Download or read book Orkneyinga Saga written by and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1981-07-30 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written around AD 1200 by an unnamed Icelandic author, the Orkneyinga Saga is an intriguing fusion of myth, legend and history. The only medieval chronicle to have Orkney as the central place of action, it tells of an era when the islands were still part of the Viking world, beginning with their conquest by the kings of Norway in the ninth century. The saga describes the subsequent history of the Earldom of Orkney and the adventures of great Norsemen such as Sigurd the Powerful, St Magnus the Martyr and Hrolf, the conqueror of Normandy. Savagely powerful and poetic, this is a fascinating depiction of an age of brutal battles, murder, sorcery and bitter family feuds. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Download or read book Orkney Folk Tales written by Tom Muir and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-03-03 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Orkney Islands are a place of mystery and magic, where the past and the present meet, ancient standing stones walk and burial mounds are the home of the trows. Orkney Folk Tales walks the reader across invisible islands that are home to fin folk and mermaids, and seals that are often far more than they appear to be. Here Orkney witches raise storms and predict the outcome of battles, ghosts seek revenge and the Devil sits in the rafters of St Magnus Cathedral, taking notes! Using ancient tales told by the firesides of the Picts and Vikings, storyteller Tom Muir takes the reader on a magical journey where he reveals how the islands were created from the teeth of a monster, how a giant built lochs and hills in his greed for fertile land, and how the waves are controlled by the hand of a goddess.
Download or read book The Growth of the Medieval Icelandic Sagas 1180 1280 written by Theodore Murdock Andersson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andersson introduces readers to the development of the Icelandic sagas between 1180 and 1280, a crucial period that witnessed a gradual shift of emphasis from tales of adventure and personal distinction to the analysis of politics and history.
Download or read book The Stewart Earls of Orkney written by Peter David Anderson and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For almost a century the islands of Orkney and Shetland were under the rule of the Stewart earls, father and son, a rule remarkable for its infamous reputation in island history. Robert Stewart was an illegitimate son of James V, king of Scots, who seized power in Orkney in the 1560s and was created earl of Shetland in 1581. Robert's son was the extraordinary and ill-starred Earl Patrick, 'Black Patie', whose execution for treason in 1615 brought the era to a close. This book has its foundations in two previous books by Peter Anderson, one on each character.
Download or read book The Viking Diaspora written by Judith Jesch and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-05 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Viking Diaspora presents the early medieval migrations of people, language and culture from mainland Scandinavia to new homes in the British Isles, the North Atlantic, the Baltic and the East as a form of ‘diaspora’. It discusses the ways in which migrants from Russia in the east to Greenland in the west were conscious of being connected not only to the people and traditions of their homelands, but also to other migrants of Scandinavian origin in many other locations. Rather than the movements of armies, this book concentrates on the movements of people and the shared heritage and culture that connected them. This on-going contact throughout half a millennium can be traced in the laws, literatures, material culture and even environment of the various regions of the Viking diaspora. Judith Jesch considers all of these connections, and highlights in detail significant forms of cultural contact including gender, beliefs and identities. Beginning with an overview of Vikings and the Viking Age, the nature of the evidence available, and a full exploration of the concept of ‘diaspora’, the book then provides a detailed demonstration of the appropriateness of the term to the world peopled by Scandinavians. This book is the first to explain Scandinavian expansion using this model, and presents the Viking Age in a new and exciting way for students of Vikings and medieval history.
Download or read book The Gods of Thought and Memory written by Trish Gauntlett and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2021-07-30 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh start in Scotland's Orkney Islands is just what artist Caris MacLeod needs. Leaving British Columbia and a broken marriage behind for the wild coast of Orkney, Caris is immediately captivated by Mark Raffin, a mysterious, aloof neighbour who has an affinity for Orkney art. Despite some tense encounters with Mark, Caris soon feels welcome in the community. She immerses herself in Orkney’s spectacular beauty and its Norse history, myths and legends, which lift her creative spirit and inspire her to paint. She even finds herself falling in love with Mark—until she sees him with another woman. When an Englishwoman, Sarah, buys Caris’s artwork and invites her to a private showing in Yorkshire, Caris becomes entangled in some deep family ties—and dark history—all linked to her new home in Orkney. Navigating a world of myth, lore, dreams, and a touch of magic, Caris begins to learn that the truth may lie in the past ... and the path towards reconciliation is a more complicated journey than she could have imagined.
Download or read book Faroe Islander Saga written by Robert K. Painter and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new English translation of the Faroe-Islander Saga (Faereyinga saga)--a great medieval Icelandic saga--tells the story of the first settlers on these wind-swept islands at the edge of the Scandinavian world. Written by an anonymous 13th-century Icelander, the saga centers on the enduring animosity between Sigmundur Brestirsson and Thrandur of Gota, rival chieftains whose bitter disagreements on the introduction of Christianity to the Faroe Islands set the stage for much violence and a feud which then unfolds over generations of their descendants. Making the saga accessible to a wider English readership, the translation is accompanied by a brief introduction, explanatory notes, genealogical and chronological tables, detailed maps and an excerpt from Jomsvikings' Saga which informs missing passages from the Faroe-Islander Saga manuscripts.
