A fresh and vital fusion of myth and legend, lively anecdote and poetry

Written around AD 1200 by an unnamed Icelandic author, the Orkneyinga Saga is the only medieval chronicle to have Orkney as the central place of action, and from it we derive much of our knowledge of the Northern Isles and Caithness. The Saga describes the conquest of the islands by the kings of Norway during the Viking expansion of the ninth century and goes on to narrate the subsequent history of the Earldom of Orkney. Dominated by the great figures of the times – Sigurd the Powerful, St Magnus the Martyr and Hrolf, the conqueror of Normandy – the Saga is a powerful account of warfare and the struggle for supremacy.

This modern translation captures the force of the Orkneyinga Saga, which retains a special significance for the people of Orkney, sharpening their awareness of their dual cultural heritage, both Norse and Scottish.

All seven stories in this volume exemplify the outstanding qualities of realistic fiction in medieval Iceland.

They date from the thirteenth century and fall into two distinct groups. Hrafnkel’s Saga, Thorstein the Staff-Struck and Ale Hood are set in the pastoral society of native Iceland, the homely touch and stark realism giving the incidents a strong feeling of immediacy. The remaining four, Hreidar the Fool, Halldor Snorrason, Audun’s Story and Ivar’s Story, were written without first-hand knowledge of Scandinavia, and describe the adventures of Icelandic poets and peasants at the royal courts of Norway and Denmark. Pagan elements tightly woven into the pattern of Christian ethics give these stories their distinctive character and cohesion.

Eyrbyggja Saga is prominent in the great group of medieval Icelandic sagas that Magnus Magnusson has called 'historical novels – the first novels to be written in Europe'.

Mixing realism with wild Gothic imagination, history with eerie tales of hauntings, it dramatizes a thirteenth-century view of the past, from the pagan anarchy of the Viking Age to the settlement of Iceland, the coming of Christianity and the beginnings of organized society. Its central figure is Snorri, a man so perplexingly ambiguous that the narrator himself is drawn to speculate on his motives and a character who brilliantly epitomizes the violent stresses of his times.

These medieval Viking romances, including Arrow-Odd and King Gautrek, inhabit some of the most enjoyable and exotic regions of the Icelandic imagination.

They tell of famous kings, difficult gods and women of great beauty, goodness or cunning; but although they paint the traditional colourful picture of the Viking warrior making raids in his dragon-headed longboat, these stories are not concerned, like Hrafnkel’s Saga or Njal’s Saga, for example, to point a moral or to set down the glories of Icelandic history or geography. Instead the narrators, witty and well-read, plundered sources from Homer to French romance, and incorporated local myths, legends and heroic tales in a bid to entertain us, capture our imagination and make us laugh.

The biography of one of the most remarkable and memorable of the medieval kings of Norway.

King Harald’s Saga forms part of the Heimskringla, a complete history of Norway from prehistoric times to 1177, by the prolific Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson. It records the turbulent life of King Harald Hardradi of Norway, who served and fought in every corner of Europe, from Russia to Sicily. It is a superb portrait of a man who could well have changed the whole course of English history. William the Conqueror defeated King Harold of England at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. But less than three weeks earlier Harold had defeated the giant Harald of Norway at Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, and Harald’s only reward for his claim to the English throne was seven feet of English soil’.

The interest of King Harald’s Saga is more than merely historical. People and events spring to life in a fast-moving, imaginative narrative, ably translated by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson, who also supply a useful Introduction.