Book Description
Egil's Saga tells the story of the long and brutal life of tenth-century warrior-poet and farmer Egil Skallagrimsson: a psychologically ambiguous character who was at once the composer of intricately beautiful poetry and a physical grotesque capable of staggering brutality. This Icelandic saga recounts Egil's progression from youthful savagery to mature wisdom as he struggles to defend his honor in a running feud with the Norwegian king Erik Bloodaxe and fight for the English king Athelstan in his battles against Scotland. Exploring issues as diverse as the question of loyalty, the power of poetry, and the relationship between two brothers who love the same woman, Egil's Saga is a fascinating depiction of a deeply human character.
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Egil went in the night and sought the places where boats were. But wheresoever he came to the strand, men were always there before him. He went thus through the whole night, and found never a boat. But when day dawned, he was standing on a certain ness. He saw then another island, and between him and it lay a very wide sound. This was then his counsel: he took helmet, sword, and spear, breaking off the spear-shaft and casting it out into the sea; but the weapons he wrapped round in his cloak and made thereof a bundle which he bound on his back.
Customer Reviews:
In my opinion, for whatever it is worth, the best of the eleven or so Sagas I have read..........2007-01-17
Egil's Saga, most likely written by Snorri Sturlusson, an Icelandic chieftain, scholar, writer, and storyteller, is a tale regarding his ancestor - a man called Egil Skallagrimsson. This (famously ugly) man was himself well-versed in the arts of poetry, but also had the benefit of being a fierce warrior with a rough sense of honor and something of a soft (shy?) spot for women and children. That isn't to say that some of his deeds were heinous by modern standards, as is to be expected from many noteworthy men from the ages described the saga, but in spite of that one can't help but root for Egil in his personal ventures of achieving respect, wealth, and his (in some ways striking) concept of justice.
(INTRODUCTION TO STORY - SPOILERS)
Like many of the Icelandic Sagas, the tale does not begin in Iceland but rather in Norway - King Harald Tangle-Hair is finishing up the job of uniting the counties of his country under one king and one of the king's who opposes him wants a notable man of his realm, Kveldulf, to support him in an alliance against Harald's enroachment. Kveldulf suspects that King Harald is fated to rule Norway (a prominent theme in Saga literature) and that his own king doesn't have enough luck to fill the palm of his hand (and these are basically the words right out of his mouth). As such, Kveldulf stays home and his king goes to battle and (predictably) loses. In Viking fashion, King Harald is generous to his friends (those who supported him) and brutal with his enemies (those who fought against him who are still alive or their close family) - but Kveldulf, being a man of note in the county he has conquered, is something of an oddity in that he neither supported nor fought against him (why this should be so when King Harald is, in other sagas, more inclined to view those who remained neutral as his enemies is not known to me - probably because they were written by other storytellers or maybe because some of Kveldulf's close kin did support him and it would be poor repayment to drive one of their family out of the country for no offense except not making an offense). King Harald speaks to some of Kveldulf's kin who supported him and asks that the man come see him. Kveldulf has an intuition that, in the long run, his family will receive little good from King Harald should they serve too strongly and so refuses - but promises to maintain good relations with his new king from afar. King Harald takes this in ill stride, thinking he is dealing with some very arrogant people, so Kveldulf's kin who are in his service become insistant. Finally, Kveldulf says he will send, if they are willing, one of his sons. The younger of these, Skallagrim, says he doesn't have much interest in serving the king and suspects he will do badly in a royal court anyway. The older son, Thorolf, is not at home, but Kveldulf assures his kin he'll ask him once he returns from raiding. His kinsmen return to the king and soften things up to make it sound more attractive: Kveldulf will send one of his sons but the more suitable one is not home yet. King Harald accepts that with grace and so forgets about the matter for awhile. Once Thorolf has come home, he is more than willing to join King Harald - after all, the king's men live in greater luxury and honor than anyone else in Norway - and finds that serving the new king is a good position. He thinks little of his father's warning that King Harald will bring their family bad fortune and so goes to see the king. King Harald thinks he has a promising look and so grants him a position among his retinue. They fight in battle together (during which Thorolf makes some friends and reacquaints himself with his kinsmen already serving Harald) and Thorolf is found to be exceptionally brave and strong. When one of his closest companions perish, Thorolf is charged (by