Written by an international team of over 130 authorities, no other work approaches this A-Z guide to the legends of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table for breadth and depth of coverage. It is the ultimate resource for reliable information on topics as diverse as the Grail, Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Guenevere, Arthurian operas, the historicity of Arthur and much more.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Arthur of the North is the first book-length study of the Arthurian literature that was translated from French and Latin into Old Norse-Icelandic in the thirteenth century, which has been preserved mostly in Icelandic manuscripts, and which in early modern times inspired the composition of narrative poems and chapbooks in Denmark, Iceland and Norway, chiefly of the Tristan legend. The importation of Arthurian literature in the North, primarily French romances and lais, is indebted largely to the efforts of King Hakon Hakonarson (r. 1217-63) of Norway, who commissioned the translation of Thomas de Bretagne's Tristan in 1226, and subsequently several Arthurian romances by Chretien de Troyes and a number of Breton lais. The translations are unique in that the French metrical narratives were rendered in prose, the traditional form of narrative in the North. The book concludes with a chapter on Arthurian literature in the Rus' area, precisely East Slavic, with a focus on the Belarusian Tryscan. Contents 1. The Introduction of the Arthurian Legend in Scandinavia, Marianne E. Kalinke 2. Sources, Translations, Redactions, Manuscript Transmission, Marianne E. Kalinke 3. Breta soegur and Merlinusspa, Stefanie Gropper 4 The Tristan Legend, Geraldine Barnes 5. The Translated Lais, Carolyne Larrington 6 The Old Norse-Icelandic Transmission of Chretien de Troyes's Romances: Ivens saga, Erex saga, Parcevals saga with Valvens thattr, Claudia Bornholdt 7. The Old Swedish Haerra Ivan Leons riddare, William Layher 8. Arthurian Echoes in Indigenous Icelandic Sagas, Marianne E. Kalinke 9. Arthurian Ballads, rimur, Chapbooks and Folktales, M. J. Driscoll 10. Arthurian Literature in East Slavic, Susana Torres Prieto

This book is an investigation of the foundation and evolution of romance in Iceland. The narrative type arose from the introduction of French narratives into the alien literary environment of Iceland and the acculturation of the import to indigenous literary traditions. The study focuses on the oldest Icelandic copies of three chansons de geste and four of the earliest indigenous romances, both types transmitted in an Icelandic codex from around 1300. The impact of the translated epic poems on the origin and development of the Icelandic romances was considerable, yet they have been largely neglected by scholars in favour of the courtly romances. This study attests the role played by the epic poems in the composition of romance in Iceland, which introduced the motifs of the aggressive female wooer and of Christian-heathen conflict.