The Sagas of Icelanders Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition – Save 32% Today!
Why Buy A The Sagas of Icelanders Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition?
A unique body of medieval literature, the Sagas rank with the worlds greatest literary treasures-as epic as Homer, as deep in tragedy as Sophocles, as engagingly human as Shakespeare. Set around the turn of the last millennium, these stories depict with an astonishingly modern realism the lives and deeds of the Norse men and women who first settled Iceland and of their descendants, who ventured further west-to Greenland and, ultimately, the coast of North America itself.
The 10 Sagas and seven shorter tales in this volume include the celebrated Vinland Sagas, which recount Leif Eirikssons pioneering voyage to the New World and contain the oldest descriptions of the North American continent.
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Vikings in real life
This is an excellent collection of the sagas which have been translated into English by sundry authors.
The first saga in this tome is that of Egil Skallagrimsson. It is long, detailed, and essential reading for any student of viking age Scandinavia.
I, in fact, purchased this book so that I would own Egil’s Saga, but I have been enjoying the rest of the sagas as well.
Breakneck Plotting and Broken Necks
The Icelandic sagas are a magnificent and still underrated landmark of medieval literature. They are unadorned, realistic prose narratives from an age that is otherwise best known for its religious and baroque tendencies; they are concise where most medieval literature is painfully diffuse; they deal with violence in a familiar and unsentimental manner (”He twisted the tail of his cloak around Thorbjorn’s throat and bit through it, then snapped his head back, breaking his neck. With such rough treatment Thorbjorn quietened down considerably.”) and the plots often move extremely rapidly, but the better sagas also have moments of great psychological insight. In short, they’re a must-read.
This selection offers good value for money: it includes a lot of sagas, and — unlike many paperbacks its size — uses high-quality paper, and is well-bound and not especially liable to disintegrate. It is also just about light enough that you can read it in bed. Some of the most famous sagas — “Njal’s Saga” and “Grettir’s Saga” in particular — have been omitted. Some omissions were inevitable, because of space, but the omission of “Njal’s Saga” was still unfortunate. (If you’re unfamiliar with the sagas, read Njal’s first: it’s a much more effective hook than any of the others.) On the other hand, several of the shorter sagas in this volume are excellent and less than famous — e.g. the saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue and the tale of Sarcastic Halli. The introduction is thorough if somewhat boring, and the maps, charts, and genealogies are invaluable. The translations range from adequate to solid — sometimes awkward but at least never archaic.
Icelandic Sagas
I guess any attempt to provide a selection of anything will meet with some disgruntlement, in terms both of what is included and what is omitted. Based on some of the comments, this volume is apparently no exception. Although at 780+ pages, the editors didn’t exactly skimp in terms of what they decided to include.
First, to state what this book is not: it is not a collection which includes the semi-legendary sagas, such as Hrolf-Kraki and the Volsungs. It does not contain any King’s sagas, such as in the Heimskringla. It is not concerned with any of the Sturlung Sagas of later Icelandic history. It does contain a very strong representative selection from among the Icelanders’ Sagas, that is those that take place in Iceland, or whose protagonists are Icelanders abroad, during and just after the Viking Age. Finally, it does not contain every one of such sagas.
The book contains Egil’s Saga, as well as the Vatnsdaela, the Laxardaela, Hrafnkel Frey’s Godi, The Confederates, Gisli Sursson, Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue, Ref the Sly, and the Vinland Sagas, as well as 6 short prose tales of other Icelanders, usually in foreign service.
There is a great deal of supplementary information about the different kinds of sagas, Ages of Icelandic history, Viking ship types, Icelandic social and political structure, the Icelandic calendar, as well as a generous dose of genealogical tables and maps of Iceland, Norway, Vinland, etc. with detail maps showing the action of the separate sagas.
I won’t waste space describing the sagas themselves, under the assumption that someone considering purchasing this book has read at least one saga, and so knows what to expect from the genre. But I can’t resist quoting an Icelandic scholar referred to in the introduction, who describes the Icelandic sagas as “farmers at fisticuffs.”
I also own Njal’s Saga, and once I acquire the Book of Settlements, these two works in addition to the present collection will probably complete my Icelandic saga needs, because this work is so thoroughly and attractively assembled.
I also recommend Viking Age Iceland by Jesse Byock as a companion volume to this one.
Classical Icelandic Literature
~The Sagas of Icelanders: Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition~ is an intriguing collection of prose describing life and events in Iceland during the 10th and 11th centuries. They are extraordinary specimens of Icelandic literature. Icelanders were prominently of Nordic Viking descent and were also amalgamated with Celtic/Gaelic peoples whom they often took as wives. Their adopted homeland was not inhabited until after the 9th century. Iceland is a desolate landscape of basalt and lava beds, punctuated by volcanoes, geysers, and glaciers, which makes it the site for some epic adventures. The image of the Vikings that inhabited this land is varied. Some see them as noble, genius at maritime skill and navigation, prolific traders and explorers. Others regard them as savage marauders who loot and plunder. The later Norsemen in these Sagas were more tempered than the ones of the earlier centuries.
Iceland was very unique amongst European societies from the tenth to thirteen centuries. It had no executive administration, king or monarch to speak of, but rather a complex sophisticated system of legislative and judicial institutions. The Althing served as a national assembly. Regional quarter courts were set up for adjudicating disputes. Iceland was kinship society. Whenever blood feuds and disputes arose, the offending party or parties could seek the support of his family and a tribal chief. Kinship as a concept is integral to understanding the Sagas. It involves a sense of familial belonging not unlike the Celtic clan system. The de facto government would often broker peace so as to meditate conflict, but sometimes conflicts turned deadly when personal vengeance was sought to avenge perceived wrongs.
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