his deceased friend) to care for his wife (implying marriage) and to take over the rule of his lands, property, and duties. After receiving the king's blessing, Thorolf does so and thus becomes very rich and famous. Among the duties assigned to him is the collection of taxes (from Lapps) and in this he excels (for they both respect and fear him). For a long time Thorolf enjoys this sort of good fortune, but sadly slander (lies) are thrown about by men who mean him evil (because he received their kinsmen's property ahead of them) and King Harald hears it - most of these ugly rumors revolve around Thorolf wanting to kill Harald and seize the throne of Norway out from under him. This understandly leads to some conflict and misunderstandings, eventually accumulating in the king relieving Thorolf of most of his lands and duties and bequething them to the men who had told the lies about him. Thorolf takes this in stride (for he still has plenty of wealth, servants, and warriors) and goes to build in a new house in the north where he lives just as grandly as before. In the end, however, Harald's anger grows so great that he marshals an army against Thorolf and the two clash at his new household. Thorolf has many men loyal to him and so puts up a valiant fight, but is ultimately cut down by the king himself. The king notes that, in spite of the the perceived wrongs he implemented against him, Thorolf is a good warrior and that he should receive due honor (allowing the men who served him to be spared and a proper burial). Sadly, this does little to allay the grief of Kveldulf or Skallagrim. Both of them have ill feelings toward the king and contemplate revenge, but ultimately decide it would be best to just leave Norway and head for Iceland (where many worthy men who dislike or fought against King Harald have gone for safety). After some trouble with the king's men who assault them, Kveldulf and Skallagrim make good of their escape. Ultimately, however, Kveldulf dies and is laid to rest at sea. His coffin miraculously floats all the way to Iceland - in keeping with his father's last words, Skallagrim builds his household near where his father's coffin came to shore. It is here he has two children - an elder, named Thorolf after his deceased brother, and a younger, named Egil (the main protagonist and namesake of the story - hence, Egil's Saga). The rest of the story (which I will no longer relate) pretty much follows Egil's life story (from childhood till death) throughout a hundred or so pages of aweseome classical drama written in masterful prose written by a skilled (and probably famous, if it was indeed written as most historians suspect, by Snorri) storyteller.
(END SPOILERS)
I've read a couple of the sagas (as the title says, eleven) and this one's the first of them. As such, it should be expected I feel a strong loyalty toward it. Putting that aside, however, this saga has objectively been considered one of the top three, and sometimes top two, of the genre (of about - I think - forty or so, give or take some tales which aren't really sagas but are written in a similiar style by the same class of writers) ... in short, whether your a veteran looking to expand his horrizon or a newbie to the Icelandic Sagas, this is no mean place to start. It is a thrill from beginning until end.
On a side note - I never acutally bought this version. I have the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Sagas of the Icelanders which has 8 of the Icelandic Sagas, the first of which is (predictably) Egil's Saga. Thus it is the same edition published by the same company, but you might want to consider buying the Deluxe Edition (it's on this website - just search for 'Sagas of the Icelanders') so that you can have this and 7 more (plus some tales) for just a little more than this is worth.
Ian Myles Slater on: A Victorian Meets a Viking.......2006-09-07
The story of Egil son of Grim the Bald (Skalla-Grim) is one of the prose works from medieval Iceland known as sagas, and of the major sagas it probably most closely approximates the image popularly associated with the word. The story is multi-generational. It features Viking adventures, and its primary hero is a devotee of Odin, god of kings, warriors, and poets. The hero's grandfather is rumored to be a werewolf, and the hero, himself both warrior and skald (poet), has thrilling encounters with berserkers and outlaws, and engages in a feud with a (perfectly historical) king, Eric Bloodaxe, whose wife (later the Queen-Mother) is a sorceress.
Anyone expecting the hero to be a handsome Norseman from a storybook is going to be in for a shock, though. There are several such, including Egil's beloved brother, but, like some of his relatives, Egil himself is actually outstandingly ugly. And his behavior varies from the admirable to the repellent -- even in Viking-Age eyes. (An explanation for some of this has been proposed recently, pointing out stray details in the verse and prose that suggest a now-recognizable medical disorder, possibly genetic.)
The work-a-day life of medieval Iceland, with law-suits arising from it, central to the majority of the Sagas of the Icelanders, shows up only at intervals, as the action ranges from the Arctic Circle to England, and the central North Atlantic to the eastern Baltic.
