Cover of Seven Viking Romances

Seven Viking Romances

Combining traditional myth, oral history and re-worked European legend to depict an ancient realm of heroism and wonder, the seven tales collected here are among the most fantastical of all the Norse romances. Powerfully inspired works of Icelandic imagination, they relate intriguing, often comical tales of famous kings, difficult gods and women of great beauty, goodness or cunning.

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The tales plunder a wide range of earlier literature from Homer to the French romances - as in the tale of the wandering hero Arrow-Odd, which combines several older legends, or Egil and Asmund, where the story of Odysseus and the Cyclops is skilfully adapted into a traditional Norse legend.

These are among the most outrageous, delightful and exhilarating tales in all Icelandic literature.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 304 pages

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Liked Seven Viking Romances? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Seven Viking Romances. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. King Harald's Saga Shares medieval, norse, classics
  2. Gisli Sursson's Saga and the Saga of the People of Eyri Shares norse, sagas, medieval
  3. Hrafnkel's Saga and Other Icelandic Stories Shares sagas, medieval, Iceland
  4. The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok Shares norse, vikings, mythology

“People who read Seven Viking Romances tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Saxo Grammaticus: The History of the Danes, Books I-IX: I. English Text; II. Commentary
  2. Viking Age Iceland
  3. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
  4. The Vikings

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

  1. Eyrbyggja Saga
  2. The Sagas of Icelanders
  3. The Prose Edda
  4. The Book of Beasts: Being a Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the 12th Century

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

  1. Heimskringla: or, The Lives of the Norse Kings
  2. Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas
  3. Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney
  4. Varanger

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

  1. Free onlineFree On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History
  2. Cliffs Notes on Mythology
  3. Early Irish Myths and Sagas
  4. The Fortunes of Wangrin