The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue

The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue
Author:
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 76
Release: 2015-02-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 014139787X

'In two I'll slice the hair-seat / of Helga's kiss-gulper' In this epic tale from the Viking Age that ranges across Scandinavia and Viking Britain, two poets compete for the love of Helga the Fair - with fatal consequences. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. The Icelandic Sagas were oral in origin and written down in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Other Icelandic Sagas available in Penguin Classics include Njal's Saga, Egil's Saga, Sagas of Warrior-Poets, Gisli Sursson's Saga and the Saga of the People of Eyri, The Saga of Grettir the Strong, The Saga of the People of Laxardal and Bolli Bollason's Tale, The Vinland Sagas and Comic Sagas from Iceland.

The Saga of Gunnlaugur Snake's Tongue

The Saga of Gunnlaugur Snake's Tongue
Author: E. Paul Durrenberger
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
Total Pages: 132
Release: 1992
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9780838634653

Having sworn to disgrace Gunnlaugur, Hrafn returns to Iceland to ask for Helga in marriage as the three years she was to wait have passed. Delayed in his travels, Gunnlaugur returns the day of the wedding but can not stop it. Gunnlaugur challenges Hrafn to the last duel ever fought in Iceland, but kinsmen and friends of both prevent the fight. The two travel to Sweden where they meet and fight. Both die as foretold in Thorsteinn's dream. Dreaming of Gunnlaugur, Helga dies in the arms of her second husband, a third poet, as the dream foretold. There the saga ends. In addition to the translation of the saga, this book contains an anthropological analysis of the saga and saga writing in medieval Iceland. Beyond relating events, this saga, like others of its genre, is an expression of the totemic system of the primitive society that produced it, a stratified society without the institutions of a state.

Medieval Scandinavia

Medieval Scandinavia
Author: Phillip Pulsiano
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 838
Release: 1993
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780824047870

With full-page maps and supplementary photos, this encyclopedia covers every aspect of Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, including rulers and saints, overviews of the countries, religion, education, politics and law, culture and material life, history, literature, and art.

Routledge Revivals: Medieval Scandinavia (1993)

Routledge Revivals: Medieval Scandinavia (1993)
Author: Phillip Pulsiano
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 770
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351665014

First published in 1993, Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia covers every aspect of the region during the Middle Ages, including rulers and saints, overviews of the countries, religion, education, politics and law, culture and material life, history, literature, and art. Written by a team of expert contributors, the encyclopedia offers those who lack command of the various Scandinavian languages a basic tool for the study of Medieval Scandinavia from roughly the Migration Period to the Reformation. With full-page maps, useful supplementary photos, cross-references and a comprehensive index, this work will be a valuable and absorbing volume for students of the Norse sagas, the Viking age, and Old English history and literature, and for anyone interested in the cultural and historical heritage of Scandinavia.

Egil, the Viking Poet

Egil, the Viking Poet
Author: Laurence de Looze
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2016-01-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1442621249

Egil, the Viking Poet focuses on one of the best-known Icelandic sagas, that of the extraordinary hero Egil Skallagrimsson. Descended from a lineage of trolls, shape-shifters, and warriors, Egil’s transformation from a precocious and murderous child into a raider, mercenary, litigant, landholder, and poet epitomizes the many facets of Viking legend. The contributors to this collection of essays approach Egil’s story from a variety of perspectives, including psychology, philology, network theory, social history, and literary theory. Strikingly original, their essays will appeal not only to dedicated students of Old Norse-Icelandic literature but also to those working in the fields of Viking studies, comparative ethnology, and folklore.

Sagas of Warrior-poets

Sagas of Warrior-poets
Author: Leifur Eiricksson
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2002-08-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0141941588

Kormak's Saga, The Saga of Hallfred Troublesome-Poet, The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue, The Saga of Bjorn, Champion of the Hitardal People, Viglund's Saga Set in the farmsteads of Viking age Iceland at a time when the old ethos of honour and heroic adventure merged with new ideas of romantic infatuation, each of these sagas features poet heroes, complex love triangles, and travels to foreign lands.

The Sagas of the Icelanders

The Sagas of the Icelanders
Author: Jane Smilely
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2005-02-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0141933267

In Iceland, the age of the Vikings is also known as the Saga Age. A unique body of medieval literature, the Sagas rank with the world’s great literary treasures – as epic as Homer, as deep in tragedy as Sophocles, as engagingly human as Shakespeare. Set around the turn of the last millennium, these stories depict with an astonishingly modern realism the lives and deeds of the Norse men and women who first settled in Iceland and of their descendants, who ventured farther west to Greenland and, ultimately, North America. Sailing as far from the archetypal heroic adventure as the long ships did from home, the Sagas are written with psychological intensity, peopled by characters with depth, and explore perennial human issues like love, hate, fate and freedom.

The Saga of the People of Laxardal and Bolli Bollason's Tale

The Saga of the People of Laxardal and Bolli Bollason's Tale
Author: Leifur Eiricksson
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2008-04-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0141917423

The action of the saga takes place at the end of the tenth century, at about the time Scandinavia was converting from worship of Norse gods to Christianity. A masterpiece of medieval literature, the story focuses on two families — that of Hoskuld, a prominent farmer with several sons, and that of Gudrun, the most beautiful woman ever born in Iceland.

Men and Masculinities in the Sagas of Icelanders

Men and Masculinities in the Sagas of Icelanders
Author: Gareth Lloyd Evans
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2019-01-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0192566857

This volume is the first book-length study of masculinities in the Sagas of Icelanders. Spanning the entire corpus of the Sagas of Icelanders—and taking into account a number of little-studied sagas as well as the more well-known works—it comprehensively interrogates the construction, operation, and problematization of masculinities in this genre. Men and Masculinities in the Sagas of Icelanders elucidates the dominant model of masculinity that operates in the sagas, demonstrates how masculinities and masculine characters function within these texts, and investigates the means by which the sagas, and saga characters, may subvert masculine dominance. Combining close literary analysis with insights drawn from sociological theories of hegemonic and subordinated masculinities, notions of homosociality and performative gender, and psychoanalytic frameworks, the book brings to men and masculinities in saga literature the same scrutiny traditionally brought to the study of women and femininities. Ultimately, the volume demonstrates that masculinity is not simply glorified in the sagas, but is represented as being both inherently fragile and a burden to all characters, masculine and non-masculine alike.