"Egil's Saga" is thought by some to be the earliest of the "Sagas of the Icelanders," and is in some ways a good, although atypical, introduction to them. Egil's circle of friends, enemies (especially Queen-Mother Gunnhild), and family members (most notably his equally formidable, if much more attractive, daughter, Thorgerd) show up in other sagas, especially "Njal's Saga' and "Laxdaela Saga."
Egil was counted as an ancestor by Snorri Sturluson, the author of the "Prose Edda," an explanation of myths, heroic legends and traditional verse forms, and of the "Heimskringla," a massive history of Norway through biographies of its kings. Snorri is one of the few Icelandic authors of the period whose name and attributed works both survive. The temptation to assign this saga to him is understandable, and has been championed by distinguished scholars. It doesn't seem to have been shared by the medieval scribes who transmitted the text.
The theory was accepted by the first English translator of "Egil's Saga," W.C. Green, whose version of 1893 was (inevitably) based on an obsolete edition of the text. He rendered it into a rather stuffy, and prudish, modern English, despite the more elegant examples of Dasent's "Story of Burnt Njal" and the whole library of translations by William Morris and Eirikur Magnusson. The Reverend Green also could not resist moralizing over "good" and "bad" elements in Egil's character, in a way that would at best have amused the old pagan. (And misses the mark even more, if one accepts that the short-tempered Egil was in pain from Paget's Disease long before other, debilitating, symptoms became marked in later years.)
It has the advantage of being out of copyright, though and, in addition to the Kessinger reprinting, various versions are available on-line, including at least one which claims to have been revised to bring it closer to the Icelandic original, not least by restoring some passages omitted to avoid giving offense to Victorian sensibilities. (In Reverend Green's world, men don't need to "go outside" after drinking all night for any *specified* reason...)
Green's translation has some annoying minor features, too. He followed the dubious practice of tacking on vowels to names, to make sure his readers could tell the boys from the girls. So Gunnhildr -- everyone else's Queen Gunnhild -- shows up as Gunnhilda, and the lady Hildirid (Old Icelandic Hildiridhr) becomes Hildirida. Perhaps Reverend Green should have remembered that Gunnhild was reported to be a sorceress, and known to be spiteful (a prominent factor in this saga, and several others, including the great "Njal's Saga") before meddling with her name!
As for the poems, which are one of the glories of the work; let us just say that Green's English versions are lacking in any obvious merits, technical or literary, but could have been much worse; at least, they aren't too bad to read.
Anyone reading Green's translation, even an "improved" version, should remember that it is NOT a perfect introduction to the sagas in general, or to this one in particular. And the saga has been fortunate in its twentieth-century translators; there have been five later renderings in English
Green's version was followed, over a generation later, in 1930, by a careful, elaborately annotated, translation by E.R. Eddison, whose fantasy novel "The Worm Ouroboros" and historical novel of Viking-Age Sweden, "Styrbiorn the Strong," both had been published in the 1920s. He greatly admired Dasent and Morris and Magnusson, whose influence is evident on every page; but he rather outdid them.
Eddison's version, originally issued by Cambridge University Press, is not for everyone, but has many merits. Alas, that original printing is hard to find, and expensive, and the reprinting by Greenwood in 1968, and is not always available either. A new, reasonably priced, reprinting is much to be desired. Given the prices usually asked for it, my advice to the curious would be to try a library. (I count myself fortunate to have acquired a copy in the 1970s.)
Now, as far as the quality of the translation goes, views are mixed. It helped that Eddison was able to use an advance text of what was then the latest scholarly edition, published in 1933, which was still the standard for the next three translations.
However, Eddison's attempt to approximate the sounds and syntax of Old Norse with an English style using as many related words as possible, instead of more familiar equivalents derived from French or Latin, takes getting used to; and some people never do. Eddison is, of course, rather scornful of Green, both for his Victorian English and his prudishness. But he is rather more programmatic than the other Victorians he took as models.
Now the sagas themselves are notable for an unadorned prose, so the very concept of Eddison's translation was criticized by scholars who reviewed it at the time -- although they added that they found that the result was better than Eddison's theory.
They did not complain that Eddison's versions of Egil's major poems (which are extremely impressive) are carefully annotated because they badly need the explanations. The language of the skalds (the high-class poets of the medieval Scandinavian world) was esoteric and convoluted in its own time, Egil was renowned for impressively "hard" poems, and Eddison's choice of language and style is unquestionably appropriate for the verse, if not the prose.
