Cover of The Sagas of Icelanders

The Sagas of Icelanders

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.

Audience
adult
Length
epic · 782 pages

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Liked The Sagas of Icelanders? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked The Sagas of Icelanders. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Egil's Saga Shares mythology, Iceland, classics
  2. Hrafnkel's Saga and Other Icelandic Stories Shares mythology, Iceland, classics
  3. Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas Shares mythology, Iceland, classics
  4. Heimskringla: or, The Lives of the Norse Kings Shares classics, mythology, norse

“People who read The Sagas of Icelanders tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Viking Age Iceland
  2. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
  3. The Vikings
  4. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings

“If you want more of the same (history about saga), start with these.”

  1. The Prose Edda
  2. The Saga of the Volsungs
  3. Scandinavian Mythology
  4. The Icelandic Sagas I

“If it was the mythology that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Njal's Saga
  2. The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki
  3. King Harald's Saga
  4. Eyrbyggja Saga

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. The Landing
  2. Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria
  3. Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe
  4. Sons of Gods -- Mahabharata