story of the Nibelungs.Gwyn Jones, the eminent Norse scholar, has chosen the nine sagas in this book for their excellence and variety. His lively and eloquent translations allow the modern reader to appreciate the bold sweep and fast pace of these stories of adventure.
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