It took thirty years for the next version to appear, a much more colloquial translation by Gwyn Jones, for the American-Scandinavian Foundation, was published in 1960, and reprinted in 1970. Jones' version is less "full-bodied" than Eddison's, but still an impressive rendering of the saga's lean prose. (Although I can't agree with Christine Fell's view that his was "the first readable English version.") Jones' treatment of Egil's poems is lucid, but hardly even attempts to emulate Eddison's feat of producing verse in something like the original meters. It too, unfortunately, is out of print, but, unlike Eddison's translation, Jones' is often available, at comparatively reasonable prices. It too could do with a reprinting!
This leaves three more recent versions. The translation, as "Egils' Saga," by Christine Fell, with the poems translated by John Lucas (a sensible division of labor), was published in the old Everyman's Library in 1975. It was included in Everyman Paperbacks in 1985, with some revisions, and reprinted in 1993 with additional bibliography, but seems to be out of print. It may be picked up in the current Everyman Paperback Classics series. I certainly hope so, since it is very readable, although I at first found the prose a little flat after long familiarity with Eddison. The notes and indexes are the closest approximation to Eddison's in a translation, and the scholarship is obviously much more up-to-date than 1930.
(For those who are truly serious students, the Viking Society for Northern Research has announced a new (2003) edition of the Icelandic text, as "Egils Saga," edited by Bjarni Einarsson, with annotations in English, available through Cornell University Press [not seen]. This should supersede the commentary in any existing English translation.)
The Fell / Lucas translation was followed immediately by a Penguin Classics version by Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards (1976), which is quite enjoyable. The Glossary of Proper Names is a fairly good index of the characters, and the maps are usable. Footnotes provide translations of some place-names, and a few other details, but the legal issues at stake in various parts of the saga, and the major historical problems whenever Egil brushes up with documented events, cry out for annotation.
The five-volume translation series of "The Complete Saga of the Icelanders," published in 1997, includes Bernard Scudder's version of "Egil's Saga." His translation takes the lead place in a recent (2000) Penguin Classics volume, "The Sagas of the Icelanders," a massive trade paperback based on "The Complete Sagas." It is there one of ten sagas, and seven shorter tales.
It was also announced as a separate volume in the Penguin Classics for Spring 2005 (as "Egil's Saga," of course), which I have not yet examined. Scudder's version is similar in style to the Jones, Fell, and Palsson and Edwards translation, and his rendering of the poems aims at the meaning more than the style, following Jones and Palsson and Edwards, rather than Eddison or (the less extreme) Lucas in trying to give an impression of the artistry of the verse.
In practical terms, for most people this comes down to Green, in one an on-line or other digital version, and a translation from Penguin; probably Scudder's, if it is the only one Penguin keeps in their catalogue.
Reprintings of Eddison, Jones, and Fell would all be welcome; although a version of Green is not without interest, too.
I would NOT advise relying on any version of Green's translation exclusively, but it might be consulted if convenient -- and its electronic forms may be searchable, which can be handy if you have fast connection. Various publishers have offered e-book pdf versions of it, which are even handier.
For those interested in a modern fiction writer's view of Egil and his associates, the late Poul Anderson's "Mother of Kings" is an interesting quasi-historical novel in which Egil is a major character. (I call it quasi-historical because, as Anderson warns, the story adopts attractive medieval legends about Gunnhild on some key points, instead of following the historical evidence; and a fantasy interpretation, although not required, is not ruled out.).
Average customer rating:
- A glimpse into the world of the Vikings
- Great Story
- Ian Myles Slater on: Excellent Translation (of the Prose)
- Egil's Saga
- A True Icelandic Adventure
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Egil's Saga (Penguin Classics)
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ASIN: 0140443215 |
Book Description
Egil's Saga, with its powerfully lucid narrative, monumentalizes its hero's deeds as well as his inner life; it ranks among the most outstanding literary productions of Iceland and of the European Middle Ages.
Customer Reviews:
A glimpse into the world of the Vikings.......2006-01-06
I am no scholar of the sagas; in fact, this is only the third one that I've read. I don't know how close this translation is to the original, but I am impressed that the poetry follows (for the most part) the Germanic/Scandinavian alliterative style, not something easy to achieve in translation. It's hard to say how much of the story is legitimate history and how much is legend, but it does give an interesting picture of Norway and Iceland in the ninth and tenth centuries, especially regarding what led many people to begin settling in Iceland. A good read overall, though quite different from the the more "mythological" sagas (namely Hrolf's Saga and the Volsung Saga) that I had read previously.