Download or read book Icelandic Sagas and Other Historical Documents Relating to the Settlements and Descents of the Northmen on the British Isles written by 1214-1284 Magnús S Sturla þórkarson and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2022-10-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book The Orkneyinga Saga written by and published by . This book was released on 1873 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book King Harald s Saga written by Snorri Sturluson and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2005-04-28 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling Icelandic history describes the life of King Harald Hardradi, from his battles across Europe and Russia to his final assault on England in 1066, less than three weeks before the invasion of William the Conqueror. It was a battle that led to his death and marked the end of an era in which Europe had been dominated by the threat of Scandinavian forces. Despite England's triumph, it also played a crucial part in fatally weakening the English army immediately prior to the Norman Conquest, changing the course of history. Taken from the Heimskringla - Snorri Sturluson's complete account of Norway from prehistoric times to 1177 - this is a brilliantly human depiction of the turbulent life and savage death of the last great Norse warrior-king.
Download or read book Hrafnkel s Saga and Other Icelandic Stories written by and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2005-03-31 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written around the thirteenth century AD by Icelandic monks, the seven tales collected here offer a combination of pagan elements tightly woven into the pattern of Christian ethics. They take as their subjects figures who are heroic, but do not fit into the mould of traditional heroes. Some stories concern characters in Iceland - among them Hrafknel's Saga, in which a poor man's son is murdered by his powerful neighbour, and Thorstein the Staff-Struck, which describes an ageing warrior's struggle to settle into a peaceful rural community. Others focus on the adventures of Icelanders abroad, including the compelling Audun's Story, which depicts a farmhand's pilgrimage to Rome. These fascinating tales deal with powerful human emotions, suffering and dignity at a time of profound transition, when traditional ideals were gradually yielding to a more peaceful pastoral lifestyle.
Download or read book Sagas of Warrior poets written by Leifur Eiricksson and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2002-08-29 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Saga of the J msv kings written by Lee M. Hollander and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-07-05 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A loyal translation of the medieval Icelandic saga of a strong ruler and his men versus a brotherhood of fierce Viking mercenaries. In A.D. 986, Earl Hákon, ruler of most of Norway, won a triumphant victory over an invading fleet of Danes in the great naval battle of Hjórunga Bay. Sailing under his banner were no fewer than five Icelandic skalds, the poet-historians of the Old Norse world. Two centuries later their accounts of the battle became the basis for one of the liveliest of the Icelandic sagas, with special emphasis on the doings of the Jómsvíkings, the famed members of a warrior community that feared no one and dared all. In Lee M. Hollander’s faithful translation, all of the unknown twelfth-century author’s narrative genius and flair for dramatic situation and pungent characterization is preserved. “[A] famous tale of derring-do . . . Hollander has been able to do the even more difficult job of faithfully rendering one text into English with complete loyalty to the style and spirit of his original.” —Speculum
Download or read book Comic Sagas and Tales from Iceland written by and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-03-07 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comic Sagas and Tales brings together the very finest Icelandic stories from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, a time of civil unrest and social upheaval. With feuding families and moments of grotesque violence, the sagas see such classic mythological figures as murdered fathers, disguised beggars, corrupt chieftains and avenging sons do battle with axes, words and cunning. The tales, meanwhile, follow heroes and comical fools through dreams, voyages and religious conversions in medieval Iceland and beyond. Shaped by Iceland's oral culture and their conversion to Christianity, these stories are works of ironic humour and stylistic innovation.
Download or read book Seven Viking Romances written by and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2005-05-26 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. 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.
Download or read book The Arabian Nights written by and published by Modern Library. This book was released on 2004-06-01 with total page 1106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Full of mischief, valor, ribaldry, and romance, The Arabian Nights has enthralled readers for centuries. These are the tales that saved the life of Shahrazad, whose husband, the king, executed each of his wives after a single night of marriage. Beginning an enchanting story each evening, Shahrazad always withheld the ending: A thousand and one nights later, her life was spared forever. This volume reproduces the 1932 Modern Library edition, for which Bennett A. Cerf chose the most famous and representative stories from Sir Richard F. Burton's multivolume translation, and includes Burton's extensive and acclaimed explanatory notes. These tales, including Alaeddin; or, the Wonderful Lamp, Sinbad the Seaman and Sinbad the Landsman, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, have entered into the popular imagination, demonstrating that Shahrazad's spell remains unbroken.
Download or read book The Folklore of Orkney and Shetland written by Ernest Marwick and published by Birlinn Ltd. This book was released on 2020-05-07 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two island groups of Orkney and Shetland have much in common. In each the grey stone houses and treeless landscapes are scoured in winter by stinging gales, and in summer lie under the endless days of the 'simmer din'. Originally Norwegian, they have been part of Scotland for five hundred years, but their many and varied legends, folk tales and customs are still saturated with Norse influences. While this book tells tales and discusses beliefs that are known throughout the northern isles, it also outlines those elements which are unique to each island group. The Folklore of Orkney and Shetland is the standard account of what to this day is one of the richest repositories of lore and custom in Britain. Ernest Marwick not only recounts countless tales which have been transmitted aurally and by writing, but also places these tales within geographical and historical contexts, thus enabling a deeper appreciation of this wonderful material. A bibliography is also included, together with an index of tale types and motifs.
