Anthony
Faulkes and George Johnston, trans.
Three Icelandic Outlaw Sagas:
The
Saga of Gisli; The Saga of Grettir; The Saga of Hord.
London: J. M.
Dent/The Everyman Library, 2001.
xcv,401pp.
Paperback, ISBN
046088221X.
Publisher's
recommended price £8.99
Here are
three epic
stories of exile and adventure: the heroes condemned to wander their
land
in expiation of crimes committed in honour's name. Gisli with his
devoted
wife Aud; Grettir the impetuous hot-head, and Hord, accused at the age
of three by his own mother: each must do battle with the forces of an
unforgiving
fate - and with the destructive drives of his own character.
Monsters,
magic
and all manner of romance are to be found in these three great
Icelandic
sagas. Yet, with all their heroic extravagance, these tales are human
before
they are anything else, marked out by their down-to-earth conviction
and
their sometimes shocking emotional power. The only English translation
of the three sagas in a single volume, with introduction, notes, maps,
genealogical tables, further reading, text summery, index and a
chronology
of early Icelandic literature.
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