An exciting new collection of essays exploring the startling variety of transformations of Old Norse texts, and their legacy in later literary cultures. The "Viking Age" of medieval Scandinavia, with its heathen religion and heroic literature, continues to fascinate readers, writers, students, scholars, poets, artists, and creators of all kinds around the world. This cultural legacy is preserved in Old Norse literature, much of it composed and produced in Iceland, an island with a unique position in relation to the ebb and flow of religions, institutions, and empires. The chapters in this book examine many topics in Old Norse literature: the mysterious personas of the god Odin, the strange origins of poetry and scholarship, the cryptic lore of the elusive dwarfs, the fame of the dragon-slayer Sigurd and the defiant "Sworn Brothers", the early settlement of Iceland, trade in the medieval north, and the history of literary production. Several contributors upend traditional interpretations of their topics, while others offer new insights into the rich modern artistic reception of Norse myth. These studies reveal the striking resilience and adaptability of Old Norse narrative traditions, which retain their timeless appeal through a startling variety of contexts and changes in form.

Winnipeg is a place of extremes. Winters are fierce and relentless. Summers are unbearably hot. It has been both the murder and auto theft capital of Canada and the Slurpee capital of the world. It is a place that exerts an influence, that marks and changes its inhabitants. This anthology features writers who have all lived in Winnipeg for a time and been inspired, horrified, changed by that experience. The stories here capture a tone of history, dread, violence, weirdness, and sometimes even whimsy; a tone that only Winnipeg exudes.