Great Story.......2005-03-17
This is one of the best of the Sagas I have read. Egil Skallagrimsson is a fascinating character. He is a skilled poet. He's a powerful warrior. He is angry, antisocial, psychotic, and moody. The saga tells his story in a wonderfully straightforward prose style. It's as much a page-turner as any modern novel. Egil's Saga is included in "The Sagas of Icelanders" also published by Penguin Classics. That is the version I own. It seems that many of the sagas from that collection are published in single volumes. If you're interested in Sagas, the big book is a much better value than buying them all seperately.
Ian Myles Slater on: Excellent Translation (of the Prose).......2005-03-06
The story of Egil son of Grim the Bald (Skalla-Grim) is one of the prose works from medieval Iceland known as sagas, and of the major sagas it probably most closely approximates the image popularly associated with the word. The story is multi-generational. It features Viking adventures, and its primary hero is a devotee of Odin, god of kings, warriors, and poets. The hero's grandfather is rumored to be a werewolf, and the hero, himself both warrior and skald (poet), has thrilling encounters with berserkers and outlaws, and engages in a feud with a king whose wife (later the Queen-Mother) is a sorceress. The work-a-day life of medieval Iceland, central to the majority of the Sagas of the Icelanders, shows up only at intervals, as the action ranges from the Arctic Circle to England, and the central North Atlantic to the eastern Baltic. The Penguin Classics translation by Palsson and Edwards has been a readily-available, highly-readable, version, for a quarter of a century, and, although it has some stiff competition (including the Fell and Lucas version in Everyman's Library, published a year or so earlier), is an excellent introduction to the saga.
The first English translator of "Egil's Saga" was the Reverend W. C. Green, whose version of 1893 is available in several digital editions, and as a paperback from Kessinger. I have reviewed the Digireads edition, and commented there on its stylistic and other failings. Green attributed it to the famous Icelandic author Snorri Sturluson, mainly because he was alive at about the time it was written, was descended from Egil, and was a brilliant writer -- not unique characteristics among members of leading Icelandic families. More distinguished scholars have offered some better, but still inconclusive, arguments for the attribution.
Green's version was followed in 1930 by a careful, elaborately annotated, translation by E.R. Eddison, whose fantasy novel "The Worm Ouroboros" and historical novel of Viking-Age Sweden, "Styrbiorn the Strong," had been published in the 1920s. Eddison's version, originally issued by Cambridge University Press, and reprinted by Greenwood in 1968, is occasionally available, and has many merits. Eddison was able to use an advance copy of Sigurdur Nordal's 1933 critical text, which was the scholarly standard into the 1980s. However, Eddison attempted to approximate the sounds and syntax of Old Norse with an English style using as many related words as possible, regardless of whether they were colloquial, or even current English. Since the sagas are notable for an unadorned prose, the concept of the translation was criticized by scholars who reviewed it at the time -- although they added that they found that the result was better than the theory. (So do I.) Eddison's versions of Egil's major poems are extremely impressive, and carefully annotated -- and need the explanations. Since the language of the skalds (the high-class poets of the medieval Scandinavian world) was esoteric and convoluted in its own time, Eddison's choice of language is unquestionably appropriate for the verse, if not the prose. Given the prices usually asked for it, my advice to the curious would be to try a library. (I count myself fortunate to have acquired a copy in the 1970s.)
A much more colloquial translation by Gwyn Jones, for the American-Scandinavian Foundation, was published in 1960, and reprinted in 1970. Jones' standard English version is less "full-bodied" than Eddison's, and much easier to follow, but still an impressive rendering of the saga's lean prose. (Although I can't agree with Christine Fell's view that his was "the first readable English version.") His treatment of Egil's poems is lucid, but hardly even attempts to emulate Eddison's feat of producing verses in something like the original meters. It too, unfortunately, is out of print, but it is often available at quite reasonable prices.
So is the translation of "Egils Saga" by Christine Fell, with the poems translated in verse by John Lucas (a sensible division of labor; prose versions of the poems are included in the notes). It was published in Everyman's University Library, an imprint of the old Everyman's Library, in 1975, and included in Everyman Paperbacks in 1985, with some revisions, and reprinted in 1993 with additional bibliography. It may be picked up in the current Everyman Paperback Classics series. I certainly hope so, since it is very readable, although I at first found the prose a little flat after long familiarity with Eddison. The notes and indexes are the closest approximation to Eddison's available until quite recently, and the scholarship is obviously much more up-to-date than 1930. For the truly serious, the Viking Society for Northern Research has announced a new (2003) edition of the Icelandic text, as "Egils Saga," edited by Bjarni Einarsson, with annotations in English, available through Cornell University Press (not seen).
