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The Sagas of Icelanders: Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition (World of the Sagas) | 
 enlarge | Creators: Robert Kellogg, Various, Jane Smiley
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $22.00
Buy New: $10.82
You Save: $11.18 (51%)
New (31) Used (26) Collectible (1) from $9.26
Avg. Customer Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 25496
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 848
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.3 x 2.1
ISBN: 0141000031
Dewey Decimal Number: 839.63008
EAN: 9780141000039
ASIN: 0141000031
Publication Date: March 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A unique body of medieval literature, the Sagas rank with the world's greatest 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 Iceland and of their descendants, who ventured further west-to Greenland and, ultimately, the coast of North America itself.
The 10 Sagas and seven shorter tales in this volume include the celebrated Vinland Sagas, which recount Leif Eiriksson's pioneering voyage to the New World and contain the oldest descriptions of the North American continent.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
 Icelandic Sagas May 16, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I guess any attempt to provide a selection of anything will meet with some disgruntlement, in terms both of what is included and what is omitted. Based on some of the comments, this volume is apparently no exception. Although at 780+ pages, the editors didn't exactly skimp in terms of what they decided to include.
First, to state what this book is not: it is not a collection which includes the semi-legendary sagas, such as Hrolf-Kraki and the Volsungs. It does not contain any King's sagas, such as in the Heimskringla. It is not concerned with any of the Sturlung Sagas of later Icelandic history. It does contain a very strong representative selection from among the Icelanders' Sagas, that is those that take place in Iceland, or whose protagonists are Icelanders abroad, during and just after the Viking Age. Finally, it does not contain every one of such sagas.
The book contains Egil's Saga, as well as the Vatnsdaela, the Laxardaela, Hrafnkel Frey's Godi, The Confederates, Gisli Sursson, Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue, Ref the Sly, and the Vinland Sagas, as well as 6 short prose tales of other Icelanders, usually in foreign service.
There is a great deal of supplementary information about the different kinds of sagas, Ages of Icelandic history, Viking ship types, Icelandic social and political structure, the Icelandic calendar, as well as a generous dose of genealogical tables and maps of Iceland, Norway, Vinland, etc. with detail maps showing the action of the separate sagas.
I won't waste space describing the sagas themselves, under the assumption that someone considering purchasing this book has read at least one saga, and so knows what to expect from the genre. But I can't resist quoting an Icelandic scholar referred to in the introduction, who describes the Icelandic sagas as "farmers at fisticuffs."
I also own Njal's Saga, and once I acquire the Book of Settlements, these two works in addition to the present collection will probably complete my Icelandic saga needs, because this work is so thoroughly and attractively assembled.
I also recommend Viking Age Iceland by Jesse Byock as a companion volume to this one.
Great Reading At A Bargain Price! February 17, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a great collection of stories for 2 reasons. The first is because it's a great bargain for the price. This is a HUGE book & will entertain the reader for hours. I've bought several volumes of the great Sagas, including several such as Egil's Saga & Njal's Saga or Burnt Njal, which contained only one story. This book contains all of Egil's Saga as well as many others. I think Penguin definitely gives you a lot for your money.
The second reason is that these are great stories. The characters are interesting, the action is intense, and the plots are memorable. Anyone who loves tales of adventure & conflict will find something to like here. Anyone thinking that the Norse people offered no lasting contribution to Western culture should familiarize themselves with the Sagas. In my opinion, these works compare favorably to any literature of the Middle Ages.
The one caution I'd offer to someone not familiar with these tales is to not read the introductions until after reading the story. Otherwise, the ending will be spoiled for you.
Penguin has a reputation for publishing important historical works of literature at very affordable prices. This collection is a fine addition to their impressive catalog.
ICELAND'S CONTRIBUTION TO WORLD CULTURE January 14, 2008
Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice
Roots time for me. I am half Icelandic. People tend to think of the ancient Norsemen as barbaric murderers. Well, they went a-Viking, and you probably wouldn't want to meet them on one of their "shopping trips". But the Norse had a rich and complicated culture, their own religion, and some of the most powerful sagas in the world. Icelanders were the scribes and intellectuals. The Icelandic sagas have been compared to the Greek in scope and power. Sample a civilization that's been glossed over by European history. Check out Independent People, by Halldor Laxness, for an example of a modern Icelandic genius' writing.
 It misrepresents the sagas to the novice October 24, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
While good as far as it goes, I expected (admittedly somewhat naively) that a book titled, "The Sagas of Icelanders" contained all of the icelandic sagas.
It doesn't. And aggravating allusions and references now and then to sagas that aren't contained in this volume just compound the frustration. But it does contain a core (to my mind, chosen somewhat arbitrarily) of the sagas from which one can build a familiarity as well as a list for further reading.
A Different World, Not a Libertarian's Fantasy October 14, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This review is largely a response to David Heinrich's strange two-star review (see below).
Where to begin????
First, Mr. Heinrich's remarks represent a peculiar crackpot strain of libertarian thought that imagines Viking Age Iceland as a social and political model for contemporary America. Give me a break! Viking Age Iceland was an agrarian society with a tiny, homogeneous population working extremely marginal land. It should be needless to say that the forms of political organization and conflict resolution that worked for medieval Icelanders will not work for a huge, diverse population working within a complex, increasingly post-industrial economy. But then, by my observation, libertarians tend to live in a fantasy world of one-on-one interactions on which other relations--e.g. power, economic--do not impinge.
As for the representativeness of this anthology, it's hardly biased. Kellogg et al. gather a rich selection of sagas that offer a wide range of plots and character types: e.g. explorers, farmers, pioneers, poets, men, women, bad warriors, noble warriors, on and on. Njal's Saga is by far the longest of the sagas, too big to include here. Even so, there's plenty of lawspeaking in this anthology, not just blood feud and violence.
Finally, this reviewer refers to per capita violence in medieval Iceland. Where did he get that information? Did medieval Icelanders keep such records? Did he derive them from the sagas themselves? If so, that's a problem because they are literary productions, written 100+ years after the Viking Age; they are not court records, mortality statistics, or any other such documents. They tell us much about how medieval Icelanders saw themselves and their past. As sources, however, they get problematic at best if one starts trying to pull from them specific biographical or historical fact.
All this said, The Sagas of Icelanders is a rich, representative, and absorbing selection of some the world's greatest writings.
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