I had a hard time categorizing this. Are these sagas fiction? History? Both? Probably both. Though mostly written two hundred or so years after the events occurred, there is sufficient evidence to support the existence of the people and in most cases the major events. While Ref the Sly is a bit of a fictional "youngest son, trickster" character, it's not unlikely that he was based on a real person, or real events were attributed to this one guy in order to avoid defaming someone's ancestor. The

I picked up this tome a few years ago and tried to speed through it, like I was reading a history book or a modern, plot-driven page-turner. Bad idea. It was like trying to speedread the Bible, where a verse or two can encapsulate an entire life. In anything, the sagas are even more spare and packed with action than the Bible.So, this go around, I am taking the sagas on one at a time. I just finished reading The Saga of the People of Vatnsdal, a tale that extends across five generations of a fam...

I think the Vinland Sagas were my favourite, but not just because of Newfoundland. They’re better stories, I think. I keep thinking about when the exploratory party has to survive on the meat of beached whales, and the one crewman who regrets converting to Christianity is overwhelmed with despair. And Freydis Eriksdottir! I started reading the Sagas hoping for something alien and unknown, and ended up reading stories that were strangely familiar. There’s practically no vikings. They’re just outc...

This book is immediately misleading in that the title might make you think it contains all the Icelandic sagas. It does not; not even close. What it does contain is two of the longest sagas and a selection of the shorter ones (including the Vinland Sagas) as well as a selection of "Tales".This single volume is a Penguin reprint of part of the complete multi-volume translation into English of all the Icelandic mediaeval sagas and tales conducted under the general editorship of Ornolfur Thorsson b...

Wow. This book was a huge undertaking, but it was completely worth the effort. The stories are at once familiar and utterly foreign, and so, so fascinating. It took me a while to fall into the patterns and rhythms of the sagas; they tend to wander, go down long tangents, circle back the long way, and then eventually present a central story of sorts. And that’s not to mention that about 80% of the characters – men and women – have names beginning with the prefix “Thor”. I’m not joking. Thorbjorg

The Sagas of IcelandersThe ‘Saga age’ was from about 830 to about 1030. The Sagas were collected and written down about 200 years after the events took place in Norway and Iceland at the time of the Vikings. It is different from almost any other world literature. Individual authors are scarcely known, but an entire way of life becomes visible.Translation from Icelandic into English are from various translators, but the plainness of style expressing little emotion and the way of plain speaking ev...

Thorunn, Thorolf and Thorlak walk into a bar and there they meet Thorgrim, Thorstein, Thord, Thora, Thorarin, Thorkel, Thorodd, Thorunn, Thorgerd, Thorleik, Thorbjorn, Thorvald and Thorgild.You think I'm kidding? Here's a quote:One spring, Thorkel the Wealthy travelled to the Thorsnes Assembly, and Thorbjorn Sur’s two sons accompanied him. At that time, Thorstein Cod-biter, the son of Thorolf Moster-beard, was living at Thorsnes with his wife, Thora, the daughter of Olaf Thorsteinsson, and their...

The best anthology of Icelandic sagas you can get the States. If you haven't read the sagas, then you haven't said a poem then chopped a guys head off.

Remarkable and horrifying and beautifully written. This book was an epiphany for me understanding the Calvinist upbringing I had; deep-seeded fear of the "other."

I had developed an interest in Scandinavia since visiting Denmark, Sweden and Norway several years ago and most recently, watching the TV mini-series "Vikings"; so when I came across this volume at a book sale, I was intrigued.Translated into English, this book contains stories, or sagas, about various Icelandic people who lived between the 10th to the early 12th century. The sagas begin with Vikings leaving Norway for various reasons to make a new home in Iceland and eventually settle in Greenl...

Stories are important. Maybe even essential. We learn about each other through stories; whether it be the Cliff Notes version of ourselves we tell to coworkers and clients or the long narratives enjoyed of our child's daily exploits at school. Long before our first attempts at writing stories we shared tales of ourselves, our heritage, our world through the spoken word. Homer's hymns, Aesop's fables or Icelandic sagas - they are all instructive, rich and certainly the greater for having been hea...

Because the same language was spoken in north-east England and Icleand at the time of the arrival of William the Conqueror many English speakers consider Icelandic literature to be part of their cultural heritage. For those who subscribe to this notion, this handsome volume will be a great delight.The sagas were all translated simultaneously under the direction of a signal committee which imposed consistent translations of words for all the works. My own feeling is that what resulted was an arti...

"Once, Arinbjorn went to him and asked what was causing his melancholy: "Even though you have suffered a great loss with your brother's death, the manly thing to do is bear it well. One man lives after another's death. What poetry have you been composing? Let me hear some."In one introduction, Jane Smiley, the novelist, tells us that these sagas are the precursor to the modern novel, what with their focus on the lives of ordinary people -- chieftains, freeman farmers, hired laborers, and slaves....

Realistically I will probably never finish this book but I hope to dip into it again one day. At first it was quite intimidating to see that long table of contents filled with sagas and other essays, but after having read through one of the sagas (The Saga of the People of Laxardal) I realize that it needn't be intimidating. Just pick a saga and read through it. The translation quality is excellent and I found the saga I read to be a page turner. The genealogy can be a bit confusing but it isn't...

This book does not, in fact, contain all of the Icelandic sagas—that would be ridiculous, for a single volume—but rather two of the major sagas, and a handful of minor ones. The supplementary materials are particularly excellent. The translations have adopted consistent gloss throughout, i.e., word x in Old Norse is always translated as word y in Modern English, which gives a rather deceptive sense of homogeneity, but otherwise the translation is similarly commendable.

Pretty much the first thing that struck me about these sagas is how immediately accessible they are – I have read medieval texts before (even if not very many), and usually (i.e., unless one happens to be a medievalist) it takes a lengthy introduction and extensive notes for any modern-day reader to even get the point of any tale from that period, not to mention any deeper significance or wider-ranging connotations. Not that one should expect a penetrating exploration of the conditio humana from...

Prose stories detailing the various misadventures of man and woman who were born or exiled to or who died in Iceland from, roughly speaking 900-1200 AD. What's the point of reading ancient works of world literature? 1) it gives you some insight into a past culture, and into the broader sweep of history. 2) it's difficult, and strange, and not like reading anything written in the last few centuries, and there's a value to that in and of itself. 3) there are always a handful of peculiar concepts w...

The best one-volume introduction to the sagas. The translation of Egil's Saga features much better English versions of the verses than its predecessors, whicih is essential since it's the biography of a skaldic poet. In Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue, on the other hand, the verses rhyme. Laxdaela is very good, as is Gisli. Of course, the editors had to make tough choices about what to include. Personally, I would've left out the Vinland sagas and the tales in favor of Njal's, and included Grettir rathe...

A really interesting, and unusual reading experience. This collection of sagas covers a broad range of activity, themes, and quality so I'm finding it a little difficult to sum up, but the main reason these do not rate higher, in my opinion, is because the interest was mostly historical rather than having that extra “classic for all ages” quality. With such a sampling of from 49 sagas, it is inevitable that the characters will be varied, but the activities that drive them is pretty narrow. While...

It will take me years to finish this, but since I hauled it here from Iceland, I thought I ought to start reading.