The Fell / Lucas translation was followed immediately by this Penguin Classics version by Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards (1976), long readily available, and quite enjoyable. The Glossary of Proper Names is a fairly good index of the characters, and the maps are usable. Footnotes provide translations of some place-names, and a few other details, but the legal issues at stake in various parts of the saga, and the major historical problems when Egil brushes up with documented events, cry out for annotation; at least if, like me, you are used to that provided by Eddison and Fell.
The five-volume translation series of "The Complete Saga of the Icelanders," published in 1997, includes Bernard Scudder's version of "Egil's Saga." It is the first since Eddison's to be based on a new edition. His translation takes the lead place in a recent (2000) Penguin Classics volume, "The Sagas of the Icelanders," a massive trade paperback based on "The Complete Sagas." It is there one of ten sagas, and seven shorter tales. Scudder's version has now been released in a separate volume from Penguin Classics, also as "Egil's Saga" -- it is not clear if this is in addition to, or in place of, the Palsson and Edwards translation. (Penguin has from time to time had more than one translation of a work available.)
Scudder's version is similar in style to the Jones, Fell, and Palsson and Edwards translations, and his rendering of the poems aims at the meaning more than the style, following Jones and Palsson and Edwards, rather than Eddison or (the less extreme) Lucas in trying to give an impression of the artistry of the verse. For the majority of readers, this may be the best solution. Those deeply interested in the art of the skalds will in any case look elsewhere.
In practical terms, for most people this comes down to the outdated and bowdlerized Green, in one or another digital version, and the two modern translations from Penguin. "The Sagas of the Icelanders" is an attractive package, and the new separate edition of Scudder will make sense for some readers. But Palsson and Edwards did an excellent job, and a quarter-century later it is still worth attention; I hope Penguin keeps it in print.
Since they were published before 1993, none of the older translations were able to make reference to Jesse Byock's theory that Egil suffered from Paget's Disease, a claim based on correlating random-looking details about his grotesque appearance and odd behavior in the prose of the saga, the aging Egil's complaints about his health in some of the poetry, and a very strange story near the end of the saga about a tough, thick skull supposed to have been found where he was buried. And Scudder doesn't mention it either (at least in the Penguin "Sagas of the Icelanders" -- I'm hoping to check the new release soon). Paget's Disease was not recognized until modern times, so the saga-writer could hardly have gleaned information about it from medieval books, and planted it in the text. If Byock is correct, there must have been very accurate transmission of some family stories about the fierce old man, whatever else got garbled over time.
"Egil's Saga" is thought by some to be the earliest of the "Sagas of the Icelanders," and is in some ways a good introduction to them. Egil's circle of friends, enemies (especially Queen-Mother Gunnhild), and family members (most notably his equally formidable, if much more attractive, daughter Thorgerd) show up in other sagas, especially "Njal's Saga' and "Laxdaela Saga." For those interested in a modern fiction writer's view of Egil and his associates, the late Poul Anderson's "Mother of Kings" is an interesting quasi-historical novel in which Egil is a major character. (I call it quasi-historical because, as Anderson warns, the story adopts attractive medieval legends on some key points, instead of following the historical evidence; and a fantasy interpretation, although not required, is not ruled out.)
Egil's Saga.......2003-11-17
Hermann Pálsson's translation of Egil's Saga, does a great job of making this Icelandic saga accessible to an English-speaking reader. The saga tells a biography of Egil Skallagrimsson, and his relatives for two generations both before and after him. Like most Icelandic sagas, there is a great deal of violence in the text, and much of it is treated casually. In and of itself this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make the saga inappropriate for young children. Egil's adventures tend to showcase both his skill at killing and his skill as a poet. The saga provides an interesting look at politics in Norway, Iceland, and England in approximately the period 850-1000 AD. As with the other Icelandic sagas, there is a strong basis for the story in historical facts, although the amount of fiction present is difficult to be sure of.
