5 thoughts on “Hey”

  2. Hello, Craig! I teach a university class on the Icelandic sagas, and the first one we read is Egil’s Saga (Egla). I start  with that because it tells a bit about the foundation of Iceland (Norwegians discontent with King Harald leaving to settle Iceland), because Egil’s family remains influential throughout Commonwealth and Saga history, and because Egil is bat-shit insane and therefore lots of fun to read. Egil’s saga also includes some amazing poetry. It’s long, and worth knowing before you start that Egil isn’t even born until a third of the way in, but it is the way of family sagas to begin with an extensive and detailed genealogy. 

    If you want something shorter, you might look at Ref the Sly, Gisli’s Saga (Gisla) or a tale (thaettir) like Thorstein Staff-Struck or Audun of the West Fjords. Njal’s Saga/The Saga of the Burning of Njal is one of the best known and best beloved sagas, but it is quite long. 

    You can find all of these sagas for free on the Icelandic Saga Database online http://www.sagadb.org/  If you want a book, Penguin has a great anthology I teach from called The Sagas of the Icelanders, which contains all of the major sagas except for Njal’s Saga and Grettir’s Saga (another awesome one with outlaws, hauntings, magic and poems) and has a good introduction as well as appendices with details about ships and buildings, etc. Penguin has a stand-along translation of Njal’s Saga by Robert Cook.  A nice historical and social context book to read along with the sagas if Jesse Byock’s “Viking Age Iceland”.

    Hope this helps! Happy reading. Avedan 

  3. Thank you. I’m about to go on holidays and am looking for some interesting free ebooks, when my mind turned to the sagas. I’ll be sure to check sagadb out.

  4. Ooooh, cool! My only exposure to anything remotely resembling the sagas has been Rolf & the Viking Bow and the manga Vinland Saga, so these tips are great.

  5. I do like Egil’s and Laxdaela, but the first saga I read and still my favorite is Njal’s.  Great characters, cool fight scenes, some very funny bits, and even makes a trial interesting.

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