‘Fate must find someone to speak through. Whatever is meant to happen will happen’

Based on oral tales that originated from historical events in tenth-century Iceland, these two sagas follow the fate of a powerful Viking family across two generations, from its Norwegian ancestry through fierce battles to defend its honour. Gisli Sursson’s Saga is a story of forbidden love and divided loyalties, in which the heroic Gisli vows to avenge the murder of his ‘sworn brother’ and sets in motion a chain of bloody events that culminate in tragedy. The Saga of the People of Eyri continues the story with Snorri, a cunning leader of the next generation, who uses his intellect to restore social order. Blending gripping narrative, humour, the supernatural and shrewd observation, these tales reveal the richness of the saga tradition and present a vivid record of a society moving from individualism to a Christian ethic of reconciliation and order.

These clear, contemporary translations are accompanied by an introduction giving a historical and literary background to the sagas. This edition also includes appendices, maps, notes on the texts, a glossary and an index of characters.

The articles published in this volume are based on papers which were delivered at a conference in Iceland in 2007 entitled "Nordic Civilisation in the Medieval World." Twenty five participants from eight countries, representing a range of scholarly disciplines - history, archaeology, anthropology, literary studies, philosophy and runology - took part in the conference.