Reviews of

The Complete Sagas of Icelanders

"This is the first complete co-ordinated translation of 40 of the Icelandic Sagas with a further 49 of the 'Shorter Tales of Icelanders' translated by a multi-national team of experts and dating from the thirteenth century. The Sagas themselves deal with history from a much earlier time. The Preface makes fascinating reading with its explanation of the backgrounds, spelling conventions of the language, and proper names. The grouping is by time of telling, geographical setting, historical events and narrative mode.

The Introduction is an historical essay in itself, indicating clearly the hybrid nature of Western Europeans through the travels, colonisation and settlement of the Vikings. Charles the Third, King of France, was forced to give territory in what became Normandy, to a Viking called Hrolf who was the great-great-great-grandfather of William the Conqueror.

Originally the Sagas were passed by word-of-mouth until, in the late ninth century, an educational system based on the reading of books led to the writing down of the historic sagas. The conversion of many Norsemen to Christianity caused a change in the way of life of the Vikings; plunder and pillage were no longer the main activities.

These volumes should be on the shelves of any library covering the history of Western Europe and, indeed, of America, and any library which covers the writing of folklore."

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