While I disliked several aspects of the contents of the book, my only gripe about the presentation of the saga itself is the existence of summarizing chapter titles, such as `The King kills Thorolf,' which tend to give away what will happen in a particular chapter. Sadly, the introduction is not particularly useful, as it focuses on summarizing the plot, rather than attempting to explain to the reader what the actual society of Medieval Iceland and Norway was like. This would have been more useful for an understanding of the saga. The only really useful part of the introduction is the existence of a pair of family tree diagrams, which give the reader some small hope of keeping track of how various people are related to each other. The maps at the back of the book are helpful in providing a sense of the geographic locations where events occur, although there is no map covering the events that occurred in England.
A True Icelandic Adventure.......2003-11-11
Reader's who are looking for a blunt and quick moving saga should buy Egil's Saga right away. Egil, a Viking worthy of many stories, kills his first man when he's six years old. That's when you know a story is going to be filled with violence, when the main character kills at the ripe mature age of six. Egil's Saga is a plainly written, quick, and easy text, but you might want to keep this one away from the particularly young ones since there is an incredible amount of pretty graphic violence.
This saga involves a man who is more than a man; he may have some disease that makes him enormous, with a deformed head and uncanny strength. This epic is about a child who is well beyond his years in speech and in strength, but is also an outcast from Icelandic society in large part because of his advancement but also because of his incredible ugliness. The saga is about his reckless adventures throughout Europe, ranging from wars in England where he becomes very good friends with the king, to Norway where he has been proclaimed an outcast. He ranges around northern Europe plundering, and growing as a human being. He is also an incredible poet, a natural, and his poetry comes in very useful when he gets in tough situations.
The translated prose is very blunt, to the point, and delivered with little written emotion. Some of you readers out there will like the prose to be flowery, descriptive and have scenes where the drama and tension are built up by a lot of language. This is not the book for you. Chapters and sentences will describe the brutal killings of many men as if it were a sentence about picking daisies. However because of its blunt nature this is a fantastically fast-paced read and for those out there who are looking for a good book about plundering, murdering, revenge and a quickly unfolding plot then you're found the right book.
However, when you pick up the book to read skip the introduction, or at least leave it until you've finished the text. Penguin, Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards have done an excellent job translating but unfortunately they have put a horrible introduction to kick things off. If you're one of those people who loves to get their movies ruined or books spoiled by your best friends then by all means read the introduction. But if you want there to be some suspense in the literature you read and don't want to know exactly everything that happens in the text please, do yourself a giant favor and skip over the introduction and go straight to the actual text. Then once you've finished you can look back at the introduction (if you'd like) which has some interesting points about genealogy, when the text was written, who the author is thought to be, what culture was like around Egil's time, and what culture was like when Egil's Saga was being recounted.
All in all I enjoyed Egil's Saga a lot and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who's looking for adventure. Egil's Saga is thought to be written by Snorri Sturluson around 1230 but there in no hard evidence to attest to this fact. This text is translated by Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards, $14.00.
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Egil's Saga
Manufacturer: Amer Scandinavian Fndtn
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0890670129 |
Book Description
This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Archaeological Science, published by Elsevier in 2005. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Description:
Egil Skallagrimsson, the ambiguous poet-Viking hero of Egil's Saga, had bone deformities and symptoms that are known only from their descriptions in the Saga. By ''excavating words'', previous workers have concluded that Egil suffered from Paget's disease. However, the descriptions in the Saga are arguably also consistent with skeletal fluorosis, a condition not previously considered in Egil's differential diagnosis. The literary and historical evidence available about Egil and the environment in which he lived is reconsidered to examine this possible alternative diagnosis. Endemic fluorosis occurs in places with high fluoride levels in soil, water, and food, with one environmental source being volcanic ash. There are ample records of fluorosis in Icelandic sheep and other stock (including gaddur), and a possible historical reference to human fluorosis following the Laki Fissure eruption in 1783. A travel history removing Egil from fluoride exposure does not support the diagnosis, but the reliability of the various pieces of evidence presented in the Saga must be weighed against their presumed significance in the historical and sociocultural context in which the Saga was written. The location and analysis of Egil's actual bones, which were re-interred ''on the edge of the graveyard at Mosfell'', would put the question of Egil's diagnosis to rest. The case illustrates the potential value of interpreting historical narrative as a supplement to archaeological and palaeopathological investigation.
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![Palaeopathology by proxy: the case of Egil's bones [An article from: Journal of Archaeological Science]](http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/21ZAY8Z09CL.jpg)